So that last chapter...
Can it get any more cliche? Hashirama the naive idealist all of a sudden killing the guy who would destroy his dream. A classic turn around that happens in too much manga/anime. Madara pathetically getting fooled by a moku bushin even though he has mangekyu sharingan and probably the best eyes in the world at the time(nagato wasn't born yet i think...).

Also, i'm pretty sure madara didn't die after that (he met obito) so how did he escape? will they explain it later?

Yay! Flashback over!

Eh, it seems like the valley of the end wasn't that epic... eh. Well, at least they used shinobi weapons in the end, rarely do you see those among chidori's and rasengans.

What exactly happened to Kyuubi? Was he sealed just like that? Not very clear...

Well, at least Harashima tried to right his wrongs by killing Madara. I still don't understand how they can call someone who tries to destroy and murder millions of people to get back at you a friend.

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it works the same way that naruto and sakura are still obsessed with sasuke and think he can be easily redeemed.

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Of course. I also don't like that about those two, I don't think I'd ever chase after someone who doesn't want to be chased and tried to kill me on multiple occasions and threatened to destroy everything I cared about.


I would like to say this is foreshadowing that Naruto will kill Sasuke in the end after all, but since a big theme is 'New generation surpassing the old', I assume Sasuke will be redeemed magically somehow. So, it's either a foreshadowing that Sasuke will die, or that Naruto will succeed where the first didn't and bring his dear 'friend' back to the good side.

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well, in my honest opinion, the only way sasuke can be redeemed is if he takes the hokages(or at least minato)to the battlefront, helps naruto win, and then dies. actually, he needs to just die one way or another, but this way makes it harder and less likely for me to hate him.

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At this point, I don't see dying as redemption. Yeah, I want Sasuke to die, but unless he like, literally sacrifices his life for the people he previously scorned, then no go.

Other people have speculated he'll becoming a wanderer and help with the village from the outside. I find this the most likely scenario. I'll be pissed if the village just accepts Sasuke back after he ran away to Orochimaru who started a battle in the middle of the chuunin exams, killed x amount of Konoha shinobi, AND killed the Sandaime Hokage. After he joined the Akatsuki for a short period of time and helped them acquire enough Hachibi chakra to summon the Juubi that also just killed a bunch of high rank ninjas (not to mention the association to Nagato who leveled the entire village and killed x amount of people even though he revived them).

Not all of this is Sasuke's fault, but obviously Sasuke doesn't care about much of anything other than Itachi and his clan, so much so he just throws himself into things without KNOWING anything and usually gets let off the hook. I hate that. At least right now he's trying to learn the truth, but I have no doubt he'll say "F*** it" and continue on with his stupidity.

It is destined for Naruto and Sasuke to fight after all, so until then, I'm expecting the same old idiot Sasuke.

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I would hope that Itachi would give up on destroying Konoha, and learn from his brother. Going back and then trying to rebuild his clan.

Now question is, are there any other Uchiha's around? It seems like just about every major uchiha seen has the sharingan, but they always mention that it only appears in a select few. Do the ones who cannot awaken the power get cast out?

I'm also pretty sure after several generations that at least some had intermarried outside of their respective clans.

As for the cliche nature of the story, well it's Naruto, not literature. If you were expecting some major emotional drama instead of clear cut cliche choices, this isn't the manga to read. Most of us who are reading it are just holding on, hoping that we'll see the end of it. The manga has been going since 1999, which is short compared to some series, but most would consider naruto to be at the end of its run.

The question now is, what will Sasuke do, and what will he and Orochimaru do with the former hokages. In the big war, his options would be to join a side, or just stay out of it. However, I don't see Sasuke thinking that the Infinite Tsukiyomi is a good idea, so I'm going to go with him helping out Naruto's side in some way, if only by unleashing 4 hokage's on Madara at the same time. Then the ten tails and Obito would be up to Naruto.

Now what I want to know is how the ten tails can really be complete with only pieces of the 8 and 9 tails. Also, what exactly is it transforming into?

Haha this is actually funny. I remember back in like '08 or something like that, everyone was like "omg sasuke is so cool! I love him, I want to be like him, etc." and all that stuff. Now I don't think I know a single person that actually still "likes" sasuke. Well I can't say I hate him (and I'll probably get a LOT of heated arguments about this, I'm sure...) and his reasons are mostly justified. Put yourself in his shoes. What would you do if your bro was told by your country to destroy your whole family or else you would die? I'm pretty darn sure that I'd want revenge on the country (hidden leaf) as well.

ANYWAYS, flashback over!!! Kinda. Like a few dozen holes here and there, like basically NOTHING about kyuubi at all. He's just there, as a kuchiyose for madara. I like the foreshadowing thing about naruto ultimately killin sasuke but seeing how kishimoto obviously loves sasuke to death, he's more likely than not giong to make sasuke become good in the end. Then we get a whole kubo rampage by the "now former fans" and the series will somehow go on for another 200+ chapters with enemeies that come out of nowhere. xD

And yes the most underestimated person (actually people) in naruto are without a doubt madara and hasirama. But the one at the very top is orochimaru. First of all, NARUTO almost completely revolved around orochimaru. shippuden has everything to do with orochimaru as well. He revived the second hokage's technique(edo tensei, which is basically what pretty much all of this entire arc is on) and knew basically everything. He even resisted the shiki fuijin with just his arms as compensation while the first and second hokages died pretty easily. But I'm expecting orochimaru to make an epic comeback and be the "ultimate bad guy" once again.

I'm not a revenge driven person. Even if my family were killed in front of my own eyes, I predict I would possibly go insane, but I am also a wimp. I would hide away in my house in fear for the rest of my life or something. Maybe not that extreme, but I just wouldn't care to be an 'avenger'. Seems useless in the end and getting revenge won't bring my family back.

Even after Sasuke got his revenge over and over again, he finds a new way to get his 'revenge' and eventually resorted to killing the entire leaf and all its citizens because THAT will revive his clan for sure. :/

Sasuke was ok in part 1, but back then I didn't particularly hate him. I was pretty neutral. Now a days, I can say for sure that Sasuke is my most hated Naruto character. Not only because of his actions, but because how screwed up and stupid his whole story is. I'm not sure what Kishi was thinking.

I'm not sure how I feel about Orochimaru. Or course I hated him for a bit (by that, I mean the hate I'm supposed to have. Not hate overall about his character. He's written ok for the most part. Hope that makes sense.) He seems to have been in rehab for a couple of months because he seems uber calm. I'm honestly not sure what Kishi is going to do with him.

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Ehh I guess. It varies from person to person but I'm pretty sure at least 95% of the world would choose revenge even if it didn't yield anything in return except the satisfaction of avenging their clan. If you aren't in that 95% then good for you. I can't say that for myself though....

Don't get me wrong, sasuke is still pretty bad. I'm just saying he's not as bad as people make him out to be. Killing people is never right, but at least he has somewhat justifiable reasons. For example, orochimaru had absolute horrible reasons for destroying the leaf(because he didn't become 4th hokage). So you can somewhat sympathize with sasuke. But sasuke is way too calm these days...the reason I liked him so much back then was his eyes. Kind of like what gaara said in a way. Filled with fear, filled with hate and all that stuff. Now, it's just filled with apathy. Continually non changing eyes because he knows everything already. Nothing will surprise him at this point so I think sasuke's character is basically at a dead end.

well, you see, i'm okay with the revenge part. he thought itachi was truly to blame for killing his clan. and itachi did kill them and wanted sasuke to restore honor by killing him. i'm even fine(giddy) about sasuke wanting to kill danzo and the elders. it's their fault for making itachi kill his family in the first place and plotting behind sandaime's back. what i don't condone is him wanting to kill all of konoha because they don't know the truth. secrets are secret for a reason, and he didn't even know until recent times. by this logic, the whole world should keel over and let him slaughter them all.

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