Yeah, after they revealed the bijuu have to be sealed in a certain order, I wondered why Itachi went after Naruto when he was supposed to be last. Like, were they going to keep him in their cave of weirdness? Still, what excuse did Itachi use to go to Konoha if he wasn't supposed to pick up Naruto yet?

Oh my god. This is too fucking cute. He has fucking blocks and a dinosaur stuffed animal.

I think Itachi had the best death (well, first round) of the series. I wonder how long he spent thinking about what last words to say to Sasuke.

Seriously though, terminal illness? That was not on any of our lists on how he'd die. I wonder what he had.

And Sasuke finally gets his own Bronx Science Eyes.

Who would've guessed some promise he made in front of Haku and Zabuza's graves would become to important.

I dunno. The fact that Sasuke had already released his sharingan but forgot how to seems to debase that moment he had with Haku and Naruto.

Kisame reminds a bit of Largo from Tales of the Abyss: A huge guy whom you would initially expect to be just the strongman that other people manipulate, but actually turns out to know more than anyone else in the group.

Yeah, I can't believe they went down so fast either. I think I've said this before, but remember when Akatsuki was the baddest shit on the block and we all had theories about them? And then they all just died. I think you can compare this to Full Metal Alchemist's homunculi. To the end that group was freaky and awe inspiring. No death there felt like a waste. I wish Akatsuki would've been like that too, but I guess the homunculi were the end game. There was no one beyond them and their father, so they could be the craziest fuckers all the way to the end. Kishimoto designed Akatsuki as a jumping pad for Madara, much like how Orochimaru became a jumping pad for Akatsuki. But then you have to wonder whether it should've been that way. Clearly we were not pleased with how the series progressed.

I make fun of Iruka in the popularity contests, but he really is a good man. He only pops up once every hundred chapters or so in the second part, but when he does you remember what a great influence he was on Naruto and how important he was to his development. (I freak out when I think I'm older than him now...)

I love how he remembers this conversation verbatim years later.

Shikamaru, you're supposed to be the smart one. Why would you think that was a nine? Literally every reader knew that was a ta the moment we saw it.

Seriously though, how the hell do you remember the first word on each page of your book is of the top of your head?

We all make fun of Sasuke, but then there are moments like this that give flashes of subtlety to his personality. Although he says and definitely acts like he's cut all ties, he does at times recall the moments of truth and friendship he had in the past. If only he could stop being stupid for about three minutes.

Can I just say I fucking love how the first time we meet A he's doing a bicep curl with a weight meant for bench pressing?

Definitely something Kishimoto came up with later. You have to wonder maybe if they had the Third's crystal ball whether that would be a better defense method. (How the fuck did that thing work??)

Fuck, I really wished they had to fuse that way. It would seriously make the fights for the rest of the series hilarious.

I remember hearing when I was younger the advice, "Buy someone a gift you'd want for yourself." I'm guessing it's an injunction to not be cheap, but simultaneously it makes no goddamned sense. Next month is my mother's birthday, my father's birthday, and Father's Day, and if I bought gifts I'd want for myself for them, they would receive video games and manga. I guess that's the difficulty of gift-giving: You have to enter someone else's mind, and then try to figure out if they have it already. I know perfectly well what many of my friends' tastes are like, but I have no idea whether or not they've already acquired what I'm considering.

I've examined the evidence and I've looked at the arguments, and I see I have no choice: I'm going to take up crocheting. There's too many cute things I can make.

I believe this is truthfully how it went down, except you replace Jiraya with Kishimoto.

And here we have the first look at Naruto's mother. It was pretty anticlimatic to say the least; I don't recall the internet even lighting up a little bit. I guess because she looks so mundane.

I don't think any of us ever expected to see this on Itachi's face. Even when I was rereading it I had to stop and stare for a bit because it's so odd.

Sasuke's taking it back to his roots, but Naruto wasn't there to make the follow up, so he should've known it wouldn't work.

This scene would've been cooler if we had known Orochimaru was looking for Totsuka this entire time. Instead Kishimoto introduced it just now and had to give a quick explanation as to why it's so awesome so we can be amazed at the situation, but instead we're just going, "Eh. Okay."

Also, I love how Orochimaru suddenly becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.

Before we got the explanation later, I'm pretty certain we all had the same expression as Sasuke: "Wait. What the fuck happened? Did Sasuke just win? Wait, what?"

This picture was from chapter 395. The last time we saw Shino do anything was in 126. A shame really; back in the chuunin exam he was really fucking awesome. Ah, those were the days.

When the hell did Shino get this speech pattern of asking questions and then answering them himself? Did Kishimoto not use him for so long he just came up with a new personality since he forgot the original?

God, it sounds like he's going to jack off to it later.

Itachi's back story was clearly developed from the start and wasn't a later creation because it was so well considered and planned. No one anticipated it and these chapters when Obito explained everything I think was one of the final moments of real greatness from Kishimoto. Although there were some cool scenes — at this point Killer B(ee) hadn't yet entered the picture — none of them were quite a shit-your-pants inducing. To be honest, I think Itachi was Kishimoto's most interesting character of the series, and I think it's a shame we didn't get to see more of him, but that's part of the allure; we never really understood anything until after he was gone. And even when he came back, it still was awesome.

I've never really given this much consideration to the garden in my whole life. I became interested in gardening when I was living at the apartment, so to be suddenly faced with a place where I can experiment is great. However the extent of the task is somewhat daunting: So much shit died in the four years we left it unattended, and whatever's still alive has grown out of control. I've spent hours each day moving 30lb of soil up and down the driveway or trimming four foot bushes. Still, I'm pleased as I conceive of all the possibilities. I'm already planning magnificent displays for the pots or where to put the rose bushes in the front. It's just going to take forever to clean all this shit up.

Sorry, too busy tonight working on insurance crap. Here's a silly picture:

I saw Alberto randomly recently in a park as he walking a dog named Lulu. Later on I texted him about it:

Me: Gonna be honest with you: When I heard the dog's name was Lulu, I spent the whole meeting trying not to make FFX jokes.
Alberto: Those jokes would've been way over my head, I know nothing about FFX lol
Me: I suspected so, which was the only thing keeping me back.
Alberto: Haha sorryyyy. I know noooothing about most FF games lol
Me: I know. You have failed me.
Alberto: ;________;
Me: Never has my trust been so thoroughly betrayed.
Alberto: I-i'm sorry....
Me: I thought I had my friends beside me, but I see only traitors.

We used to have a lot of potted plants in the front, but about seven years ago there was a sudden surge in plant theft on the block. After ours were taken, we never really replaced them. Mom bought more today, and we'll have to see what'll happen. Back then I was in Ireland so I couldn't do anything, but I suppose I can sit out front with a huge bat every now and then to let people know shit is real.

Ate Neneng requested a CD player with bluetooth that's portable for her to carry around the house while she's working. As I was browsing through amazon I found some promising candidates, but the product description wouldn't list whether they could use batteries. At this point amazon's feature to ask questions comes in, and this is when I ran into the wall that is the stupidity of humanity. Why the hell are people incapable of answering a simple inquiry? If you don't know, don't say anything. You're just wasting all of our time. Here are some examples:

Q: Can it run on batteries:
A: Not sure, but the CD player stopped functioning within 2 weeks. I don't recommend.
That's fucking great. Why not just mention that problem in the review instead of talking about the CD player to someone who clearly didn't ask?

Q: What type and how many batteries does it use?
A1: I bought it for my grandson. He absolutely loves it. I don't know about the batteries. Sorry.
Thanks for giving all the useless information whilst simultaneously declaring you don't know the only pertinent one to the situation.
A2: Batteries.
???? Yeah, we've already established it requires batteries. That was stated in the question.

Q: Could I sync it with Pandora by bluetooth?
A: Unfortunately we haven't tried any Bluetooth operation as of yet.
Then why did you open your mouth?

Q: Does the repeat feature repeat the whole CD or just one track?
A: I returned mine. It was defective.
Again, put that shit in the review, not when someone's trying to collect data!

Do people not understand the reason behind this feature? Do they just want to create chatter to see their own names on the internet? Reading this gives me flashbacks to jury duty, when potential jurors droned on and on about pointless bullshit like how many ounces are in a gram instead of answering the question the attorney posed. Is most of the populace like this and I don't realize it because I just sit in my room all day?

In case you didn't know, mangastream is a group that releases high-quality scanlations pretty quickly for very popular series, so everyone usually reads their work. I want you to imagine for a moment that you can't view any of they release without first going to a specific page, searching for the password, then downloading a zip, and using that password to look at the files. And you have to reuse that password for each jpg. That's pretty fucking terrible. Surprisingly lots of groups do this, but I've noticed it's only those that are geared toward women, like shoujo or BL. Shounen or seinen groups never give a fuck about this.

And this isn't anything new; in the late 90s to early 2000s, many websites dedicated to these genres would have an opening page saying, "This is my shrine to blah blah blah" or even warnings like, "Inside contains materials some may find offensive, like gay sex." At the bottom there'd be an "enter" button, you'd just be linked to a page that said, "It seems like SOMEONE didn't read the directions." So you'd be forced to go back the first page and read it carefully until you saw a note in the middle of paragraph three that said, "Press here to enter" or "The link to the main page is the F in 'contains materials some may find offensive'."

I'm trying to figure out the reason behind this, and I think it's related to groups wanting to limit distribution to online readers, but there's has to to be more to it than that because this doesn't stop really stop anything and is just a general annoyance to everyone involved. Considering it's usually limited to the female demographic and this "being a hindrance to your audience" bullshit has been happening for years, I'm wondering what's in these communities that perpetuates this nonsense.

Upon discussing this Biblical passage:

Dad: Paul was a bad Jew. Of course you're supposed to marry and multiply.
Mom: He was probably gay.
(pause)
Mom: All the disciples were. All those guys running around together...

You're gonna get two this week because I didn't have time on Saturday to make a Naruto post.

Goddammit Kishimoto, we were all joking about his hand-mouths, but we didn't actually have to see an official picture of that.

...I had a fanart of Deidara giving himself a blowjob.

Deidara not giving a shit about anyone in the face of his art is expected, which is why I was surprised by this moment of consideration for Tobi, however fleeting it may be. Too bad Obito was playing him.

If they discussed this later forgive me because I've forgotten, but I don't recall Kishimoto ever elaborating how Obito met up with Akatsuki as Tobi. It seemed as if everyone knew who he was before he became an official member. I'm trying to imagine anyone hanging out with these dudes walking in pairs as they wander around the countryside.

I never really understood how Suigetsu knew Sasuke summoned Manda. "Oh shit, there's an explosion. Maybe Sasuke used Manda to teleport." I guess it's plausible, but it wouldn't be the first thing to occur to me.

Never mind, Suigetsu can keep that. This is what I don't get. How the hell can you smell something from so far away? It's like Neji when he can see miles and miles around. Your brain cannot take in so much sensation at once. Considering Kiba was knocked out from Naruto's fart, what would happen when he smells a sewage dump in the distance?

And now the fun times are over. You will never again see Tobi's stupid run animation in Ninja Storm.

You know, I didn't actually expect Kakashi to become hokage. Like, ever. When they were talking about it here I laughed it off, but then it actually fucking happened. I think my favorite part of Kakashi's hokageship is his fucking stone head on that monument had the damned mask on.

This is really stupid. I can't believe they were called sannin because of this. Can you imagine the following conversation?
Orochimaru: "I am one of the... three people of Konoha."
Dude: "What the hell does that mean?"
Orochimaru: "I don't know. I was just told to refer to myself as such."

I thought that was just a title other people called them, like "the Great" or "the Fair." But no one else was there, so it literally was them walking around after that, saying they were the sannin.

I love how he talks about this as if it's weather patterns. "And today there's a low pressure system, so expect some storms coming in on Friday. And what you really have to keep an eye out for is the upcoming Yankees-Red Sox game because those always bring in the extra malice, so there's a 20% chance of Kyuubi this weekend."

"A pervert without equal"... I wonder what my prophecy would be like.

The King said, "The sword is good," and he wanted it for himself. Wieland answered, "It is not especially good; it must be made better; I shall not stop till then." The King went away in good humor. Wieland returned to his forge, took up a file, and cut the sword into little pieces which he mixed with flour. Then he released some birds who had been hungry for three days and gave them the mixture to eat. Placing their excrement in the front of the forge, he smelted them and cleansed the iron of all the dross it still contained, and then he forged the sword anew. ^*

Okay, so... I'm not a blacksmith and I only know the basics of the craft, but I'm fairly certain "feeding the sword to birds and making a new one from their shit" is not a common practice. In fact, I'm positive there is no manual out there that suggests this. I'm not entirely certain what bird's digestive fluids and intestinal tract does for a sword, but I'm assuming nothing substantial. I wonder how Wieland thought of this. "Man, what can I do... Bird shit. That's the answer."

Pierre Riché, Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne, translated by Jo Ann McNamara (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 148.

http://wnep.com/2015/05/12/student-suing-misericordia-university-officials-after-failing-to-pass-course/

I'm trying to figure out if she starts crying during an exam, then how the hell was she planning on dealing with the stress of being a nurse?

I beat Rune Factory 4... which is surprisingly quick. I'm not even halfway done with summer and haven't even started on the fall crops yet. Compare this with the first game, in which you could not beat one of the dungeons until winter rolled around and permitted you to cross the now-frozen lake to reach the entrance. And if you hadn't beaten the dungeons that were previous to that, you had to wait a whole other year for winter before you could come to that dungeon again. I get the feeling though this game is going to pull a Tales of Legendia and have another forty hours of gameplay after the ending credits because I haven't even found half the items needed to upgrade my weapons and armor, meaning there are areas I have yet to explore.

Besides that, it's a Rune Factory game. You farm, you court a spouse, and you fight in dungeons. The major difference is you can choose your sex at the beginning of the game — you no longer are forced to be a man — and can now court the men of town. It's just so few of them are appealing for me, man or woman. For the guys, I have an asshole, a tsundere, a liar, and two OK dudes, one with a refreshing yet clumsy demeanor and the other a capable prince. For the girls, there's an idiot, a fucking six-year-old (I get shivers knowing she can get married and become a mother), a psychopath, a depressed downer, and another two OK ones, the knight and musician. It's like... eh... I don't feel like trying to go on a date with you.

A weird addition is they added modular furniture. Now, I fucking loved the house in Rune Factory Frontier. I would totally move into a place like that. It had good decor and everything was arranged nicely. In general I'm fond of the drawn backgrounds in the handheld Rune Factory games and they remind me of the old Squaresoft PS1 backgrounds, so having the kitchen / chemistry lab / smithy / crafting table also drawn in makes your home feel really complete. With the modular furniture, it fucks up that entire ambiance. Nothing lines up. It's not like Animal Crossing where there are exact squares. My OCD is screaming when it sees my kitchen be at weird angles whenever I make a new addition. I have to literally throw that shit and hope it works well with the stuff around it. I'm not joking. You go to a store and say, "I'd like a smithy," and they say, "Here you go," and fucking hand that shit to you. Then you pick up literally the whole fucking thing, walk across town, and throw that in the corner. In every other game I've played, you usually go to the carpenter in town, hand him money and materials, and he says, "OK, wait for three days while I go to your house and build that shit for you." Seeing my sprite carry this entire fucking smithy over her head like it's a Zelda clay pot is ridiculous.

The thing with the Rune Factory series is the protagonist always has amnesia, but it's gotten to the point that you wonder why. Like, it doesn't add anything to the plot. In this case, she was going to visit the Dragon of the Wind for the cure to the dragon's sickness before she was attacked by soldiers, accidentally dropped the cure down a ravine, and then was hit in the head, making her lose her memories. As of right now in the game she still has amnesia, but she's figured out the cure and found it in the ravine, so you wonder why have her forget to start with. Just turn the quest into exploring the ravine for it.

The developer, Neverland, filed for bankruptcy after this game, so it's likely this is the last in the series. (Did you know they also made Lufia? I didn't know that.) A shame because for all my griping I still like these games. Well, I can't remember the plot for Rune Factory 3 other than you can turn into a sheep, so I guess I can replay that.

Paul's input on the grate issue:
Paul: Egh, just take it. Obviously your stalker saw that you needed a grate and ordered one. It's better than them leaving a bunch of severed doll heads in your refrigerator.
Me: I like how you thought of severed doll heads in a fridge, as if this were a thing you yourself considered when you were stalking someone.
Paul: That's ludicrous. Your accusations are hurtful and rude. By the by, if you happen to need a bunch of headless dolls I know a guy...
Me: I'm a girl. I have plenty of headless dolls.
Paul: I suspect, from your language, that you think that's a commonly held notion or stereotype of some kind. Let me assure you that it is neither.
Me: I assure you, sir, that such a collection is common amongst young maidens and implore you to acquaintance yourself with more of my sex to better your knowledge on the topic.
Paul: Your sex has a flawed mental capacity and is want to mis-remember details.
Me: And yet here you are, sir, emulating my sex with your intimacy of dolls sans head.
Paul: Wipe that heteronormativity off your face, my dear girl. Dolls are for everyone.
Me: I never said dolls were only for girls. Goodness knows boys like to pretend their "action figures" are not dolls. I am merely discussing the headless variety.
Paul: Well I too had headless... shall we say wrestling models (I didn't play with dolls and I'll kill anyone who says I did. Even my mom). Boys with headless toys, represent!
Paul: Upon reading that I now see that statement reads as though we have penises without tips... I assure you we have complete and/or whole dicks.

How is it somehow every conversation I have turns into genitalia? I didn't even direct it toward that this time.

I am so fucking confused right now. When I was out, mom texted me, "Your package nearly broke my foot when I was bringing it in. What is it?" to which I responded, "I'm only expecting cushions. Unless they used the heaviest packing material known to mankind, I have no idea." I was not prepared for what actually happened. Upon opening the package, I found a firewood grate. Even now I'm completely bamboozled. It doesn't even fit into any of my fireplaces. Who the hell sent this? It's such a random present.

Sorry, too busy to write a post tonight, so here's a quote from the actor who played Aragon:

"The McDonald’s french fry is unbelievable. When you bite into it, you think: It’s so tasty, it can’t be real. As soon as it gets cold, it turns to lard and flubble. I mean, have you ever tried to eat a McDonald’s french fry that’s gone cold? That’s one of the circles of hell. The gulf between the warm, fresh, lightly salted McDonald’s french fry and the cold McDonald’s french fry is as great a gulf as any I know."

See, this is why he became the king. He knows shit.

If you listen to Ate Neneng, you'll notice she puts an /ɪ/ sound in front of an S: "Spaghetti" becomes "es-speghetti" and "store" becomes "es-store." I'm guessing this is the Spanish influence on the language with words like escuela, but native Tagalog words start with an S, so I'm not certain where this is coming from. Particularly problematic is Ate Neneng doesn't realize she's doing it, so it's hard for me to remedy it.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense is a must-read for the Revolutionary Era, but I found it quaint. You must remember it was published shortly before the war as a rallying cry for independence, and he describes the possibilities. For that reason, it's interesting to see how people thought the result would be before it happened. It's like post-9/11: On September 20th, would any of us imagined the Iraq, the TSA, or the NSA? We envisioned vaguely going in and kicking some Taliban and Osama ass, and that's about it. Or on a more mundane level, Harry Potter after Goblet of Fire. It took Rowling three years to push out Order of the Phoenix, and in that time theories were flying everywhere about how the war against Voldemort would be conducted. None of us really expected a whole book dedicated to the Ministry denying his existence.

Paine is sort of like that. He has naturally has a very optimistic view of the future and about democracy in general. For example, he tries to push the case that the republics of Europe in 1775 are not bellicose and constant warfare is a problem of tyrannical monarchies, which is laughable when you see the United States today. And I would say naïve when you look at history: Being a republic never stopped the Romans from fighting. And he claims that with more natural resources and proficient industry, America would beat the British militarily, again laughable when you realize there's no way the United States would've won without French assistance and after the war we were getting our asses kicked by northern African states. He also created this system of post-war government that clearly no one paid attention to.

Still, it's cool to see what the sentiments were at the moment because you can see the expectations and what people strove for before reality, politics, and everything else weighed in.

We did cover World War I relatively well in Bronx Science (at least my class), but I wish we did a bit more because it explains so much about World War II. What you first have to remember is all the European leaders in the second war were involved in the first, usually as younger officers. And that was a very scarring experience that changed nations forever. Let's start with Germany: They lost. Horribly. In 1918, the war was up in the air: It was possible for either side to win, but Germany knew they had only a small window of opportunity to beat the Entente before the Americans started landing on France's shores to help. So they launched the spring offensive, but were unsuccessful and led to about 680,000 casualties on their side alone. They knew they couldn't win after that, but the war continued until November. What the hell was happening during those months? Germany was prolonging in hopes they could kill enough Entente to allow a better armistice agreement. That's great, but that's another 700,000 casualties. And the common soldiers knew this was happening too. Can you imagine what it's like to be in the trenches and see your friends die every day knowing everything is for naught, just because the government hopes it can call for better terms? And when the war finally ends instead of something reasonable, you get the Versailles Treaty, so what the hell was the point of those extra six months of suffering? Germany was a bitter, bitter place after the war. A whole generation of young men were either dead or permanently damaged. And the civilians went through years of starvation and sacrifice to help with the front lines.^* So it's understandable that they would lash out in some way that would trample their previous humiliation, vindicate their superiority, and put a broken country back together.

Hitler, who was a corporal in World War I, had jumped into No Man's Land under fire to save his superior and was awarded by the kaiser for his bravery. After surviving through the trenches for a long time, he too was disgusted at the results, and could sense the mood of his fellow countrymen to rise up and bring Germany the victory he felt was snatched from them. Lenin, you have to recall, was living in Switzerland during the war. Germany was bogged down on two fronts and realized if they could neutralize Russia, they could focus entirely on France and Britain. Although Russia had already underwent a revolution in 1916, the new government was still fighting. So Germany packed up any Russian troublemaker they could find and send them back, including Lenin. Once the Bolsheviks gained power, communism was spreading like wildfire, and even had drawn the attention of German soldiers on the Eastern Front, who were already dissatisfied with their leadership. When some of them were transferred to the Western Front, they brought ideas of communism with them and many of the units rebelled. Hitler exaggerated this idea — although some troops did lay down their arms because of communism, many of them were just sick and tired of the war, especially after the spring offensive was a failure — and felt if the corrupted soldiers hadn't given up, the war may still have been won. It's no wonder why he hated the Soviet Union.

For the Entente powers, they were never the same. Britain went from the most powerful country in the world to the one most in debt. They covered the costs not only for themselves, but also the allies who came over to help. It literally just finished paying off its last loan in March. Although they still held onto their dominions, it wasn't a tenable situation and they slowly started breaking off, first in Ireland. Can you imagine being the center of the world in terms of commerce, culture, and power, and four years later to be just a shell of that? For France, remember the Western Front took place mostly on its soil, and they're still finding shells everywhere. Whole portions of the country are cordoned off because it's still too dangerous with the mines and the live munitions that never went off, especially the chemical ones. Every year they're blowing up about 900 tons in France and 200 in Belgium (although some are from the second World War). It's doubtful they'll ever remove it all in the next couple of centuries.

When the soldiers returned home in the same state as the Germans, albeit it more celebratory, they never wanted such a thing to ever happen again. You ever heard of "appeasement?" That was one of the criticisms of the European Allies in the years leading up to World War II. Hitler kept on breaking parts of the Versailles Treaty or were annexing territories. Instead of putting him in his place, France and Britain kept on saying, "Eh, let him have it," before they drew the line in the sand over Poland. Nowadays people always ask, "Why did they allow Hitler do that? If they had nipped it in the bud, perhaps World War II wouldn't've happened." Maybe, but at the same time look at their situation: Britain and France are still fucking exhausted after the first war, especially France since they did most of the fighting. Do you really want to go through all that again? Remember, a lot of the leadership now were in the trenches about twenty years prior. Do you want to be the guy to pull the trigger and start the process once more?

Out of everyone, the United States and Japan probably came out as the winners. Japan joined the Entente and just snapped up a few territories the Germans had the Pacific, knowing they couldn't retaliate. Many of these places were what led to Japan's involvement in World War II. But for America, my god. Have you heard of the Roaring 20s? It's because we fucking had it made. Literally didn't show up until about the last six months of the war, only about 100,000 dead, and both sides owe us money for loans and supplies. We were rolling in dough, and the decade following the war was one long party. I'm not going to say we were poor before that: We had an Industrial Revolution that allowed us to produce more than anyone else could imagine, plus we showed the world we could kick ass during the Spanish-American War (although the Filipinos with their pointed sticks caused us a lot of problems). But it was not on that level until then. Banking moved from London to New York. It was also the final nail on the coffin for America's isolationism. We did not have a standing army until that point. America declared war on Germany on April 4, 1917, but we didn't show up until the middle of 1918. That's because we had to actually train people. And when we did arrive, we didn't have artillery or any of that shit; we borrowed everything from France. And even then, we didn't know how to really use them effectively and fought like we were facing Native Americans in the 1800s. After that, although the country desperately tried to stay isolationist in World War II, we were already prepared to fight at a moment's notice. And we had a taste of what it's like to fight in foreign wars.

^* Germany had a problem that France and Britain didn't; it didn't have colonies nor any good ports out of Europe. So they could only rely on themselves for men and sustenance. France and Britain could call up allies and supplies from Australia to Canada, and the civilians never really were affected the same way that Germany did.

Finally someone's recognizing this kid. Too bad it's after his pinnacle.

I honestly didn't know what Sasuke's plans were. Although I wasn't surprised by this, he's so fucking stupid I could actually see him allowing Orochimaru to take his body.

This was supposed to give a human element to Orochimaru, but it's kinda too little too late. Still, I guess it's kinda nice to think of Orochimaru as somewhat normal at one point.

\If there was a fight I'd forgive Kishimoto devoting several chapters to, it'd be the Sasuke vs. Orochimaru, and yet this one was ridiculously short. You can say it's because Orochimaru was weak here, but I'd rather see him go out with a bang instead of this pathetic whimper. He was the fucking scariest shit on the block for a long time!

We were still mostly reading Naruto by this point, so discussing chapters was still a thing. And Jesus Christ, what a thing this was. This was fanservice none of us were expecting. What I love is this shit happens in the middle of Sasuke storming the northern base to meet Juugo. Like, they start off with the fight, then Konohamaru comes in to bring on lesbians and Sasuke fucking Sai, and then back to the fight. So fucking random.

I kinda equated this to finding out the Force in Star Wars was midichlorians. It's better to think the cursed state is some creepy fucking jutsu that Orochimaru came up with instead of it being an enzyme that he harvested from a kid.

Honestly though, what is the timeline for this? Juugo is eighteen in part II, meaning he was about 16 in part I. He must've allowed Orochimaru to take him really early on, perhaps four or five, if Orochimaru already developed this enzyme when he used it on Anko years ago.

I remember when this chapter came out, I thought, "Oh, is that what that hole in the sword is for?" But if that's the case, that's a stupid fucking reason because they have to be sitting at a perfect fucking distance or else it doesn't work and you've beheaded both of them.

Fuck, I miss Tobi.