Naruto 68-69: No more bad hair, prelude to epic fight?

Naruto Shippuuden 68-69 (Naruto 288-289)
Red Chakra! Destruction and Rage: Naruto Shippuuden special.

Naruto gets a bad hair day. This time it wasn’t even a mess up by one of the poor junior artists/slaves working at Studio Pierrot’s Korean workhouses. This was Fuuka, the woman’s scorn, something Naruto seems to get a lot of. It took pretty much all the first half of this filler for Naruto to defeat the old hag.

Soon after Naruto dispatches the floating hair and red eyes that became the essence of Fuuka (in full slow motion animation), he heads off in pursuit of his love/friend. Face it, he sucks up to Sakura for show, Naruto is only serious when he is gay.

See my case proof in Naruto’s love for Sora, for he is this arc’s Sasuke substitute. Naruto starts off rivaling lesser-Sasuke, spends last episode fighting with lesser-Sasuke and all of this episode chasing after lesser-Sasuke in desperation to ‘rescue’ him- does this sound familiar? If mentioning Sasuke in that sentence 3 times doesn’t give you a clue, go stick your head in some sand, you’ll find the answer there (but please don’t sue me!).

Not really a criticism. What better way to create a filler story almost identical to main plot then to rewrite it and change the characters slightly? Sora is a emo, wants revenge, has a hidden inner power and is courted by a fat version of peadomaru; Furido/Kazuma is yet another bad guy who manages to conduct unethical experiments enhancing ninjas within the walls of Konoha, gets kicked out and now wants it’s complete destruction. I actually can’t knock them for replicating the actual good things of Naruto; epic battles and colourful characters – but by colourful I just mean black !

Because of some retro-plot-making-up-age, Sora becomes Kyubi because Kazuma inserted Kyubi’s chakara into his son’s cells. Next episode, we are headed for Kyubi against genetically engineered Kyubi – I don’t care how it doesn’t make sense, this will be awesome.

~ Teeif