Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

[ Episode 51-52: Sasuke's Anticipated Appearance! The Emotional Shippuuden Special! ]

You know, virtually nothing happened in this special aside from the ‘anticipated appearance’ of Sasuke. Seriously, the vast majority of this special was flooded with flashbacks of when Sasuke got owned by Itachi and when he and Naruto fought at the end of the first half of the series. Outside of that they finally got to meet Sasuke and stared up at him for a while before he came down and started kicking ass. Hell, I even forgot that he caught Yamato with that sword of his. I also have to admit that seeing the Chidori Nagashi animated was pretty was awesome. That’s one of the best techniques I’ve seen animated in Shippuuden so far.

Anyways, I’m guessing that the next episode which is yet another one hour special will conclude this arc. There’s just no way they can extend that one with flashbacks, right? RIGHT?

It’s been like 3 months and we have ANOTHER special. It’s the writers are teasing us and say “here is a one hour special, enjoy waiting to two DAMN weeks!” and guess what, that’s what they did! I’d rather have an episode a week like a normal anime than this horrible airing schedule the guys at either TV Tokyo or Studio Pierrot are thinking about! But enough about that.

Half of the 51st episode involved 2 things: Naruto and company doubting Sai yet again after finding out what his true intentions are… and more damn flashbacks regarding Sai. Blah blah blah… Oh, Sai is about the assassinate Sasuke until he wakes up! But Sai declares he wants to take him back to Konoha because he wants to help Naruto’s bond! (man that’s cheesy). Sasuke doesn’t care… Sai tries to trap him and BOOM, Hideout explodes! Naruto and the rest see big tunnel leading out Sakura runs in the tunnel… 5 minutes later… she is out and about to punch Sai for allegedly betraying them, Sasuke calls her and she is staring at him in awe. Naruto comes after her… another 5 minutes go by, and he is surprised to see him as well. The camera takes another 5 minutes to actually show how he looks like, finally we see him (yay…).

Okay, jokes aside, I just wanted to emphasize how drawn out Sasuke’s introduction was. After 3 years he is surprised to see Naruto and Sakura after him, wondering when Kakashi is, but then comes Woody, eh, Captain Yamato declaring he is the new leader of the team. He then see Sai and wondering if he is his replacement. Sai is pulling his sword out, Sakura wonders if he wants to kill him like he was told by Danzo, but he calms her that it doesn’t matter him anymore and he won’t follow the order. Sasuke belittle his “Worthy” cause of keeping Naruto and his bond intact, and for Sasuke, the only bond he has is with his brother, a bond… OF HATRED.

Episode ends, and I was sleeping half way… moving on to 52, which I’ll retain my seriousness.

Besides the fact this episode was filled with flashbacks, it was not so bad, even good. What I liked is how they intergrated the scenes from the first Shippuuden episode to include Yamato and Sai in the background. Moreover, I have to say that in the first episode, I thought Naruto is going to summon the
Kyuubi to avoid Sasuke’s stab, but it’s nice that Sai protected him, becaUse in that episode, it was cut right away to the Kyuubi scene before Sai interference. After being shocked by Sasuke’s chidori, Naruto and Sai are knocked down, and as he is trying to recover, Naruto just then interacts with the
Kyuubi. What’s cool was in the first episode, Naruto had a devious stare, implying he DOES wants to use the Kyuubi’s powers, but it turns out in 52 he refused his offer. What I am trying to say it was nice that although the first episode seemed like it told blatant spoilers, it didn’t.

Besides that though we finally had some battle scenes. The animation was decent, especially Sakura’s attempt to attack Sasuke, which caught Sasuke by surprise because he didn’t know how well she improved. It’s funny though how Sai manages to block Sasuke perfectly and Yamato fails. I expected Yamato to be
the best ninja in that group. It’s like how two Jounin were defeated by the Sound 4 and yet the Konoha Genins managed to defeat them. Sure it was one on one, but still… JOUNINS!

I can blabber a lot about this episode, but overall it was one of the shows best, thanks to the battle scene. It doesn’t change the fact more that half of the time we had to endure even more flashbacks. 52 episodes and this scene is recreated, and yet inbetween, the editors learned nothing.

51: 5/10
52: 7/10