Naruto, ch.

523
Review by Alterno
Scanlators: SleepyFans
Title: Densetsu no Shinobigatana Shichininshū!!

Introduction

Finally after almost 11 years of reading Naruto we are getting a major revelation and this is the
revelation of the identity of the seven legendary swordsmen from Kirigakure. When the organization
known as Akatsuki appeared in the story, some of us started to ask ourselves if we would ever see
more of this group of shinobi from Kirigakure. These were shinobis like not other and as a friendly
reminder we must not forget that one of them, Zabuza, had Kakashi done, in the very first arc of the
manga, which pretty much starts in the volume 3 of the manga known as Bridge of Courage, and
ends at volume 4 “The new opponents”.

With this said, the power and skills of these shinobi should not be underestimated, because while is
true that we saw some impressive movements from Zabuza while using his cleaver, the true that most
of his ninjutsu are quite impressive and still today have validity as they have been used by other
shinobi like Kakashi and Kisame (R.I.P). What we'll see next from this group, what is known about
 them and how can they counter their skills and techniques, now that Kabuto is truly taking care of
the these puppets?, Considering that they were known for being vicious and blood lust shinobis, what
about now that they are mindless war machines, under the control of a mind that is truly
unreadable?
The Legendary Seven Swordsmen
We finally got the identity of the seven swordsmen
Sword: The Sever Sword (断刀 - Dantou)
Kubikiri Hōchō (首斬り包丁; literally meaning "Decapitating Carving Knife")

Zabuza Momochi
再不斬- "Zabuza" means "never cut twice" in Japanese, while his surname, 桃地-
"Momochi", means "peach earth" in Japanese.
Fled from Ame carrying this sword.

The Long Sword (長刀 - Choutou)

Nuibari (縫い針; literally meaning “Threading Needle")

Kushimaru Kuriarare
串-“Kushi”means “Skewer”and 丸-“Maru”is a suffix for male Japanese name, while 栗霰-
“Kuriare” means “Chestnut”.

The Bolt Sword (雷刀 - Raitou)

Kiba (牙; literally meaning "Fang")

Ameyuri Ringo
雨由利-”Ameyuri” means “The one that gains a advantage on the rain”and 林檎–“Ringo”
means apple.

The Blast Sword (爆刀 - Bakutou)

Shibuki (飛沫; literally meaning “Splash")

Jinpachi Munashi
甚八-“Jinpachi” means “Extreme Eight” and 無梨- "Munashi” means “Japanese Peach”.

Master of all Swords

Mangetsu Hõzuki
満月-“Mangetsu means "full moon" and 鬼灯- Hōzuki literally means "demon lantern" or
"demon lamplight”.
 The BluntSword (鈍刀 - Dontou)
Kabutowari (兜割; literally meaning “Helm Splinter")

Jinin Akebino
餌人-“Jinin” means “Feed Man” , while 通草野-“Akebino”means Akebia’s field (Akebia is
a genus of just two species of flowering plant, within the family Lardizabalaceae. The
scientific name, akebia, is a Latinization of the Japanese name for the genus, akebi. They
are commonly referred to as chocolate vine, and are grown by-gardeners as ornamental
trailing vines.)
The GreatSword (大刀 - Daitou)
Samehada (鮫肌; literally meaning "Shark Skin")

Fubuki Suikazan
河豚鬼 - “Fubuki” means “puffer fish/blow fish/globe fish/swell fish demon, while 西瓜山
- “Suikazan” may mean watermelon pile.
Was the previous Samehada wielder before be killed by Kisame.

This information was provided by Laam

This information is quite interesting, it really puts Kisame as part of a whole new generation of
Swordsmen and chou a swell, but open a lot of questions like:

Who is the strongest among all of them?

If we talk just about skill as swordsman, then it would be Mangetsu, as the manga just confirmed. But
overall who is the strongest among them?, is something that I would like to know. We can't even say
that Kisame was stronger than the previous wielder, because the manga pretty much tells us that
Kisame killed Suikazan by a landing a surprise attack over him, while he had his guard down.

The cleaver, the indestructible bloody sword?,

Ok that's indeed a great cool ability, being able to reconstruct itself from blood is quite an amazing
ability, and in fact while Samaheda could actually suck chakra, the ability to rebuilt itself is just as
great as the ability to heal the wielder.

The storyteller
Suigetsu becomes the story teller of the current chapter, by revealing the names and abilties of the
swords of their respective wielders. To be honest it actually makes sense for him being the one telling
the story as his goals as characters are further revealed, the revival of the seven legendary swordsmen
trough the collection of all the swords.
Juugo and Suigetsu...
We can't stop noticing how much the relationship between Juugo and Suigetsu has improved since
the beginning of the manga, and probably since their fight against Killer Bee (Kirabi). They even look
like two great friends helping each other to reach one objective in common.

General Kakashi

Well to be honest we all expected Kakashi to perform flawlessly when it comes to talk about planning
and even when it comes about fighting as part of a team, we saw these skills during the Pain's
invasion arc. However Kabuto is also pulling strings here and Kabuto was introduced as being as
strong as Kakashi by Orochimaru and that was several years ago when Kabuto was still pretty much a
kid compared to Kakashi, now his power and/or abilities are out of the scale or hard to measure with
anything we have seen before. However still to early to know what is going to happen in this battle, it
would be a great surprise if Kakashi's cell is forced to retreat or is defeated, but it would be expected
to see back ups coming to aid Kakashi in capturing these edo tensei summons.

The Key Edo Tensei's summons...

At this point we should have identified the key characters, or Kabuto's key pieces for the current
ongoing battle, these are: Zabuza, Haku, Pakura, Gari and Mangetsu.

Zabuza is a key character because he is limiting the field of vision for the shinobi alliance units, while
the shinobi alliance outnumber greatly the edo summons, these are shinobi specialized in silent
killing, especially Zabusa., which makes it really hard to fight due Zabuza's fog.

Haku is a key character due his Kekkai genkai and speed. Is amazing how he was able to block a
double kick from Konoha's green beast and from lee like nothing, even for being a Edo Tensei
summon it is just extraordinary how fast he was able to react and block that attack.

Pakura and her 灼遁, Shakuton are just pure awesomeness. She was able to defeat several shinobi by
herself and made it look really easy. To be honest I never expected to see such strength from the
Sunagakure, this clearly make us think about what we'll see from other nations or even from
characters from Konoha that we are still underestimating (Kishimoto don't forget about Hinata
please).

Gari and his 爆遁, Bakuton are just awesome too, is an explosive kekkai genkai, combined with close
combat “tae jutsu”, which actually makes thing even better.

Hozuki Mangetsu
This is another of the key characters, this one called greatly my attention... because I really never
expected him to be the master of all the swords, this means that even Samaheda followed his orders,
which makes a fight between him and Killer bee a must desire or dream by all the fans. Probably
Samaheda didn't grow to attached to Kisame... due how it was obtained by him.

Mangetsu looks deadly, probably would be the most logical choice when it comes to talk or think
about the most powerful among all the swordsmen, or at least the most skilled in swordsmanship
among all the seven.
Another interesting fact, is that he has the ability to transform himself in water just like his little
brother “Suigetsu”, which means that this is not something that came as outcome of Orochimaru's
experiment, that this could be indeed a Kekkai Genkai, I don't totally dismiss this ability being the
outcome of an experiment, but I doubt any direct involvement from Orochimaru at this point. We
know that Orochimaru experimented on shinobi with special abilities like: Kimimaru, Sasuke and
Kabuto.

This is looking great, don't you think guys?

Ohh... Memories...
Honestly this picture was something that I didn't expect to see again, at least not with Haku and
Zabuza being mindless zombies, but Kabuto is actually playing really well his cards. If you have read
the manga since the first chapter, then you know what this image is all about... and how shocking it is
for the readers (and Kakashi), the current situation,

Is like going back 10 years in time and watching it all over again, the killing intent in Zabuza and
Haku shielding Zabuza one more time, is just like that time, Haku is Zabuza's tool one more time.

Opinion
So what do I think about this chapter?
I think this chapter is what we call an epic and balanced chapter. There was action and information
about the actors that were part of the action. I was in fact surprised with how well Kishimoto
managed to reveal details about the seven swordsmen and keep the action going,
What about the techniques and combinations?
I didn't skip talking about these techniques on purpose, is just that my reviews are more visual than
writing, Benelori and Naruto 4 Hokage are the pros at writing and since I'm starting a career I would
love to have more time to write these reviews, but is just that there's not enough time for it, unless I
work it directly in my pc.

The Cloth binding technique seems to be a great technique, even better than Shadow binding
techniques when it comes to talk about immobilizing the opponent, however the combination
between Kakashi, Santa (ho ho ho, sorry couldn't help myself) and the Nara's clan member, was quite
amazing, can't wait to see that moment animated.

Why are you writing your review as a Portable Document File?

Because writing it at Vbulletin and uploading each picture takes a more time than I could give to
reviews, in fact I'm surprised that I was able to write an 8 page review in about a hour and a half,
considering that 2 or 3 pages reviews usually take me about 3 hours or more, including editing
pictures, so is a win-win situation.

My Questions for everybody, please reply at the forum...

1. Will Kisame be Edo Tensei at some point? Yes/No and Why?

2. Will Kakashi's unit be the one to bite the dust?
3. If you think that another unit could join Kakashi's, which one it would be?
4. Is Hinata the sexiest girl in the naruto universe ? Yes/Yes and Why :)
5. Are you expecting Kabuto to be trapped anytime soon or you believe in what you saw in the
Uniqlo's OAV?
6. What do you think about reviews being released as PDF files, do you like this way ?
a) Yeah b) Is fine c) neutral d) I don't like it e) Ohh man this sucks.

Add me to your facebook...

Most of my friends are from Spanish speaking country and I looking forward to internationalize my
friend list as (if god allows), I will be traveling more and hopefully meeting people, don't be shy
(especially girls), I don't bite (not much) and I also feeling inspired to write poetry in English as well
(or at least try to).

If you want to be friend with me on facebook feel free to send me your facebook name or ask me for
mine. “Girls I'm hot, I already posted my pic @ Mangahelpers, just check for it.”. ~ God Bless us all...