rachelmanija | Naruto manga: through volume 11

This is why I was up till 1:00 am last night.

One of the amusing things is that I've seen characters in people's icons and heard their names mentioned and so forth, but had no idea who they were. So now I know who Jiraiya is. He's really cool! Although... I think he's generally right that Narutu should learn to control his fox demon rather than ignoring it, because that's something that he's going to need to do sooner or later, and better in a controlled environment than in the middle of a huge battle... and yet I somehow feel that this is going to have rather easily foreseen consequences, namely, that Naruto is going to get over-confident, draw on the demon chakra, and let it out before he's learned how to stuff it back in.

I also now know the context of this icon, which I had always assumed was a little between-chapters sketch, but actually illustrates a two-page user's manual on chakra release, which against all odds was both informative and amusing-- well, part of the reason it was amusing was that right in the middle of fight-fight-train-train-fight-fight was a two-page technical manual.

And I now know where

telophase's line, "I can make a frog the size of Texas" comes from. I laughed myself sick at the frog god or whatever that was deciding that Naruto was going to be his minion, and also at Naruto creating tadpole after tadpole, and getting all excited when one of them appeared with little legs. And at Jiraiya's face-palm reaction to Naruto going, "I have improved! See, it has legs now!"

Much as I love Bleach, Kishimoto is a million times better at introducing hordes of new characters while not losing sight of the old ones (yay, sudden guest appearance by Iruka!), and of making me care about the new characters. (I am assuming that characters who didn't make it to the semi-finals will continue to be significant, as I can't imagine Sakura dropping out, and Rock Lee got such a huge starring turn that I assume we have not remotely seen the last of him.) I adore Rock Lee and his sensei, and I really liked Kiba and his little dog too. Shikamaru also seems interesting, and so are the sand village trio.

I am a little bummed that Temari, whom we have seen very little of although what we've seen is cool, is the only girl to make it into the semi-finals. Naruto needs more female characters who a) kick ass, b) whose key character trait is not that they are in love with one of the male characters.

I continue to be fascinated by Gaara, that little freak. Do we ever learn why he has "love" tattooed on his forehead?