Quite honestly, I am very disappointed in Kishimoto as a storyteller.

 

This ending was rushed, and there were so many random developments and pairings that had no build-up.  Some didn't even make any sense at all.  He also committed a complete character assassination of both Naruto and Sakura.

 

I will keep H&E running for as long as people want to post about NaruSaku, but I will not be reading any more of Kishimoto's work, nor will I be watching the Last movie.  It's just going to be Kishi's way of justifying the complete lack of NaruHina/SasuSaku development over the past 15 years.

 

This was indeed a shocking ending.  Shockingly bad.

This reminds me of a fan theory to explain what happened to "How I Met Your Mother".

The writers had the story for the first season, and how it would end.

The series became successful, so the writers had to let the characters develop and evolve to fill out the middle seasons. But they made the decision to stick with their original ending, so they had to ignore all the work that happened between the early and last seasons to make it fit.

That's how it feels for Naruto. Rather than decide to adjust his ending to be a natural resolution of all that has happened during Shippuden, it feels like he decided stick to to his initial (under developed) ending.

Sakura's story arc was that she grew more confident and responsible, to become better than she was.

And in the last two chapters, she reverts to the way she was: cleaning at home, not working at the Hokage's office... Ugh.

I didn't read this manga solely for the big fights and war. It was the character work and relationships that happened while the fighting was going on. And the manga totally ignored those to wrap up the fighting. Very disappointing. (I thought Orochimaru had some secret scheme going on... but I guess not.)

And everyone is peaceful now? I could see an *improved* system to handle the conflicts, but for the conflicts to go away?

Are we sure the Eye-in-the-Moon plan didn't work?

Whoever suggested that this might have been drawn and narrated by another man than Kishi could have a point. This is almost unrecognisable from the manga we know. 

I agree with this. These recent chapters are more like the anime filler writer's work, instead of the better stuff Kishi has done in the past.

Two chapters posted at MangaPanda.

Chapter 35: Legendary Ninja!

http://www.mangapand...ime-of-youth/35

Chapter 36: Adults!!

http://www.mangapand...ime-of-youth/36

I still can't get over the fact that she really was limited in jutsus. Like wtf? lol so sad.

I thought her son the Hermit created most of the jutsus, while Kaguya was an insane amount of chakra.

In that case, she would be powerful in a heads-up fight, but could be outmaneuvered.

They've been fighting Kaguya for about 20 chapters. That's about as long as the epic Naruto vs. Pein fight.

It only feels abrupt because of how long the Madara fight was dragging out.

(I agree it feels "off", but I'm not freaking out about it.)

Has the World Tree gone away, or is that still active?

I still think the final fight will be Sasuke vs. Naruto.

And I have to wonder what Orochimaru has planned.

I suppose it's all a matter of sensitivity. Some will be more affected by this than others. Sasuke seems so careless about Sakura's state.

Agreed. While Sasuke is holding Sakura on the last page, he is also digging into Sakura's acid-wound with his fingers. Hardly a tender gesture. 

I thought Naruto was going to use "Thousand Years of Death", so it was a fun surprise to see what he did use.

For people getting upset, Naruto wasn't trying to defeat her with Reverse Harem. He was hoping a super-punch to the face would defeat her. A smoke screen wouldn't have surprised her. The Reverse Harem was better than a smoke screen, effective due to it being totally unexpected. (Kaguya doesn't have to be a perv to be stunned by a "what the heck?" reaction.)

I was more interested in Sakura's reaction. I don't think the "ok for me" is *just* that she likes the jutsu.

It shows that she has playful banter with Naruto.

At the beginning of part 2, we find out that sometimes Naruto deliberately acts the idiot to get a reaction from Sakura.

Now we know that sometimes Sakura exaggerates her outraged reaction to Naruto's acts.

The two of them like being with each other, and are comfortable with teasing the other person.

I haven't gone through 17 pages of comments, so apologies if I'm repeating what someone else has mentioned.

I'm a bit disappointed that Kishimoto stopped the flashback where he did.

The next moment was Sakura saying that the one thing she hated was Naruto.

That would have been a nice contrast to the present, seeing her with a hand on his shoulder and fascinated by what is new in his life.

The other point is to remember that we are getting Kakashi's opinions.

He is an "unreliable narrator".

He has *always* been about Sasuke, to the point that he pushed Naruto's training onto others and completely ignored Sakura (who had to find a real mentor in Tsunade).

Of course Kakashi is going to focus on Sasuke when thinking about Sakura's past.

It is more important when more objective observers, like Yamato and Sai, mention the importance of Naruto when talking to Sakura about her feelings.

Before getting hit with the lava rasenshuriken, Madara made a mistake.

He was wondering if Naruto dodged being sent to Limbo, but I think it was the wrong jutsu, that makes Naruto *do* the limbo.

For the rest of the fight, if attacked with a chakra rod, Naruto can just dance under it.

Chapter 32 is out at MangaPanda:

http://www.mangapand...ime-of-youth/32

Naruto as a school life style manga.

I think the konoha ninjas are kind of assholeish, i mean they are never shown doing something positive.
They are really really weak, cowards, talk trash about other people, wants to look superior, leaves people behind.
Srsly why Naruto hasnt destroyed that village.

That might explain why Naruto was so angry with Pein.

Not that he destroyed the village, but that he did it just before Naruto was going to.

(Now we know why he was working so hard to perfect the rasenshuriken.)  

As others said, at least there is a reason for Minato to have senjutsu, otherwise he wouldn't have had a reason to be attacking Madara. But since taijutsu also works... Sakura is as outclassed as anyone else, but it would be interesting if at some point Madara would turn his back on her (she is only a woman, in his mind) while in punching distance. 

Still curious what Orochimaru's is planning for his end game.

It would not be surprising if Gai dies. But I'm wondering if Rock Lee will die too. His big thing is to be like his mentor, and having RL also go Eight Gates and fighting with Gai to the bitter end would seem to be a possible resolution for his character.

Chapter 31 is out at MangaPanda:

http://www.mangapand...ime-of-youth/31

Personal opinion: Don't think this chapter worked.

While this series is often silly, I thought there was far too much stuff that came out of nowhere.

...

As for "lack of emotion" some are claiming. She is a medical ninja. Just like a real world doctor who is trained to put duty before emotion, she is putting what needs to be done first. It's not like Karin who is thrashing out erratically out of pure emotional trauma or Hinata who gets emotional and trips giving up. She is the strongest of the three. She'll be emotional when Naruto is alive and wakes up. 
...

It also helps that she had her meltdown in chapter 261, when she found out that extracting a bijuu kills the host.

She has had months to prepare for the possibility. She is keeping it under control right now, because it is necessary.

Sadly, next chapter will be about Sasuke and the person who's approaching him...

 

I think it's Kabuto.

I can only hope that Kabuto will start doing artificial respiration on Sasuke, which will cause Karin to freak out when she gets closer.

okay well I guess that could stop the bleeding but what about exposure? Sakura wasn't shown cleaning her hands...

We were shown her forming a chakra blade. Could also have disinfectant properties.

Some people are complaining how Zetsu was taken out by Team Orochimaru, but they only slowed him down, not stopped him.

I have a bit of that feeling as well, but did you know in real life, mouth-to-mouth CPR is actually not very effective in adults? The way it's suppose to be done is to simply push on the ribs.

Push on the ribs? If you mean chest compressions (on the sternum, not the ribs), that is already covered by Sakura doing direct cardiac massage. We can suppose that medical ninjas can increase the oxygen content of their breath, in which case her artificial respiration would be more effective than in real life.

As someone who had to do CPR on an overweight drowning victim reeking of alcohol and bad breath, it is certainly not romantic. 

But it does show Sakura's determination and strength in a crisis, which helps make her a worthy partner to Naruto (when NS does become cannon).

Chapter 30 is out at MangaPanda:

http://www.mangapand...ime-of-youth/30

Lots of familiar faces. (And no fart jokes!)

The 29th chapter of Rock Lee's epic saga is available

at http://www.mangapand...ime-of-youth/29

Chapter starts out with a Gai-Kakashi duel, and escalates from there.

The words that will shock and terrify readers of Naruto:

For those complaining that Sakura is not fighting with Naruto, I'm guessing she is side-by-side with her mentor. Maybe we'll see the 5 Kage with their bodyguards (the glasses swords guy, Temari and Kankuro, etc.) as an elite fighting team, including Sakura.

My second guess would be that she heading to Kakashi (to heal him), and decides it is time to repeat the white-Zetsu elbow-drop. (On black Zetsu, not Kakashi.   ) The benefit of that would be to give her time to talk to Naruto's dad. 

It does seem odd that Sakura being a Kage's right hand assistant would make her less important to the story now, but so be it.