Naruto Vol. 55
- ISBN
- 9781421541525
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 200
- Chapters
- 515–524
- Anime
- Season 12: 九尾掌握と因果なる邂逅の章 (Nine-Tails and the War begins) ep. 243–275
The Fourth Great Ninja War begins in chapter 515, and with it Naruto stops being a story about a team and becomes a story about an army. Chapters 515 to 524 put five villages under one command against a force Kabuto has assembled out of the series' own dead. Edo Tensei is the change of register: every antagonist the story had already finished with becomes available again, and the alliance spends the war fighting people it buried. Zabuza Momochi and Haku are among them, which returns the series to its first arc at the largest scale it has worked at. Kakashi commands the unit that meets them. Shippuden's twelfth season adapts chapters 492 to 535, so this whole book sits inside it. Viz lists the volume at 200 pages against 192 for most books in this stretch.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Edo Tensei is the device the last third of the series runs on, and this is the volume that turns it loose. Kabuto revives Sasori, Deidara, Zabuza, Haku and the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, and the war becomes a tour of the back catalog fought at full strength. The case for it is that it hands every dead character a second scene with the people they damaged: Kakashi against Zabuza and Haku is the first arc replayed by a man who has since commanded armies. The case against it is that a series which spent more than 500 chapters charging its readers for deaths now revokes them by the dozen, and the ending has to answer for that. Chapter 522 is titled 'We Died.', with the period, which is the nearest the book comes to conceding the problem. Gaara's speech in chapter 516 is what actually turns five armies into one.
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