Naruto Vol. 65
- ISBN
- 9781421564555
- Publisher
- Viz Media
- English release
- Pages
- 192
- Chapters
- 618–627
- Anime
- Season 17: Team 7 Reunited 「忍界大戦・第七班再び」 ep. 362–372
This book leaves the war entirely, and a reader buying the run one volume at a time should know that before paying. Chapters 618 to 627 move to Konoha, where Orochimaru revives the four dead Hokage, and then spend most of their length on the First Hokage telling Sasuke how the Senju and the Uchiha went from two clans at war to one village. It is backstory delivered as a lecture to a listener who asked for it, and it arrives at the point where the fighting was at its largest. The information matters later. The book is the slowest of the last twelve volumes and it is not the reason to buy the run. Shippuden season 17 covers chapters 607 to 630, so the anime has been through all of it.
Spoilers — why this volume matters. Tap to reveal.
What the flashback is for is Madara. Until this book he is a name and a threat; chapters 620 to 626 make him a boy who met Hashirama Senju in secret while their clans were killing each other, agreed with him about what the world should be, and lost the argument about how to get there. Konoha exists because Madara accepted Hashirama's terms. Madara left it because the two clans went on hating each other, and Hashirama apparently killed him. The Uchiha stop being a cursed family and become a structural problem the village was founded on and never solved, which is the frame the series then applies to Itachi, to Sasuke and to everything left. Chapter 627 is the payoff: Sasuke works out that Hashirama and Itachi wanted the same thing and takes the Hokage to the battlefield. The detour is justified by that chapter and by nothing before it.
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