Manga - The Other White Meat

After a one week hiatus to the city of sin we find ourselves settling in for a review of the latest chapters of Bleach and Naruto. Perhaps one of the two people who read this post can educate me about the fine art of storytelling and pacing your stories. Naruto gets it in my opinion. Whenever they have set up chapters they still have intriguing conversation, good background story and better settings and artwork. In Bleach, when they run out of ideas the chapters just grind to a horrifying halt where entire chapters come and go and nothing happens. In any case the only reason I bring this up is because right now there are EPIC fights going on in both series, and that always makes things better. In Naruto he and Sasuke are facing off for the first time since the first chapters of the new series where they are both grown up. In Bleach the Captain Commander of all of Soul Society is fighting for the first time against a seemingly invincible opponent, Aizen. Since this is a magnificent double review due to my Vegas hiatus I’m sure much has transpired. BLEACH In chapter 395, The Burnout Inferno 3, former captain Aizen and Captain Commander Yamamoto crushes the Arrancar Wonderweiss with one two-handed blow. Yamamoto accuses Aizen of committing an inhuman act against the former hollow with the powers he bestowed on him, to which Aizen replies that it isn’t inhuman to give a soul, even a hollow one, a purpose. Just as Yamamoto is about to attack however, Aizen reminds him that while Wonderweiss sealed away all future flames from his sword, he also stored the ones that had already been released. Now that Wonderweiss has been defeated, he has also turned into a bomb. This particular bomb has enough power to destroy the town and surrounding area and much like a soldier diving on a grenade, Yamamoto dives on the bomb to contain the explosion. The captain commander is down for the count, but as Aizen moves in for the kill to pay respect to Yamamoto Genryuusai, strongest shinigami born in 1,000 years, the commander grabs his leg and uses a level 96 (let’s just call that really really strong k?) kidou to attack causing a massive explosion. For the first time in this whole prolonged battle Aizen is scarred, but as he escapes the blast he is faced with Ichigo, hollow mask on and ready, who has chosen this moment to attack. Will he succeed? Well…it appears that as of press time, also known as my self-imposed bedtime, Bleach 396 hasn’t released yet. It is just as well as I think the battle between Aizen and Yamamoto is over and the battle between Ichigo and Aizen will begin in the next two chapters. I’m guessing this means that the Aizen arc is coming to an end. What is that you ask? Well,typically when the main protagonist and main villain meet in battle, isn’t the end usually near? I’m starting to think that Aizen will actually survive this battle and continue to be the main villain in the next arc. He is just sneaky like that. NARUTO Chapter 486 of Naruto, Fists, starts off with Chidori and Rasengan meeting in battle for the first time since the conclusion of the original Naruto title. The resulting explosion knocks Naruto and Sasuke back to their respective corners, for lack of a better way to describe it. Kakashi catches Naruto and Zetsu shows up to catch Sasuke. Zetsu says he is going to call Madara back, and Naruto states that he is finally certain. Madara seems shocked to see Naruto at the fight when he teleports back, although he only refers to him as the nine-tails, the demon buried within Naruto. Zetsu wants to fight, but Madara says they have to retreat for now given Sasuke’s quickly increasing blindness. He says the fight for Naruto, and the nine-tailed demon fox, belongs to Sasuke alone. Naruto claims he won’t kill Sasuke, and Sasuke won’t kill him. Before everyone can leave he declares that the next time they fight, they will both die. Sasuke laughs this off, but Naruto insists and then informs Kakashi, the only one who will fight Sasuke will be him. Chapter 487, The Battle Begins, starts with a few more words, and Sakura realizing that she is still just a burden to everyone. I’m not sure why she has to re-realize this every 4-5 months, you’d think at some point she’d remember. Madara teleports them all away, and Naruto says that he’ll be ready when Sasuke is. Back at the home base Sasuke decides that he wants his brothers eyes implanted after all. For those of you that don’t know, Sasuke killed his brother in a fight. For the Uchiha clan, when they use their ultimate attack too much it will cause them to go blind, which is exactly what happened to Sasuke in the last fight. However, if your brother has the ultimate eye technique as well, and you implant his eyes into your head, you can avoid blindness and use the power for as long as you have chakra left. Back at the scene of the fight it appears that Naruto was scratched by the blade with poison on it that Sakura had made. The comic relief sets in as they scramble to give him the antidote. In the meantime Killer Bee and the Raikage arrive back at their hidden village and everyone rejoices. Killer Bee even has Samehada, Kisame’s sword, with him. Meanwhile, back where Killer Bee and the Raikage, his brother, defeated Kisame Zetsu rejoins his two halves together. They then reveal that Kisame is alive! His death was staged by an apparent ability that Zetsu has to shapeshift and duplicate other people. Kisame is living inside of Samehada and is at Killer Bees side. He has successfully infiltrated the enemy base! This is where the most badass part of the chapter kicks in. Out of left field a character that I had actually forgotten about steps in. For those of you who don’t follow the manga, a character named Orochimaru was the former archvillain of Konoha, Naruto’s village. Earlier it appeared that Sasuke killed Orochimaru and escaped; only the villain’s trusty sidekick Kabuto absorbed a portion of Orochimaru and gained his powers. We suddenly find ourselves in a dungeon where Kabuto appears to have mastered Orochimaru’s powers. Kabuto was already a formidable medical ninja. If he now has Orochimaru’s regenerative power and seeming immortality, he will be a formidable foe and a giant wild card. Whew…that was a long one. Until next week everyone.

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