10 Second Anime - Naruto Shippuuden - Episode 458

Itachi Shippuuden concludes. Madara reaches the endgame of his plan as Kaguya emerges.

Episode 458 - "Itachi's Story: Light and Darkness - Truth"

Heh.

I almost can't believe we've come back to the actual story.

One thing that was nice about the Itachi interlude was how it explained Sasuke's sudden need to see the Uchiha tablet himself and talk to the summoned Hokages. Itachi's few snippets of conversation as they battled Kabuto should not have been enough to inspire Sasuke's change in motivation. A little memory transfer jutsu from Itachi would have done the trick.

The emergence of Kaguya, the mother of the Sage of the Six Paths, as the final villain was foretold long ago during Naruto's and Sasuke's near death conversation with him.

Still, it was satisfying to see Madara realize he'd been played as a pawn just like he'd done to Obito.

The Black Zetsu revealed that he was never Madara's will or creation, but merely had fooled him into thinking he had created him and the white zetsus.

In reality, all the zetsus were the original creations of Kaguya the first time around when she had taken the power of the chakra tree for herself. The white zetsus were the product of the captured people after she had absorbed all their chakra. There's still a little bit to reveal about the Black Zetsu's origins.

It turned out that the Black Zetsu had slightly altered Hagoromo's stone tablet. What had originally been a warning about Kaguya's previous plan and why the ninja world needed to keep the Tailed Beasts separated had been edited into an instruction manual for high powered Uchiha to enact world peace.

What I liked about Kaguya's appearance was how she still had the sharingan as her third eye, like Madara, but that her natural eyes were the Byakugan. The Rinnegan was always the final form of the Sharingan, not a separate naturally occurring ninja clan eye. Madara had given his awakened Rinnegan to Nagato because he was related to the Uzumaki clan which were direct descendants of the Sage Hagoromo. Naruto probably couldn't have handled the Rinnegan because he was only half Uzumaki from his mother's side, but it did make him have enough of an affinity for the strongest of the Tailed Beast chakra so he could become a jinchuuriki.

So, is Spring Season the end for Naruto? We've got about 8 episodes left and from what I remember in the manga, once Kaguya awakened, it was basically over except for Naruto and Sasuke's final confrontation, which again, wasn't a lot of material either. There could be some time skip filler to help introduce the new Boruto manga starting up this Summer, which would be nice too, but I just really want to see the end of this story without any more filler.

There's going to be some nice battle moments coming up too, which I can't wait to see animated. Even a ninja goddess will have a hard time dealing with how Naruto brings his personality to a fight.