Naruto Vol. 61
- ISBN
- 9781421552484
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 576–587
- Anime
- Season 15: 忍界大戦・サスケとイタチ (Sasuke and Itachi) ep. 321–348
Twelve chapters, more than any other book in the last stretch of the series, and almost all of them inside one fight. Chapters 576 to 587 put Sasuke beside the revived Itachi in Kabuto's hideout, against the man whose reanimation technique has supplied the war with most of its enemy army. Shippuden season 15, episodes 321 to 348, covers chapters 559 to 606, so the anime is well past this book. The war itself is barely in it: the Alliance is elsewhere and the volume rarely cuts back to them. This is a book to read in one sitting with Vol. 60 rather than on its own. Viz lists 192 pages at $11.99, and it sits inside Box Set 3, the twenty-four volumes Viz states as 49 to 72.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
The fight is a conversation with a jutsu battle wrapped around it. Sasuke agrees to help only on condition that Itachi explains the Uchiha massacre, and Kabuto's counter, blinding himself so that two Sharingan users cannot reach him, is what keeps the brothers talking while they cannot look at their opponent. Chapter 586 activates Izanami, a forbidden technique that locks Kabuto in a loop in which the fight against the Uchiha never ends, and chapter 585, 'I am Me', states what the loop is for. Kishimoto is closing the series' oldest thread here rather than advancing the war. With Kabuto immobilized, Itachi turns the reanimation against the army it raised, which is what carries into Vol. 62. A reader who bought this book for the Fourth Shinobi World War will find the war in the next one.
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