Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-5407586-20150624095943/@comment-6036561-20150702111941

Seelentau wrote: Also, Sasuke said that Deidara used the same Earth sign in all of his techniques, and not all of his techniques "broke" like the C4 did. So yeah, even that's a kind of explosion.

Because with the Doton sign Deidara can manipulate the Clay, letting them move (like the "normal" ones) or, in the case of the C4, breaking it into little bombs. The breaking was not an explosion, not in the sense that it unleashed the Explosion release chakra. The explosion came only after, with the Katsu sign