10 Second Anime - Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 361

Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 361

Kakashi Shippuuden concludes. Team 7 passes the teamwork test. Good job Kakashi!

Heh.

Filler is over. Good job, Kakashi, keeping us entertained when you were a real brat, when you became a cold-blooded killer with emotional darkness, and when you finally became the bored cool guy with his hands in his pockets.

Meh.

I didn't really need to see the ghosts of Kakashi's old team pushing him to accept his new squad, since Obito wasn't really dead, but in Kakashi's mind, he was. They were more like Kakashi's ghosts, than real ghosts.

Hmm.

The Third Hokage put a lot of time in choosing Kakashi's eventual Team 7, seeming to mirror his own experiences under Minato. But there was more to it than that, of course. Naruto the problem child needing an adult who could keep up with his tricks. Sasuke with his own creeping darkness needing a fellow Sharingan user when his awakened. And Sakura, whose overbearing parents influencing her low tolerance for nuisance behavior would spur rivalry between Naruto and Sasuke. The "Professor" chose all his new genin teams to have that spark of rivalry to help the kids grow faster. I wonder if Tsunade followed this pattern by choosing Sai to be put into Naruto's new squad with Yamato (Tenzo). Yamato knew all of Kakashi's old tricks, and he had his own too, meanwhile Sai had that cool dismissive demeanor that Sasuke used to have.

What a contrast to see Naruto back to season 1 of the original Naruto to what we'll see next week.

Sakura improved the most, in my opinion. Sasuke was always gifted, and Naruto was the Jinchuuriki, so he had the specter of destiny following him around (plus, it's only his name on the show...), but Sakura had nothing in her record to stand out. The Third Hokage saw something in her, perhaps her own sense of rivalry to follow Sasuke and Naruto into legend. She always had that great rivalry with Ino, so maybe that was the spark that the Hokage saw.