Naruto Vol. 49
- ISBN
- 9781421534756
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 200
- Chapters
- 454–463
- Anime
- Season 10: 五影集結の章 (Five Kage Summit) ep. 197–221
The Five Kage Summit starts here, and with it the stretch of Naruto in which the five hidden villages stop being background and become the plot. Chapters 454 to 463 put the leaders of all five nations in one room, with Naruto, Kakashi and Yamato attending uninvited and Sakura's group following behind carrying a decision of their own. Taka arrives at the same building for its own reasons. For 453 chapters the series argued about one village; from here it argues about a continent, and the argument is conducted by people with the authority to end it. This is also the first book in Box Set 3, whose contents Viz states outright as volumes 49 through 72, so a reader starting the last third of the series starts here.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
The summit is both the volume's structure and its argument: five leaders with incompatible interests are made to negotiate in public, and what they decide about Sasuke is the thing Naruto came to prevent. Sakura's team has already agreed among themselves to kill him, which makes her presence a lie she is carrying rather than a rescue. Taka settles the question by force instead. The Raikage, who believes the Akatsuki still holds Killer Bee, fights Sasuke personally, and a sitting Kage is a different order of opponent from anything Taka has met. The part that pays off latest is the quiet one: Madara finds Naruto alone and tells him what was actually done to the Uchiha clan, and that account reframes Itachi, Sasuke and Konoha at once. Shippuden's tenth season is named for this summit and adapts chapters 451 to 489, so a viewer who has finished it has seen this book, the next two, and the first six chapters of the one after those.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Links on this page are affiliate links, which cost you nothing extra. They never influence what appears on this site or what the commentary says about it.