Naruto 3-in-1
volume 9 is a collection of the individual volumes 25, 26, and 27. The first
volume collected in this edition deals with a subject that Naruto fans have been waiting for since the very first volume of
the series. It’s the climactic battle between Naruto and Sasuke, his biggest
rival. It’s a climactic battle because these events wrap up Part One of the
series. While that wasn’t obvious to fans who original read it, it’s made very
clear in hindsight. It doesn’t really matter because the hook here is simply
reading about a no-holds-barred fight between two powerful and promising ninjas
of Konoha, the Land of Fire. More specifically, this is a chance to see Naruto
and Sasuke’s respective special abilities measured up and potentially put an
end to fan debates that have existed since the beginning of the series: who is
the strongest shinobi?
The battle takes up all of volumes 25 and 26. For better
or worse, it’s made up of as many fight scenes as there are flashbacks. I
believe it’s for the best as the flashbacks simultaneously develop Sasuke’s
past, specifically his childhood while also providing additional information
regarding Sasuke’s brother, Itachi, and the Uchiha clan. As one of the more
mysterious figures at this point in the series, these flashbacks are welcomed
and make for a good read.
I can’t exactly same the same of the Naruto and Sasuke
fight in these chapters. They’ve had very small fights in the past and all of
those fights are revisited here to some degree. Mostly though, it’s a one for one
clash of each of their special abilities with Naruto winning some and Sasuke
winning some others. It’s the second time I read this fight and I couldn’t help
but notice that Masashi Kishimoto’s storytelling did a better job pointing out
the thematic relevance of the fight than he was at providing the reader with an
original and entertaining battle. The location itself adds quite a bit of
thematic relevance to the fight. Fighting at the Valley of the End, a legendary
location where the first Hokage of Konohagakure fought one of the greatest
shinobi of the Uchiha clan echoes the fight between Naruto and Sasuke.
Furthermore, the historical battle ended with Sasuke’s Uchiha ancestor
defecting from Konoha after trying to destroy the village of Konohagakure,
which Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage, was defending. The Nine-Tails fox
demon which now resides in Naruto was also present at that legendary battle.
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| The title page to Chapter 226 with Naruto and Sasuke. |
A lot of this history is unknown or not completely
understood by Naruto and Sasuke. What is evident to them is the more obvious
clashing of both their abilities. Those abilities include: Naruto’s fox demon
chakra versus Sasuke’s Sharingan eyes, the Rasengan (taught to Naruto by
Jiraiya) versus the Chidori (taught to Sasuke by Kakashi), and Naruto’s desire
to gain friendship with others in order to better himself versus Sasuke’s
desire to sever emotional ties in his quest to attain more power. I feel as
though Kishimoto crumbled under the weight of so many themes because the
resulting fight is made more meaningful than it otherwise would have been but
it’s so lackluster that I find it quite boring. It’s predictable in its
execution and it’s very stiff due to the storytelling’s significant
decompression. You have panels that are meant to make both fighters look as
though they are moving in slow motion and the result is seeing mostly static
images with characters moving, little by little, to crash in splash pages that
are nothing more than big chakra explosions. Visually, it’s very anticlimactic.
Kishimoto spend many hundreds of pages establishing these two as characters
with some surprising depth only to reduce them to casualties of so-called cool
explosion. The result is a very simple fight that lasts longer than it should
and it leaves the reader wanting more while also being disappointed at the poor
execution. The real kicker is that right before disappointing you, Kishimoto
proves to you that he has the skill to pull off this kind of storytelling. I
still can’t wrap my head around how disappointing this particular series of
chapters are and it left me feeling cold.
I’m really pleased to say that the final third of this
omnibus collection (volume 27) is a joy to read. The first three chapters deal
with the aftermath of the battle. Naruto is brought back to Konohagakure by
Kakashi. Back in the village, Kishimoto gives the reader time to catch up with
the various Konoha shinobi who were wounded during the mission to retrieve
Sasuke. We get to see some interesting healing techniques and it’s nice to see
some familiar faces after so many chapters focusing on a single battle. The
seeds are also planted for what the main three shinobi (Naruto, Sasuke, and
Sakura) will be doing during the three year gap between Part One and Part Two
of the series. In short, they’ll all be training under one of the Three
Legendary Sannin. Naruto will continue his training with Jiraiya, Sasuke has
joined up with Orochimaru and will train with him, and Sakura has asked to
study under Tsunade who has agreed to take her on as an apprentice. It feels
like setup but it’s delivered as character development. Kishimoto strikes a
nice balance in wrapping up the plot of Part One, setting up the plot of Part
Two and giving everything a nice sense of closure. I find that Kishimoto is
very good at this sort of story. He’s good at providing downtime that feels
relaxed to the reader while also sowing the seeds of future stories.
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| Title page of chapter 243, with Ubito Uchiha and a young Kakashi. |
The rest of the volume is made up of an interlude story
that focuses on a teenaged Kakashi. I really loved these chapters. They were
the highlight of this 3-in-1 volume. Kakashi is such a mystery because we know
next to nothing of him. These chapters, among many other things, tell us how
Kakashi got his Sharingan eye. It also does a very good job at filling in a
generational gap between the Fourth Hokage, Kakashi’s generation, and Naruto’s
generation. Previous chapters have told us that Jaraiya trained the Fourth
Hokage. We also know, though I admit I’m not sure if we learned this in a
previous chapter of if we learn it in this volume for the first time, that the Fourth
Hokage trained Kakashi who then trained Naruto. What is important to know is
that there are four generations of shinobi that have all trained each other and
the history of one of those generations is developed in this volume. It’s all
very interesting and Masashi Kishimoto gives the story the ultra-cool flair it
deserves. The first three chapters of this volume put a somewhat abrupt end to
Part One of Naruto but this interlude
does a very nice job of bridging the gap before the beginning of Part Two. For
that reason, and for being an interesting story in its own right, I’m quite
pleased with it.
Overall, this is yet another strong collection of
volumes. Sasuke has never been a character I’m overly found of and I find his
quest for more power to be one of the more boring aspects of the series, even
if it ties into Naruto’s own story quite nicely. Because of my dislike for
Sasuke, it’s difficult to get really excited about chapters that focus on him
so much. For that reason the first half of the collection isn’t as good as the volumes
preceding it and the volume following it. It also doesn’t help that the battle
between Naruto and Sasuke just doesn’t work well, neither visually or as an
entertaining fight. I really enjoyed the last volume, though. The quieter
stories set in Konoha village are a delightful change of pace. The real treat
of this omnibus collection is volume 27 due to Kakashi’s story, which is great.
It’s the breath of fresh air that the series needed at this point. While being
a breath of fresh air the story is not breezy. It’s tense, informative, and
pretty tragic. It proves once again that the lives of shinobi are very
difficult and full of hardship. They have a noble, yet very difficult, job and
they should be treated with respect. It certainly also gives you pause and
makes you rethink your childhood dreams of becoming a ninja. It’s never been
easy to be a Konoha shinobi and this story foretells that there are more
hardships awaiting our heroes in three years’ time. The next volumes have
plenty of surprises in store and I’m looking forward to reading them already.
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