172. Despair! The Broken Heart

Worth watching as a manga-standard episode? No.
Worth watching for the lulz? See below.

Despair! This arc is has left me in despair!

I don't know what schedule the subbers were originally looking at, but unless they were planning to fit 48 episodes into 7 weeks, I can't see this one happening. Everyone must have had a lovely shock when they found out how many were left. (I haven't been into Naruto long enough to have watched the eps when they originally aired. I know, I'm a poser.)

The gang are trapped in a cave that's collapsing. Maybe if I updated more often, I wouldn't have to remind you of that. Ino uses the skills she didn't learn at the Academy:

and Anko summons a big-ass snake for them to ride out in, unharmed. A convenient boat allows them to hurry after the convoy they've been hired to protect. Despite, to my knowledge, Konoha being nowhere near the sea, Shino proves his hidden depths are indeed deep but not hidden today with his expert sailing skills. Elsewhere, the convoy gets a message that the kaima has been defeated and so they set off with their non-descript bounty. Bandages attacks the ships, breaking the rudders so they hit each other. One of the guards onboard reveals he is really the...leader guy...of the bad guys in this arc. Gah, what have I been calling him, you know, the guy with the grey hair... Kabuto-Wannabe, that's the one! Bandages flops onto the desk to make some scary faces:

Oh the pain! The pain of it all!
and they fear death is approaching:

Past Ninja Dude summons an illusionary fireball from the sky, which is pretty damn badass, making the crew jump into the sea, where he then creates a whirlpool to drown them. Points for effort, none of that sneaking up on people and stabbing them in the throat malarkey. But then the good guys turn up, Shino facing off with Past Ninja Dude and Ino staying in the boat like a good little kunoichi, trying to scoop up the half-drowned convoy crew. Anko appears on deck and gets in a zinger:

Naruto's not far behind, spouting about if you act like a monster that's what really makes you a monster etc and so Bandages does us all a favour and shoves them both into the sea.

I'm gonna go with pupils.
As Naruto and Bandages battle it out underwater, Naruto sends in the clones but after she punches a few of them and hits the real one, he takes it pretty hard and has to lie down on a rock for a while. I mean, this one punch, from a girl, albeit a fish monster, but. You know. It didn't even look that hard. He's had a giant shuriken in his back, nearly tearing him in two. And he shrugged that one off. But this punch. Reeeeeally takes it out of him. He still gabs while he's working that one off and Bandages says she doesn't care who gets hurt so long as she returns to human. Naruto then bitch-slaps her.

*Awesome alert*

Incidentally a Google for 'awesome alert' brings us this:

So let us not disagree that the occasion has been properly recognised.

Naruto bitch-slapped her so hard he has scales embedded in his hand. There are no words. He thinks back on how she saved him, so she can't be bad deep down. Maybe she got so fed up being a fish person she was taking whatever entertainment was going. "Hmm, I could sit around feeling depressed and moist. Or I could save that orange ninja over there."

Kabuto-Wannabe defeats Anko and asks why Bandages hasn't sorted Naruto. Then

Well, why the fuck not.

That's the climax of the ep, folks, and it happens in the middle. Nothing worth noting happens after this point. Not even going to try.

Right, finale next week and then onto something different, thank Jebus.

Team members: Naruto, Shino, Ino and Anko
Number of kage bunshin no jutsus: 2
Number of rasengans: 0!
Next week: BETTER WORDS THAN THIS WEEK. Oh no wait that'll be the week after won't it. NEVER MIND THEN.