Naruto, Volume 44: Senjutsu Heir

This volume was a nice change of pace. We get a renewal of goals for Naruto, a bit of comic relief to offset his Master's death, and the beginning of a great training montage. Do I like training montages? Why yes, yes I do. I don't find them tedious or pointless at all. I am, after all, also a student of Dragonball.

More importantly, for this volume, I really loved the big reveal scenes for Sasuke's postmortem. Ready to level up, Sasuke? Oh yeah, and everything you ever thought you knew is wrong! Muahahaha. Evil, evil Kishimoto.

Nothing good or bad about this episode.

Not really enjoying the eight tail angle .
Like the dissent between suigetsu and sasuke.
Intrigued by the Karin angle a little bit . Excited to know about the writer's angle.

Liked knowing the senjutsu part.
In short an average episode post something so heart wrenching.
I think the reader needs that.

This volume was a tad boring. Since there's more training (the Sage jutsu stuff), it was heavy on complicated jutsu explanations. I was also somewhat taken aback by how abbreviated (?) the grieving in this volume felt. One or several characters say that there's no time to grieve, and this carried through several volumes - a lot of tremendously bad stuff happens in the next few volumes, but, since the characters didn't get much time to process and feel it, it felt like there was less emotional impact.

Oh, and Eight Tails' jinchuriki raps when he talks. Reading his dialogue was so annoying that I found myself skimming it more often than not.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)