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Kishimoto Masashi - Naruto, vol. 16-20
I read vols. 16-18ish before the PotC 2 Debate of DOOM and IBARW, so my memory is rather fuzzy.
I still haven't been entirely sucked into the story, but I suspect that may be more because my reading keeps being interrupted by discussions of racism. I think this confuses my brain a lot.
First things first: I met Itachi! I had a very difficult time telling him apart from Sasuke before realizing that Itachi had deep grooves framing his nose. These are obviously marks of Moral Depravity.
Also, Sasuke continues to be emo as Itachi and co. hunt down Naruto. And yay to Gai and Kakashi fighting people back to protect Naruto!
But more importantly, female Hokage! Tsunade emerges! There is backstory! I probably should have realized that ninja die young, but for some reason, I thought they would at least last longer than their twenties. Naruto's age suddenly makes much more sense (aside from the demographics and etc. of the readers).
Tsunade rocks. I was a little scared she'd be pushed to the side and stereotypically feminine like Sakura and Ino and Hinata, particularly after I discovered that she's a horrible gambler and a healer to boot. But then, I found out that she kicks ass as well! Also, giant slug. Really, what more could you want? And! She has her own extremely tragic backstory, involving people that she wants to protect (or did?) as well! I feel like too often in shounen, the women become the tragic backstory figures or the people being protected, while the guys get tragic backstories often involving their mothers, sisters or lovers, and an increased desire to protect people.
So I was very glad to have Tsunade.
Also, I just love the idea of Tsunade, Orochimaru and Jiraiya maybe once having been a team like Team 7.
My current on-crack theory is that Tsunade is Naruto's aunt or somehow related, just because her little brother looks so much like Naruto.
I continue to completely not care about anything that happens with and/or about Orochimaru. He just keeps coming back!
And I continue to adore Jiraiya and his training of Naruto: "Go try this! I'm going to go look at girls."
I still haven't been entirely sucked into the story, but I suspect that may be more because my reading keeps being interrupted by discussions of racism. I think this confuses my brain a lot.
First things first: I met Itachi! I had a very difficult time telling him apart from Sasuke before realizing that Itachi had deep grooves framing his nose. These are obviously marks of Moral Depravity.
Also, Sasuke continues to be emo as Itachi and co. hunt down Naruto. And yay to Gai and Kakashi fighting people back to protect Naruto!
But more importantly, female Hokage! Tsunade emerges! There is backstory! I probably should have realized that ninja die young, but for some reason, I thought they would at least last longer than their twenties. Naruto's age suddenly makes much more sense (aside from the demographics and etc. of the readers).
Tsunade rocks. I was a little scared she'd be pushed to the side and stereotypically feminine like Sakura and Ino and Hinata, particularly after I discovered that she's a horrible gambler and a healer to boot. But then, I found out that she kicks ass as well! Also, giant slug. Really, what more could you want? And! She has her own extremely tragic backstory, involving people that she wants to protect (or did?) as well! I feel like too often in shounen, the women become the tragic backstory figures or the people being protected, while the guys get tragic backstories often involving their mothers, sisters or lovers, and an increased desire to protect people.
So I was very glad to have Tsunade.
Also, I just love the idea of Tsunade, Orochimaru and Jiraiya maybe once having been a team like Team 7.
My current on-crack theory is that Tsunade is Naruto's aunt or somehow related, just because her little brother looks so much like Naruto.
I continue to completely not care about anything that happens with and/or about Orochimaru. He just keeps coming back!
And I continue to adore Jiraiya and his training of Naruto: "Go try this! I'm going to go look at girls."