Target: Locked On

Naruto returns this week with Tsunade questioning Sakura about Naruto’s training progress. Sakura says that he had been making good progress, but it would take a little longer until he’s perfected his new technique. Tsunade tells Sakura that Team 7 will be Team 10’s backup under the condition that Naruto finishes his training within 24 hours. Elsewhere, Team 10 had come to a stop so that Shikamaru could let Kakashi in on his plans on how to defeat Hidan and Kakuzu.

Sakura is then seen telling Yamato and Naruto that they had to complete the training within 24 hours, in order to back up Team 10. Kakashi is impressed by Shikamaru’s ability to quickly adjust the team strategy to include him. He also praises Shikamaru for learning so much about the enemy when he had encountered them only once. Shikamaru then says that they firstly have to pick up a trail.Elsewhere, Akatsuki had completed sealing the Two-Tails. Hidan and Kakuzu had started to move. Ino then uses her body switching jutsu on a bird, and finds Hidan and Kakuzu.

Team 10 then encounters Hidan and Kakuzu. Shikamaru uses his shadow technique to catch them off guard, but they immediately know that they were being followed. He immediately attacks them with kunai attached with explosive tags, but they survive. Hidan and Kakuzu are then forced to dodge another suprise attack by Shikamaru, and realise that the explosive tags were dummies. Shikamaru pins the shadows of the Akatsuki pair with Asuma’s blades imbued with his chakra.

Kakuzu then aknowledges Shikamaru’s intelligence. Shikamuru uses Hidan to attack Kakuzu, but Kakuzu had secretly detached his arm during Shikamaru’s attack. The arm removes the blade pinning his shadow and he dodges Hidan. Shikamaru begins to use Hidan as an attack again, only to force Kakuzu back against a wall. Chouji then attacks Kakuzu from above.

Overall, this episode was not one of the greatest episodes of Naruto Shippuuden, but still decent enough to keep the viewer hooked on to their seat. This was one of those episode where Shikamaru uses his amazing startegical ability to pin his enemy. The plan worked out by Shikamaru was pretty cool. For a while now, Naruto Shippuuden has been focusing heavily on Shikamaru’s character, which in a way is pretty awesome as his character is one of the most interesting from the bunch. The episode had decent pacing and pretty much everybody would be intrigued by this episode.

The animation quality was a standard considering this was a Naruto episode. The opening and ending themes remain the same.

And on that note,

See you next, deculture!