Naruto Shippuden 18×403 Review: Unwavering Gutsiness

This week’s episode of Naruto Shippuden shone the spotlight on Team 10, which consisted of Hinata, Shino and Kiba. Though the anime series is currently running filler, I’m quite enjoying the episodes because they let the secondary characters shine.

The manga didn’t show how Naruto’s friends became Chunin while he was away training with Jiraya. The current filler is about the journey these young ninjas made to raise their rank over the course of two years, and that’s what makes it interesting to watch.

The pervious episode showed Lee and his team battle it out with a team from the Hidden Sand Village, and this week we got to see how Team 10 fared against rivals they encountered during the exam.

Team 10 specializes in sensory perception, and it was good to see that the team they pursued was giving them a tough time. The whole battle played out like a game of chess with each team trying to outsmart the other. Team 10 spent most of the time trying to track their rivals. The writers of Naruto Shippuden know how to write interesting battles. The rival team kept misleading Team 10 by toying with their sensory perception skills. They even ambushed Team 10 at one point; however, Shino’s quick thinking saved them.

The influence Naruto has had on the members of Team 10 was quite obvious. The yellow-haired ninja never gave up and this inspired other ninjas to follow suit. No matter how many times Team 10 lost track of their rivals they didn’t give up!

We got flashbacks of Kiba training in the same place Naruto used to train. The flashbacks showed Kiba’s determined personality, and I wish we had seen more of that in the manga. Kishimoto could’ve done a lot with the secondary characters in the manga but alas that didn’t happen. At least we have the current filler to get to know these characters better.

In the end, Team 10 was able to defeat the rival team and secure the Earth and Heaven scrolls to pass the current Chunin test. The final fight sequence was cool — except the scene where Shino’s parasitic insects came out of the summoned gigantic mole. That whole sequence was just super creepy!

I’m looking forward to next week’s episode because the preview showed it focusing on TenTen.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Naruto Shippuden “Unwavering Gutsiness”? Did you enjoy knowing more about Team 10? Let us know!

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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