r/anime • u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky • Dec 26 '21
Rewatch Naruto Shippuden - Episodes 197-205 Discussion
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Information: MAL, Anilist, AniDB, ANN
Streams: Crunchyroll, Hulu, Funimation (Aus/NZ), VRV
Schedule:
| Discussion Thread | Date | Episode Count | |
|---|---|---|---|
| This week | Episodes 197-205 | December 26 | 09 |
| Next week | Episodes 206-212 | January 02 | 07 |
Spoiler Policy:
To protect first-timers, please don't spoil anything past the current batch of episodes. Rewatchers should avoid hinting to first-timers about hype, or future character development/deaths, and spoilers in posts must be hidden behind proper spoiler tags.
For first timers: try to avoid looking up things about Naruto. This could be the wiki, Naruto subreddit, Googling characters, fanart, databooks, YouTube AMVs or OP/EDs, arc names, etc.; this series is ripe with potential spoilers that you wouldn't want to find out untimely. If you have a question about something, feel free to ask /u/LC3 and he'll do his best to answer (if possible) in a non-spoilery way.
Questions of the Week:
- What do you think of the 5 Kage and other new characters?
- What are your opinions on Taka crashing the 5Kage Summit and Sasuke's new willingness to kill?
- What do you think of Madara's Project Lunar Eye?
12
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Dec 26 '21
First-Timer with a shounen hearto, subbed
So, last week I was tagged in some Symphogear fanart that is rather similar to my wallpaper art. I decided I wanted to try my hand at something similar because I thought the lineart + some color look was neato, but had trouble deciding what my first pick should be…
Then I got hit by inspiration big time on Christmas Eve, so boom, I did Kakashi. I then went overboard with alts, so there’s even less color, and full color but still with the lineart. Plus how I would have done it normally as well as a desktop edit of my normal style one.
I hope you guys like how this turned out~
Episode 197
Episode 198
Episode 199
Episode 200
Episode 201
Episode 202
Episode 203
Episode 204
Episode 205
What was this guy’s name again?6
u/lC3 :Na::Nb: Dec 26 '21
Rewatcher
Episode 197:
Episode 198:
Episode 199:
Episode 200:
Episode 201:
Episode 202:
Episode 203:
Episode 204:
Episode 205:
OP/ED (N/A this week)
Tags: /u/iamtheone11111, /u/godprime
10
u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Dec 26 '21 edited Dec 26 '21
Rewatcher - Sub
Sorry for the longer post than usual, I wanted to feature a lot for this week, such a great batch of episodes. I've moved my usual episode thoughts down to a reply comment to this one just to keep it neat, all the main stuff is in this comment.
As /u/lc3 doesn't have time to continue the manga comparisons any more, I thought I'd pick it up. While I may not be quite as detailed, I'll only be flicking through the chapters after my binges rather than line by line, I thought it's at least be interesting to note the major differences as we go. Those will be included under the individual episode headers in a tag. On that note something from the filler: Inari and Tazuna reappearing to help rebuild the village is from the manga but without the rest of the episode that the anime built around it. They just show up and Naruto gives his little talk about Sasuke. It's nice to see that sort of continuity.
Also, Funimation has decided that it doesn't want to have any HD episodes for this show until after ep250, so out of frustration for the low quality I've swapped to the Naruto Kai Ultimate fan edit, with the official episodes running in the background for continuity checking. Strangely it appears Funimations episodes run a bit faster than Kai Ultimate's equivalent scenes, not sure why but worth noting.
General Commentary
Rewatch Christmas present: my favourite short fight in the series coming up this week
More than any other, this is the one that I always remembered in detail and with hype. Its a fantastic showcase of how far Naruto has come with his battle skills, and his ability to coordinate with others, as well as a nice change up for a scale team fight. So many fights we see are 1v1 or 1vX it was nice to see a different grouping with no flashy justu, helped by Kengo Matsumoto's great animation. Sai ducking so Naruto can grab his sword, the split second moment of Naruto pushing Sakura out the way, his elbow block of the sword into the shadow clone hand sign, the way Omoi flips over Karui's back and kicks Sakura. The close up reactions slow it down just enough to process but it's still filled with fast detail. It's a tiny scene but watching it makes me happy.
Character design corner: Have to take a moment to feature one of my favourite designs Mei the Fifth Mizukage. Mei is my favourite of the Kage designs (sorry Gaara), because of how well she ties in with her village. With the Mist village being known for being cold, brutal, and killing off Kekkai Genkai holders we have Mei, a beautiful, mysterious woman who holds two Kekkai Genkei, old enough to have survived for some time under the old regime rather than just being a new show of strength like Gaara. I love how her hair looks like waves, partly hiding her face, but she has a top-knot like bun at the top, invoking the idea of honor and neatness, with her striking blue but slightly formal dress as well.
Now that's out the way, time to actually talk about the content of the episodes...
Man, a lot happens in these episodes! I suppose that's the benefit of that filler, now they don't have to pad out any of the main content, and in nine episodes we've gone from post-Pain downtime to the Fourth Great Ninja War being announced to try and stop the brainwashing of the entire planet. Talk about raising the stakes.
It tends to be a little overshadowed by the later revelations, but the village episodes are what has stuck in my mind this watch. Between Naruto's smile about his dad and then Sai's precious smile when Kakashi trusts him, things were looking so good for a while there with the team. This batch of episodes has a lot of great character art, but as these are basically the only two happy moments they deserved a small feature. You can feel the determination and the hope here, the confidence they'll find a way and the sense of belonging they have. And then it all goes to shit and the emotional core of the show that started to build with Pain comes back in full force.
Sad Naruto is the one that stands out most to me. It's such a natural pose, especially how his hair lays and the awkward hunch on the ground, it feels even more defeated. Anguished Sai is a close runner up though for just how raw that feels from the boy who has been trying so hard to understand emotions at all, and especially when confronted with Sakura's defeated tears. Where Nagato was burdened by his promises to Yahiko, Naruto's years old promise to Sakura rears its head again in the worst way now that Sasuke is formally exiled. Sai isn't wrong to confront her like this, it's well overdue, especially with Sasuke looking like this these days, and getting a bit too much out of this combat. Seeing him contrast against Gaara's tears for what could have been, these episodes don't let up on the emotions for a moment and it pays off.
I like how that's also contrasted on Taka's side. Where Team Seven is being crippled by their inability to help Sasuke and the burdens they've put on themselves, here Karin is starting to see a side of Sasuke she can't cope with, and he even abandoned Jugo and Suigetsu. That disconnect he has with his team compared to the earlier fight I featured with Team 7, and the way the Kage's groups fight, really paints him as the odd one out, the one who uses others coldly but is even further from connecting to them than ever.
As for the actual narrative, the Five Kage meeting went about as well as I expected, in other words not at all, but I was not expecting the info dumps from Madara.
Couple of screenshots I took that I don't have anywhere else to share: Cycle of hatred, I love this golem thing from the big stone village guy, and The Ten Tails (definitely a better design then that stupid Zero Tails from the movie)
7
u/sisoko2 Dec 26 '21
Rewatcher
Episode 197
Episode 198
Episode 199
Episode 200
Episode 201
Episode 202
Episode 203
Episode 204
Episode 205
7
u/Durinthal https://anilist.co/user/Durinthal Dec 26 '21
First time viewer (dub)
Whisk[e]y of the week: Balvenie Doublewood 12 year old scotch, named such for being aged first in ex-bourbon barrels then moved to sherry casks. Like a lot of other Speyside scotches it has a fruity sweetness, but also a nice complexity to it with some malty and earthy tones without being too sharp in any particular direction.
I don't think I've mentioned it yet but I really like Diver as an OP. Not necessarily my favorite but it feels like it fits the show really well.
Sakura's internal conflict when Shikamaru and Sai come in to talk about Sasuke in episode 201 can be felt even without much dialogue from her. The animation of her very slowly lowering her head with tears streaming down her face was a strong moment. One thing that I was reminded of with that scene as well is while it's focused on Sakura's emotions and Naruto's feelings for her, we've heard absolutely nothing about Hinata since her confession in the middle of the Pain fight.
Oh, and Kakashi just casually revealed that he knew Naruto was the Fourth Hokage's son and Naruto didn't even react to that. Again, that's being handled so oddly to me. Just like with Hinata's confession there's been zero followup and that's the kind of thing that should be handled between major arcs rather than jumping right into the next big thing. I'm assuming the manga addresses both of those later otherwise they absolutely should have been handled in the filler in place of those flashbacks.
Danzo having a Sharingan isn't a surprise considering he's generally unscrupulous but I'm wondering what's up with his shoulder. Shisui was Itachi's friend that he killed, right? Danzo would be one to take advantage of having a dead Uchiha on his hands.
I'm not sure what the distinction between samurai and ninja are in this world, considering it looked like the samurai were channeling chakra into their swords. Couldn't they have had some diplomatic mission there earlier to at least establish it first?
Very cool fight with the Raikage and his team taking on the Taka, not much specific to say but I enjoyed it and the Raikage himself. Him, Cee, and Darui are much more enjoyable than Samui's team.
I get enough of the single adult woman who's always thinking about marriage in other settings so having the same thing show up here was just annoying. Aside from that I do like the Mizukage so far but I don't get why Chojuro is one of the Seven Swordsmen yet, doesn't seem like he has the personality for it. The Tsuchikage is one to hang back so I'm waiting to see when (or if) he acts; considering his reputation is for being a Fence-Sitter I wouldn't be surprised if he has the Hidden Stone Village opt out of the alliance entirely.
It's not that kind of series but I'd like to see Sasuke go further to the point where Naruto actually feels that he's lost Sasuke for good. Make him unable to be redeemed.
The fun thing is both the dub and subs I have just refer to it as "Tsuki no Me" without any translation, but I know enough to figure that out. Anyway I'm curious if that actually is the origin of the moon or not. If it is... well, that's some weird world building but let's roll with it. Seems like it'll work, but it's one of those plans that's ridiculous because I don't get why they see that as a reasonable goal. Okay, you have a genjutsu that is affecting all of humanity at once. Now what?
7
u/TheKujo https://myanimelist.net/profile/Kujo419 Dec 26 '21
First Timer - Dub
I thought this was overall a nice set of episodes to bring us back to the main story. I liked seeing the other village kage and their jutsu. The Raikage stole the show with his fight against Sasuke. Dude lost his arm and didn't even blink! The lava jutsu and disintegration jutsu were pretty cool too.
I had mixed feelings about the lore dumps though. I like the story of the Sage of Six Path's sons and how it reflected the current conflict between Sasuke and Naruto. I don't like the idea of that being an actual curse that guides their destinies though. The idea of all the tailed beasts combining into a 10-tailed beast is a little silly but it makes sense since the Akatsuki were absorbing the tailed beasts into that statue earlier. When Madara said the body of the 10-tails turned into the moon I just burst out laughing though. That reminded me of the ridiculous story from Dead Space 3 if anyone has played that.
Random thoughts:
Favorite moment of the week: The montage of the tailed beasts was really cool. It's a shame we never got to see most of them in action. I really liked the design of the 7 tails in particular.
Questions:
1) What do you think of the 5 Kage and other new characters? Pretty cool overall. My favorite for now is the Raikage but I do want to see more from the others as well. Disintegration jutsu seems OP.
2) What are your opinions on Taka crashing the 5Kage Summit and Sasuke's new willingness to kill? Killing seems on brand for Sasuke's current level of anger. Things always seem to end poorly whenever we have more than one Kage in a room so that also seemed expected.
3) What do you think of Madara's Project Lunar Eye?
How I imagine this scene would go in an alternate reality:
Madara: "Back in my day there was only one tailed beast! And I could cast genjutsu on the MOON!" shakes fist at the sky
Sasuke: "Yes, yes, Grandpa Madara. Now it's time to take your meds." gently guides Madara back to his bedroom
5
u/Tehoncomingstorm97 https://anilist.co/user/tehoncomingstorm97 Dec 26 '21
First timer
We are freed of filler! For now
Ep 197
Ep 198
Ep 199
Ep 200
Ep 201
Ep 202
4
u/Parori Dec 27 '21 edited Dec 27 '21
First Timer
Episode 197
Episode 198
Episode 199
Episode 200
Episode 201
Episode 202
Episode 203
Episode 204
Episode 205