Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-12509038-20141029205355/@comment-12509038-20141102011625

Here were eight questions/suggestions I came up with to start a discussion-

1. Did it live up to your expectations?

2. What was your favorite/least favorite moments?

3. What about the fight made it great/okay/terrible?

4. How has the pacing and length affected your view on the fight?

5. Judge the action- as a fight itself, what did you think about it?

6. Judge the emotional impact- how did Naruto and Sasuke's interactions effect you?

7. On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate this fight as a whole?

8. Leave whatever else you want to say about the final battle of the Naruto series!

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Here are my full thoughts on Naruto and Sasuke's final battle!

1. Personally, yes- the fight did live up to my expectations. For years, I had imagined what would happen in their final conflict, and almost everything I had thought of appeared in some form or fashion during this fight- in fact, a lot of it blew my expectations out of the water. Granted, that is because they have evolved so much from what I initially imagined...

2. There are so many amazing moments throughout the course of this battle that it really is difficult to pick a favorite moment. However, since I do have to pick, my favorite would be when they finally run out of chakra and they result to strictly taijutsu. All of that was amazing. While I don't necessarily have any real least favorite moments, I instead have some sort of regret, for lack of a better word. Looking throughout the fight, I do wish that we could have seen a bit more from Naruto's Asura Mode and Sasuke's Tailed Beast-Enhanced Susanoo, along with some other extended scenes from other moments of the fight as well.

3. Looking back on it, this isn't necessarily a good question (but I won't remove it, as a few people have already answered this). Just keep reading in order to see why I think this is a great fight.

4. Given the allotted time, I think both the pacing and length were perfect. For starters, let's look at the pacing. As a whole, Kishi did an excellent job with how he handled the progression of the fight. It started out slowly, then gradually built it's way up to them at their strongest level, and finally finished with them out of chakra and resorting to straight out hand-to-hand combat. As far as the length goes... I do wish that it was longer. If I had only one complaint to give, it would be the length. I always wanted their final fight to be 10-15 chapters minimum. Instead, their final conflict was only about 7 chapters long (from 692-698; yes, I consider the start of the fight at 692 because not only is this where the battle of ideals started, but Sasuke also technically attacked Naruto when he performed the Chibaku Tensei, which started pulling Naruto up as well, but he managed to escape). However, despite this, I do think it was handled well and we got a lot of greatness with the time we were given.

5. The action was absolutely incredible, and based on just an action standpoint, this is probably the best fight we've ever seen in the manga. It literally had everything, ranging from basic combat to nuclear explosions. There's not a lot to talk about when it comes to talking about purely action, but I want to convey everything I loved about the action aspect of this fight since this is my full, detailed thoughts on the fight. Therefore, allow me to summarize my favorite action moments of this battle: Pretty awesome, right?
 * Sasuke's initial attacks in 695. I love how many techniques he used in such a short amount of time. Many of his attacks (Fireball Jutsu, Chidori, Susanoo Arrows, etc.) were used as diversions, but it was handled so excellently that it was always difficult to tell which was supposed to be his true attack. Likewise, it was cool to see how Naruto managed to evade/counter each of Sasuke's attacks.
 * Naruto's Tailed Beast Mode and Sasuke's Perfect Susanoo's multiple clashes, which culminated in the unique spin on their classic Chidori vs. Rasengan clash to epic proportions.
 * Naruto's Tailed Beast Mode Clones take on Sasuke's Tailed Beast-Enhanced Perfect Susanoo.
 * Naruto's two Rasenshurikens clash with Sasuke's Indra's Arrow, resulting in easily the most destructive clash of techniques that we've ever seen in the entire series.
 * After this battle of Gods, Naruto and Sasuke resort to a long battle of basic taijutsu and ninjutsu that lasts an entire day.
 * Naruto (while using the Rasengan) and Sasuke's (while using the Amaterasu-enhanced Chidori) final clash, which hearkens back to their clash at the end of Part I- this was my favorite moments of the entire battle.

6. The emotions I felt during this entire final battle were so varied and so incredible to feel. Throughout this fight, I felt a variety of emotions that varied from excitement, to sadness, to happiness, etc. Kishi did an amazing job with not only making the audience feel certain ways throughout this fight, but he also succeeded in bringing Naruto and Sasuke's relationship to the forefront of the story once again, after it had been neglected for a long time due to the length of this War. There was a time when I forgot that they had such a deep connection. However, all throughout this fight, Naruto's constant lectures to Sasuke about their friendship is what reminded me of all this. Despite that though, I don't think the most emotional moments occurred until this very chapter, where we finally learn just how Sasuke truly felt about Naruto. Their relationship came full circle with this chapter. From this, we see just how powerful their friendship truly is, and that in the end, this basically proves that anything can be overcome if you have a really good friend by your side. I'll elaborate more on this with #8...

7. On a scale of 1-10, I would have to give this fight (call me a crazy fanboy- I don't care!) a 10/10! This was just everything I've been wanted to see for the longest time, and I just can't get over how happy I was during this entire time period. Despite the issues I've mentioned, I feel like the good overwhelmingly overshadow the bad. It's not often that something that's been hyped up for so long actually meets expectations- for that reason, I feel almost obligated to give it this score, and I feel completely justified about it... for the most part.

8. I want to use this to basically just give my concluding thoughts on this fight, as well as mention whatever I failed to mention above.

One of the greater aspects of this fight is that it managed to encompass two completely conflicting ideas- one is that it dealt with the fate of the world (obviously this is the larger one when scaling the two), while the other dealt with Naruto and Sasuke's personal friendship, and Naruto's determination to finally change Sasuke once and for all. It is very difficult to blend these two entirely different concepts together and pull it off successfully- IMO, Kishi managed to do this almost flawlessly. As I have complained in the past, I was disappointed that Naruto didn't have an answer as to how he would ensure peace, while Sasuke did. However, now I realize that Naruto didn't need to answer to Sasuke, and the fact that Naruto's emotional feelings of friendship were the linchpin that managed to stop Sasuke as opposed to an actual logical plan actually fit Naruto's character perfectly, and I think this is the best way for Naruto to have won this conflict. Likewise, Naruto has always been someone who works with others to move forward a particular goal. Therefore, it makes sense that he would want to work together with others in order to come up with a plan of peace as opposed to Naruto solely coming up with a plan that plans to implement with no criticism of others.

In all honesty, I will always have a lot to say about this. I could probably talk about this forever without getting bored (which I why I want to see what you guys also think). So let me just conclude it with this final statement. Everything worked about this fight- I was satisfied with all of it. Ranging from the outstanding action to the amazing interaction between Naruto and Sasuke that just cements how strong their bond is, this was truly an amazing final battle for the Naruto series, and is potentially my favorite fight in the entire series. This is what I had been waiting to see for so long, and in most aspects, I was not disappointed in the least...