Naruto Shippuden Episode 252: A Bridge to Peace

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Summary

Tobi sets out to obtain Nagato’s Rinnegan eyes, and ends up fighting Konan in Amegakure to make her reveal where she hid Nagato’s body. Tobi mentions that it was him that spurred Yahiko to form Akatsuki as well as giving Nagato his eyes, claiming that he therefore has a right to take it back. As Konan states her reasons for leaving Akatsuki and believing in Naruto, she splits apart the sea in Amegakure, intending to destroy Tobi with it.

Impression

Konan was so awesome this episode!

I love how they showcase all these S-rank missing-nin throughout the series, then reveal them as being the master of only one style of ninjutsu or technique – like with Deidara, it was his clay bombs, and with Sasori his puppets. Hidan did pretty much nothing except swing his scythe around, and at least Kakuzu had his elemental heart masks. For Konan, it’s all about paper, so I was actually pretty awestruck to see all the things she could do with exploding paper tags, even after that last battle with Jiraiya. That sea of paper (Kami no Shisha no Jutsu) is definitely not on the list of things I thought she was capable of, and apparently Tobi seriously underestimated her too. There was a scene from the manga that I really hoped they’d replicate, but unfortunately they spent time animating the paper. Still up there on the list of epic jutsu though.

Though Konan seems to be only proficient with paper, notice that out of all the people Tobi’s fought so far, she’s the only one that managed to blow off an arm completely. I think it was too severely damaged to regenerate like he did when fighting Minato where he white sludged himself a new arm however. And even then she still has enough chakra to pull off such a massive scale attack.

I nearly forgot the length of time the Ame Orphans spent around Jiraiya after the war ended, but they’ve sure changed between the time from when they were kids to working in Akatsuki to try and overthrow Hanzo. All three of them looked extremely affected by war compared to their carefree younger selves. It was probably their unique situation growing up on a battlefield, since look at the rest of Konoha’s teenage population! It’s true more or less everything in Konoha is an exception, them being the main hidden village and all. Anyway, I did find Konan’s voice a lot more controlled than I thought it was – I never did like her adult seiyuu, her voice turns out a bit too deep every time.

One thing I didn’t like was the unnecessary flashbacks that reminded us of the Naruto vs Pain battle – when you take those as well as the Amegakure flashbacks out, you have one attack where Tobi’s arm got blown off, then another one introduced before the episode ends. It just felt a bit too drawn out, as if they’re trying to stall for one reason or another. Anyway, I’m pretty sure the battle ends next week, and there’s one particular scene I hope they animate well.

…I think I’ll ignore what I think I saw a snippet of at the end of the preview, which is Bleach’s replacement Naruto spin-off show, with something to do with Rock Lee. No way in hell am I going near that.