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Well, to be fair, Danzo IS pretty good at training his members for missions, even though most of the missions he assigned during the series ultimately failed. If he deemed Kabuto capable of the kinds of missions he was sent on, then Kabuto could do that no problem. I wouldn't go so far as to call Danzo "cruel and evil" though. He was a huge jerk who did a lot of nasty things, yes. But, he definitely believed that he had the best interests of the village at heart at the end of the day, and a lot of the stuff that he has done generally supports the village and if it were to come to light, the actual leadership would save face because Danzo did it independently. He's more "harsh" than "evil and cruel" most of the time. He does lapse more towards those at times though.

We have seen talented and powerful rookies all through out the series but none of them were sent to high class missions from the start. And why was that? IT'S BECAUSE OF EXPERIENCE. [\B] My only nitpick with what you said is that none of them, at least above the table, were INTENTIONALLY sent on high-class missions. I seem to remember an incident where a certain Genin managed to bitch his way up a mission class, and it turned out to be a battle against jonin-level opponents in what amounted to a small-scale war over the fate of a country. Yeah, that's kind of a high class mission. I do concede that it was not INTENTIONALLY given to the proper class of shinobi, but occasionally, something like that DOES happen above the table. And considering that nearly all of ROOT's missions amount to S-class, if Danzo believes that you managed to progress far along enough in his "special" training, then he'll send you on whatever mission he sees fit. He's operating off a different system than the standard "village missions" and as such has different training programs. remember that an active ROOT member is a certified ANBU, so Kabuto going on those missions implies that wheter or not Hiruzen knew about it, Kabuto was certified capable by Danzo, who as we have established, despite his many faults, isn't a complete idiot. Yes, among all the Root members who have been shown in the series Sai is the youngest. Here's a link: http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Root I used this as my source of data here. [\B] I'll accept that he was the youngest KNOWN member. As far as other members, we don't know what Danzo had, so I'm not going to assume that Sai was the youngest for sure, given that it's canon that Danzo used younger people. OK, it's fine if you consider infiltrating Orochimaru's lair to be harder than infiltrating multiple ninja villages at a time of war. But I can't really consider observing Naruto to be harder than that. You misunderstand me. I'm not calling it "harder", I'm calling it "dangerous". Orochimaru's not even safe to be around if you're one of his minions, let alone a spy. And when assigned to keep observing Naruto, that amounted standing next to the Jinchuriki with the unstable output, who had just had two MAJOR meltdowns in as many weeks and was currently undergoing mass-training that triggered several meltdowns that had to be supressed. That's a different kind of danger, the kind that comes from standing next to a bomb with an unstable detonator.

As awesome as that video was, it's kind of non-canon, being footage from a game and all. Not to mention to statement we have that Hashirama had his wife, Mito with him. Madara can go on about his great rivalry, but we haven't seen what he was like in life in canon, and he's far beyond where he was then. Not to mention the fact that he didn't see hokage 3-4. Not everything everyone says IU can be taken purely at face value.

It is an absurd idea to think that a child of 12-13 years would be sent to the multiple ninja villages to spy on them. Ah, here we are. The age old question "who would be that stupid?" People ask that question then find out just who was so "stupid" as to do something they didn't expect on account of it not being "smart". You're not the only one who thinks it "absurd" to use people Kabuto's age, which is EXACTLY why it works. Keep in mind though, that Kakashi made Jonin in his early teens. Age isn't always indicative of ability, and Kabuto had the perfect past for infiltration missions: no past at all. From your writing I can say that you dislike Danzo to certain extent, but no matter what we say, we cannot deny the fact that Danzo is one of the most intelligent characters of the whole series.[\B] There are a few points of contention here, like attempting to mind control a mediator in a meeting that was ALREADY going the way he wanted. The trope "Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat" doesn't exactly scream intelligence. Or, how about insulting Itachi in front of Sasuke, then thinking that holding Karin hostage would save him? Or even dismissing Sasuke's illusions for not being as good as Itachi's? The man may have been fairly capable at scheming, but he was still a smug snake, and that's what got him killed. He tried to backstab or control too many people, someone caught on, he got isolated, then in his arrogance, made too many mistakes. He was intelligent, yes. But in the end, he proved to be too clever by half, and failed for it. And given his "resume" that I posted, the harshness is warranted. As far as whether or not I like or dislike him, it's not that simple. He's a huge asshole, yes. But he's of a much different flavor than Tobi, Madara, or Orochimaru, though he has a couple similarities with each of those varieties. I liked having him around while we had him, and enjoyed compiling just what made him a douchebag, but I wasn't sorry to see him die. All the members of the Root who were sent for missions by Danzo are older than 20 and surely had experience on such matters. The youngest active member of the Root is Sai. Danzo assigned Sai for two missions: 1. Infiltrating Orochimaru's Hideout. 2. Observing Naruto. The missions assigned to Kabuto were far more dangerous than the ones above. Do we have a source saying that there are no other young members? Unless we have a statement on this, which I would be happy to see, this seems to be a bit of an assumption. And seriously? You categorize sneaking into an enemy village as LESS dangerous than observing a semi-unstable jinchuriki or getting within grabbing distance of Mr. Experimentation himself, Orochimaru? Your priorities, I guess, but still...

I'll tell you who does that. Douchebag McAsshole of the Shimura clan does. The same jackass who: Preached about "self-sacrifice" while sitting on the sidelines pretending to be a crippled old man and sending other indoctrinated and possible brainwashed agents to their deaths instead Likely "helped" with the Uchiha negotiations with the motivation of harvesting eyes from corpses Treated said eyes as little more than batteries after harvesting them Blackmailed an orphanage to get a FORMER agent un-retired Immediately proceeded to demand an orphan as a new agent, recycling his exact threat from two minutes ago, then justified it with "well, for all you know, one of them wants to become a shinobi anyway." The man just ran a mafia-grade protection scam. Didn't help defend Konoha during the invasion of Pain Tried to use mind control to boost his standings at an international summit Used Tobi-Yagura's "graduation test" on pre-genin. Using Kabuto, an at least semi-willing volunteer, for such missions is sadly one of the LEAST damning examples of him being a bastard-coated bastard donut with bastard sprinkles and bastard filling after all the other ones we got.

So let me see what you are suggesting here: 1. The fact that Kabuto was found by a Konoha captain of the Medic Corps in the Battle of Kikyo Pass is nothing but a lie created by Danzo to cover Kabuto's covert missions. Kabuto got recruited by Danzo and later on took part in the Third Shinobi World War as a covert operative. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a COMPLETE lie. Danzo would have ordered the captain of the Medical corps to care for him and help him improve medical ninjutsu so he'd be of more use on missions, and stick to that story about finding Kabuto among corpses, since that's a conveniently unverifiable background. The idea is that any snarls in Kabuto's history have between what we see and what we get second or third hand can be chalked up to getting a mix of pieces of truths and lies. As 2. Sasori took control over Kabuto between the time he left the orphanage and saw the nun again inside the Tsuchigakure. That means Sasori could've taken over Kabuto between those five years. Yes, that is one way it could have happened, since he was most likely hit with Manchurian Agent no Jutsu some time BEFORE Orochimaru picked him up. First of all there's no record that Kabuto was a spy inside Kirigakure. So I cannot agree with you here. Though a possible theory, this is pure assumption. http://www.mangahere.com/manga/naruto/v60/c583/10.html What assumption are you talking about? We have a CLEAR record of that happening. Kabuto was found by a nun named Nonou from a certain battlefield during the war. Three years later he was recruited by Danzo. He then took part in the war. Later on he was found by a Konoha captain of the Medic Corp from the Battle of Kikyo Pass which took place almost at the end of the Third Shinobi World War. I did actually look back and it didn't say infant. It said that he was found and raised as a son. Still a bit murky. For now, I'm defaulting to a partly true cover story put in place by Douchebag McAsshole.

None of it is filler, everything's building up to a specific goal, and setting up a situation to be resolved in KHIII. Thing is, Kingdom Hearts II burned up most of its plotlines and left little room for a sequel connected to the other games. Which is why we've had: a game that runs from the end of Kingdom Hearts to the start of Kingdom Hearts II, to fill in blanks left in KH2 and provide a portion of potential material for the future a prequel to explain why some events happened how they did, and establish the goals that will be focused on in KH2 a sequel that provides context as to the letter at the end of KH2 and how it ties in to the future a sequel that acts as the Chain of Memories that bridges KH2 and KH3 Here's the thing. The team that makes Console KH games is busy. They're making a game called "Final Fantasy Versus XIII". It's a PS3 game that's Tetsuya Nomura's idea of what the FFXIII concept should be. His interpretation of the concepts laid out at the start, if you will. This game is being developed with the intent of the team using the technology and know-how they get from making that game to make Kingdom Hearts III after they finish. So rather than ignoring the series while the KH main team is busy, Square has opted to allow Nomura to try new things with the series and actually give it attention in the time between, keeping it in the public eye, and actually giving it somewhere to go past KH2. I personally, plan to laugh at people who skipped all the so-called "filler" KH games, thinking them to be crap just for not falling in line with elitist, preconceived notions of what hardware a game must be on and what kind of name it must have for it to be "a real game in the series".

No, it's just a relatively normal sized chapter. It was alright, but I just would have liked to see the wedding, or at least a little bit of aftermath, like a little more Aoki and Hiramaru, or any follow-up on Kaya's hint that she wanted children. I do think that this ending was kind of the punchline to a brick joke, though. The setup was the whole debate over whether Reversi would end with its main plot resolved, or think of something else to write. By deciding to finish Reversi at the end of that plot, Ohba and Obata pretty much told us how they were going to handle the series upon the resolution of the Mashiro-Miho plotline.

The only contention I have against your post is that his development has in fact been going for the whole series. Some of it has been subtle, but it's been moving along and constantly moving.

I have a few bones to pick with this theory. First, Konohamaru was 8 in pt 1, and young Kabuto looks younger than him. Given that one of the Matrons considered that kabuto wasn't old enough to know how to tell time, there's a good chance that he was younger than 8. However, I'm not seeing anything that makes any statements that "he couldn't be any younger than that" valid. Second, we know that Kabuto kept being fed new "life stories" that he had to know and live by. His official past in Konoha could easily have been installed by Danzou. Danzou probably ordered or blackmailed the head of the Medical Corps into telling that cover story, in order to cover up Kabuto's status as a Covert Agent. His time with Sasori was probably in that time he was working missions for Danzou, and Orochimaru broke the Manchurian Agent no Jutsu that Sasori used in that time, as well as winning Kabuto over by being the only one to bother to remember him or show him sympathy. The issue with characters like Kabuto is that while they're surrounded by lies and deception, we only get chunks of each story and try to reconcile them assuming all are true. In reality, most of what we "know" about Kabuto's past is told by other people. The parts that we know that are corroborated between different tellers are the "adopted by captain of medical corps" part, "servant of Orochimaru" part and the "former servant of Sasori" part. We don't know how long the latter lasted for, but it was presumably during the mission phase in the 5 year time under Danzou. Actually, I have an idea on when he was a servant of Sasori. It could have been during his time as a spy in Kirigakure, which for a time was secretly ruled by Tobi, who was connected to Sasori. We just don't know when Yagura died. As for WHEN he was found, Kabuto was found in a war zone, and was raised by a medic. 3 years later, there was STILL a war going on. So the only part that was wrong there was the "being found by the captain of the Medic Corps" part, which as I mentioned earlier, was likely just a cover story that Danzou fabricated.

The issue with that is that the Hollow and Zangetsu are one and the same, a combined entity capable of splitting itself, which implies that Ichigo's powers are heavily intertwined. If one goes dormant or awakens, the other does too. As far as Ichigo having Fullbring, he'd probably just have that if nobody gave him powers. His Fullbring would have developed naturally, given an appropriate trigger. But I digress. The Power transfer seems to work 2 ways: A) Temporary transferrence of power, fades away after a reasonably short period of time Activating other powers, kind of like jumpstarting a car, or a Nen Baptism in Hunter X Hunter. Aside from the Hogyoku making things go not quite right, Rukia's transfer was supposed to be a Type A version. On the other hand, the sword made by Urahara is a Type B, meant to reactivate the powers that Ichigo already had. And given the link between his old powers, this would imply that the Hollow is back too. In addition, it the Thousand Year Blood War, this puts Ichigo in an interesting position. He's at the middle ground between all sides in terms of just what he is now. He's a human with spiritual powers, from Fullbring, like the Vandenreich. Same kind of entity, different source. He's a Soul Reaper at the same time. In addition, he has Hollow powers. I can see Kubo playing up the fact that Ichigo has attributes from every side some time in this arc.

Who's calling who a whiny bitch?

Naruto grew up shunned. To be fair, he kind of acted like an asshole too, so nobody was in the right there, and he got better when he got someone to believe in him. He never had a beloved brother murder everyone he ever cared about, then make him watch it happen over and over again. Naruto wasn't even aware that Kurama was sealed inside of him for most of his life. And as far as trying to earn the respect of others, that's been more of a recent change. Up until part 2, he thought that making himself badass enough to be named Hokage would MAKE people respect him. He understood nothing until he had some more time to grow and mature. Naruto and Sasuke are kind of opposite characters. Naruto started off as a maladjusted little douchebag of a brat. Over time, he was given reasons to improve and people who were determined to help him in his goals and life. He got better. Sasuke STARTED being relatively well-adjusted for an 8-year old. Then, he lost most of those mentor figures and was horribly messed up by the remaining one he had. Past Kakashi, who just wasn't helping with his goal, and in fact actively discouraging Sasuke's reason for living, Sasuke's mentors have all been people intent on using him as a tool to get what they want. Basically, they had relatively opposite starting points, then their circumstances put them on to a somewhat common ground for a while, then drove them apart and just keep driving them farther away. To be fair, this wouldn't be so bad if Itachi weren't such a crappy brother. I'm interested to see what happens when the two of them meet soon.

The reason I like Sasuke is because he's a character who's very interesting. He's operating on an ancient form of morality that prioritizes the family and family honor above all else, which is a bit hard to swallow from a western perspective, he's had just so much happen to him that he just can't deal with, and hasn't been reduced to a practical invalid, his interactions with Itachi, who is a TERRIBLE brother but means well, are very interesting and the two characters are connected almost to the point of being two parts of the same one. Even while Sasuke's relative sanity level has been dropping, it's been an enjoyable ride down to the bottom, and I'm still interested in seeing just how far his character arc goes.

Actually, there is a story behind it. White is the color that represents Death in Japan, while the color Black represents Life. Hollows have primarily a White color scheme, while Soul Reapers dress in mostly Black. Bleach was chosen as the title because it evokes images of the color white, which is complimentary to Black, since most of the Soul Reapers wear Black.