Naruto Vol. 56
- ISBN
- 9781421542072
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 525–534
- Anime
- Season 12: The Taming of Nine-Tails and Fateful Encounters 「九尾掌握と因果なる邂逅の章」 ep. 243–275
Chapters 525 to 534 cut between three fronts of the same battle. Darui takes on the Gold and Silver Brothers, who carry the Nine-Tails' chakra and can therefore reach Naruto on a battlefield he is not standing on. A revived Asuma Sarutobi is put in front of his own students, and Mifune fights Hanzo: chapter 532 is titled 'Mifune vs. Hanzo, Decided!!' and chapter 534 'Farewell, Ino-Shika-Cho!!'. The cross-cutting is the argument for reading this war collected rather than weekly: a serialized reader waited seven days between fronts, and a reader holding the book keeps all three in view at once. Shippuden's twelfth season adapts chapters 492 to 535, which is one chapter past the end of this volume, so a viewer who has finished the season has seen everything in it.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
Team Asuma is the volume and the rest is scaffolding. Shikamaru, Ino and Choji are made to fight the teacher whose death shaped all three of them, and chapter 529, 'Golden Bonds', and chapter 533, 'A Time of Oaths', are where the series collects on a debt it opened in Part II. Chapter 530 is 'Choji's Decision' and chapter 531 'Team Asuma Reunited!': the weight is on what the three of them can bring themselves to do rather than on the jutsu. Set against that, the Gold and Silver Brothers are a great deal of mechanism for a thin result, and Mifune against Hanzo is a duel between two characters the story has not invested in for volumes. A reader skimming for what matters can skim both and lose nothing. Darui's fight does supply the war with the Nine-Tails chakra that Madara takes in the next volume.
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