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.