Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Episode 28 - Eat or be Eaten: Panic in the Forest

The Gas Mask Ninja's charging Sasuke and Sakura as we open. Sasuke leaps away, for awesome fireball barrage jutsu. He takes the time to toss the captive Naruto a kunai, which lets the other ninja get the drop on him. Naruto distracts the ninja long enough to get away, and while he's jumping, Sasuke slings a knife at Jumpsuit using only Chakra and the bottom of his feet, then slams into him. Right on! Outnumbered and out-gunned, he leaps away.

Sasuke cautions them on Transformaion tricks in the future, deciding to use the old Doppleganger Challenge. Sasuke's is... overly complicated, though Sakura pays rapt attention. Naruto didn't memorize it, but I can't blame him because I couldn't catch it either. Filing this under 'the fun never stops,' they suddenly get caught in the middle of a freak windstorm, orchestrated by the FreakNinjas. Sakura gets the challenge right, and so does Naruto, but Sasuke lobs a knife at him anyway. Naruto passing the challenge means he failed the challenge, and that is genius. Also very in character. This Transformed Naruto turns out to be Tongue Girl from earlier. Sasuke caught onto her when she burrowed underground Squad Seven during the wind-storm, because his Ninja Senses are far superior to yours and mine. Five minutes in and Seven's already seperated! Right on schedule. Also, there's a humongous-ass snake.

The snake quickly snares Naruto, then swallows him. Huh. Well, thanks for the series, Shonen Jump, you could've done more with Sakura, but-- oh, nevermind. We cut back to Tongue Girl who swallows her teams Earth Scroll, and challenges Sakura and Sasuke to a battle to the death. There's a graphic scene of our kids being brutally murdered, and it wasn't even Genjutsu, but Tongue Girl's bloodlust. Her creepy knob goes up to '11.' Sakura's catatonic, and I can't really blame her, and Sasuke's ready for death. Naruto's trying to hack his way out the snake's suprisingly durable insides, which come complete with stomach acid. The snake swallows Naruto further on down for his new and exciting tour of herptology up close. Sasuke's doing all he can to reach for a kunai, and is barely able to make it to his feet, but that's about it. Tongue Girl promises to kill them quick and painless like. She throws a kunai at each of them and...
Naruto continues gently digesting in the snake's stomach, taking this chance for all the people who treated him half-way decent to flash before his eyes, and also Sasuke. There were good times and bad times, and none of them took place inside the snake, so perspective. Naruto vows to make the serpent spit up its ninja lunch. Back to Tongue Girl, we find Sakura and Sasuke managed to get out just in time, thanks to Sasuke being brilliant and hardcore. He wounded himself with his knife to snap out of it, then leaped away with Sakura. Naruto finds his own way to escape the snake - Shadow Clone Jutsu. I... oh, man. That's not what I expected to see in Episode 28 of Naruto. Victorious but ridiculously gross, the wanna-be Hokage now has a wonderfully horrible story to tell everyone. After Sasuke pulls the knife from his leg (ouch), Sakura does her concerned routine, which Sasuke stops by putting a hand over her mouth. This is ill-chosen, though Sasuke can possibly be forgiven for not noticing another giant snake sneaking up on them. Ho! That's no snake, that's a FreakNinja! He spears her with a passle of Shuriken and drops the mega-snake, but Tongue Girl tears herself from the corpse, and now she is half-snake and after Sasuke. Naruto to the rescue! We can't help but cheer as he says he forgot the password.

Next Episode: Naruto vs. the Snake Girl! I hope I learn her name soon.

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