There’s finally a decent cover in the Naruto manga. And what’s more, it’s in color! Yes, it’s time to be happy, the brothers finally take it on!

Really little happened in this chapter, but it was one of the most awesome chapters ever.

The fight begins with pure taijutsu with a lot of attacks and smart counters. The series has been missing a good action scene of this type for a long time. The two brothers eventually use gengutsu tricking each other, but Sasuke comes on top dealing a fatal blow. He then says that he’s going to ask a question. I think this question will probably about why he really killed his clan and joined akatsuki. That has been one of the biggest mysteries of the series and one of the reasons Itachi is one of the most popular villains in the Anime/Manga world. It could also be something related to Madara. I guess we will have to wait to find out.

I can’t wait for the next chapter. Whether it will be focusing on Naruto or Sasuke, there’s really no way it can’t be an awesome chapter. I just hope they don’t delay it’s release much, being new year and all.

This chapter kicks in directly to action as Naruto takes Tobi. Although Tobi started with his normal happy/stupid "personality", he counters Naruto with no problems.

We cut back to Jiraya as the frog escapes and Jiraya’s last thoughts are spent on Naruto and his tales. He goes down with a smile.

And we return to Naruto just after being dropped in the river. He bursts out with a cool but serious expression. He knows he’s close to Sasuke this time. All the shinobi present take action to face Tobi. No matter how strong he is, I don’t think he can take all of them.

It seems Jiraya was strong enough to take Pein if had only found out his secret sooner. We also learn who Tobi really is, although there’s no explanation yet to how that could be possible. Zetsu was watching Pein’s fight all the way, he gets all excited knowing about Sasuke and Itachi and he departs to watch their fight. I still don’t understand is role in akatsuki. Is it just to spy and colect information?

The cool dialogue between the Uchiha brothers continues and it seems the next chapter will focus on their fight.

This manga is really turning up to be one of the best I’ve read.

So, I was going to start blogging this series as soon as the next chapter was released. But it seems the next chapter will be the end of the series. Because of that and the fact that the last chapter is taking forever to be scanlated, I decided to blog some of the previous chapters.

This chapter starts light with some humor. But things quickly become serious.  All the characters except Jio, Zero and Jin, reunite and arrive at the Zenon’s Leader place. Ruby recongnises her father as the leader of Zenon, but he doesn’t admit he’s her father. As Ruby gets emotional all the others character get pissed off by Zenon’s leader, Zekuto, and turn to him. Zekuto prepares to take all of them.

Zekuto shows us a some of his powers by instantly taking Cross out of the picture and robing him of his nuclei.

Zekuto explains that the Kaballah either is a parasite that consumes worlds and their information or something like the Noa ship sent from the dying Blue Planet in order to preserve all their information.

The fighting eventually begins and Jio, Zero and Jin join the rest of the group. Although the combined recipe of Zekuto seem impossible to counter Jio is able to consume all the attacks with his devil hand.

Although I liked this chapter, I was expecting something much butter and excitable, being this the final arc and all.

Dattebayo has recently post news on their website stating that they will stop fansubbing due to their work being posted on streaming sites such as Youtube.

Although they are known for their constant trolls, I don’t think they are kidding this time. They have been asking for people to stop uploading their work for a long time now. All their reasons were perfectly plausible and there’s also the fact that their website has been down. Maybe they have taken thier site down for the sake of some anime company.

Still, maybe things aren’t so seriouse and they just used this time of the year (when there’s normally no released anime) to try and scare people.

Anyway, people still need to stop uploading episodes to those sites. I personaly can’t watch an episode in one of those sites. The quality is pretty bad for what I consider acceptable when I’m seriously watching a show. Anyone can get this episodes in full quality real easy.

Sorry for the delay on this one :) 

This chapter starts by showing what’s been going on with the ex-"mustang brigade". Each one has been experiencing the homunculi’s plan one way or another and Fuery is having a difficult time. I hope they all survive for when something is done to counter the Homunculi in the future.

There’s also the appearence of Rose has she meets with Van Hohenheim. He finds the tunnel that Sloth has been digging, which just got finished by the way, and encounters Pride. It’s their first time seing each other and we are explained why pride looks like the original Homunculus when he was in the flask. It’s good to see that Hohenheim is also going to try and stop the Humunculus. He is a very much needed addiction to the "goodies" side.

At the same time, war is also beginning at Briggs. Kimblee seems to have found a good way to take over the fort. Also, Scar’s group is betrayed by one of the chimeras.

The next chapter will certenly be more action-based, with the Humunculus coming and the war unfolding. And we still don’t know what happened to Ed. 

This episode focused on Rukia. The arrancar she founded ended up being Kaien-dono. The story unfolded well with some flashbacks.

Although Kaien-dono seems to be himself, there’s always a strange feeling.

The story behind the strange hollow that fought Kaien-dono is told by Kaien. It seems like Aizen was plotting against Soul Society a long time before Ichigo was in the scenes.

The way the supposed "Kaien" is always lying to Rukia and changing the mood of the conversation and generally messing her up emotionally was done well. 

It’s good to see Rukia finally starting a fight pissed.

This episode’s animation was sufficient and everything worked okay.

Bleach is only coming back at the 9th of January.

This one-hour special had a, not so good, first half and an awesome second one.

The first episode was really lacking in animation quality. It was also stretched to the maximum, not with added dialog but with a lot of face staring that lasted a lot more than it should. There were also some added flashback scenes with Naruto and Jiraya. Still , I don’t know if it’s because of the music or because the situation at this point is really awesome, but this episode still made me feel a lot of tension.

The second half, or episode 41, was a lot better than the first. You could really notice the difference in the drawings. Some scenes like the one where Kabuto got blasted away were really cool. The scene of Naruto being overtaken by the Kyubbi, that only took about 5 panels in less than two pages in the manga, added a lot of footage, but it helped improve the dramatic feel of Naruto going berserk.

Sai’s original mission is also put into play. It seems like he really doesn’t care for his teamates.

This special didn’t progress very much with the fight between Naruto and Orochimaru. The anime seems to be waiting for the next episode to deliver the complete awesome fight. Judging from the preview, it seems the next episode will be nicely animated, if enough to be as good as episode 26, I don’t know, but let’s hope :)

Looking forward to next one!