Impression
Sasuke’s gone to all this trouble of resurrecting the former Hokage, and in the end his aim is to ask about Itachi yet again – the truth behind Itachi has actually been considered accepted wisdom in the fandom for ages now. I realize it’s sort of dubious when coming from Tobi or maybe Danzo, but its odd that Sasuke is looking for even more confirmation after having just heard it straight from the horse’s mouth – Itachi himself. Well, I suppose he does get to ask Hashirama certain things about the village and its history, and it’s of course quite nice to see real personalities come from Hashirama and Tobirama this time round. Orochimaru really does seem content with fulfilling Sasuke’s desires for now, though he’s gained a lot from helping him. In addition to his arms, it’s worth mentioning that he’s chosen a Zetsu to migrate to – meaning he’s granted himself access to Mokuton as well.
Hashirama and Tobirama said many interesting things about the Uchiha clan. We’d already known the Sharingan is closely linked to strong emotions, but Tobirama confirmed that it’s a structured condition that directly bridges love and hate – with the extra power gained by the Uchiha being used to exact revenge on the object of that hate. It’s a ‘curse” that has some genetic basis to it – and pretty much all of them (apart from Itachi I guess) have fallen foul to it. Even though Tobirama says the Uchiha harbour strong love (and I do get where he’s coming from, given Sasuke’s Mangekyou for example) I think it’s a pretty twisted sort of love if it ends up eventually reversing into hate. And for all the love displayed by the Senju, Tobirama is really militant with how he treats the Uchiha. He probably made things much worse during his time as Hokage (presumably after Hashirama died) which was continued on through Danzo once Sarutobi took over as Hokage. It’s actually fortunate that Hashirama was much stronger than Tobirama was, and could keep him in line when required – things would be really, really different now if the latter was in charge right from the outset. Hashirama is actually insane, and puts pretty much every other ninja in the show (except Madara) to shame – he’s been having to deal with Susanoo-powered Kyuubi attacks and Bijuudamas even back during the formation of Konoha, and here our current cast is running and screaming just dealing with one or two.
And with this, I’m caught up! Episodes in the following weeks will be a series of flashbacks detailing Hashirama and Madara’s long history together, but they’ll be really interesting – we’ll be taken back to a time before there were any hidden villages or real shinobi, and only clans like the Senju or Uchiha existed. And you can bet they weren’t on friendly terms even back then.