Naruto Shippuden 19×431 Review: To See That Smile, Just One More Time

This week’s episode of Naruto Shippuden was all about Karin and her dream due to the ultimate genjutsu. It was good to have some background information on Karin through the anime, and I wish we had seen it in the manga too.

Karin doesn’t really have much going on for her in the manga. As far as I remember, she was introduced as one of Orochimaru’s workers who had the ability to heal wounds through her chakra and belonged to the Uzumaki Clan. There were also some panels in the manga showing a flashback sequence where Sasuke saved her from a giant bear when they were young. Other than that, she was shown as a girl who had a crush on Sasuke and served as the healer and sensory type ninja on his team.

However, in the anime, we got to know about the hardships she had gone through because of her unique healing powers. Karin’s mother had the same ability, and she was used by the village to continuously heal the wounded until the act killed her. With her mother gone, Karin was used to heal injured ninjas. It was gut-wrenching to see a very young Karin being used so mercilessly. I liked the shots where the number of bite-marks kept increasing and ended up covering most of her body in the end.

Karin had always been an outsider and no one cared if she lived or died as long as people were healed. Orochimaru coming to save her was probably the best thing that happened in her life. Even though she still healed his experiments, at least she was given some sort of respect in return. She was also given charge over one of his hideouts.

Also, I don’t know at what time people biting into her turned from pain to pleasure for Karin. My guess is that it has to do something with her willingness to heal. If forced into healing, she would feel pain and if she did it willingly, like she kept doing for Sasuke, she felt pleasure.

In Karin’s dream, Sasuke ended up becoming Hokage and came to rescue her when she was ambushed by people from her past. I was expecting something else from Karin’s dream, something other than her being on the verge of death in order to see Sasuke’s smile once again. But then again, romance has always been an issue in the Naruto franchise so I’ll just have to deal with it, especially when it’s being done in filler.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Naruto Shippuden: To See That Smile, Just One More Time? Did you enjoy knowing more about Karin? 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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