Since April just won’t come fast enough, I’ve decided to start my own feature or two here so that I have something to blog until the new season rolls around. I also figured that I’d need something to fill the gaps in April while I wait for all the shows I’m interested in to come out. With that in mind, I’ve created the “Friday Ramble”.

The basic premise of the FR (as I’ll be referring to it out of laziness) is pretty straightforward. While browsing around the site, I noticed that there are some shows I watch (some of them quite popular) that were either never blogged, or have been dropped by their previous authors. Now, I don’t intend to pick these up and blog them seriously, but it wouldn’t hurt to drop a quick summary/opinion and a couple of screens for them would it? I didn’t think so.

So, in short, the FR is a bulk blog on a few ongoing series, and maybe a few series that I missed but have been checking out recently. Quick, to the point, but just enough to show you that I (kinda) care. This week, read on for: BLEACH, NARUTO, ROSARIO + VAMPIRE, and D.GRAY-MAN!

Bleach 164: Grimmjow Pees a Little

Obligatory Summary: Renji and Mr. Quincy continue their battle against Szayel. Renji goes all kamikaze to keep him distracted while Ishida does some crazy pentagram Quincy nonsense, suprising Szayel and causing him immense amounts of damage. Like usual, the heroes get cocky thinking they’ve won, but when the smoke clears, Szayel is still alive. Szayel then proceeds to chow down on one of his subordinates like he’s a good Subway sandwich, but instead of losing ten pounds, his wounds fully recover from all damage sustained up until this point. If I were him, I know there’d be a cocky “What now, bitch!?” running through my head. After he’s had his fill and recombed his hair, Szayel tells Renji and Ishida that he’s going to go change his clothes because it’d be embarrassing to fight in his torn up attire.

Meanwhile, Grimmjow brings Inoue to where Ulquiorra left Ichigo either dead or pretty damn close to it. Nel crawls out of the rubble of the fight and starts whining. Grimmjow hears my plea and tells Nel to STFU or he’ll blow her into tiny kibbles ‘n’ bits. Inoue has been direct by Grimmjow to use her powers to heal Ichigo because he wants him at 100% so he can kick Ichigo’s ass, and that he wants it done before Ulquiorra finds out what’s up. Right as he utters the words, Arrancar numero 4 shows up and Grimmjow shits his pants.

Afterthoughts: The animation this episode was great (see pic #5 above), and the battle between Renshida and Szayel was pretty intense. Inoue and Ichigo meet face to face again finally, and next week looks like it’ll start the showdown between Ichigo and Grimmjow. I’m loving this arc, but word is they’ll be going into a filler arc sometime next month. Anyone else think Inoue in the whole “I’m a captive” getup (see pic #3 above) is hawt? 4/5

Naruto Shippuuden 50: More of the usual

Episode Overview: Run run run run run run run. Everyone gets tired and takes a nap. Sai draws pictures in his book, homoeroticism is all over the place. Snake-man shows up to stop Sai from hitting on Naruto. Naruto gets mad and tells Sai to go find Sasuke while he “distracts” Snake-man. Lengthy flashback #1. Tree-guy and Sakura arrive to help Naruto distract the Snake-man. Intent on the destruction of emotionless clowns, Snake-man runs off after Sai. Sai finds Sasuke sleeping…oh yes, you know what happens next. Shake well and pour on top of lots of staring.

So here’s a list of things I didn’t see coming this week:

• Running…since when do characters in Naruto run? And for that long?
• Naruto struggling to stand after he trips. I’m mean, I know he probably can’t read or spell, but he should at least be able to pick himself up off the ground without help.
• Sakura saying something involving the words “But” and “Sasuke”. ie: “But I wish Sasuke was my lover! we have to find Sasuke right away!”
• Sai deciding that even though they were desperately trying to find Sasuke before Orochimaru appears, now would be a good time to get out his coloring book. Stay in the lines Sai! You wouldn’t want to disappoint the 0 people who love you!
• Naruto to use two new attacks: Shadow Clones and Rasengan…oh wait…

This wasn’t the worst Naruto episode I’ve ever seen by far, but let’s face it, it’s still Naruto. Why do I watch it? I love making fun of it…and when they do have an actual battle going, it’s pretty entertaining. 2/5

Rosario + Vampire 09 & 10: It finally gets pretty badass

I was looking around to see if some of these shows already had bloggers, and I noticed that Calawain was blogging R+V, but dropped it around episode 4. I can’t blame him for that, the only thing that kept me from dropping it was the fact that I couldn’t get enough of “Moka-san…Tsukune…Moka-san…Tsukune…Moka-san…Tsukune…Kappachu!” So I’ve sat it out through the formulaic episodes hoping that maybe, just maybe, the show will go somewhere. Enter episode 9…

If you dropped this show, or don’t know whether or not watch it…at least go watch episodes 9 and 10. Holy crap they were badass. The group takes a summer trip to the human world and encounters a crazy witch. Amongst the beach scenes and camping scenes, there’s a TON of action, everyone gets their moment to shine, and Moka doesn’t just 1-shot everything with a kick. The production value is insane, and…seriously, I was NOT expecting anything remotely on this level from this anime. 5/5

GO WATCH NOW! Warning: if you don’t appreciate made crazy action sequences or panty-shots, don’t waste your time.

D.Gray-Man 74: Lenalee is tasty

I’ll admit, there was a point in time where I dropped D.Gray-man…episode 25. How’d I make it this far? A combination of episode summaries and IRC downloads. I skipped episodes 26-51, reading the episode summaries from various sites so I wouldn’t be totally lost, then picked the show back up at episode 52, where the real action started to kick in. 52+ is like watching a whole new anime. Everyone powers up, the plot actually gets pretty serious, and people start dying left and right.

Right now, there’s a massive showdown going on between The Earl/Noah and the remaining exorcists in Edo (Tokyo). Allen has achieved 100% compatibility with his Innocence and finally arrived in Edo to throw down against the Earl. At long last, we get to see Allen actually do something in his Crowned Clown King form, and we no longer have to worry about Lavi trying to mack on Allen’s woman. Hah! 4/5

Wow, it’s amazing how long first posts take. Especially something like this where there are so many different ways to do things and so many different ideas to sort through. I know this post is long, but it’s made with the idea that you’ll only read the segments you’re interested in. If you read it all, that’s your fault.

Please, give any feedback you can. What you liked/didn’t like, which image style you liked best, etc. The Friday Ramble is an ongoing experiment, so expect constant change…it’s my way of working out new ideas for the regular posts I’ll be doing come Spring.

Naruto is one of the most frustrating and at the same time enjoyable Mangas I’ve ever read; frustrating because of its weak lead character, Naruto, and enjoyable because of its amazing storyline, character development and battles. I didn’t know where to start on this one. As you all know Pein-sama is fighting Jiraya so naturally I must talk about that but the same time Sasuke-Deidara fight was wonderful and I really want to talk about that one as well. Having that in mind, writing about that would require me to delete the Pein-Jiraya part since both have huge materials; so what do we do?

Sorry Deidara but I’ll have to go with your boss in this one!

Introductions are such pain in the ass. So I’ll do it my way. You know Pein and Jiraya? Yes? So let’s get in the chapters without me writing character bios! This review will cover chapters 365-379; almost 15 chapters.
As you all should know by now, I love falmes, flame-wars, flame-traps…Basically anything flamish so don’t hesitate to write about pretty much whatever you like in Naruto world in here ^___^
By the way, due to some tragic events, my highest quality scans are not in English! It is really hard to find a HQ Manga chapter that does not require membership to download them. In any case, let’s get to pein sama!

The first chapter starts after the Deidara Sasuke fight. Sasuke is injured and as you well know based on the logic of “bandage heals everything”, he is ready to start another fight by simply sleeping for a short time…
Anyway, Naruto is on the quest for Sasuke’s ass, to find him and bring him home. Sometimes I really wonder is Sasuke deserves a friend like Naruto. Naruto, as usual, uses one of the only three Jutsus he knows; his shadow clone to find Sasuke. However, it seems someone is in his way; Itachi.

Naruto’s strength
Before we go further it is time to evaluate Naruto’s strength. Arguably a source of great controversy and a never ending battle between Naruto fans, his strength has never been defined clearly in the Manga. After the supposedly 2.5 years of training under one of the best ninja’s out there, having a 9 tails beast inside, being the leading characters in the Manga(Manga is named Naruto for a reason!), you would think he has some type of especial power, that he is ready to face his enemies, that he does not rush to enemies like a retard, that he can prove himself. But NO! Not yet for some goddamn annoying reasons which are not clear to me. I seriously don’t get this logic. Why on earth should he be so goddamn weak? No speed, no battle plan, no especial Jutsu; Nothing. He completed (read advanced) a jutsu his father made in the first place. I want to see something that distinguishes him from the rest. His 9 tail beast was surpassed by Sasuke, his speed has been surpassed by almost everyone and his plans, well such thing don’t exist.

Now, after all that how is he going to fight Itachi? He sure should have some kind of a plan, right? He trained with Kakashi too. He should at least make Itachi move, make him a little surprised, right…RIGHT?

X____X

Ah well, itachi is too powerful for him, I understand. What about Sasuke? He can at least make some new moves right? I mean he trained for this day, he can at least make him stop for a moment, right?

X___________X

Ah fuck. I give up.

Uchiha Madara and Yondaime

When I first saw this picture, I laughed so hard I nearly fell off my chair! “Who would think of such things?”(a quote form C&C!) He even ordered pain! Since the Sasuke-naruto’s first encounter after time skip, I always wondered who this Madara guy was. In this chapter, one of the greatest mysteries in Naruto was solved, and then comes the second one; Pein is revealed and yet another one! Naruto’s father is also revealed!! Is there any mystery left in this Manga? Does Kishimoto really want to finish this as soon as possible?!

Since the very first chapter that introduced Yondaime, I wanted him to be somehow related to Naruto. He looked cool, badass, intelligent, brave and powerful, and well, basically everything his son is not! (Poor Naruto I’m really picking on him today!)

Side note, did Tsunade threw up because of the alcohol or is she pregnant? I’m probably thinking too deep!

God of War

Left: Your growth has indeed been stunted

Right: You’re as clumsy as ever.

And here Ladies and Gentlemen, comes my favorite character of this entire Manga, Pain/Nagato; the ultimate villain. He looks cool, his position is cool, the girl that accompanies her looks good, his hair style is cool(!) and above else he is the leader of Akatsuki. He orders Itachi around! That alone says a lot.

How can a child so innocent with such a great ideology (protecting his friends at all costs) suddenly turn evil? What happened to Yahiko, how did Konan transformed? We have to wait for those answers. But first lets talk about Nagato’s eyes; the ripple like pattern. It is said that among the three great eye techniques, those eyes are the greatest. But can they really surpass sharingan?

They created everything in the first place so they should! That being the case, why does Pain get his orders from Tobi then?? What the hell does this eye do anyway?

The last battle

Pein is just amazing; I really REALLY love him! Having said that these last few chapters hasn’t really shown us anything great about him. Yes he does summon big ass monsters, but that’s pretty much it. The only impressing thing so far has been the human summons, the same as Orichimaru. Do you get my point? Nothing especial for Pain as of yet. He is THE greatest ninja so please give us something extraordinary not just some half ass “he is great” speech by Tsunade. You see, that’s the problem I have with Naruto as well. There is only talk about his ability yet in reality he sucks. I want to see action not preach, for that I’ll go to church not the Manga. It seems the next chapter will be Pein-sama’s revenge, better yet pein-sama’s awakening; whatever you call it. I Want Him To Kick Ass No Matter Who His Opponent Is.

Overall, the recent chapters have been some of the best I’ve seen in Naruto! I hope the Manga continues this amazing style.

Btw, did anybody else notice this, Pain’s ring was on his right thumb but here it is on his left! What the hell…?!

It was originaly on the Right:

But now:

I tried really hard not to talk about details because doing so would make this really long and you know it, people don’t read long posts! I didn’t talk about Naruto’s mother being from the same country as Pein, Itachi Sasuke encounter, the softness in Jiraya when it came to torture, Jiraya’s especial Jutsu(which was pretty cool btw) and everything before these chapters! So feel free to talk about these as much as you like.

Do you think Pein-sama is going to win? Do you hate sasuke? Do you think Sakura is as useless as French Army in WWII? Do you think Naruto will ever grow as strong as his father? Do you think Assassin’s Creed is a piece of shit?!

Well, let us know what you think about Naruto. Let the conversation start \m/ d(-_-)b \m/

Btw, the artist of the nice Pain portrait is “Dynamic Dragon” from Mangahelpers.

Due to popular demand, I have replaced my review of Bleach with Darkshaunz’s incredibly awesome review.

Bleach 284-286
My, what an amazing turn of events, Strawberry Face has defeated The Lion King, and just after he picks up the Dragonboobs to rescue Snow White….Edward Scissorhands joins the game! Not before shearing some of the Lion King’s vitals though!

And ladies and gentlemen, lets not forget Strongsad, who is currently wanking in the Twilight Zone waiting for his turn to swipe at Strawberry Face! Will our endeared fruit survive the chain of baddies wanting to put him on top of a Black Forest slice? Find out next week on another EXCITING installment of ChloroZzzzzzzzZzzzzz

Naruto 363-365
Lots of startling revelations in these last few chapters, especially the introduction of the last two Akatsuki member and Tobi’s real identity. Not to mention Karin’s stalker habits, and the announcement of the latest Naruto movie. I like how Itachi’s reaction is handled, which somehow managed to make him seem much more human, while at the same time retaining his mysterious aura. Despite all the questions answered though, Kishimoto just gives us more questions. Who is Uchiha Madara, really? What does Madara mean when he says “Everything will go back to as they once were… It’ll be so with the power of the sharingan, and it will be so with my, Uchiha Madara’s, power”? Knowing that Sasuke has the potential to become stronger than himself, did Itachi really kill his entire family for the reasons he stated? My personal theory is that Itachi was looking to make Sasuke strong enough to topple Madara, who seems to be the most sinister character in Naruto so far.

One Piece 464-466
Both Absalom’s and Perona’s fights are more humorous than serious, especially the last chapter of the Absalom fight. Sanji just kept going on and on about the invisible fruit, and how he spent years thinking up the various ways to use it. I enjoy watching Usopp fight, because his lack of prowess forces him to fight smartly. The mix of different types of ammunition and shells makes for some very interesting possibilities, and some hilarious moments.

Next up is Zoro vs. Brook’s zombie! It doesn’t seem to me like this fight will be as one-sided as Sanji vs. Absalom or as fun as Usopp vs. Perona, but something more traditional. I wonder what’s that fire/smoke thing surrounding Ryoma?

Bleach 283

After taking 5 shots – which Grimmjaw demonstrates to be extremely powerful – in the back, Ichigo’s mask cracks, and Grimmjaw begins to dominate the fight. Orihime tells herself that she can’t be afraid, but Vaizard Ichigo reminds her of her brother, and she fears that she has no place in this Ichigo’s heart.

Nell watches as Ichigo gets overpowered by Grimmjaw, and she’s shocked that Vaizard Ichigo could be losing, as he had previously overpowered both Ulqiorra and the Hundred. Nell cheers for Ichigo, and urges Orihime to do the same. Orihime is momentarily taken aback, and Nell asks her “Why are you scared of Ichigo?” The Ichigo who is only human, but takes on the roles of a Shinigami and Vaizard, so that he can protect others. The Ichigo who braves Hueco Mundo to save Orihime, who battles until his body is covered with scars, so that he can protect those dear to him. “Why are you scared of him? How can you not cheer him on?”

Orihime realises that Ichigo is in Hueco Mundo for the same reason that she is – so that they can protect others who can’t protect themselves. Orihime realises that her fear is unfounded, and she cheers for Ichigo. “Don’t die!” She says, “It doesn’t matter if you lose, it doesn’t matter if you don’t try so hard. So please… don’t get hurt anymore.”

Upon hearing this, Ichigo becomes filled with power and strikes back at Grimmjaw.

Thoughts

“No Ichigo you can’t die!” “You heard the lady.” *OMNISLASH BITCH*

What more can I say?

Oh and the brother thing. Completely slipped my mind until now. It must be shocking for her to see two of her most precious persons become hollows. Duly noted.

Naruto 362

Both Sasuke and Deidara are on the verge of collapse, having used up most of their chakra in the battle. They both collapse on the ground, unable to move, but Sasuke’s gaze remains unwavering in the face of possible defeat. Deidara hates that gaze, the unwavering, confident gaze of the sharingan, and how, despite the fierce battle that just took place, Sasuke doesn’t seem to care about anything other than getting information on Itachi. Deidara despises the Sharingan, and how the Uchiha brothers don’t care at all about his “art”. He decides to show off his ultimate art, a true suicide bomb, an explosion that has never been seen, one that will leave a rift in the land, and one that will gain his art unrivaled praise. He silently apologises to someone, and an explosion 10 kilometres in radius blasts up and outwards from where Deidara’s heart used to be.

Thougts

Talk talk talk *KABOOM*. Deidara’s vendatta against the sharingan is perhaps understandable. As a self-proclaimed artist, it must feel terrible to have his art completely overlooked.

One Piece 463

Luffy fights against Moria, but finds it difficult to get past his indefeatible shadow puppet.

Sanji arrives at the church and rescues Nami, but starts performing manzai with Absalom. Absalom underestimates Sanji, thinking that, as someone who was only given an animal zombie body, he can’t be too strong, but is quickly proven wrong as Sanji sends him flying with a kick. Sanji repeatedly attacks Absalom in his anger over how Absalom treated Nami and Robin on the Thousand Sunny. Additionally, it seems there’s some sort of old grudge between two.

Thougts
This arc of One Piece, at least as far as I’ve seen, feels a little different from previous arcs. Despite the fact that they’re fighting one of the Shichibukai and his subordinates, the mood is so light and the humour so ubiqutious that there is no tension at all. I’m getting the feeling that this arc is going to really highlight how strong the Straw Hats have become, as they walk all over Moria’s ship.

And damn, is Sanji kicking (literally) ass.

Bleach 282

Halbel and her officers watch Grimmjaw and Ichigo fight from a distant; as the officers banter back and forth, Halbel comments that their fear is justified. Watching an Espada fight in its released state creates a sort of primal fear, that Halbel tells her officers to treasure. She wonders to herself whether Ichigo is really human – she feels as if it’s two Espadas fighting.

Ichigo continues his fight with Grimmjaw, and Grimmjaw feels happy that Ichigo’s time with the mask has extended – he thinks that it will be boring if the mask breaks quickly like the last time they fought. Ichigo acts a little strange, and says that because it’s so boring, Grimmjaw mustn’t end his release state. The two trade blows, but Ichigo seems to be coming out on top. Ichigo dodges some projectiles attacks, but notices that it’s going to hit Orihime, and rushes over to block them with his body. His eyes meet with hers, and Orihime becomes visibly shaken.

Thoughts
Largely a battle chapter, we get to see a little more of Halbel and her minions. One thing that especially annoys me about the recent chapters of Bleach is how Kubo continuously rub the fact that Ichigo is like a Hollow in our face. Okay, we get it already, please move onto something else.

Other things of note:

Naruto 361

The battle draws to a close as Deidara uses the C4 at point blank range. He jumps away from the ballon that is filled with C4 and surrounds Sasuke, and releases a small bird into the air. Inside the balloon, Sasuke sees the C4 fill his blood stream, and quickly bursts out of the balloon using Chidori. With a last ditch attempt he rushes towards Deidara through the air, but Deidara sets off the bomb and they both fall into the forest.

Deidara falls heavily onto the ground, just in time to see the head of a snake evaporate. Just as he celebrates his victory, however, Sasuke appears behind him and hits him hard. Deidara wonders how Sasuke managed to survive, and notices that Sasuke had sent lightning element chakra into his own body. Sasuke explains that he had noticed Deidara’s bomb’s weakness – that his bombs were a earth elemental jutsu, and with Sasuke’s lightning element chakra disarms the bombs. Sasuke then explains how he tested the bombs using various incarnations of chidori, wondering whether the bombs that weren’t exploding didn’t do so because of the lightning chakra or because of Deidara’s will. Then he explains how he used the sword stabbed into the ground earlier to test the land mines, which weren’t controlled by Deidara, and confirmed the lightning jutsu nullifies the bombs. When Deidara asks how he can see the mines, Sasuke explains that his eyes allowed him to see the colour of chakra.

Thougts

More quality fighting from Kishimoto. Only two points I want to raise this week – what was that last bird that Deidara released, and how did Sasuke see the mine? I understand he can see chakra, but can he see through the ground? There has never been any indication that the Sharigan grants X-ray vision, which seems to be an ability more along the line of the Hyuga’s Byakugan.

One Piece 462

As the other three head onward to help Brook and Nami, Usopp remains to fight Perona. Not only are Perona’s depression spirits useless against Usopp, his depressing nature is so great that the spirits and Perona themselves become affected.

Meanwhilst, Brook continues to fight his zombie, but is defeated. As Ryuuma is about to cut off his afro, the ship shakes violently, and Franky and Zoro burst into the room to save Brook. Zoro sets his eyes on Ryuuma’s sword, one of the 21 excellent grade swords, and boldly declares that he’ll take the sword from Ryuuma.

The scene shifts once again, to where Absalom is trying to marry Nami. His attempt at kissing Nami fails, as the ship shook just at that moment. He finds out that the shaking is a result of Oz playing with the tiller, and sends out all his zombie generals to stop him, but they’re all wiped out by him in one move. Just as Absalom was wondering why Oz wasn’t being obedient, Sanji arrives at the church.

Thougts
It’s hard to write about One Piece – it’s very consistently good, and I feel stupid repeating the same thing week after week. One thing of note that is going to become very apparent next chapter is the strength difference between the crew members. More on that in the next post.

Bleach 281

After seeing Ichigo’s Vaizard form, Orihime is a little shaken. Ichigo apologises to her, and reassures her that he will immediately take care of the problem. Seeing Ichigo’s mask, Grimmjaw roars in laughter, saying that he had waited a long time for this moment of revenge. He releases his Zanpaktou, and lets out a terrifying roar that shocks Ichigo. Finally, the fight between Ichigo and Grimmjaw begins.

Thoughts
Transitional chapter. The only really notable thing is that Grimmjaw looks retarded in his release form. 1) What’s with the tights and 2) What’s with the long hair? It’s like an unmanly version of SSJ3 Goku, which is really disappointing. The whole slender form-factor doesn’t help either. I know he’s supposed to look like a leopard or something, but the eye shadow, the long hair and the skinny body and legs just make him look like some furry fag. I hope there’ll never be any Ichigo x Grimmjaw furry doujin… just thinking about it makes me want to puke.

Apart from that little complaint, this chapter is a pretty solid one. How Orihime will ultimately react to Vaizard Ichigo could be interesting, but it could also just be a predictable “I’m not scared and I’ll still love you forever and ever” thing, which would be disappointing. The fight is in the usual Kubo style, lots of close ups then zoom out showing the wider action, nothing particularly exciting yet. Hopefully that will change with the upcoming chapter. There hasn’t been a decent fight since Soul Society, and the last good sword fight was against Zaraki Kenpachi – everything after that were more like magicians throwing fireball at each other than anything else.

Naruto 360

Sasuke’s fight against Deidara heats up as Deidara busts out his ultimate bomb, the C4. A giant Deidara appears, but simply pops like a balloon, which Sasuke initially thinks is a dud. However, when Deidara sets off the bomb, the animals within the vicinity all fall apart into little pieces. Sasuke also falls apart. Tobi explains that the C4 is in fact a lot of super tiny microscopic bombs, which are spread throughout the area when the giant Deidara explodes. Any animal that breaths it in will be filled with the little bombs, and when they’re set off they’ll destroy the body from the inside at a cellular level.

Deidara uncovers his left eye, thanks Itachi, and screams out that it is his victory, and the victory of his art. However, he feels the Sharingan behind him, and turns around to find Sasuke in level 2 seal, who hits him with Chidori. Sasuke explains that, even though the naked eye cannot see the microscopic bombs, the Sharingan could see the chakra within them, and to him the bombs looked like a mist spreading out. He could also see that where Deidara was standing was just outside the range of the bomb, and so he could easily dodge it, and that the dying Sasuke Deidara saw was simply Sasuke’s genjutsu. Deidara however, once again thanks Itachi, and bursts out of the clay bird he was riding on. He explains that, since fighting with Itachi, he had trained up his left eye to resist genjutsu and was able to break out of Sasuke’s genjutsu immediately. “Now it’s really over!” he screams, “Have a taste of my C4!”

Thoughts
The C4 is, in the words of Tobi, a ‘terrible jutsu’. It is essentially a biological weapon, a gas bomb that you breath in, and as such is impossible to avoid. Even more terrible is that it can’t be seen with the naked eye, so unless you’re like Sasuke you can’t tell when you’re safe from it. One thing though – wouldn’t it be much smarter to covertly release the gas? I guess the problem here would be breathing it in yourself.

This chapter is a return to form for Kishimoto, that, in my opinion, rivals the level of the fights found at the height of Naruto, which I consider to be the ‘We’re-a-team-but-let’s-split-up-and-fight-1-on-1′ arc. Which brings up a question that I always ask – If anyone other than Sasuke was to fight Deidara, would they have any chance? It’s the same in the Sasuke pursuit arc – if the match ups were anything other than what was, the Konoha ninjas would probably have been wiped out quicker than you can say “Shounen Jump”.

Interesting to note that the wing that got cut off previously on Sasuke has been replaced by snakes. WHY ARE THERE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES ON MY MOTHERFUCKING BACK?

One Piece 461

After Oz fell down, the Straw Hat Pirates are split into two groups – Luffy, Chopper and Robin heads towards the freezing room where Oz was stored and where Moria is napping, while Sanji and Usopp fell down to the bottom level, where they join Zorro and Franky. On the way to where Moria is, Luffy and co. runs into Hogback and Cindry, who tries to stop them. Chopper declares his disappointment in Hogback, and urges Luffy to go find Moria, saying he would defeat Hogback himself. Robin stays with Chopper, stopping Cindry from following Luffy. Hogback laughs when he realises that the deer is Chopper, and asks him to give up his shadow… or be killed and turned into the body of a zombie, as Sanji’s and Zoro’s zombies appear.

Meanwhilst, the other half of the Straw Hat’s crew stands in awe of Oz, who doesn’t notice them and walks off. The bridge that they originally intended to cross was destroyed by Oz’s fall, but Franky quickly rebuilds another one. Crossing the bridge, they walk into Perona’s room, and are quickly taken out by her Ghosts Ghost Fruit, all except for Usopp, who’s immune to its powers because he’s already depressive. Elsewhere, in the Thriller Bark’s church, Absalom is seconds away from stealing Nami’s sweet lips.

Thoughts
Pretty much just set up for the upcoming battles – Luffy vs Moria, Chopper and Robin vs Sanji’s and Zoro’s zombies, and Usopp vs Perona. Not much to note other than that… some really funny moments again, especially when Usopp loudly declares that he is already a depressive.

I’m going to get my wisdom teeth removed tomorrow (4th of July), so next week’s entry might come a little later, depending on how drugged up I am, or if there’s any complication with the operation. Wish me luck!

*A lie.

Bleach 278

Kind of surprised that Grimmjaw isn’t at all scared of Ulqiorra, considering how great the difference in their abilities should be. Other than that, it’s nice to see that Ulqiorra DOES display emotion, and I’m looking forward to the fight next chapter. If it gets interrupted or is ended in 5 seconds like every fight in the last 50 or so chapters of Bleach, I’m going to be PISSED.

Naruto 357

It seems that Sasuke’s greatest asset, apart from the snake summoning jutsu he inherited from Orochimaru, is his speed. As noted in the Kakkashi Gaiden, when you’re moving too fast even you yourself can’t see what’s going on, but with the Sharigan, Sasuke doesn’t have such a limit, and thus he can move much faster than most other ninjas. Also, he seems to know a lot more jutsu than Naruto does – where as Naruto is the type that decides a battle with one major, super powerful jutsu, Sasuke knows a far large variety of jutsus, like the lightning needles he threw to pin Deidara’s spiders.

Kabuto is insane, and the way Tobi acts and talks is hilarious.

One Piece 459

I wonder if Oda plans things like this? Was the whale planted there, so long ago in the story, so that he can one day have an excuse to put a new member into Luffy’s crew? It’s a very convenient plot device, after all, a whale waiting for a group of pirate who went a-adventuring on the high seas. Whatever the reason, Oda’s stories are weaved together much more skillfully than any Shounen Jump manga I’ve read – he doesn’t forget things he wrote years ago, and he uses them to his advantage when he needs. The reason why Brook wants to keep his afro is also revealed to be far less trivial than it initially appeared. Instead of wanting to do it for himself, simply as a memento of his previous life, it’s so that the whale can recognise him. How touching!

All three titles simultaneously enter into climax, as Ichigo starts his fight with Grimmjaw, Deidara shows off his C2 Dragon, and the Straw Hat Pirates (who, incidentally, do very little pirating) begin their assault on Moria’s ship. Next week is going to be awesome.

Grimmjaw sure knows how to treat his woman like a real man.

Grimmjaw takes Orihime to Ichigo, so that she can heal him. Ulqiorra goes back to his room to find Orihime missing, was told that she was kidnapped by Grimmjaw, and goes back to where Ichigo is.

Seriously Kubo? Go fuck yourself. Setting up is one thing, this is another. This whole arc in Bleach reminds me of Captain Tsubasa in its later stages. There was this one chapter, and I’m not kidding here, this one twenty page chapter that had only nineteen frames, covering probably about 15 seconds in a match. How do you have less frames than pages? I don’t fucking know but Captain Tsubasa did it. This is the same thing – trying to cram as little real content into a single chapter as possible. Artistically (in terms of how frames are arranged and how scenes are drawn, as well as how some lines are worded) Bleach is probably the best of the three shounen series I follow weekly, and several pages this week stand out. However in terms of plot progression and actually having something exciting happening, Bleach just utterly fails. I can no longer feel the excitement that I did when I wrote posts like this, and I pretty much just follow Bleach now in the hope that the Hueco Mundo arc would fucking end already and we can get back to some good old fashioned fights, instead of overpowered-in-one-second mismatches.

Naruto 356

Konoha’s search for Sasuke and Itachi continues. Sakura brushes shoulder with meganekko whose name I can never remember. Naruto’s team has a surprise meeting with Kabuto, who appears to be possess by Orochimaru. Meanwhile the Akatsuki team of Deidara and Tobi finds Sasuke and attacks him.

Yeah Kishimoto you can go fuck yourself too. Orochimaru is alive? How? How the fuck did Orochimaru, who gave up his body in trying to possess Sasuke, and was in turn possessed by Sasuke, still have a will or mind to possess Kabuto? He couldn’t possibly have tried to possess Kabuto beforehand – it’s pretty clear that Orochimaru’s jutsu only allows him occupancy of one body at a time, since it’s a transferal of his own soul. Unless he tried to withdraw his soul and stop his jutsu half-way through possessing Sasuke, his soul should’ve been destroyed by Sasuke. Spin your way out of this one, Kishimoto, and it’d better be satisfactory.

Kabuto’s whole speech is pretty pointless. It serves to show us a little of the reason behind his loyalty to Orochimaru, but I’ve long ago lost any interest in him as a character. I don’t see any purpose for his existence past the chuunin exam. Apart from the fact that he’s Orochimaru’s subordinate, and that there’s no convenient way of getting rid of him, his existence hasn’t made any impact to how the story’s played out. And now it’s like he’s possessed just because he’s there, and because someone, probably the editors at Jump, doesn’t want Orochimaru, as the primary villain for most of Naruto, to be written off so undramatically.

I wonder if we’ll see Sasuke fight the Akatsuki. I don’t want Tobi to die yet, he’s funny!

One Piece 458

Funniest scene this week – “A hot chick sword master is coming with meat!”

Franky and Robin meets up with Usopp and Chopper, and they proceed to go rescue Sanji, Zoro and Luffy. The 900th zombie refuses to obey Moria, saying that he wants to be the Pirate King, completely inheriting Luffy’s personality. Brook recalls how he originally discovered the weakness of the zombies, and how he was first chased off the island by the zombie possessing his shadow, as he couldn’t match up at all to the power of the body, as he once again faces him.. Back on the boat, Franky and the others find the three kidnapped members safe and sound. They wake them up and prepare to go rescue Nami.

It’s surprising how Oz is able to disobey Moria. I thought part of Moria’s ability is that he can force obedience on the shadows he procures? Whatever happens next, Oz will become a difficult enemy for Luffy to defeat, because of his giant state. It’s similar to Luffy being in his third gear at all time.

A interesting effect concerning the Shadow Shadow Fruit will be glimpsed in the next chapter – as the shadow’s original owner continue to grow in strength and experience, will the zombie that has his shadow grow as well? If the shadow does indeed forget everything that happens while it was with its original owner, there shouldn’t be any reason why it remains connected to the original owner.

Also, it can be seen from Brook’s recollection that a zombie is significantly stronger than the shadow’s owner. Unless Moria under-estimate Zoro like he did with Sanji, it seems a difficult battle awaits Zoro and, in particular, Luffy, who’ll be forced to fight Oz to regain his shadow.

This opens some interesting possibility in my mind. If Luffy cannot beat Oz by himself, I think it would be very fun to see some real co-operative fights or fights with a lot of strategy, instead of one person being simply stronger than another, as is the case in most shounen. Hunter x Hunter style fights in One Piece would be damn amazing.

I continue to love how Oda weaves in jokes throughout each chapter. I was laughing so hard at the final scene in this chapter I was left with a stomach ache.

From Digital Battle

The answer is a resounding NO. Orochimaru gets pwned by Itachi so easily that it’s not even a joke. It’s not even a chapter-long fight, it’s just 2 bloody pages! The sannin genius Orochimaru loses in probably what is the fastest fight ever in Naruto, maybe except for the Tenten vs Temari fight in the Chuunin Exams.

I was expecting some crazy battle where Orochimaru busts out his S or A ranked jutsus and Itachi uses his Sharingan to counter them and maybe use his own jutsus. A chapter would have sufficed since I expected Itachi to somehow overpower Orochimaru as hinted but Itachi just looks at him and rapes Orochimaru with one genjutsu! A paralysing genjutsu with nice visual of giant stakes slamming through Orochimaru’s body, and when Orochimaru feebly tries to do a jutsu, Itachi calmly chops off that famous forearm.

Now the burning question begets itself once again: why did Itachi run away from Jiraiya instead of raping him with all his broken Sharingan genjutsus or even use his Mangekyou Sharingan jutsus? Of course this question has been around ever since Itachi ran away since it was a conundrum when Orochimaru was scared of Itachi, yet Itachi ran away from Jiraiya….but Orochimaru obviously has no fear of Jiraiya and even thinks Jiraiya is a bumbling idiot.

Itachi himself said that at best they would suffer heavy injuries and at worst both sides would die. But yet against Orochimaru, Itachi could have very easily killed him with zero injury at all. After all Itachi says “Orochimaru, no matter what jutsus, they are useless before these eyes” but why say that to Orochimaru and not to Jiraiya? Why rape Orochimaru so easily but yet have no confidence in beating Jiraiya? Does Itachi know something about Jiraiya’s fighting style that we don’t?

While it’s true that Jiraiya seems to rely heavily on summoning jutsu variations which cannot be copied by the Sharingan, surely itachi is more than just his Sharingan. Even before he got the Sharingan, Itachi was already lauded as a super prodigy and of course he wiped out his whole clan which is no easy feat. I’m sure he has many powerful jutsus up his sleeve as well. But I really wish we got to see Jiraiya fight seriously; in fact I was expecting him to have a grand finale against Orochimaru but that doesn’t seem quite likely anymore.

Beside the lame deus ex machina explanation that the story forced Itachi to run away from Jiraiya, who do you think was lying or telling the truth about who is stronger than the other?

She mainly does Bleach and Naruto and the following two are examples of her comics:


Bleach

Naruto

If you wanna see her gallery (you know you want to hehehe), the following is a link to her profile in DeviantArt:
one-of-the-clayr.deviantart.com

I don’t really know if the picture counts as a spoiler or not but just to be safe I put it under a cut.

Click on a thumbnail to enlarge.

If you couldn’t be bothered to click on those thumbnails, Sakura is sitting in her room, having a cry over Sasuke while Naruto is training hard. This scene encompasses everything I hate about Sakura’s character.

1) She does jack shit.
2) She cries. A lot. While doing jack shit.
3) JACK SHIT AND CRYING ARE ALL SHE DOES.

Does she serve a purpose to the plot except for making it even more emo? No. For both Naruto and Sasuke, she’s less important to them than each other (remember Naruto spent two and half years training while thinking of Sasuke. If that’s not gay I don’t know what is). She doesn’t fight – in fact, she can’t. She didn’t beat Sasori, she acted as a puppet while the Sand Grandma did all the real work. Even in the beginning, in the Water Country , the Chuunin exam, and the ‘we’re a team but let’s split up and have five one on one fights aren’t I clever’ arcs she never did a single noteworthy thing.

Her personality isn’t even likeable. She says she’ll work hard, and according to Tsunade she did. But what results do we see form her hard work? Oh yay you healed a sub character! AWESOME. Let’s not mention her double-personality crap. It doesn’t make her interesting, it just makes her a bitch. And what happened to her supposed talent for genjutsu? Oh wait, that’s right. Nobody likes her, so why bother spending time actually developing her character and making her useful?

(I’m giving you a hint on what to do Kishimoto. If you somehow happen to stumble across this blog, I want to tell you that I love you for writing and drawing Naruto, but I hate you for creating Sakura. Either dump her or make her interesting. Actually, just dump her, you’ll probably fail at making her interesting anyway.)

Naruto disapproves. Actually, what is this guy trying to do?

I don’t know how Kishimoto failed to make the lead female character of Naruto likeable, when the Naruto world is filled with interesting and complex characters. Even the Akatsuki and the Sand Grandma, who only showed up for a short time, are better characters than Sakura, not to mention the numerous Leaf ninjas.

As far as I can tell, she’s only there to make Naruto and Sasuke not blatantly gay. Of course, that doesn’t stop the yaoi fangirls from making millions of NaruSasu slash doujins/pics/fics, which proves that she fails at her only purpose.

It’s about time Kishimoto killed off more characters, and I nominate Sakura for starting the blood rite.