Naruto Vol. 27
- ISBN
- 9781421518633
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 236–244
- Anime
- Season 4 (4th Stage) ep. 132–179; Season 5 (5th Stage) ep. 180–220
The last book of Part I, and the one the original anime barely touches. Chapters 236 to 244 close the failed retrieval, send Naruto abroad for two and a half years of training, and then stop the main story for a six-chapter flashback about Kakashi, printed as Chronicle 1 through Chronicle 6. The anime arithmetic is the reason to read the label carefully. Season 4 ends at chapter 236, the first chapter here, and episodes 136 to 179 adapt nothing at all. Season 5, episodes 180 to 220, adapts one thing: its final episode takes chapter 238. So a viewer who watched all 220 episodes of the original series has not seen the six Chronicle chapters. Viz shipped this volume alongside the previous two on 4 December 2007, and it closes Box Set 1.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Part I ends on a departure rather than a resolution. Naruto leaves with Jiraiya, Sakura becomes Tsunade's apprentice, the two of them agree to bring Sasuke back together, and the book then spends its remaining six chapters somewhere else entirely. Kakashi Gaiden goes back to the Third Great Ninja War and explains the eye Kakashi has been covering since the first volume: it was Obito Uchiha's, handed over as he died crushed under a boulder on a rescue that went wrong, with Rin recovered and Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage to be, arriving after the fact. The placement is the interesting decision. A series about to skip two and a half years spends its last chapters on the Third Great Ninja War, because that is the only place its most visible unexplained detail gets an explanation. No episode of the original anime reaches it. The 220-episode run ends at chapter 238, six chapters short of this book's last page.
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