Folks, looks like I was wrong. Masked Man Tobi is not Future Sasuke.

——

Unfortunately, for those who were hoping that Kishimoto happened to become a creative storytelling mastermind overnight, did not get their wish. Masked Man Tobi was in fact, as just about everybody and their grandma’s predicted, Obito (Tobi = Obito). This was either a moment of exuberance for you or it was a moment of disappointment—as this reveal proved to be disappointing for me.

Adding to that feeling of disappointment was the fact that the text in the chapter was equal to just about the same amount that can fit into any popular social networking stream service, like twitter, with a character limit of 140 characters. Really the only memorable dialogue was simply “Obito?!”

Although the whole chapter was dialogue-less panels of the highlights of Obito’s life, there were several key moments. Most of which seemed to involve him looking at Rin. Could she perhaps hold some key as to how he managed to survive his seemingly interesting death scene? Did she tell him some secret while he was “living”? Was she the one that led him on the antagonistic path.

Overall, the chapter may or may not have shocked people. I guess there is some faction that could believe that the whole thing is some glorious genjutsu and that the next chapter he will deny that he is Obito, which is possible, but otherwise this closes off one of the big mysteries of Naruto. I did like how the chapter played out and how the only actually dialogue was just the question. That was unique and really made the events powerful and heartfelt.

GO Rating: 3.5 / 5

[mangastream]