Sneaky Naruto, that was well done, good to seem him actually doing something not Rasengen related for once. But way to totally cheapen Nagato with the Hinata crap... "not fatal"? after Jiraya, Kakashi, Shizune, an entire village, 8 other Jinchurichi? was looking so good last week too. Meh I'm done with the manga if he can't be consistent, and I bet somehow Naruto negotiates an end to this, despite Nagato killing half his precious people. That sort of thing really ought to bite him in the arse more than it actually does.

At least there's still fics, where I can actually protest character fails

Uh, let's have a small reality check here a sec, he's hardly even spoken to Hinata let alone had any opportunity to be "madly in love with her" . His classmates are precious people to hiim though, just like the village was. Remember Sakura calling out for him? he's got noone to call out for, I guess it all got too much although I still think he gave in a bit too easily.

This whole arc is a little rushed though

Yeah, that was a bit hurried; good job spending all those chapters on Uchihas & not on interesting people, Kishi. Still, everything got expressed which was needed to be expressed, even if it wasn't everything that could have been looked at. Minato is dead, he really ought to stay dead.

So, yeah, where's the other half of the Kyuubi? and was that a clone or did he really suimmon himself from the shinigami's stomach ( I'm tending towards the latter ).

Some hilarious panels, specially that last one of Naruto looking up like he broke his neck...

Great, thanks

In a fairly cliché melodramatic way, yes, her death moment would/will be a bit of a tearjerker. In a really brutal life-cut-short this-is-hardcore shock, having her actually dead in that chapter would be a *huge* impact.



I said he made her look stupid, not that doing that was stupid none of the others charged in like that, and at least Sakura has gone running in to help him out in the past when her emotions got the better of her. Remember that little flashback when one of the Pains is asking where he is? there's lots of people who love him to some degree or other now. What she did was understandable, but ... sorry, still stupid. I don't think Kishi actually likes Hinata much.

Sasuke's eyes probably aren't doing his health much good either, and Sakura will probably end up with Tsunade's jutsu too; but hey they're ninja, they're not going to die in bed old & grey.

Someone point me to where the effect on his lifetime is explained please? ( and Tsunade's thing too come to think of it ), really can't remember even roughly where that stuff is brought up.

Ignoring any NaruHina debate, given nearly all of it seems to be people looking at the manga from the perspective of the anime, when was the last time before Hinata's suicide attempt that there'd been even a hint of romance? I guess it was Sakura's similar ill-advised lunge at 4-tailed Naruto back at the bridge? that was quite a while ago. I don't see it being totally beyond the bounds of possibility that there won't be any romantic conclusion *ever*.

Buuut, given the assumption Sakura needs some sort of wake-up call to realise what she's in danger of missing repeatedly, I think the final push is going to come from Tsunade's inevitable demise; either that or that point will kill it entirely. Jiraiya & Tsunade had a little chemistry, but they were close teammates who'd known each other for decades, and let's not forget her love interest was given repeatedly, that's not an awesome precedent

Anyway, she's the only female character who's had any real growth at all ( and panel time ), so that would seem to automatically tie her to the main protagonist eventually in some way or other. I don't think anyone with any investment in the pairing is going to be too disappointed at the very end, unless Kishi decides to wreck the series deliberately. What irritates me about the last Hinata chapters was how stupid he made her look in the first one, and how for no good reason he stopped Pain who's after all one of the arch-villains from actually having killed her in the second. Hinata may have some last words moment for Sakura, but really that's just stealing Tsunade's thunder & it'd have been a massively bigger impact if she'd actually died that fast. Still disappointed

Or the fourth had time to add it himself. Come to think of it wasn't there a copy of it with the key toad? must have had some free time to make these copies ( and the one on Naruto too ), unless Jiriya or the toads did it.

I'm a little amused Minato has cheated the Shinigami, if he's managed to summon himself into Naruto's head, I'm sure that's gonna go down well also amused that he seems to have found the immortality Orochimaru was after. Wonder if he can summon other people? Orochimaru could, after all. Poor Naruto's head could end up like a party line at this rate.

Well, you could also assume that the Kyuubi didn't suddenly appear that time ( although given it seems more and more like Madara's summons, not sure about that ), and so he had some time to prepare as it rampaged across to Konoha. But yes, I remember something a long time back was said that made me think there was some bigger plot behind that sealing. That would lead to the rather odd conclusion that the 4th was behind the Kyuubi attack, though... actually that idea tickles me a little, although it'd utterly kill Naruto at this point.

Um, wow; that came out of left-field. And, wow, again. Got to love a chapter that makes you say "woah, that was so cool" at the end... keep it coming Kishi, your karma is on the rise again.

Lol, The village hidden in the Pit. Even the Hokage heads are gone, it seems. I also can't wait for Sasuke to turn up & see that... what's he gonna try & kill next?

So, guess Kakashi really is dead, but this is a far more dramatic way of Naruto finding out, is it not?

I think a lot of NaruHina fans get the manga confused with the anime; as I said in a rant somewhere else, Hinata's a really small character in the manga ( I think Ino has had more panel time & has actually done more constructive stuff ), pretty much her only function was to show Naruto was desireable to *someone*. I'm gonna have to stop reading if she lives through all this, but if I could push past that, to have her suddenly turn into one of Naruto's inner circle, let alone his love interest with the near zero development Kishi's done for her over 400+ chapters would kill what credibility I have left for the series after some of the utter ridiculousness of some of shippuden.

I'm still failing to see any blaze of glory in the last chapter, all she did was totally fail to do anything useful, and then get stabbed. Fairly sure she knew it was suicidal, so the lack of consequences to her confession made it easy to say; I don't see any guts in that either. I guess she didn't think it'd matter to Naruto ( given her self esteem that's probably a fair guess ), coz if she did think it'd matter that would be quite amazingly selfish, and not a little spiteful. However I think I'm giving Kishi a bit too much benefit of the doubt & he meant it to be glorious, and I just don't think it was.

Hah, Sakura's inner medic is coming out; every single person I've met who's worked in healthcare has been boringly levelheaded and quite ridiculously bossy and given my family are in healthcare that's quite a few of them. Glad to see one of the female rookies is actually being given some character for once.

The Pain Naruto's chasing isn't Nagato himself, so killing that body isn't going to kill Pain totally, although I think it's probably going to die. I guess the group trying to find Nagato is going to end up being diverted into sorting Naruto out, so he's going to get away. Probably time for Madara to turn up again.

Tch, he neutered Pain. How in hell is Hinata alive still, that's pathetic. I guess being somewhat overoptimistic it's a way to wake Sakura up a bit, given the last time anyone talked about feelings was the last time Naruto went all Kyuubi, but the way he's writing at the moment I think that would be being over generous.

Killerbee is still around, isn't he? as the one who's sync'd with his bijuu I can see how he'd slot into the plot again at this point. Unfortunately it's probably gonna be Sasuke saving the day again, given he & Madara are the only ones left who can subdue the Kyuubi. And Kishi had accumulated so many coolness points recently....

Meh, I usually lurk too, but ( mostly the reactions to ) this chapter got me annoyed enough to post something.

Taken purely from the point of view of the manga; Hinata's death was a totally unsurprising end to an utterly useless character. The sole productive thing she ever did was make some cream for injuries ( chuunin exams ), other than that... she had the full resources of an entire clan, and wasted the lot. If she didn't want to be a fighter, why the hell didn't she go and do something she was actually good at, like something in medicine? I'm sorry, someone without any conviction at all would not be someone I wanted to rely on to keep me alive in a fight.

Which brings us to 437; there's an entire village turned into rubble, no doubt there's people trapped there, and you've got these magic eyes that let you see chakra, and you've got some ability to treat injuries, so what do you do?

Lets see, do you a) finally confess to the guy you've supposedly loved for years and COMMIT SUICIDE IN FRONT OF HIS FACE IMMEDIATELY without doing any damage whatsoever, or b) help pull people out of the mess & treat them, and stay out of the damn way of people who you know are insanely strong, just like the rest of Naruto's friends ( apart from the ones planning on actually doing something productive that is ). Good job Hinata, now you've made Naruto go out of control 6-tails & quite possibly screwed all sorts of kitten up. If you really love someone you don't go and deliberately cause them pain. Stupid, useless, idiot.

I'm assuming that if he's broken Pain's control by going all Kyuubi now, he could have done it anyway, so she really didn't save him from anything. I'm not sure if I like the chapter for making brave decisions about popular character death, or be utterly disgusted about how lame it really is, either way if she somehow lives through all this I'm another one who's gonna quit reading it. The guy stabbed her, it's pretty damn obvious, doesn't matter what it was with, and he has absolutely no reason not to kill her. Kakashi ran out of chakra, there's kinda room for manoever there, but this should be terminal.

As I cant stand the anime I'm assuming from what I've read about it that she's actually a worthwhile character, which would explain why people like her, but purely manga? bleh. The silly reactions after this hits the anime are going to make some amusing reading, I think.

Edit; should point out that Sakura's also got a history of doing this sort of thing ( for both Sasuke & Naruto so far ), only rather less terminally, and only in a situation where they needed saving from *themselves*. Um, yes, one of those might be coming I guess.