Sasuke and Naruto survive their Final Battle and ultimately reconcile.
Episode 478 - The Reconciliation Sign
Hmm.
Because, ultimately, it's about redemption.
In the context of Naruto's story, that falls to Sasuke. Naruto followed the path of a hero becoming a legend, but Sasuke followed the redemption arc.
It took 478 episodes of Shippuuden and 220 episodes of the prologue story (adds up to 698 pretty neatly to land right on the manga chapter, don't you think?) for Sasuke and Naruto to have the conversation they should have had when they met as children after both their calamities. They were so tired and so near death, they had nothing else to do but talk.
The subtle difference between how Naruto saw the hatred in others with Sasuke is that Naruto saw it as pain. Sasuke only saw the hatred and decided to be the focus of hatred for the entire world. To do that, he needed to have no bonds of friendship or family. Naruto felt a similar call to gather the pain all to himself, but by making friends, he inspired them to share that burden.
In the end, Sasuke could no longer deny he felt that inspiration to help Naruto too.
The pivotal scene where Sasuke finally acknowledged Naruto showed all the friends Naruto had made over the years. The last one, of course, was Sasuke. That guy is so stubborn!
The symbol of the Reconciliation Sign, impossible for either of them to make because they blew their hands off, was made with their blood, making them true blood brothers, and on top of the broken statues of the last reincarnations of Indra and Ashura. The cycle of hatred and pain had truly been broken.
Here's some meta housekeeping here for covering the rest of the Fall season. It appears they're going to drag out the epilogue chapter, the 700th one of the manga, into a full season by filling in some backstory of the players before we skip about 15 years. I thought the movie Naruto: The Last covered the relationship of Hinata and Naruto pretty well, but I suppose a television broadcast needs their version too. Which means I'm not done blogging Naruto Shippuuden yet.
Dat Sasuke face...that's me every time I think "I'm fine, I'm fine...wahahahahaha"
ReplyDeleteYou mean the one in the gif above, or some other Sasuke face in the episode?
Deletethe very end where he sees all naruto's friends, and then, and then, he's right there, and...waahhahahahaha...too much...
DeleteThat was when Sasuke knew Naruto won. But he's still Sasuke. That scene at the end where they're both laughing and he called Naruto "loser" like he used to... reconciliation.
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