10 Second Anime - Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 368

Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 368



Hashirama to Madara Shippuuden continues. Clan loyalty supersedes a strong friendship. Hashirama offers to sacrifice himself for peace, but Madara saves him.

Heh.

Not only was Hashirama stronger in ninjutsu than Madara, but he was more educated. He used kanji to warn Madara on the skipping stone, while Madara only used hiragana.

Tobirama got a fatal hit on Izuna using his teleportation jutsu, which Minato, Naruto's father, used to extreme effect later, as the Yellow Flash of Konoha.

Hashirama kept hoping Madara would come back to their friendship, because seeing him awaken his sharingan from its loss proved it was a real and strong bond they had.

The man-tears flowed when Hashirama offered to kill himself to let Tobirama and Madara live to end the clan feud between the Senju and Uchiha. Interspersing that scene with imagery of a skipping stone finally reaching the other side of the riverbank was the emotional exclamation point. Well played, well done.

It was Izuna's death, Madara's little brother whom he wanted so badly to protect, that triggered the Mangekyo sharingan. Truly a cursed clan, as Tobirama sadly explained.

Hmm.

There are a few long running anime which sometimes approach Art as they tell their stories, and Naruto is one of them. These last two episodes, showing the tragic friendship of Hashirama and Madara, did that by starting with the simple act of skipping stones by boys on a riverbank. That such legends in the overall story could be such normal boys and form a friendship over such simple boyhood playing reaches into the hearts of the viewers. "I could be that guy, skipping stones with that other guy," a young viewer could think as he watched the story unfold.

The Art developed in the second episode, when the boys each tried to save the other's life by scratching a warning into their favorite skipping stones. In normal play over skipping stones, the boys would naturally pick out their favorite good stones which always made it across the river. To give it to their friendly rival has a meaning in itself, an extra sense of regard. And then to use both those stones to stop their little brothers from dying as well, they had each given the other the means to do so.

Finally, as Hashirama kept trying to forge a truce with Madara, especially as Uchiha were already defecting to the Senju because they were so sick of fighting, and they already knew which side was stronger, the image of a skipping stone trying to make it across the river was used as punctuation. It gave the viewer the sense that Hashirama had tried many times before to negotiate an end to the feud, and that he would also keep trying until that stone finally reached the other side. With Madara's false choice to kill himself or kill his little brother to prove he was serious about their old dream of the warring clans establishing a village together, Hashirama threw his last stone hoping somehow it would reach Madara on the other side. It did, and Madara stopped Hashirama's sacrifice, also showing that the riverbank had to reach for the stone too, to make sure the skipping stone made it all the way across.

Skipping stones: started a legendary friendship, saved lives, and ended a war. Art.