SUMMARY OF EPISODE 431: TO SEE THAT SMILE JUST ONE MORE TIME [FILLER]
- We start with a flash forward: a dying Karin asking Sasuke to smile like he did that day.
- The starts the flashback to Karin’s (mostly) filler background: Karin’s mother dies and a young (less than 10 years old Karin) takes her role in Kusagakure’s medical unit. Which means being bitten by men all over.
- She endures the abuse due to being an outsider who was taken in by the village, and is then sent to the Chuunin exams (to act as the healer of her group) where she meets Sasuke (the scene is slightly extended to show a blushing Karin).
- Due to her poor performance, she is sent to another mission. There she realizes that if this keeps up, she’s going to die.
- Once again we see Pierrot’s filler first meeting between Orochimaru and Karin (he saves her from being trafficked).
- She meets Kabuto and starts being abused again right away.
- Karin helps in Juugo’s experiments (not shown) which grants her the position as jailer of the Southern Cell. She thinks she’s finally free from being bitten now.
- Karin sees Sasuke again in the hideout and is told he will become Orochimaru’s vessel.
- Then we see some old scenes:
- Sasuke beating Oro.
- Sasuke coming to recruit Karin.
- Karin saving Sasuke during the Killerbee fight.
- Karin saving Sasuke during the Danzou fight.
- Then starts Karin’s actual Tsukuyomi dream: it’s unclear whether Sasuke stabbed her in her dream, but I assume he didn’t because after beating Danzou, Sasuke thanks Taka after bringing down Danzou and lets them know he plans to become Hokage and build a new Konoha. He actually succeeds. Juugo comes to let Sasuke know that Karin is in trouble. Karin has been attacked and captured by the same people who abused her in the past. She frees herself and kills the main culprit. She wakes up to a worried Sasuke, tells him it’s too late for her and asks him one last favor: for him to smile again. He begins to do so and we pan to Karin inside her Tsukuyomi cocoon, smiling.
The episode is really uncomfortable to watch. Emphasis on the really. So here is a more thorough summary for those who would like to know what happened in more detail! (including all the ways Pierrot disregarded Karin’s Databook background because well why not).
We meet Karin’s mom, who died after being suck dry by Kusagakure ninja. After her death, a really young Karin (around 8 years at most) is taken in to work (or be exploited) in the medical care unit, which basically means being bitten over and over again by strangers in different areas of her body.
Given that the manga hinted pretty clearly that Karin’s healing-bite was most likely the result of experiments from Orochimaru, the above is really, really out there.
Pierrot also airs again their filler version of Karin’s and Orochimaru’s first meeting, which has Oro saving Karin from being trafficked and sold as a child.
This goes against her canon background - as far as the databook is concerned - which states that:
Once, in a village destroyed by the fires of war, a young girl stood, totally unscathed. She said, “I knew a lot of people were approaching.” This is how Orochimaru came to bring Karin to Otogakure.
Then there is filler of Pierrot’s take on Sasuke and Karin’s 2nd meeting, which seems to happen when they’re both 15. So in Pierrot’s timeline, Karin did serve Orochimaru out of undying loyalty for him (nevermind that even in this filler Oro promises her that no one “is going to touch her again” only to use her in the same way the Kusagakure ninja were doing).
The databook, on the other hand, states that:
Which seems to be backed up by how Karin only ever seems to address Orochimaru as ‘sama’ when he’s within earshot.
However, although she was Orochimaru’s subordinate, she never felt any loyalty to him. She continued because of her love for Sasuke.
Of course, this is nothing but me beating a dead horse since Karin’s background was never explored nor alluded to in the manga in one way or another. But still, there were quite a few ways in which Pierrot could have explored it, IMO lol
copied review from a sasuke x karin blog x
Edited by Hanabi, 24 September 2015 - 08:17 PM.
Persona 5 hype 
