I am honestly not interested in the childhood relationship of Madara and Hashirama. Yet more Kishimoto shoehorning his "Fated!Rivals come to blows" theme into the story. It's honestly getting annoying as fuck.

 

Or, you know, when they practice they don't put the full amount of chakra in. We still don't have much idea how techniques work, so maybe if you out the right balance and fulfill some minimum amount you can just do smaller versions of your techniques. Alternatively these guys have such good control of their chakra that they can make these techniques up on the spot, kind of like how a math teacher can make math problems on the spot. Once you understand all the variables, its just a matter of putting them together.

 

^
I think it's something like that. We've seen it plenty of times from Naruto and Sasuke. Once they have a solid handle on the core jutsu they can pretty much make variations of it on the spot. I don't believe Madara stopped to practice armoring the Kyuubi on his way to battle.

 

I am surprised that No one has mentioned that Madara is Sephiroth; or maybe it was mentioned before?. Madara has the Bigass sword that can even cut Mountains, Summoning Meteors, CrazyAsFuck, Susanoo Kyuubi Looks like Bahamut, With the Rinnegan he can alter the weather into a storm on a whim.
This Battle makes me wonder if EdoTensei really does give Unlimited chakra, clearly Madara doesn't seem to need it, considering how Huge the fight is going, or perhaps they found some Hack to use little chakra for Huge powerups.
I had always thought that Valley of the End was creating by Hashirama using his Wood Tech. to Root most of Kyuubi's Chakra into the earth and releasing it, thus splitting the land apart.

I've checked the Wiki for Sandaime Hokage, maybe they might have to remove the part where he was the 'Strongest Hokage in History'. I'm not sure what Opponent Sarutobi faced to top this.....

 

Not sure if you know this, but half the shit on the wiki is pulled out of someone's ass.

I'm tired of seeing how powerful these guys are. It's pretty clear that Hashirama is about to curbstomp Madara and the super-Kyuubi with some wood summon he just pulled out of his ass. These guys just break the power scale so badly I can only roll my eyes. Thank God they were both born at the same time in history and only really cared about fighting each other, because if that wasn't the case they would have literally conquered the world in about a week.

Quite frankly I'm not sure the Sage was the strongest character in history anymore after seeing this shit. And Juubi's power now doesn't seem that overwhelming after watching it get manhandled for a few chapters before this. Let's just watch Edo-Madara and Edo-Hashirama blow up the world fighting and call it The End.

sigh

Does Kishimoto even realize that all this is doing is diminishing every other character in the manga? Why do we care so much about two dead guys? We already know their story. Stop making characters we're supposed to care about irrelevant, dammit.

 

I don't think he really cares at this point. If I were in his shoes, I would just want to have the series done with so that I could move on to something else at this point. I can't even begin to imagine the burnout he must feel on Naruto by now.

 

Then why all of these pointless flashbacks?

 

Just because he might want the whole mess done with (and obviously I don't know that he does, just hazarding a guess) doesn't mean that the people who have him under contract and are making money off Naruto agree. Less effort involved in doing flashbacks than in coming up with new plot.

 

I agree very strongly with Howdy on this.

I didn't like Kishi's handling of the Bijuu - I thought the initial characterization of them as malicious demons were fine - but I can see the sense and reason behind making them people, with the capacity for both good and evil. The manga is, after all, about love and friendship, and acceptance and redemption.

But Hashirama and Madara are literally making everyone else irrelevant. Everyone who came after pales in comparison in these two living gods - which makes the Sage's strength unfathomably great. What happened to the younger generations surpassing the old? What happened to the power of friendship, and the importance of teamwork? What happened to the importance of hard work? Diligence, working together - nothing matters when a single battle between two people can destroy half a country; when one man can summon the moon.

I don't object to the scaling up of power per se, and what may be unkindly characterized as the DBZing of Naruto. What I do object to is Kishi's mishandling of Naruto's essential themes - his themes.

I understand if he made new shit up along the way regarding abilities and characters and canon history. What I do not understand, and am struggling to accept, is Kishi throwing away his narrative, his ideas, and the story's very essence.

Rock Lee should have stayed the fuck at home, because Neji was right.

EDIT: Awesome fight nonetheless.

 

That's the whole point of Naruto.

Friendship > Skill + Power.

:facepalm at Kishi

 

I personally always disliked the idea that each generation would surpass the last one. Since the ninja world doesn't seem to benefit from much technological progress, there's no reason that each generation should be superior to the one before it. In fact, because the ninja arts are mostly based on old knowledge handed down and passed on since the age of the Rikudou Sennin, it makes sense that, the further down the line you are from the Sage, the less preserved knowledge and abilities you'll have access to. A system based on tradition, the passage of knowledge down through families and from teacher to student, etc. isn't going to keep getting better - it's going to slowly decline and lose its integrity.

The loss of old clans (Uzumaki, Senju, Uchiha, etc.) and the disappearance of their secrets is just one major reason why the most recent generation of shinobi would be less powerful and knowledgeable than their ancestors. Another prime example of this would be Kirigakure, which actively exterminated its strongest clans. Obviously a lot of the expertise and abilities associated with those clans would be forever lost, leaving Kiri's ninja forces significantly weaker than prior generations.

Another example is the current Raikage, who is clearly nowhere near as powerful as his predecessor.

In truth, the ninja world is in a terrible state, because the teachings of the Rikudou Sennin have mostly been forgotten, disregarded as myths, or simply lost over time. Hashirama and Madara were born into two of the most powerful clans in the world, directly descended from the Rikudou Sennin, and raised in the ancient secrets of his legacy. The fact that they could wipe the floor with any modern ninja doesn't surprise me at all.

 

I don't believe the new generation surpassing the old was meant to do with their physical prowess, excluding exceptions such as Naruto and Sasuke (and Sakura if we go strictly on Kakashi's opinion). Some of them could but I don't think that was the point. It was more to do with them not making the mistakes of their predeccesors that resulted in the vengeful, hate-filled world that they live in.

Teamwork is the main reason the Shinobi Alliance hasn't been completely destroyed yet. Hard work was always a theme mainly for Lee and he succeeded more-or-less; despite his lack of talent he's one of the stronger fighters around and still holding his own. And I doubt Hashirama and Madara got to where they were without working hard one way or another, but their heritage and inborn talent meant that they could go to far greater lengths than most. Not much different from the benefits Naruto got from having Kurama sealed inside him.

Edit: I think Chiyo's talk with Naruto is probably the best example of what I'm saying about the generations. Along with Tsunade's brief argument with her advisors.

 

I do think that generally ninja should get stronger as the generations go on as they develop more techniques. The problem is that large clans get wiped out and most of their knowledge with them. I think the reason Hashirama and Madara are so wtf powerful is because they were Itachi level geniuses(talent wise) born into powerful clans and raised in a time of constant war.

 

http://www.mangapanda.com/naruto/622/
New Naruto out

A whole flashback chapter and more to come I bet.

 

Hmmm. Not bad. 3/5 as far as manga chapters go.

 

Not-Crazy Madara's actually pretty cool.

 

I must admit, the flashback to the founding of the shinobi nations is actually interesting. And I'm really liking the personalities of the Brothers Senju. Although Brother #3 looks like crap with his white/black hair. Reminds me of a teen-written fanfic where the child of two superheroes with white and black hair had a half and half hairstyle. Really?

 

Now I think we know why Tobirama invented Edo Tensei, or more precisely, who he had in mind when he invented it.

 

In this chapter Madara said that he had four brothers, as in the past tense for all of them and not just a few of them. So where did the mysterious younger brother he stole the eyes of come from? If he was born after all of this it would make him far younger than we were led to believe from early chapters.

That or I could just be missing something simple, either one is possible. Also, I like this whole not dickish Madara and the founding of the shinobi nations segment.

 

He had four brothers but now he has none or he had four brothers but now he has less. It could go either way but Izuna's probably alive at that point. Hashirama made a comment about Madara's love for his brother in one of the previous chapters so Izuna could be his youngest and last brother who he considers more precious because of his losses.

Eh, that'd be kinda lame. I'd rather he did it because he thought it would make a powerful weapon against their enemies rather than because he wanted to see someone he lost. That was just a bonus, assuming he ever bothered because Tobirama's a hardass.