Just how far will Kabuto go?

What They Say:
Tsunade leaves her post as Medic Ninja to join the other Kage in fighting Madara. Meanwhile, Sasuke goes after Itachi and learns that his brother intends on stopping Kabuto’s Reanimation Jutsu.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While events of the series are fairly large in scale in their own way, as is often the case with this series, it all comes down to the smaller moments that really define it, the fight between a few. With Madara having set his path pretty clearly here and in his own restrained way enjoying the exercise of using his abilities against powerful but inferior opponents, his reserved nature is a good balance to the more aggressive notes that the Five Kages tend to put out. What’s also nice is that Tsunade is the one that can also fight and stand tall against him with a few tricks that are reserved to her and her medical ninja nature, though being the Hokage allows her to sidestep some of the restrictions she has in order to fight alongside everyone else in a significant way.

As the fight plays out, a subplot from elsewhere helps to reveal a bit more about the current strength level of things. With the reveal recently that Madara has been reanimated here, which allows Tsunade to strike well against him, we also get the revelation that as strong as the Five Kage are at the moment, their power is not enough to defeat Madara. He’s simply evolved to a whole other level and only the First Hokage truly had the power to deal with what he represents and brings to the table. That makes the strides and accomplishments Tsunade makes in her fight feel superficial, even as she thinks she’s making inroads. She’s long been one of the smarter players in the series and seeing her struggle against this and not realizing quickly enough the difference in scale makes it all the harder to watch as you really feel for her. But her desire to win and to protect everyone is what overrides everything else, so her continued attacks make perfect sense.

The show does take a welcome detour as Sasuke and his brother end up landing within Kabuto’s place and that leads to a bit of a useful information dump. Kabuto makes it clear why he wants the various Tailed Beasts and his plans to subjugate the world, but he also makes it clear that he has the forced to back it up. While he rattles off some of those that have been reanimated – and jokes that it’s a long list so he won’t say too many – he also has a hundred thousand White Zetsu created to help achieve his goal. And that’s a lot of power to have behind his motivation and those that were reanimated and causing all sorts of trouble.

In Summary:
Though the bulk of the episode really is an info dump, it’s a useful one that positions a few of the players where they need to be and to realize, to some extent, that while their allegiances aren’t what they were when they were younger, there are much larger things at stake here. Kabuto has long been on the path of being a truly disturbing villain with larger than life goals and he’s now backing it up with the power, planning and intention to follow it all the way through. He’s not one you expect to have a change of heart along the way. Presenting that as the dialogue side while playing off of the fight between Madara and Tsunade works well to keep the episode moving, interesting and full of the right kind of information.

Grade: B

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.