Well this volume was something of a rollercoaster ride. Not necessarily in terms of my emotional journey since I was mostly at a "meh" but in terms of the plot, it felt like we got so much more progression here than we had in most of the other volumes and to be honest, that helped keep this one of the more interesting sessions.
Guy vs. Madara had some pretty cool moments, and was fairly intense, his final Night Guy move was awesome.
The discussion with Naruto and the Sage was something I'm a bit conflicted on. The one thing I did like about it were the notes of difference between Naruto and the past incarnations (which was mostly like two lines) and the idea that Naruto & Sasuke teaming up is ending the fated cycle but I'm generally not a fan of destinies in narratives, it removes my personal connection to the plot and makes the actions of the characters seem less motivated and more scripted. It makes it feel less impressive too because oh, you were just destined to become amazing anyway, and I know Naruto still put the work in but when the series itself constantly reinforces how fated Naruto's being (and central conflict with Sasuke is) it only serves to diminish his character arc. Why I'm conflicted here is the Child of Prophecy bit with Naruto because I think the reincarnated brothers thing works well enough. I don't love it, but Naruto & Sasuke working together to break the perpetual wars feels like a denying destiny thing, and doesn't really carry over my typical problem. It also just serves as an extension of that cycle of hate theme Naruto's been kicking around for awhile, just adding more gravitas to the personal conflict with Sasuke. Which to be fair, I don't think it needed but I suppose this also doubles as a way to give both of them a last minute much needed power boost.
But while I'm conflicted on that, I outright dislike that Naruto heals Guy. Now granted, Guy will likely suffer a big ramification from his usage regardless. We saw the bones in his legs shatter during Night Guy, and Naruto didn't heal that he just stopped the Gates from killing him. But still, it's just not a satisfying resolution to have Naruto save Guy from a well-established consequence, and this war as a whole has lacked much consequence. There was one segment where Shikaku & Neji died that came relatively quickly after each-other, and that worked really well but after Neji, this has felt fairly toothless. But whatever, I did like Naruto giving Kakashi another eye simply for the humour of him not knowing how he did it.
The fight against Madara was mostly uninteresting to me, though I did like learning about what Limbo power was, and the character driven moment where Sakura decides to not retreat behind their backs again and is immediately proved useless against Madara was pretty funny and nice. The conclusion with Madara activating the Infinite Tsukuyomi was really good, I'm glad that he got to achieve it, since it was a pretty great "shit hits the fan" moment, and the stuff with Sasuke protecting them with Susanno, the Edo Tensei watching all this go done, was all pretty good. I also liked getting glimpses into everyone's dream scenario. Most weren't very interesting or anything, but they were true to their characters. I found Shikamaru's amusing, and I like that he was with Temari during it, that's a weird pairing that Kishimoto's been planting hints towards forever. Tsunade getting a longer one was fitting, considering she had the most people to bring back for her dream fantasy but didn't really do much for me (hers was almost more about Jiraiya).
Gaara had my favourite hands down, considering his was pretty much the only one rooted in his past. Everyone else dreamed of a world in their current time period, with the only real noticeable difference in most cases being either #relationshipgoals or somebody dead being alive. Gaara's dream world being having an actual childhood with his friends & family is far more touching, and I'm glad Kishimoto saved his for last.
Then Madara, after being revealed to be an even more super manipulator with the Rin thing (which I was kinda fine with, since it makes sense for Madara and the convenience of the situation we were presented with, though I do think tying everything to Madara like that dulls the thematic point against war) was actually usurped here by Kaguya. I wish I wasn't spoiled on Kaguya last minute stealing Madara's spotlight as main antagonist, because I'd be real curious to my reaction on that not knowing it. As for now, I'm alright with it. The fight with Madara has kinda been boring me for awhile and felt like it was waning severely in terms of dramatic stakes (though after activating the Infinite Tsukuyomi they could've made a good case for building them up) and it'd be unlike Kishimoto to build up Kaguya like he did in the Sage thing if she was literally just going to be a piece of lore. This arc has introduced pretty much every past character established whether whether it be through Edo Tensei or some sort of Naruto thing, so it makes sense that as a prevalence force of dominance her finger-prints would be make their marks on the series proper. And I also liked her usage here, her design is cool and I liked the ending pages here, how she just cut straight to the chase of trying to murder them all. Still, to completely toss aside Madara as the main antagonist after hundreds of chapters of build-up for someone who only relatively recently has been revealed to even exist generations ago, is obviously going to be an unsatisfying conclusion. Obviously this is going to leave a lot of readers upset.
Finally, I like what Kishimoto is doing with Sasuke at the moment. My last post on here I think was entirely about how he ruined Sasuke's character and stick to my point that he went too far off the deep end for his extreme turnaround to feel truly believable, but I am enjoying his asshole tendencies. Like, how bluntly he told Kakashi that he's as useless as Sakura, such a sick burn. And in defense, Kishimoto is clearly playing that Sasuke has another angle to him beside what he's stated, hence Kakashi's questioning him on his dreams. Of course, before dying we did get Sasuke's internal thoughts which re-affirms that he was to stand as an Kage over a unified nation, or it was something to that affect but still. The damage to Sasuke's character has been done, but at least I got one more good moment out of him at the end here.
