Madara executes forbidden Izanagi on Konan to save his life. Check out our review of Naruto Shippuden 253!

 The title of next Naruto Shippuden episode 253 is "The Bridge to Peace". Konan will continue her fight against Madara Uchiha, fulfilling her promise to be the pillar that supports Naruto, the bridge to peace. Madara will have his hands full trying to escape Konan's paper bombs. Will he resolve to forbidden jutsu Izanagi to accomplish that? See us in Naruto Forums for discussions. Enjoy Naruto Shippuden 253!

In last Konan's attack Madara's Teleportation failed as she savvily mixed in many Paper Bombs. Konan figured out that when Tobi materializes himself as he sucks himself in, so paper bombs actually did affect him. Perhaps not enough to kill him as we hoped, but enough to harm him.

Madara was surprised by the effect of Konan's attack. He admitted that hadn't he shifted to the side and quickly stop his teleportation he may have been doomed.

Konan also noticed that Madara can only pass through objects for five minutes and then he must materialize. She had sent 600 billion Paper Bombs after him exploding for full 10 minutes. Konan's sacred Paper Emissary Jutsu however was failing. It took enormous amount of chakra and what's this? Something really sharp pierced her heart. Madara stood behind her with his left eye exposed and activated. Konan was surprised as only dying could. She asked how this could be and Tobi obliged her. He explained that in order to survive he needed to use much forbidden Izanagi. Izanagi can be done by someone who possesses both Uchiha and Senju powers. Izanagi allowed Madara to tie reality with illusion and escape demise.

Izanagi was created by Sage of the Six Path who founded Uchiha and Senju. Sage of the Six Path created The Power of the Shadow Style, based on mental energies that control imagination as well as The Power of the Light Style, based on Physical energies controlling the physical life. One such example of these two Styles is creation of Tailed Beasts out of chakras of Ten Tails.

 Madara Uchiha is remembered as the one who lost to Hashirama Senju, but did he really lose, or did he merely create an illusion in which Hokage was the victor,  and he, Madara Uchiha, in the process gained his powers? Madara Uchiha explains that he has Senju's powers and thus he is able to execute Izanagi. He is unique and he is the second Sage of the Six Path.

Konan broke off Madara and stared walking to her death when she noticed a break in clouds. The Hidden Rain never saw the sun as it never stopped raining. Regaining some of her strength from the sun break and the rainbow, Konan mastered another attack at Madara. He grabbed her by the throat and told her that he will make her wilt, but not before he snatched Nagato's location first.

Appearing at the resting place of Nagato and Yahiko, Madara called Yahiko, the third Sage of the Six Path, explaining that his red hair was indicative of Uzumaki lineage. He then sucked Nagato in commenting on his white hair left.

Konan recalled Madara reiterating the fact that he was the one who encouraged Yahiko to start Akatsuki. He was also the one to give Nagato the Rinnegan power. Konan new they both died following their dreams and their beliefs. In Konan's last seconds she recalled her life with her best friends Yahiko and Nagato, how they were trained by Jiraiya. She also remembered the incident when they were acknowledged by Hanzo of the Salamander.

Zetsu reports on new intel from Kisame and Madara learns about Naruto hideout. Well, let's go pick up the Nine Tails. Tsunade, Gaara, Lord Raikage, and others must figure out how to get Naruto out of the secret island of Land of Lighting and all without telling him about the war. New mission is introduced. The title of next Naruto Shippuden episode 254 is "The Super Secret S-Rank Mission". Watch it with us right here this Thursday March 15th.

Recorder and Randsell #9

Warning: This article contains spoilers. We suggest you watch the episode first.



Time to pop the question! I find Take to be an interesting character. His taste in clothes and the lack of a eyes brings an air of mystery. Yet, you don't allude to marriage and then only ask for care!

Take gives Atsushi more of his old clothes and admits to quitting his job because his ex-girlfriend worked with him. Take also talks about not eating properly because his mother refuses to feed him until he finds a job. He still lives with his mother? How old is he? Either way, this lazy guy practically asks Atsumi to marry him in order for her to take care of him. Then decides to get a part-time job because: "You don't go straight to running a marathon."

In the end, Take gets 100 yen for doing the laundry. So he really takes things slowly. It was funny that Atsumi expected a marriage proposal from Take because of the history they share together. I have to give this show credit for one thing. These characters are all well established into their own fictional back story, and they require no flashbacks to tell what had happened before. Like in this episode, how Take suddenly talks about taking care of Atsumi when she was younger and how she said they would get married.

Verdict

This show will never make me laugh out loud, but at least it is a quick and entertaining three minutes. I do wonder if there will ever be a sense of growth with these two main characters (no pun intended). At least this episode didn't resort to pedophile jokes or height references.

Bodacious Space Pirates #8

Warning: This article may contain spoilers. We recommend watching the episode first.



So it turns out that our stowaway from the previous episode is a princess named Gruier Serenity from the Serenity System a revelation that catches the crew of the Betnemaru even more off guard than they were before they knew who their stowaway was. After introducing the princess to the crew, some of whom are just now getting proper introductions, the princess gets down to brass tax. She’s got a mission for our motley cast to which I rejoice in excitement. Finally, we now have a mission where the stakes aren’t fixed and events aren’t choreographed. Her mission for Marika is to investigate and locate a golden ghost ship that has been detected around the borders of her system.


A situation erupts when the princess is reported as missing and appears to have run away from her home. Wait a minute, timeout, did I forget to take my heart medication again or am I accidently watching re-runs of Tenchi Muyo? We got runaway princesses, piracy, spaceships, and young girls. Am I going crazy for thinking this? Anyways Marika then smuggles the princess to her home planet and has her attend a middle school next to her high school using her real name and not an alias.

After a couple of scenes where Marika’s peers marvel at the princess at school Marika gets called to do another emergency mission, but this time the princess is going to join them. It appears that a mysterious ship is in Tau space and the pirates have been asked to investigate because the job needs to be done discreetly. Also thank you plot point for confirming my hopes that not every pirate job is about providing entertainment for cruise liners, this revelation is one of the many highlights for this episode. Anyways when the Bentenmaru gets a location on their target they find a damaged Serenity ship being attacked by other Serenity defense ships, and on that cliffhanger the episode ends.

Verdict

Finally things seem to be picking up after a couple of boring and asinine episodes. Other than ending on a cliffhanger that necessitates me watching the next episode this episode did a lot to regain whatever goodwill I had towards this series. Goodwill that might have been lost with the prospect that the entire show would have been about people pretending to be pirates and use their talents for the purpose of acting. Anyways I enjoyed this episode immensely and am back on board for the series.

Weekly Bleach: Chapter 484

The “war” begins in the Bleach universe with the Vandenreich declaring their intentions to Commander Yamamoto. Its funny that Bleach will now be getting a war since One Piece and Naruto both have wars in them, I guess Kubo feels left out. Lets just see how powerful these Vandenreich boys are.



THE GOOD

These guys must be strong to just waltz into Soul Society and waltz out like it was nothing. Yamamoto cannot even land a strike before these guys shadow themselves away. Chojiro then lets Yamamoto know a little secret that he as acquired during his fight. Supposedly, these Vandenreich boys can go bankai. What does that even mean? Do they just have a crazy transformation like any other bad guy in this series, or are they shinigami? Perhaps they steal the shinigami’s bankai and that’s how they get this power.

Ivan who was fighting Ichigo was amazed that Ichigo’s bankai cannot be stolen. Maybe because Ichigo’s bankai sucks, and isn’t really a bankai, but a half-kai or something. Either way Ivan travels back to his home with the rest of his group. Ivan seems like an outsider among his group, this is starting to feel familiar. After a verbal altercation with the individual who trashed talked Yamamoto, Ivan watches in fear as this pretty boy’s arm is removed. The boss of the Vandenreich does not like conflict it seems. What a nice guy!

THE BAD

Seriously Kubo? Didn’t you already do this in the beginning of the arrancar arc? First of all Ivan already feels exactly like Grimmjow, except this time it wasn’t his arm that was removed. Who is going to be kidnapped this time Kubo? Will it be Ishida? I BET IT WILL BE ISHIDA!

THE VERDICT 3/5

Even though it seems like Kubo is just copying and pasting his previous stories into this one, I still think it was OK, just because we know this will be the last time he is doing it. The next chapter will include all sorts of explanation and ramblings from the bad guys I’m sure.

Confucius -- DVD Review

 
A copy of CONFUCIUS was delivered to my apartment, recently. I wasbemused on a couple levels. First, there was the promo image on the disc: ChowYun-Fat at his most stoic, standing on a battlefield with a mighty sword on hiship. Knowing nothing else about this flick, I couldn’t help but picture astream of ACTION PHILOSPHERS-style images putting a comically badass,two-fisted spin on ancient and stolid philosophy. Then, there was the questionof why this was a live action flick - - a question addressed by an IP MANmovie trailer that runs before the feature.

No, this hasn’t got anything to do with manga or anime. It wasn’t evenproduced in Japan. However, I expect Funi will be distributing more of such Asiancinema from here on out, so it’s worthwhile to give at least this one a look.

Straight up, this is exactly the kind of flick you’d otherwise catch onPBS or in a media-friendly high school teacher’s World History class. Confuciusis a superhumanly virtuous saint whose only evident character flaw is his mistakenchoice to place too much trust in a fallible ruler. That's it. The conflict of the moviebreaks down to him resisting decades of temptations to muddy his virtue byinvolving himself in the matters of politics. While there are large scalebattle scenes that illustrate his prowess as a military tactician, the “action”is largely comprised of courtroom arguments, hunger strikes and the success orfailure of rhetorical points during philosophical discourse.



We see Confucius ascending in prestige amongst the lords of threeprominent kingdoms after he uses a feudal conference to save a slave boy’s lifeby exposing the hypocrisy of his master. From there, he becomes a valuedadvisor and his shrewd cunning impressively gets his associates out of atreacherous kidnapping attempt that’s sprung during a treaty negotiation.Confucius’ achievements and promotions quickly attract such venomous envy thata series of chaotic backstabbing ensues and he’s soon given no recourse but self-imposed exile. He then spends the better half of the film wandering through the countrysidewith his outfit of disciples, continually rejecting other leaders’ requests forhis consul because he deems them unworthy.

As you might surmise, this is unavoidably dry material to work with,and it’s to director Hu Mei and director of photography Peter Pau’s significantcredit that CONFUCIUS plays so well just on the merits of its staging,cinematography and assorted choices of mis-en-scene. This is anabsolutely gorgeous film that moves with engaging smoothness and a sense ofpageantry to rival any of the classic Hollywood period pieces it feels so akinto. Also, costuming’s real easy to take for granted, but I’d be remiss not to complimentthe sheer variety and seamless craft of all the historical outfits here.



Credit’s also due to Yun-Fat for infusing this icon with such gravitas, evenwhile not having much of any human weaknesses an actor kind-of needs to shape aperformance out of. His Confucius has a poise that manages to be stately and strongwhile still exuding a warmth and good humor that engenders the sort of adorationand loyalty we see in his followers.

There’s a moving scene later in the movie wherehis caravan falls through cracked ice into a lake and one of his discipleskeeps diving down into the freezing water to retrieve the master’s famous scrolls. Afterward, Confucius cradles this young man even after he succumbs tohypothermia. When his other disciples finally pry him away, there’s a sensethat his writings have taken on a life outside of him, and that he’s helplessly bound tosuffering the burden of preserving them. Such a notion isn’t exactly the stuff ofa crowd pleaser, so kudos to the Chow-man for making such an intellectual struggle so moving, somehow.



Despite my initial apprehensions, this isn’t sexed-up history (thoughI’m sure plenty of the usual creative liberties were taken.) There are still assortedpoints that unsuccessfully try to splash some drops of sweet dressing onto thesalad, though. Mostly, they’re just ill-advised choices in CGI, like the timeConfucius’ archery match with a king is punctuated by the “camera” zoomingafter an obviously bogus arrow in flight. Or the final shot that lingers on thevista of a dodgy digital matte landscape that nearly looks pixelated. Or thescene on the lake described above which opens with a shot from beneath a low-resapproximation of the ice. A few times, like when an invading army rolls upcolossally-sized battering rams during a battle, the cost-saving rationale isclear. Most times, however, you raise an eyebrow wondering who in the crewreasoned that less-distracting practical effects wouldn’t suffice.

All in all, I can’t say how well this works as a “biopic” of Confucius.Little of the screentime’s actually concerned with his famous aphorisms, so perhapswe’re meant to simply learn through his example, instead. If one doen’t already have apatience for “history for history’s sake” at the movies, this could very easilybe a dull portrait. To those with a durable curiosity, though, this is an exquisiteway to put faces, visuals and even some (very stoic) emotions to an important textbook subject.

Amateur vs. Expert: PERSONA 4 #21

 
Welcome to Amateur vs. Expert, a new column wherein noted anime layperson Nick Robinson (Babylonian) squares off against anime savant Kristoffer Remmell (FoxxFireArt). The goal? To take our two columns, Anime Amateur and Anime Examiner, and combine them for your reading pleasure. Let's get started!

Kristoffer Remmell:

If there is anything these sort of mystery-drama series have taught us as an audience. It's to never make a promise with a child about doing something in the future. It will always come back to bite you in the ass, and something bad will befall said child. It's a great narrative tool to create tension, but it really breaks your heart when the child is so loveable. Everyone in the Investigation Team made a promise with Nanako of some kind. This kid is in serious peril. There's another unspoken rule. Don't trust anyone who drives a truck. They'll always abduct someone.



For as much as this was about Nanako and Yu. I feel that Naoto really stole the show in several scenes. The drama of her car conversation with Chie, and how she was so collected in breaking down the evidence in the police station. Having a detective really pays off when you need to tie up twenty episodes of story threads. Easily, my biggest disappointment of the episode didn't fall in the animation quality or the plot. It was in Yukiko stopping Chie from kicking down that door to free Yu and the boys.

While we always knew that Yu and Dojima were eventually going to come to a head with Yu's involvement in the case. Somehow the payoff felt lacking. Yu so casually tries to explain what he's been doing in a TV world to his uncle. You can't blame him for not believing something so fantastical. What made things worse is that there was a TV in the interrogation room. You want to give the man proof. He should've walked up to that screen and put his hand in. That would knock the skeptic out of anyone. I guess he could have also shown Dojima his phone, as well. Only an anime super hero would have that many cute women on his speed dial.



Nick Robinson:

Completely with you on how great Naoto was this time around. The assessing-the-situation scene, the car accident scene - she stole the show in all of them, and it's clear the makers of this show have a soft spot for the character. Considering this episode was the culmination of months of weird tension between Yu and Dojima, it almost felt like a Naoto-centric episode, but I'm not complaining, because they pulled it off with aplomb.



Like you mentioned, there are some pretty gaping plot holes around the interrogation room stuff. Likewise, there were a bevy of drama-draining technical hiccups this week: poor animation, occasionally mismatched music, not to mention, uh, no actual crash sound during the car crash. It's minor stuff, but it detracts from what was otherwise a tense and dramatic episode; for instance, the moment where Dojima passes Namatame in the other lane was an excellently paced and executed scene.

I've alluded to this before, but it's as true here as ever: I don't typically dig the self-serious episodes of P4A, but this was one of those rare exceptions. They effectively communicated a very real sense of urgency in all the police station scenes, and even though I already knew roughly what would happen, they totally managed to hold my attention. That's quite a feat!



Kristoffer Remmell:

Not sure any real favoritism is given to Naoto. She's just playing her role of the great detective. As the series is nearing the end, you need someone that can start tying your plot together. I do have a tip for anyone who wants to play detective with this one. Be sure to watch it again There is one character who does something suspicious in this episode. It's hard to catch, becasue it isn't anything he said. It's what he doesn't say.



I'm not so sure that it's fair to describe much of what we saw in the interrogation scene as plot holes. People often expect answers to all their questions right away. Something is only really a plot hole if it's never answered in the series. If the issue is eventually explained. It wasn't a plot hole. It was foreshadowing. I just felt Yu trying to so casually explaining something so insane to Dojima was careless. Especially when he could have given him some seriously proof by just walking over to that nearby TV. As far as the car crash. It's much more jarring to have it suddenly cut away, because your audience is expecting a sound. It creates more tension for people to wonder if he stopped in time. It's the subtle differences between using an exclamation mark or a question mark.

The final act is drawing ever closer with episode 21 in the can. All the months of getting to know and care about Nanako is really paying off, because now we're put in Yu's place that it's someone we know, rather than all the characters we just met. The threat has never been higher, but Yu now has a strong team of friends to back him up. Still, that may not be enough this time.



Nick Robinson:

Right! Yu was explaining the TV stuff in a way nobody ever actually would. It was silly and frantic in that Twilight Zone "I'M NOT CRAZY, YA GOTTA BELIEVE ME" way. As far as Yu's refusal to just show Dojima his powers not being a plothole - maybe you're right and that is totally explained in the game. As of last night, I've got something like four episodes of the Endurance Run left (I know, shame on me), so I guess it's possibly covered there. If it isn't, though, I have no problem calling that a plothole. Like, the TV is the only other object in the room! I understand that they wanted to have it there for Midnight Channel purposes, but you can't have it both ways. I mean, to be fair, this was a logic gap that totally existed in the game, too, but it's no less stupid here. Slavish devotion to your source material can be problematic when the source material is occasionally a teensy bit dumb.



I think it's also worth noting how dark this episode was, in every sense of the word. Visually, it was all nighttime and shadows, and what was lit was pretty much grey. It made a great shorthand for communicating the "playtime is over" tonal shift from last week's episode to this one. As far as the crash itself - the scene was fine, but the lack of a actual sound during the crash was a little stupid. Whether it was a stylistic choice or not, it's massively distracting, especially everyone onscreen absolutely would've been close enough to hear the crash happen. Maybe it would've worked if they'd cut to another scene or another location, but as is, I found it jarring in all the wrong ways. Also: the fact that some of the artists apparently can't be bothered to draw the characters' goddamn eyeballs next to each other is a little distracting, too.

Man, it's starting to freak me out that the series is ending. As someone who experienced P4 more or less in real-time with the ER, running through the whole thing over the course of a few dozen 25-minute episodes is totally crazy to me. That feeling from the first episode that it's all moving way too fast has worn off, but only slightly. Among all this grim and heavy plot stuff, I do take solace in knowing that there are a few funny moments left after the climax. I know this story already! Is it too much to ask that we get back to hanging out with the characters?

Space Brothers Anime Trailer

The official website for the television anime adaptation of Space Brothers has started to air a promotional video.

Synopsis:

Two brothers, the eldest named Mutta and the youngest named Hibito, once saw what they thought was a UFO heading to the moon and decide to become astronauts. Only Hibito makes it while Mutta lives a traditional life working for a car company. Until he gets fired and finds it hard to get a job. Mutta decides to reignite his dreams.

The animeis an adaptation of Chūya Koyama's Space Brothers (Uchū Kyōdai) manga. It has been directed by Ayumu Watanabe (Doraemon) and stars the vocal talents of Kenn (Jil in Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk) who takes the role of Hibito and Hiroaki Hirata (Chibiki in Another and Benny in Black Lagoon). It is being produced by A-1 Pictures (Blue Exorcist). The anime will premiere in Japan on the 1st of April.