The ending song girl appeared to be Hinata at first glace, but on close examination I don't really think its her.
Anyway, the episodes were excellent (although they did have plenty of estrogen bait
![tongue.gif](http://www.narusaku.com/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
) and Naruto's character came off well. The gutsy ninja portion as well as the sage training and decryption (lol @ Kakashi's discomfort) were handled with a good air of both the sadness about Jiraya's death as well as the "hope for the future" theme that was running concurrently.
It's a long ways to catch up though. I look forward to the Pain fight like all of you!