Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-12509038-20141124214040/@comment-8284722-20141225042936

Fair enough, Tenten probably wouldn't do much good in sealing Madara (nor would Sai come to think of it), but still - why did Kishi add it in if she was just going to be IT'd? Personally, Sasuke is my favorite villain of Naruto as a whole, though Obito is a close second. He was just such a unique villain compared to all the rest and his impact on the plot completely shows him as anything but a Vegeta clone. But it, along with everything else, fits neatly into my one-line summary. All of the bonds in Naruto involve Naruto giving them a dose of love, resulting in acknowledgement and coming one step closer every time. First there was Iruka (NOT HINATA!!), then Konohamaru, then Kakashi, then Zabuza, then the Land of Waves, then Sakura, then the rest of the Konoha 11, then the Sand Siblings, then Jiraiya, then Tsunade and Shizune, then Chiyo, then Sai and Yamato, then Itachi, then the Toads, then Nagato and Konan, then all of Konoha, then B, then the Allied Shinobi Forces (along with nearly the whole world), then Obito, then Madara, and finally Sasuke. The Gedo Statue thing probably will never get resolved, but oh well to that personally. To be honest, I'd rather not there be all this Post-Ch. 699 conflict. It seems as if it's just one-to-three things: either to ensure that Naruto and Hinata are a fully-functioning couple (The Last in particular), to show how epic (and Gohan-cloney) Boruto is, and/or the most likely one, to keep the Naruto brand up and running way too early in advance. Naruto created world peace. Why the hell do we need more conflict afterwards??? Naruto's generation was meant to be the perfect generation - they should act like it. Then there's Naruto and Sasuke's final battle - it was utterly perfect. There were two things I'd have changed though: the Talk no Jutsu comes later or not at all, and in the end Naruto truly stands victorious rather than it being a physical stalemate (even if both still lost their arms). Otherwise though, this is a battle to be reckoned with. Can't wait for the anime adaptation - that way I can size it up with Naruto vs. Pain once and for all.

I also wanted to give my two-bits in the Karin discussion you have with Plane. I think I understand her obsession. Look - I FEEL for Taka. They were just a bunch of kids with hopes and dreams of their own, only to be cut short by Orochimaru and deprived of literally everything they had. Then Sasuke saved them. So obviously, Karin would feel for Sasuke. He gave her and the others a second chance at life. So I accept her feelings despite her personality creating a number of flaws. And Kishi completely trolling with a ton of his characters by not giving them satisfying conclusions - Taka included - makes me convinced he was intentionally avoiding the subject for some reason. I believe that Taka should've continued traveling with Sasuke on his journey, seeking their own redemptions and achieving their own goals together. As you might've seen on my own recent thread, I ended up doing that in the script, mainly due to Kishi's ambiguity.

For Minato, the scene where he stops Naruto's full-blown transformation and has the talk with him is probably my favorite part of the entire Invasion of Pain Arc - aka my favorite arc. That part made my day for Minato. I don't have much of an opinion on his fight scenes, but they were pretty dramatic at times ("Because I'm a father" and "Happy Birthday") and then he gets his arms chopped off - and does one-handed jutsus!

I haven't fully read Rachin's thing; probably will get to that soon.