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.