145. Explosion! New Formation Ino-Shika-Chou

Another Quick Note: As I probably should have done in the first place, and not let myself be lured by the shiny officialness of having a blog on blogger.com, a site that is clearly devoted to blogging, there is now a twin comm for Surprisingly Penetrable on Livejournal: http://community.livejournal.com/naruto_fillers/ where the same content will be posted once a day until it catches up with this one. Since I have a feeling more people use that site, I may enter the heady heights of double digit followers! Hey, a girl can dream. Next week: no more notes, rejoice!

Worth watching as a manga-standard episode? Although I complain about it, I do like that we get some Iruka and Mizuki flashbacks. Even if Mizuki's character does get raped repeatedly by this plot.
Worth watching for the lulz? Yaoi lol.

This episode sets up the reason behind the formation of the teams. Team 10 is for enemy restraint, Team 8 is tracking, Team 7 is for maximum angst and Team Gai is for lulz.


[Team 10 are discussing tactics.]

Chouji: I say we fight these guys.

Ino: Why?

Chouji: Because they hit Asuma-sensei and gave him a bump on the head that was so bad it needed a bandage. And some aspirin!

Ino: Those bastards!

Shikamaru: That's right. They are our sworn enemies because they hurt our sensei. We better make it good because we'll probably never have an epic fight to the finish in a sensei-revenge-fuelled rage.

Chouji & Ino: Ok!


Back in the ultimate chuunin showdown, Mizuki captures Iruka in a genjutsu and then tries to get a puppet to stab him, but it fails. Iruka goes on about what an advanced technique this is, but considering Iruka defeated it in like one move, I find myself less impressed. Mizuki leads him to where they took their Academy teaching exam and why do they keep having the same conversation in different locations. Mizuki asks him how his technique was and all Iruka can do is glare because he's fed up of everyone thinking he's a teacher 24/7. Sometimes he likes to go wild. Usually Saturday so he can go to bed early Sunday for the new school week.

Flashback to Mizuki out on the battlefield. When a teammate gets shot in the leg, he overreacts just a little and decides the bloke has to die. "No one in the village would acknowledge me!" he emos. MAYBE IF YOU DIDN'T FREAKING KILL YOUR TEAMMATES, THEN THEY MIGHT LIKE YOU. Whatever kind of answer he's looking for, Iruka's "try being a good guy" isn't it and we flashback to Iruka passing the teaching exam and Mizuki not because he's a freaky murdering bastard. Have a Kin-twin shot:


Meanwhile, Chouji decides all they need to do is hug it out:


Ino mind-rapes one of the brothers and tries to use him to fight the other, but unfortunately Shikamaru forgot to factor in that her ability is shit. He uses his molestation no jutsu to try and strangle them. Ino tries again with, good god, a new technique. It seems as if it takes out the pesky factor of the pain she causes affecting her own body – which raises the question why she doesn't just use this all the time – confusing her opponent into attacking his comrade. As Ino and Shikamaru feel they can't hold them any longer, Chouji turns up the heat. In the battle dome, we're back to the joy of kunai fighting. Mizuki says he enjoyed prison and considering the amount of times he’s said he wants to play with Iruka, I bet he did. I am not making up the homosexual waves coming off this guy – exhibits A and B:



Naruto approaches the building and we see that, el gaspo, Mizuki's girlfriend has followed him. Iruka uses his vague ninja senses to find that Mizuki has set up a load of exploding tags and as Naruto gets close, the building blows up.

It's like 24, except in no way whatsoever.

Team members: Iruka, Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji (no Naruto!!1)
Number of kage bunshin no jutsus: 0!
Number of rasengans: 0!
Next week: SPOILER: OROCHIMARU IS A BAD MAN.