10 Second Anime - Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 441

Filler within Filler Shippuuden continues. Tsunade begins reading Part 2 of Jiraiya's manuscript. The Konoha ninjas return home and find motivation for harder training.

Episode 441 - "The Jiraiya Ninja Scrolls: Naruto the Hero - Returning Home"

Eh?!

Part 2!!?? We're only halfway through this filler arc? Wait. What if there's more than 2 parts? Eh?! The only thing that could shorten this narrative now is if something in the story is so outrageous it makes Tsunade question even the world she's reading it from. Then we can wrap her dream world sequence up and move back into the final battle with Madara against Naruto and Sasuke.

Heh.

Are you telling me that Tsunade's little cutesy blush here didn't have her complaining about how she's being portrayed?

I do like how consistent this happier version of the Naruto's world is. The Uchiha's were still planning their coup d'état, but it was stopped without mass slaughter. Part of the animosity between the Uchiha's and the rest of the village was the suspicion that they were responsible for Minato's death because only a Sharingan user could have summoned the 9-Tailed Fox after it had broken free from Kushina during childbirth. Danzo played on those fears in the intervening years.

Without that mass slaughter where Itachi had to play the bad guy, we're left without a major event influencing Sasuke's character. But replacing those really dark events with seeking his father's approval juxtaposed with his perception of Naruto's relationship with his father as nepotism was a pretty good solution. That Sasuke's father is the clan head and the police chief sells his devotion to following "the rules" as the source of his rivalry with Naruto too.

Going through the Boggle type narrative has been pretty annoying so far, but this scene with Naruto, Minato and Jiraiya added a big number to the plus side of things.

It's still bad fan fiction, but that doesn't mean it can't tug on the heartstrings of what could have been.

What's all this new training for anyway? In the actual storyline, Sasuke and Naruto were training for the final round of the chuunin exams, but that already took place here. Rivalry wasn't enough to motivate Naruto and Sasuke originally. They each had a goal in mind. What's the goal here? Bah. This is why I call it Naruto Boggle Edition.