As Naruto and Sasuke are moments away from being absorbed by Kaguya, Black Zetsu tells the boys the truth behind this world of lies.
The Good
Well, I certainly can't complain when the writer answers the questions I was having almost immediately after I raised them. I'm not going to fault Kishimoto for going into more detail about Kaguya's motivations. Although, sometimes not knowing some answers are better when the truth is so poorly thought out and explained.
The Bad
"Auugh!!" That's the best reaction I can give you after finishing this issue. That's right, it's a Charlie Brown exasperation. This chapter exists to relay a ton of exposition all at once that explains that pretty much everything you thought you knew was just an overly complicated manipulation. Black Zetsu suddenly becomes a plot device to force feed us the "real" truth, but even that is filled with gaps. Kaguya and the Divine Tree are suppose to be one in the same, but when and why did that happen?
Let's try and get some of this mess straightened out. Okay, Pain was being manipulated by Obito, yet he was being controlled by Madara, and Madara was apparently the unwitting puppet of Black Zetsu, who is the bastard child of Kaguya and has been manipulating everyone against each other. You know what this all means now, don't you? Every single villain this entire series has raised you to hate/fear was never fully responsible for their own actions. I thought it was fine when it came to Pain. Every writer gets one or two, but all of them?
This was all just a giant wind up to resurrect Kaguya, a character who's name was never even mentioned until a few months ago. This is hardly the time to be pulling the rug out from under your audience. When Tite Kubo did something similar with the truth behind Old Man Zangetsu, that at least made sense. That's because there were always little hints spread throughout the years. Kishimoto is pulling this out of nowhere, unceremoniously dropping it into our laps, and expecting us to just accept it.
Verdict 1/5
Did Kishimoto go to the M. Night Shyamalan school of storytelling? Almost literally this entire chapter is telling you that one thing was actually something else. After ten-plus years of NARUTO, Kishimoto is both erasing and rewriting the series' history. If it wasn't for the quality in the artwork, I'd be sorely tempted to rate this a 0 out of 5.
All this negativity is really getting me down. I'm in no way happy about this, but what do you expect from me? At the eleventh hour, we're being told that everything the story has been teaching us about the series' mythos is false. I'm not feeling any fun reading this story.
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About the Author
 | Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt) is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and over all mystery geek. Follow for news updates: @AnimeVicers/@FoxxFireArt / http://kristofferremmell.tumblr.com/ |
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