Awesome / Naruto

"I've always considered myself to be a true ninja...but those were just empty words, because Sasuke and Naruto were always in the lead! But now it's my turn to take the lead, and all of you can watch me from the background!"

Since Naruto is set in a world full of badass ninjas, it's no surprise that moments like these are a regular occurrence.

Please list the examples in chronological order and under the appropriate arcs.

Warning: As a Moments page, every SPOILER is unmarked. Read at your own peril.

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Part I (Pre-Time Skip)

Land of Waves Arc

• In the very first chapter, Naruto summons an army of clones in order to beat up Mizuki (keep in mind, this is the same kid who barely made one earlier).
  • Before that, he got a moment when he kicks Mizuki in the face as the latter's about to kill Iruka. And then we get to see the orange-clad ninja when he's pissed:
    Naruto: If you ever lay a hand on my sensei... I'll Kill You!
• Iruka gets a moment as well when he takes a fuma shuriken to the back in order to protect Naruto.
• Zabuza's introduction: He sends his BFS tearing through the forest, barely misses its target, and stands on top of it while the sword was embedded in a fully-grown tree. He wastes no time slipping into Team 7's tight formation completely undetected.
• Naruto created a very detailed plan that freed Kakashi from Zabuza's justu. Naruto used his multi-shadow clone jutsu to trick Zabuza so he could transform into a Fuma shuriken. He then had a clone give him to Sasuke, who used his own Fuma Shuriken. Using the real Fuma Shuriken, he attacked Zabuza who just grabbed it. Then Sasuke revealed he used the Shadow Shuriken Jutsu to hide Naruto, which Zabuza just dodged. But then Naruto transforms back and throws a kunai at Zabuza's arm stuck in the prison jutsu, forcing Zabuza to decide between losing an arm and freeing Kakashi. Zabuza pulls his arm out, breaking his jutsu, and having the added effect of canceling Zabuza's water clone.
• Kakashi using his Sharingan to calculate each of Zabuza's moves.
• The masked ninja supposedly killing Zabuza by impaling him through the neck with senbon.
• Naruto saving Inari's mother from two of Zabuza's henchmen.
• Haku summons his Demonic Ice Mirrors and manages to overwhelm both Sasuke and Naruto.
• Sasuke awakens the Sharingan and is slowly able to keep up with Haku.
  • Naruto snaps and draws on the Nine-Tails' chakra for the first time, completely turning the tables - first he punches through one of the mirrors, then after getting stabbed numerous times in the back destroys them, before grabbing / punching Haku through another mirror. He did all this in response to seeing Sasuke take a seemingly lethal attack that was meant for him.
• Zabuza loses it after Haku's death and kills several of Gato's bodyguards using a kunai held in his teeth, and he only dies after stabbing Gato to death, then shoving his body into the river. In the manga he slices Gato's head off.
  • The English Dub gets bonus points for the speech Zabuza terrifies Gato with just before he starts carving him up:
    Zabuza: We wouldn't be welcome where Haku's gone to. Hell's where we're going, Gato! I can't think of a more fitting destination for a "Demon Ninja", can you? I'm told there are many demons down there, of all shapes and sizes; Oh yes, I should fit right in! You on the other hand, Gato... Well, I fear you're in for a long and very painful eternity!

Chūnin Exams Arc

• Rock Lee challenges Sasuke to a fight: it doesn't end well for Sasuke. While most ninja in the series use elemental Nature Transformation jutsu, Rock Lee bests his opponents solely through hard-earned physical stats.
• During his fight with Gaara, it's revealed that Lee did this while wearing weighted clothing. When he removes his leg warmers, he gains a massive boost in speed, enough to utterly demolish Gaara's "Absolute Defense." Lee pretty much would've destroyed any other opponent in the exam.
  • Also worth noting is that even Gaara was shocked by Lee's speed.
• The entire fight with Gaara is just a continuous series of awesome. From Lee being the first person to ever hit Gaara, to his refusal to quit and his sudden revival and reveal of his ultimate move, there's a reason why despite happening in the beginning of the series, the fight is still considered one of the best in the series.
• While most of the cast uses their jutsu to cheat on the written part of the Chunin Exam by stealing answers (which, inadvertently, is the point of the test, as the questions were intended to be too hard for the average person to answer), Sakura doesn't cheat and is able to answer the questions on her own.
  • And in an inversion, Naruto's Honor Before Reason mentality means he didn't cheat, while not answering a single question right - which was not a factor of the exam, so he got to pass because of his refusal to cheat.
• In the same test, Naruto manages to pass without answering a single question, and his bullheaded refusal to back down in the face of the tenth question, when he hadn't been able to answer a single one so far, actually emboldened the remaining candidates.
• While we're on the test - Dosu Kinuta was able to figure out what people were writing by listening to the scratches that their pencils made on the paper. If only we could do that in school...
• Anko Mitarashi licking the blood off of Naruto's cheek after throwing a kunai at him.
• Shiore / (Orochimaru in disguise) sneaking up on Anko and handing her knife back to her with an elongated tongue.
• Naruto gets devoured by a giant snake and escapes from it by creating several clones, causing the snake to explode from the pressure.
• He punches Sasuke for losing his cool against Orochimaru and saves him from a similarly sized snake by holding the snake back with his arms. Mind you, these snakes are larger than military tanks.
• After seeing Naruto face Orochimaru, Sasuke snaps out of his fear and leads a one-man effort against Orochimaru, one of the most well-paced fights in the series.
• Sakura's Important Haircut when she has to defend her two unconscious team mates from three dangerous Sound ninja. At this point, she is determined to no longer be The Load. Followed by her using her VERY limited resources to try stopping the Sound Ninja from killing Sasuke and Naruto — even resorting to biting one of them in the arm and withstanding several punches to the head from him. And once Sasuke wakes up thanks to his Cursed Seal and totally trashes the guy who beat her up, Sakura gives him a Cooldown Hug so he won't kill his opponent and go crazy.
• Kankurō telling Gaara off for taking his bloodlust too far after he kills Team Shigure, even grabbing him by the collar. Gaara calls him on it, and he does back off, but considering how terrified he'd been of Gaara at that point, it took some serious balls.
• Sasuke fights Yoroi with the handicap of not using chakra: basically, no special attacks / jutsu.
• Shino's fight against Zaku. Shino completely outclassed Zaku in every possible way. Zaku had one good arm, so Shino uses his army of bugs to take one side of Zaku while Shino has the other all the while telling Zaku to surrender, otherwise it will end terribly for him. Then, Zaku reveals his other arm was just as good to use as the first. Too bad for him, Shino had both arms plugged up by a few hidden bugs that crept up into the sockets in his hands in case he tried using both of them which resulted in Zaku BLOWING HIS OWN ARMS OFF (or simply breaking through the skin in the Anime), giving Shino the win. So we have Shino invoking The Chessmaster, Curb-Stomp Battle, AND An Arm and a Leg all in one battle. WITH BUGS NO LESS. MOA well-deserved.
• The Double Knock Out that Sakura and Ino has is pretty awesome, especially since the build up was good. During most of the fight, the two were really even fighters. Ino went as far as cutting off her own hair as a way to trap Sakura so she can use her mental-based jutsu, only to be stopped because Sakura's Inner Self broke her free. Seriously, this fight was really awesome to watch as we barely saw these two go all out during this arc.
  • Special mention to Ino for that channel-chakra-through-cut-hair trick, one of the cleverer moves seen from any of the Rookies in this arc. Keep in mind that she tricks a room full of shinobi, including Sakura and her own team mates, into believing that Sakura's taunting has really driven her to the edge in the course of pulling it off.
• Shikamaru beats Kin by making bash her own head against the wall. And he explains just how he did it:
  Shikamaru: And that's what I call, "Using your head." The wise shinobi carefully scouts the physical layout of the battlefield and never loses sight of his position on it. And that was your problem: I made sure she was so busy focusing on me, she didn't notice the wall inches behind her head, so when we both dodged backwards, Kabong! Now who's hearing bells?
• Naruto tricks Kiba, a ninja known for his superhuman nostrils, into attacking his own partner by confusing his sense of smell. Doubles as Funny Moments.
• The "fight" between Neji and Hinata and how Hinata held her own until the very end, even quoting Naruto, someone she looks up to and has feelings for, is pretty impressive.
  • There's also the fact that she managed to see straight through Neji's hypocrisy and get the last word in, something that caused him to snap so badly that he nearly killed her then and there.
• Naruto gets pummeled throughout his battle with Neji and even has his chakra sealed off, but in the end, he uses the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra to overpower his blocked points (which no one can believe), and beats Neji with a single sneak attack Shoryuken.
  • What sealed the awesome was that he used deception, one of the Ninja’s most famous (and argueably most important) tactics. After a large clash of chakra heavy attacks the two create a large dust cloud and are blown into the ground so hard they form craters. Neji barely manages to stand... and Naruto is seemingly down for the count in his crater. Neji approaches his “unconscious” foe to tell him that “[he] was a failure after all”. And then Naruto Appears from the ground and lands a clean Shoryuken to Neji’s jaw, The camera then pans to reveal Naruto’s nails bleeding and that the Naruto we were watching was only a Shadow Clone. Upon dispelling a hole is shown in Naruto’s crater that was obviously hand-dug to get him in the perfect position to get Neji.
  Genma: Even when he was getting pounded into the ground, he never stopped planning his next move, he never lost his faith in his ability to win. Naruto knows instinctively that believing in yourself can give you the power to change your destiny. Plus, he’s got a mean right hook.
  • At several points during the fight, Naruto thinks of Lee and Hinata, both of whom were also called "losers" and "failures" by Neji, to motivate him to not give up. Then, when Naruto is declared the winner and the crowd acknowledges him for the first time ever, something that he's dreamt about his whole life, his thought is "Where is Hinata? Is she watching?" Although Naruto thought about both Lee and Hinata, Hinata was ultimately his main motivation to win the fight. Turns out her "proud failure" speech a few chapters back really was exactly what Naruto needed to hear in order to gain the confidence in himself to beat Neji and avenge her brutal defeat in the preliminaries, just like he promised. Doubles as Heartwarming.
• Temari vs Shikamaru, for both of them. Ok, he was smart in his fight against Kin, but it was mostly her carelessness and overconfidence that did her in. Temari, on the other hand, proves herself to be the cleverest opponent he could get and corners him for most of the fight. Then we see him show his Awesomeness by Analysis for the first time in the series.
  • Despite that, Temari wins because Shikamaru surrenders just after he caught her. A while later we find out that was exactly because of that gesture that he was the only one to pass the test and become a chunin. He proved that, unlike the others, he wasn't focused only on fighting.
• Sasuke using Chidori for the first time. He's the only one who has ever managed to really injure Gaara, drawing blood.

Invasion of Konoha Arc

• Might Guy pulling a Big Damn Heroes to save Naruto from a Sound Shinobi about to backstab him by punching him into and then THROUGH a wall. Granted this is pretty normal fare for him, but the man's made of awesome.
• Shino's fight with Kankuro. Not only does Shino tell Sasuke to keep chasing Gaara, but he also wants his shot at Kankuro who just so happened to be his opponent in the Chuunin Exam tournament. Shino ultimately wins the fight, but Kankuro does actually manage to get some offense in, which ends up taking Shino out of commission for the rest of the arc. Not nearly as awesome as the Zaku fight, but still pretty impressive for a supporting character that only had two fights in the series at this point.
• Sasuke puts up a good fight against Gaara despite being almost out of chakra. Then, he offers to stay behind and hold him off so that Naruto and Sakura can escape. Keep in mind that at this point his Curse Mark is acting up and he can barely move.
  • Even before the 'hold off' part, Gaara's about to get hold of Sasuke, who can't move his body... Naruto's flying kick-to-the-face begs to differ.
• Naruto one-ups Sasuke by facing a partially-transformed Gaara and taking him down a peg.
  • Probably one of the best moments would be when Naruto uses his shadow clones to get himself behind Gaara, to deliver the following attack:
    Naruto: "Take this! Leaf Village secret Taijutsu, straight from the teachings of Kakashi Sensei. (Proceeds to shove a Kunai up Gaara's ass) THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH!"
    Beat
    Pakkun: "Great, an enema."
    (Naruto is knocked away revealing that the kunai had an explosive tag wrapped around it)
    Naruto: "Boom."
    (Cue explosion)
  • He fights the fully transformed Gaara / Shukaku on the back of a giant frog, Gamabunta, whom Naruto summoned to the battlefield. Imagine for a moment if you were small enough to let alone ride on top of a frog. Now imagine having to fight an enemy raccoon on top of said frog, assuming said frog likes you enough not to buck you off immediately. At one point, Naruto leaps off this frog to punch Gaara awake.
  • Gamabunta also tells Naruto to think of an animal that has claws and fangs for Naruto to make his attack. They then transform into the Nine-Tailed Fox!
  • The fight ends with a headbutt.
    Naruto: "I've- I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU!"
  • Then there's the fact that this fight resulted in Gaara's Heel–Face Turn. For someone who believed that killing people was the only way to prove his existence, believed that things like friends and love didn't really exist and has killed, attempted to kill and threatened to kill countless people, that's quite the feat! Also doubles as heartwarming.
• Naruto and Gaara's battle only ended when Gaara gave up. When did he finally lose it all? After he and Naruto are both exhausted and almost paralyzed on the forest floor. Gaara can barely move his head to look at Naruto... And he sees Naruto dragging his own broken body across the forest with only his chin ready to fight on with nothing left but love for his friends and his village. Naruto does not. Ever. Give. Up.
• Jiraiya takes down a massive three-headed snake (big enough to crush buildings) by summoning an even larger toad on top of it.
• The Leaf Village fighting against the invasion was a village-wide Moment Of Awesome.
• The perspective that we're shown during the initial invasion appears to be a Curb-Stomp Battle against Konoha from which they might never recover. However we then learn that, not only is the damage not nearly as bad as we thought, but the reason why Konoha hadn't driven the Sound ninjas out yet was because their first priority was getting the civilians to safety. Once the leaf ninja start to fight back they effortlessly turn the tide. Sarutobi laughs in Orochimaru's face when the latter somehow thinks that his invasion was ever going to succeed.
• The Third Hokage's battle with Orochimaru ends with a Heroic Sacrifice that costs Orochimaru his arms.
  • Before this, despite being an elderly man, the Third manages to fight off Orochimaru and the First and Second Hokages.
  • Can we also mention Orochimaru planned on summoning the Fourth, but that one saw his summoning disrupted in the nick of time? Seriously, the Third is no slouch.
• Let's also not forget that when Sasuke was unconscious and Shuukaku!Gaara was lunging for him, Sakura jumps in front of Sasuke, holding a kunai, glaring down a demon. Yeah, Gaara effortlessly swats her away and pins her to a tree for the duration of the fight, but there's no denying her courage that she was willing to face off against the Shuukaku to protect Sasuke. Naruto certainly think so, as he uses her actions as inspiration not to give up so he can save both her and Sasuke.

Search for Tsunade Arc

• Itachi Uchiha returns to Konoha and one of the first things he does is reverse Mind Rape a Genjutsu specialist.
• When Sasuke, who recently went through Training from Hell, tries to attack him, Itachi pulverizes him and places a Mind Rape on him instead. The primary reason Itachi retreats is due to eye strain from his Mangekyo Sharingan.
• And a moment that comes because of the absence of a fight: when Jiraiya shows up to stop Itachi and Kisame, they keep their cool. But when he gets serious, they both turn tail and run.
  • This is eventually revealed to have several levels of awesome. First, it points to just how strong Jiraiya is that even Kisame isn't protesting too much as they run for it. Secondly, Jiraiya is able to go all out, while Itachi retains his cover. Thirdly, they're able to do this on the fly with no communication whatsoever.
• DYNAMIC ENTRY!
  • Guy developed a fighting style to successively "counter" Sharingan users by monitoring their feet. We don't see him do this, but imagine fighting a skilled opponent solely through watching their feet. You can't shift either; if you look up, you've lost.
• Badass Bookworm Tsunade cracks a street open channeling her superhuman strength through a single finger. By this point in the manga, she is the single strongest character by default.
  • After defeating Naruto effortlessly with a single finger, she goes on to fight Orochimaru and Kabuto, who are visibly dreading facing her. And keep in mind, this was after twenty years of inactivity as a ninja. One could only wonder how strong she might be if she hadn't given up training.
• Kabuto is about to land a killing blow on to Tsunade, who is lying helpless on the ground due to being nearly overwhelmed by her phobia. The blow hits, but not Tsunade — it hits the metal plate of Naruto's headband, who is now standing before Tsunade and looking ticked off as all hell at Kabuto.
• Naruto finally completing the Rasengan. To ensure he hits Kabuto, he lets Kabuto pierce his hand, before letting his clone build up the chakra he needs in his free hand. Beating Kabuto in a one hit, as seen in the folder image.
  • The blow was so impressive, Orochimaru changed his opinion of Naruto of being average to someone to be feared. And helped Tsunade regain her courage.
• Tsunade's fight with Orochimaru, including taking a sword for Naruto three times before regenerating, wielding a skyscraper sized knife to Big Damn Heroes Jiraiya, delivering a Megaton Punch to Orochimaru, then following up with an extended beatdown while at / past her utter limit. She also gets points for getting over a deeply ingrained phobia in the heat of battle.
• All Three Sannin use the Summoning Jutsu to summon their respective greatest ally.
• Kabuto might be an ass, but there is no denying his fighting skills are Made Of Awesome. From figuring out how to move his body after Tsunade scrambles his nervous system, to deflecting poisoned senbon with his headband because he couldn't move any further in time.

Sasuke Retrieval Arc

• Kakashi catches Naruto and Sasuke by their arms and hurls them in opposite directions, in order to prevent the Rasengan and the Chidori from colliding.
  • The Chidori punches through a steel/metal water tower and causes a stream of water to push out, convincing Sasuke that his Signature Move was stronger, as the water tower struck by Naruto's Rasengan left only a small dent. Then he sees the back end of the water tower and sees that the entire side had been blown open, showing the Rasengan was indeed more powerful.
• Out of everyone on the team, it was Sakura who knew when Sasuke would be trying to leave Konoha. Despite being Locked Out of the Loop most of the time from her other team members, she knew Sasuke well enough to know that not only would he try to get power, but also which path he'd take to leave the village. Despite that he left anyway, it shows how Sakura has grown to know and care for him as a person instead of just a crush, and that she picks up on his Start of Darkness much more clearly than either Naruto or Kakashi.
• Shikamaru, the laziest ninja in his age group, becomes Team Leader due to his unusual intelligence, and the group pursues the Sound Four, Orochimaru's special forces ninja unit.
• Choji kills Jirobo with a single punch after devouring three soldier pills.
• Neji defeating Kidomaru. Neji was shot by 2 arrows right through his body but refused to give up. He got right up and ran straight up to Kidomaru, who wasn't expecting Neji to even be conscious, and dealt the finishing blow. Remembering Naruto's words that if a failure such as Naruto could succeed than a genius like Neji can as well, Neji was certainly not going to let his team down either.
• Kiba stabs himself in the stomach to kill Ukon from the Sound Four.
• The villains of the previous arc arrive to help out the protagonists against the remaining Sound Four (Three).
  Kankuro/Temari/Gaara: "Allies of the Leaf Village, We're Shinobi, of the Sand..."
  • Temari kills Tayuya, who was having a prolonged battle with Shikamaru, by leveling the forest they were fighting in. She has to save him because Tayuya outmaneuvered him. Considering Shikamaru's intelligence, that is an impressive feat (ok, at the end it boiled down to her having too much chakra for Shikamaru's techniques, but she still proved to be extremely clever).
  • Shikamaru pulls out a couple too, namely breaking his own finger with his technique to free himself from a genjutsu, and being able to learn in just a couple of minutes how Tayuya's flute controlled her summons. She remarks that no one had ever been able to understand the pattern in her melodies, only for Shikamaru to answer that he actually doesn't know one thing about music: he understood by observing the way her fingers moved (keep in mind, that means he found time to observe his opponents' fingers while he was running and hiding from her summons).
• Lee rushes into the fight with Kimimaro not long after recovering from extensive surgery. And though it was not his intention to fight as such, he proves himself quite the Drunken Master - which included attacking with his feet while doing a (walking) handstand, then near the end, catches Kimimaro's foot with both his legs without looking, before proceeding to land a serious blow... forcing Kimimaro to activate his Cursed Seal.
• Gaara's Shut Up, Hannibal! moment to Kimimaro, succinctly tearing his whole motivation apart in a single sentence:
  Gaara: "Orochimaru's brainwashed you well, you sad little pawn."
• Kimimaro fought three main characters — Naruto, Lee, Gaara — and bested all three of them. He almost killed the latter two and only died because of his illness.
• The Final Battle between Naruto and Sasuke in Part 1; Sasuke pushes his Cursed Seal to its highest level, Naruto receives a power boost from the Nine-Tails, and they both use their Super Mode to duke it out at the Valley of the End.
  • Even before that, when Naruto first draws on the demon inside him, his chakra aura has a mind of its own and forms a gigantic phantom of the Nine-Tailed Fox in the air above them. The sight was so unnerving, even Sasuke could only look on in shock.
    Naruto: (his eyes literally red) "SASUKE! I'm not letting Orochimaru take you away, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!? I'll break every single bone in your body if that's what it takes to stop you! YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!!"

Part I Filler Arcs

• Iruka facing Mizuki again in the Mizuki Strikes Back arc.
• Hinata creates the Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms technique in the Search for the Bikōchū Arc.
  • Also during that filler, being able to avoid running into Neji down a hallway by twirling around him with a flawless pirouette just from reflex alone. While barefoot, no less!
• The Kurama Clan arc does a good job of showing just how dangerous the oft-neglected genjutsu can be.
• Gaara's fight against Seimei in the Ultimate Weapon Arc when he crushes and manipulates the nearby rock and cliff formations without relying on his Superpowered Evil Side and crushes Seimei's "ultimate armor" for good.
  Gaara: "I am Gaara of the Desert. Wherever there's rock, wherever there's earth, I can make more sand."
  • Also, the Call-Back to the Sasuke Retrieval Arc.
    "Allies of the Sand, We're Shinobi, of the Leaf..."

Kakashi Gaiden

• Minato Namikaze was so dangerous that during the 3rd Ninja World War, enemy units were ordered to "flee on sight" if they spotted him.
  • One of the enemies thinks he realized it when Minato appeared behind him with a kunai. He was wrong, it wasn't because of that. When he shows it, it's too awesome for words. So, let's allow the numbers to speak: four Leaf ninja versus one thousand Stone ninja. Then, Minato shows up on the battlefield. Guess which side won.
    Minato: "All of you, please direct these kunai at the enemy all at once. I'll take care of the rest myself."
    Leaf Ninja 1: "That's crazy! Not even you could possibly—"
    Leaf Ninja 2: "Be quiet! Do as he says! You'll get to see how the Yellow Flash of the Leaf battles. Just don't blink. You'll miss it."
• The first time Kakashi ever unleashes Chidori. If not for the tunnel vision that he experienced while using it, he may have been able to fully take down that Stone ninja all by himself. He wasn't made Jounin at 13 years old for nothing.
• Obito makes a Heroic Sacrifice for his team mates and gives Kakashi his own Sharingan before accepting his fate of being crushed by rocks.
  • Before that, Kakashi and Obito's excellent tag-teaming during Rin's rescue. Even though Kakashi has only one eye, Obito's newly awakened sharingan picks up the slack.
• Obito was able to change Kakashi's entire personality and worldview just by telling him that his father was a hero. Judging from Kakashi's stunned silence, Obito was the first person who to ever tell him that.
• A small one, but Rin actually succeeding in transplanting Obito's Sharingan into Kakashi. Being a 13-14-year old Chunin who just went through the devastating revelation that one of her teammates was going to die, she was still able to be composed enough to go through the operation (which in itself was risky with the environment, and how later manga chapters establish how bad the operation can go) and make Kakashi into the Copy Ninja that he is today. Now THAT takes Nerves of Steel.

Part II/Shippuden (Post-Time Skip)

Kazekage Rescue Arc

• Our post-timeskip introduction to Sakura's training: she utterly shatters the training ground with a single punch. Mind you, during the Forest of Death arc, Iruka had commented that some ninja need to do more physical training, directing this constructive criticism toward her. Sakura apparently took this to heart and spent the three years with Tsunade utterly transforming herself into a wielder of monster strength, a far cry from the girl she was before. And unlike Tsunade, Sakura doesn't have the legendary chakra of either the Senju or Uzumaki clans coursing through her veins. Determinator status, indeed!
• How Naruto and Sakura beat Kakashi's bell test the second time: by threatening to spoil the ending of Icha Icha Tactics. Kakashi promptly claps his hands over his ears and closes his eyes for good measure! Also a funny moment.
  • And Naruto says later that he doesn't really know what the ending was! Guile Heroes, yes.
• Gaara thwarts what would essentially qualify as a Vietnam-style carpet bombing run from Deidara ALL BY HIMSELF.
• Despite being poisoned and near dead after his fight with Sasori, Kankuro continues manipulating the broken pieces of his puppets until losing consciousness. Initially looking like a moment of Do Not Go Gentle for how easily Sasori dodges the blows, Kankuro reveals that he secured a piece of Sasori's cloak with the seeming whiff, offering it to the rescue team to track the enemy down if they've masked/hidden Gaara.
• Sakura uses the medical skills she developed over the Time Skip and saves Kankuro's life when an entire medical division from his own village could not.
  • Sakura and Chiyo when they battle Sasori and one hundred of his weaponized puppets. Sasori himself gets a CMOA with the reveal of those puppets, putting the threat that the Akatsuki pose into stark relief.
  • Sakura, previously The Load, uses her new power to take down Sasori, an S-Ranked threat, destroying first Hiruko, then the Third Kazekage, then much of his army, and finally Sasori himself, proving in the process that you do not close with a girl who has Super-Strength. Her excellent co-op with Chiyo only adds to the fight, and demonstrates just what two weaker people can do against a superior adversary with proper planning and coordination.
  • This is the same Sakura who had the least amount of chakra on her team, yet she has the longest standing fight (up to that point) in the manga, lasting several chapters. Proof that this is not the same Sakura from Part 1, save for her excellent chakra control, which she can now use to devastating effect.
  • Sakura doesn't just fight against Sasori; at one point, when Chiyo is unprotected, Sakura outright takes a sword through the stomach to protect Chiyo! And then begins to heal herself while the sword is still stuck in her!
  • Sasori himself was so impressed with Sakura and Chiyo defeating him that he gave Sakura the information she was looking for, which was Team 7's first lead to finding Sasuke again.
• Kakashi's Time Skip powerup is the ability to use his Mangekyo Sharingan to create a rift in reality which is later explained to be part of the Big Bad's space-warping power.
• Deidara, deprived of the use of his arms, takes on Guy's close combat team in a four-on-one battle, using only a kunai held between his teeth. He not only survives, but escapes, making them think he's dead in the process.
• Naruto calling out the entire jinchuuriki system after Gaara died, launching into a verbal tirade that called out the villages for treating the jinchuuriki like monsters for something they had no control over (especially since all of the jinchuuriki actually had the Tailed Beasts inserted into their bodies in infancy, so they had no say in the matter).

Sasuke and Sai Arc

• Orochimaru gets hit by a Tailed Beast Bomb, an attack that mows down several miles of trees, and lives to tell the tale.
  • Orochimaru gets moment after moment of Creepy Awesome in that fight. From shedding his skin to heal, to fighting four-tailed Naruto while sick and dying, he proves again and again why he was the most feared villain in the series at that point.
• Watching Sai get the drop on Kabuto.

Hidan and Kakuzu Arc

• Kakuzu mentions that he once faced the First Hokage, Hashirama, and lived to tell the tale. Refer to the Ten Tails Revival arc for how stupidly powerful Hashirama is that even the Big Bad is wary about facing him. And according to his backstory, this was before Kakuzu acquired his Earth Grudge Fear kinjutsu, than transformed him into a living ragdoll and allowed him to boost his chakra through the hearts he stole with it.
• Hidan and Kakuzu's co-op is a thing to behold, as they effortless annihilate most everyone who gets in their way. It isn't until the two of them are separated that the heroes stand anything approaching a chance.
• Shikamaru blasts the nigh-immortal Hidan to pieces and plans to kill him by burying him alive and leaving him to decompose.
  • But before doing so, he manipulates him to use his Signature Move with what he thinks is Shikamaru's blood, but it's instead Kakuzu's, taking out one of his hearts. Oh, and he planned it all beforehand.
  • Even before that, Shikamaru tries to trap Hidan with Shadow Possession, but the man knows that trick, having dodged it from range twice. This third time though, Shikamaru closes the distance, punching him and physically connecting their shadows together the old-fashioned way. The guy knows how to lay creative traps.
    Shikamaru: I don't "hide" in the shadows; I become them!
• The Rasenshuriken, Naruto's newest Signature Move. It's a deadly jutsu that has the power to One-Hit Kill Kakuzu.
  • Naruto created the jutsu by himself by improving the Rasengan that his father created. Character Development indeed.
  • Plus, it's a huge Take That! to all those who ever said that Naruto was a no-talent loser because, as Yamato said, combining a change in nature with a change in form takes "a great deal of natural skill and intuition". Naruto, using 200+ Shadow Clones, trained for days to the point of exhaustion and managed to work through his late bloomer block, proving himself despite all expectations.
  • And it gets better. The training to learn Sage Mode and to control the Nine-Tails' Chakra Mode went far more smoothly than this one. For the former, he only used a maximum of three clones, while for the latter he didn't use any clones at all. He really did cross a dangerous bridge and his reward was true strength rivaling exceeding that of every Child Prodigy.

Itachi Pursuit Arc

• Sasuke counters Orochimaru's Body Surf and traps him in his own body, accessing all of Orochimaru's power.
• Sasuke fights evenly with Deidara who had defeated Gaara in a prior arc while not at full power.
  • Deidara's exit. Cornered by Sasuke, and with no way out, he pulls a Taking You with Me, transforming himself into a Fantastic Nuke that levels the entire region. He manages to put a look of sheer terror on Sasuke's face, while getting in some of the best last words in the series.
    Deidara: "Tremble! Be afraid! Recoil and despair! COWER IN AWE! And cry your heart out! Because MY ART. IS AN EXPLOSION!!"
    • In response to this, Sasuke while offscreen, summoned Manda, Orochimaru's pet that has a sense of superiority over his summoner, as a shield (not intended) to protect himself from the blast, by using mind control on the snake with his Sharingan.
• Kiba reveals that his sense of smell is now stronger than a canine's.
  • Karin is quite cunning too in delaying Naruto and the others from catching straight to Sasuke. Her latent abilities to detect their chakra from far away, deduction that the search party is following the scent on Sasuke's previous clothing to using Jugo's good communications with animals to have them disperse pieces of Sasuke's shirt throughout the area, confusing Kiba's heightened sense of smell.
• Jiraiya forces himself back to life in the fight against Pain due to his student's Determinator attitude. In his last moments, he burns a double message not only giving intel on Pain, but also telling Naruto not to give up.
  • Jiraiya's battle with Pain is in general a highpoint of the series. For the first time, we see Jiraiya fight full out, with no handicaps, and despite being outnumbered and outgunned by someone whose powers he has only a limited understanding of, he still manages to disable three of Pain's bodies before going down. This becomes still more awesome in retrospective after Pain's curbstomp of most of Konoha.
  • Pain himself admits that had Jiraiya known of his powers going in, his former mentor would have won the battle. Coming from a man with a god complex that is high praise indeed.
  • Jiraiya managed to think up a code to use - taking lines from his newest book - after forcing himself back to life. This is the same guy who was one of Naruto's parallels. It might not be as flashy as the battle, but it's still ingenious and you can totally understand that Jiraiya wasn't a legend just for his sheer power.
• Sasuke finally confronts Itachi, a battle that's been hinted towards since Part 1.
  • Itachi uses Amaterasu, a black flame capable of smothering normal flames, to counter Sasuke's flame-based jutsu.
  • However, this was Sasuke's intention, using the flames to create a current and produce a thundercloud in order to use his finishing technique. Sasuke's final move to kill Itachi was by drawing raw lightning, greater than what could be generated by chakra alone and manipulating it. Being natural lightning, it moves at 1/1000th of a second, making Itachi's chance of avoiding it virtually nil.
  • Itachi reveals his Susano'o, a spectral warrior able to defend from incredible attacks, including the Kirin that Sasuke used above.
  • Itachi was dying AND holding back. Probably the only time he went all-in was when Orochimaru's spirit threatened to possess Sasuke, at which point he took the freak down hard and sealed him using his Susano'o's sword.

Invasion of Pain Arc

• Killer Bee, the Eight Tails Jinchuriki, stomps Team Hawk despite their numbers and strategy through sheer physical power.
  • When they think they've captured him, it turns out to be a trick: he used the fight as an excuse to go on vacation.
  • Not only that, Killer Bee doesn't even take the fight seriously. He acts with glee going full out Large Ham.
• Pain attacks Konoha by himself, destroying vast swathes of it with his summons, and other bodies, and defeating or killing most of the cast in the process, ending it all with a Shinra Tensei that blows Konoha off the map. For sheer shock value, perhaps no moment in the manga has ever topped that one; A city the reader has come to love, hate parts of, relate to and know so many people from, just gone and replaced with a soul-less crater with the mural of the Kage buried in the rubble. This is Pain's end goal shown in all it's glory, a Jutsu powered by the Tailed Beast to just take entire nations of the map just like that.
• In the anime, the ANBU Black Ops actually manage to stop one of the Animal Path's summons on their own, which so far may be their only on-screen victory in the series.
• Konohamaru actually hits one of Pain's bodies... with a Rasengan.
• Sakura smashes a giant centipede monster with her fist and resumes treating an injured young girl.
• Tsunade shortening her life span to aid and heal several thousand Leaf civilians has to count. Heroic Sacrifice indeed.
• Naruto returns home on the back of a giant frog, with Sage Mode active, and saves Tsunade by jumping down from Gamabunta and smashing Pain's Asura Path that was about to attack her. This was before he tosses a giant rhino hundreds of feet into the air.
  • Naruto then systemically takes out Pain's bodies one after the other, showing us how smart he can be.
    • He reveals the throwable Rasenshuriken that can expand, shredding the Human Path.
    • Using teamwork, he puts the Animal Path and him in the dark and takes her out with a One-Hit KO.
    • He kills Naraka Path with a three point plan. He first creates a smoke screen to hide from the remaining Pains including the newly revived Preta Path. The original transforming into a Rasenshuriken, tricking the Preta Pain to absorb the jutsu and getting him out of the way. While a real Rasenshuriken attacks the Deva Path. Which is revealed to draw the attention of Nagato, when a clone kills the Naraku Path from above. Naruto would have killed Pain if not for Deva regaining his power.
    • He lets the Preta Pain absorb his Senjutsu Chakra, transforming the Path into a stone statue which Naruto proceeds to break out of.
• In the anime, Hinata goes in to face Pain, fully acknowledging that she stands no chance against him. However, not only is she the only person who tries to help Naruto at all, she goes in not to fight Pain, but to free Naruto who can fight him. When she reveals this, even Pain is taken off guard. She even lands a solid blow on him. But rather than try to follow up, she immediately switches gears and takes out more of the rods pinning Naruto to the ground. And even after she's basically been tossed around like a rag doll, she keeps trying. This all comes close to breaking Pain because he can't understand why she is so willing to put her life on the line for Naruto. Oh, and she finally declared, clearly and sincerely, that she loves Naruto. Not bad for a girl who had a reputation for barely being able to talk to him whenever she got near him, early on or in Filler.
• The six-tailed and eight-tailed forms are revealed for the first time ever after Hinata's Heroic Sacrifice pushes Naruto's Berserk Button. As far as anybody knows at the time, one more tail means the end of the world.
  • Minato saves the day—he planned for his spirit to visit his son in case the Nine-Tails ever gained that much influence over Naruto.
• Naruto defeats Deva Pain. He throws a Rasenshuriken to Deva Path, and he cancels it. But Naruto reveals he created a second Rasenshuriken and using the shadow shuriken justu, hid the second one. When Deva still dodges, Naruto reveals he created hundreds of clones and hid them as rocks. As they all attack Deva, he uses Shinra Tensei to stop them. But Naruto used his clones to withstand the attack and launch him, destroying the final Pain with his signature jutsu.
  Pain: Just give up!
  Naruto: YOU give up! (his last clones Fastball Special him) Give up... on telling me to give up! (slams Pain's chest) RASENGAN!
• Really, the entire Invasion of Pain arc in general. Aside from having arguably the best theme song in the anime, it also contained a lot of character development and great backstories, and combined with the entire village able to acknowledge Naruto for real for the first time, made the Invasion of Pain arc quite possibly the greatest arc yet in the Naruto anime.

Five Kage Summit Arc

• During a meeting of the leaders of the most powerful countries in the ninja world, Zetsu springs up from the conference room all by himself.
  • Tobi shows up later and declares war on the other countries.
• The Fourth Raikage snapping a White Zetsu's neck with one hand, followed by him busting through a wall to chase down Sasuke.
  • Continued when he strikes Sasuke's Amaterasu shield and amputates his own arm after the fact, throwing away the limb just to reach Sasuke. That's after No Selling half of Sasuke's moveset, and cementing himself as one of the biggest Memetic Badasses in the fandom.
  • Continued still when Gaara, the Fifth Mizukage, and the Third Tsuchikage lay their own beatdowns on Sasuke, effectively showing to him just how far he still has to go. The Tsuchikage's attack actually crosses this with CMOF as he floats up into the air, summons a giant cube and drops it on Sasuke, Looney Toons style.
  • A more minor one, but Kankuro manages to save an Amaterasu-burning Samurai by pulling off his armor with the Puppet Master technique. Notably, this is the first instance of a victim surviving without losing the burnt area (Sasuke using Orochimaru's shed substitution, Tobi using Kamui on his arm) or having the caster extinguish it themselves.
• Tobi's arm gets infected by a flesh-eating jutsu. He breaks it off before it spreads (half of Obito's body is White Zetsu material, so it regenerates), drops it on the ground, then kicks it at his other opponent (who dodges it because flesh-eating jutsu is spread by touch) which leaves his opponent open so he can suck him into another dimension.
• Danzo takes Karin as a hostage. Sasuke responds by impaling them both with Chidori.
  • Danzo's reponse to this is to kill himself, Sasuke, and Tobi, which the latter two only survive thanks to Tobi's teleporation ability. That's on top of having spent most of his fight with Sasuke making some very valid points about the Uchiha's increasingly deranged revenge quest, and demonstrating an ability to cheat death that approaches DBZ levels, proving that you simply cannot underestimate anybody, even the apparently crippled old man.
• Naruto stands his ground when he tells Sakura, who was clearly lying about loving him instead of Sasuke, how he hates people who lie to themselves, thereby rejecting her outright. Even when she lost her temper, he does his best to remain the calm one.
  • The way Sakura tried to relieve Naruto of the burden she believed she had forced upon him. She was misinformed and in fact it was his own desire to save Sasuke, but gotta give the girl credit for trying to save her teammate and taking initiative instead of remaining silent, plus doing it in the gentlest way she knew how (although she has continually been widely reviled for her fake love confession, would there really have been a better way to say, "Hey, guess what, our friends have all decided to kill Sasuke-kun, so you need to give up on him now"?), possibly too desperate to think of putting it in a better way.
• Sakura beating Sai, Kiba, and Lee using deception and a smoke bomb. Once again, she demonstrates that her brains are her greatest strength.
  • That Sakura tried to take on the burden of killing Sasuke all by herself, both to relieve Naruto from having that burden, and in a way to Mercy Kill Sasuke, the only man she ever loved, so he wouldn't continue down his path of darkness. It must have taken her some serious courage and emotional strength to try to shoulder that alone, even if she failed miserably for by being too emotional.
• Sasuke fights all of his former team members near-blinded, exhausted after fighting a losing battle against three or more Kage, and just barely surviving against Danzo.
  • Sakura running under a tunnel upside-down to try and stealth-kill Sasuke. She would have succeeded if she hadn't hesitated at the last second.
  • Even if she had managed to poison him, it was revealed that either Orochimaru or Kabuto has immunized him against poison. Then again, it's still an awesome moment for Sakura, since she went in prepared.
  • Naruto arriving at the nick of time to save Sakura.
• Killer Bee tosses a pencil at Kisame, misses, and the pencil punches through a tree.
  • How the Fourth Raikage and Killer Bee take down Kisame. As the latter has his hand sign ready for another jutsu, they both use Lariat towards his neck, at opposite ends. The result is just cathartic.

Confining the Jinchūriki Arc

• The Third Raikage and a group of Cloud ninja restrained the Eight-Tailed Ox all on their own. The Raikage even damaged one of its horns.
• Naruto delivers a Shut Up, Hannibal! to his inner, darker self by giving him his autograph: reading "No. 1 Hokage Candidate: Naruto".
• Naruto faces the Nine-Tails
  • This is the beast that has been fueling his powerful jutsu since the beginning of the series, Naruto and defeats it using a series of powerful attacks. At one point, he THROWS the beast in the air and slams to the ground!
  • The Nine-Tails swiftly turns the tables on them, overwhelming him with his hatred. It's a scary and distressing event. Then the ghost of Kushina appears. She not only halts Naruto's corruption but effortlessly restrains the Nine-Tails with chakra chains. To re-iterate, she puts a giant energy creature in a time-out so she can have quality time with her son. When its time for round 2, she assists Naruto.
  • It is a mother-son team that steals the fox's chakra for Naruto's own personal use, and imprisons it with an even stronger seal.
• In the past, Minato blocks Kurama's Tailed Beast Ball with his own space-time jutsu.
  • Also, Minato defeating a masked man by teleporting over the latter's head, bombarding his back with a Rasengan (pictured).
• Kurama's chakra grants Naruto the power to detect negative emotions and grants him an increase in speed. He notices Kisame's malice while hiding inside of Samehada and exposes him, then proceeds to kick him so quickly that Kisame couldn't even see it coming.
• Guy fights Kisame believing the shark-man to be his inner self.
  • He defeats Kisame by launching a tiger-shaped air pressure attack that uses no chakra and bypasses Kisame's chakra devouring moves. It's a fitting end to a rivalry that's been played with since Part 1.
  • Kisame himself follows this up with his own CMOA, when he not only gets up after being on the recieving end of Guy's Afternoon Tiger, but proceeds to commit suicide by shark, preventing the Konoha ninja from finding out anything about their plans. Guy himself commemorates this moment by saluting Kisame and noting that he'll always remember him.
• Konan planned to kill Tobi by countering his five minutes of intangibility with an explosion that lasts for ten minutes using six hundred billion explosive tags.
  • Now let's just take a minute to appreciate this moment. Six hundred billion. When she unleashes the move, Konan parts the water like Moses and we can see that the tags completely fill the massive lake on which they were fighting.
  • And not just that, she manages to kill Tobi. The only reason he survives is because he manages to warp reality by sacrificing one of his Sharingan eyes to use the Izanagi jutsu.

Shinobi World War Arc

For the Shinobi Alliance:

• Let's take all of the ninja villages in the world and turn them into one Badass Army! Hoo-rah!
• The Surprise Attack Division, led by Kankuro; Sai, Omoi, and others work together and defeat the Edo (zombie) Deidara and Sasori by exploiting actual ninja tactics: setting traps and exploiting the terrain. Kankuro adds salt to the wound by trapping Sasori with his original puppet body and then berating him for his past life.
  Kankuro: "Sasori... your strength came because of your soul, not in spite of it. You tried to erase it, to become a puppet yourself, but couldn't change completely. Now you've got your immortal body but you've fallen, sunk to the level of the puppets you used to control. You were supposed to be a top class ninja puppeteer, not a worthless nobody who lets someone else pull the strings."
  • Darui and the Cloud Ninjas summon "black lightning" that tears through the Edo Tensei Army in the shape of a panther. Later, Darui uses a weapon that can only be used by people with insane amounts of chakra (the kind of importance reserved for main protagonists and antagonists). Mind you, Darui is a supporting character who only appeared in part two, and is essentially only one pay grade above the rest of the Red Shirt Army.

For the Protagonists

• Gaara, the former Creepy Child, Enfant Terrible, and Blood Knight all rolled into one, becomes the general of an army of ninjas. To top it off, he delivers this speech to the villages who still had grudges against each other:
  Gaara: "Three times now... we've fought world wars for our own nations, our own villages. We've hurt one another, we've hated one another. That hatred bred a lust for power, and that lust for power created ME. I was a jinchūriki, the embodiment of hatred and power. And I hated this world, and all the people in it... I wanted to destroy it with my own hands. The exact same thing Akatsuki is trying to do today. But one man, one ninja from Konohagakure stopped me. I was his enemy, yet he wept for me! I hurt him, yet he called me his friend! He saved me! My enemy, my fellow jinchuriki... he suffered the same pain as me, yet bore me no ill will! There are no enemies here because we've all suffered at Akatsuki's hand! So there is no Sand, no Rock, no Leaf, no Mist, and no Cloud! There are only "shinobi!" And if you still hold a grudge against the Sand, then when this war is over, come and take my head instead! Our enemies are after the friend who saved my life! If they take him, if we hand him over, our world is finished! I want to protect him, and I want to protect our world! But I'm too young to protect it all on my own! All of you, lend me your aid! Everyone who's with me, let's go!"
  • One for Karura, Gaara's mother. Even though she died in childbirth, she vowed to always protect her son. She's the source of the sand shield, not Shukaku, shown by the shield taking the form of her cradling Gaara. Specifically while the power to move sand comes from Shukaku, it is her influence that has the sand automatically protect Gaara.
• Onoki, the Tsuchikage, and his students are shown as the first ninjas capable of flying without any external assistance. Ironically enough, they come from an earth-based village.
  • Onoki's weight-decreasing jutsu allows him to carry an Island Turtle (think the same gigantic, battleships-sized creature from Avatar: The Last Airbender) with only one hand. He uses this to stop a METEOR from crushing the Shinobi Alliance and somehow survives when a second meteor drops on top of the first one, with him directly under it.
• Sai, the poster child for apathy, goes Ax-Crazy after learning that his late, surrogate sibling is being used as part of Kabuto's army of zombies and being repeatedly detonated by Deidara.
• Even Tenten gets her moment of glory wielding the Bashosen, a giant palm fan belonging to the Sage of the Six Paths himself, using it to take out one of Kakuzu's hearts. And in the anime, she manages to destroy a second heart while drained of almost all of her chakra.
• Sakura is the first one to realize that the White Zetsus are infiltrating the Alliance disguised as wounded team mates. She also clobbers the Zetsu that tried to sneak up on her.
• Choji powers up into his his clan's Super Mode and grows chakra wings without using the soldier pills in succession, and declares that he wants to end the war by himself. All of the nearby fighting stops as everyone is in shock of the massive chakra.
• Naruto sees through Iruka's gambit and tackles his way to the battlefield, through his own allies attempts to keep him in one place, in fact.
• In a flashback, Minato faces off against A, and beats him in a game of speed. Minato was the only person A ever considered to be faster than him, thanks to Minato's Flying Thunder God jutsu.
  • And now Naruto has been added to that list. Like Father, Like Son indeed.
• Itachi and Nagato cross paths with Naruto and Bee in the middle of a warzone, and during the ensuing fight, Shisui's eye, which Itachi planted on Naruto a few arcs ago reappears and manages to free Itachi from Kabuto's control, however it stopped his backup plan against Sasuke. However it allowed Itachi and Sasuke to reconcile while fighting Kabuto, who the former traps Kabuto in Izanami since he's one of the very few people susceptible to it. In the end, because of Itachi, Sasuke began clawing his way back to sanity.
• Naruto's performance in battle has increased dramatically now that he's strategically using his Shadow Clones, with Nine-Tails mode active, and sending them to different parts of the battlefield to single-handedly turn the tide of the war. He and his clones fend off Itachi, Nagato, Mu, the Third Raikage (the enemy's One-Man Army), all the while implementing never-before-seen variations on his regular jutsus.
• Naruto jumping right in front of Hinata when she was about to be killed by the White Zetsu clones. He apologizes to her for being late, and he has a confident smile on his face as he tells her, "Everything's all right now," because he was there.
• When Naruto finally runs into Tobi, the two of them collide—with a headbutt. Tobi's eyes widen as the force of the collision throws them back, while Naruto grunts at how tough Tobi's mask is.
• Tsunade shatters Madara's Susano'o ribcage with a single punch, and then causes even more damage with one of her singular kicks. She even gives Madara a "No More Holding Back" Speech before using her special regeneration jutsu for round two. Madara makes a special point of notice to kill Tsunade first, though this is more due to the fact that she's related to Hashirama, and he's annoyed to see a "weaker version of Hashirama's abilities". Next to Onoki, she's the only Kage holding her own against the Susano'o Clones and even defeats one on screen.
• Kakashi and Might Guy fend off five zombified Jinchūriki with the Lightning Cutter and Morning Peacock.
• Kurama finally places his faith in Naruto after years of conflict. What results is an upgraded form of the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, in which the aura has more pronounced markings and a battered chakra robe as an extra. Naruto then forms the chakra into an aura representing Kurama himself! The aura is so powerful that even a roar can blast away tailed beasts, and Naruto's strength and speed are sufficient to deflect five Tailed Beast Bombs simultaneously. Then he proceeds to battle the Tailed Beasts, laying the smackdown onto three of them while Bee holds off the other two, and then he gets into a Beam-O-War with all five. He equals the combined might of all five Tailed Beasts and then defeats them all at once. The only character who honestly equals BM Naruto was Edo Madara who defeats all five Kages at the same time. He moves so fast that with his chakra Badass Longcoat, Kakashi thinks Naruto is Minato.
  Kakashi: "Se....sensei...?!"

For the Antagonists:

• Tobi takes his place as the series Big Bad with a war on the horizon. He's got an army of Mooks at his command, in addition to former, undead comrades, each of which is an S-rank criminal; his own Six Paths of Pain made out of former Jinchuriki; the Gold and Silver Brothers who are mini-Jinchuriki in their own right with the treasured tools of the series Physical God in their possession, in addition to the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path that doubles as a tank and the container for the nine different Eldritch Abominations, while also being the shell for the series's original Eldritch Abomination... run, heroes. Run.
  • When his Evil Mentor, Madara Uchiha returned from the dead and joined to him on the battlefield, Obito openly declares to him that he never perceived him as an ally and that now he is the one who controls the situation. Add to this that, Madara on that moment was immortal zombie with infinite chakra and Obito was ordinary mortal man and that he told this him straight in the face. This says a lot about a man who in childhood been a loser, which only managed to activate his Sharingan minutes before his "death".
• Kabuto returns as The Chessmaster with an army of Edo Tensei (zombies). He's became so powerful it takes two Mangekyo Sharingan wielding shinobi to even fight him while he's in Sage Mode, the former with the Eternal version of the Mangekyo, the latter with Edo Tensei to make up for the damage. Kabuto, multiple times was able to overwhelm both Sasuke and Itachi at the same time, even trap them in a genjutsu, and then when he gets serious he bifurcates Itachi Uchiha before he can even react. It takes Izanami to finally stop his onslaught, but in doing so Itachi had been permanently robbed of one of his eyes.
• Kabuto is the reason behind the resurrection of Madara Uchiha, who robs the Superpower Lottery with an extraordinary plethora of abilities that allows him to kill Alliance shinobi by the hundreds without using any jutsu, then drop not one, but two several-hundred-meter meteorites on the Fourth Division, near-totally wiping them out, and then go head-to-head against the five Kage and pretty much toy with them the whole way with an army of Susano'o-bearing Wood Clones, and finally topping it off with a Final-Form Susano'o the size of an average mecha that can slice through mountain ranges like they were made of cheese. He also dispels the jutsu that binds him to Kabuto's will, allowing him to retain his free will, along with unlimited stamina and Nigh-Invulnerability.
• Rather than remain a puppet of Kabuto, Hanzo commits seppuku through sheer force of will, allowing himself to be sealed by the good guys.
• Sasuke's first act with his new Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan is to roast the original White Zetsu with Amaterasu.
• The Third Raikage is only briefly stunned when struck by Naruto's strongest Rasenshuriken (though it does admittedly destroy his lightning armor).
• Karin pretends to have a Villainous BSoD while incarcerated. Instead, she's actually plotting an escape attempt, and secretly conceals a blade inside of her glasses.

Ten-Tails Revival Arc

• Tsunade waking up to find that she's chopped in half. What makes it awesome is, instead of healing herself, while completely bisected, she passes up the chance to have her halves reconnected so she can heal the other Kage instead. Badass.
• Orochimaru makes a return... thanks to Sasuke, who wants answers for the reason behind Sasuke's Start of Darkness.
• Tobi's slaughter of the Mist ninja during his Start of Darkness. He wasn't that different from the titular character, but his Heroic BSoD leads to the aforementioned slaughter when Young!Tobi unleashes hell on the people apparently responsible for Rin's death. His Unstoppable Rage and Foe-Tossing Charge is aided by his new Mangekyo Sharingan getting more powerful.
• The Ten-Tails has been revived and its power makes the other Tailed Beasts look as harmless as kittens. Both Obito and Madara are worried about it getting out of control; after all, Evil Is Not a Toy.
• Naruto in Tailed Beast Mode tanks the Tailed Beast Ball laser from the Ten-Tails, sends his clone and Kakashi in the air...and Kakashi sends Bee's full Tailed Beast form down like a giant projectile at the Ten-Tails with a Tailed Beast Bomb ready to go!
• Naruto: Shinobi Alliance no Jutsu!
• Shikaku shows us why he's Shikamaru's father. He perfectly coordinates all of the Alliance's ninjas' attacks that even manages to drive Juubi into a corner! And then he explains the best ways to fight Madara and Obito for the whole army to use and tells them how to do it. And after he gives orders, everyone charges in an epic manner.
• Shikaku, Inoichi, and Ao deciding to Face Death with Dignity so they can get the last plan out to the Alliance. Dying Moment of Awesome indeed.
• Neji dying to protect Naruto and Hinata after giving a good showing of his defense. Also Hiashi managed to deflect one of the Ten-Tails' hands with a Air Wave Palm Wall.
• Hinata slaps an in-despair Naruto, and gives a passionate speech without a single stutter, effectively bringing Naruto out of his Heroic BSoD. The two of them hold hands, reaching the culmination of all her Character Development. Hinata has finally achieved her dream of standing together with Naruto, and he's fully acknowledged her now, by thanking her for staying at his side. And she does this directly after seeing her cousin die. Not bad for a girl who started off being barely able to talk to Naruto! Here's her speech in all its glory:
  Hinata: "Neji just said... that your life is not just your own anymore... Do you understand what he meant? Your words and desire to not let your comrades die... Neither of them are lies! What inspired Neji and carried him this far were those very principles! It's not just you, Naruto... we all hold those same words and feelings within our hearts. They're what bind our lives together and make us comrades. If we all give up and discard those words and feelings now, Neji's sacrifice will have been for nothing... And that is when your comrades truly die, for you are no longer comrades then. That's how I feel... Therefore... stand up together with me, Naruto... Because never going back on one's word... is my ninja way too!"
  • After transferring his chakra to her, Naruto prepares to charge into battle, with Hinata by his side.
    Naruto: "Let's go, Hinata!"
    Hinata: "Yeah!"
  • Let us not forget Killer Bee charging up a Tailed Beast Bomb and firing it down the Ten-Tails' throat.
• Naruto powers up Hinata, Ino, Choji, Shikamaru, and Kiba. Hinata is now strong enough to—with a single hand—deflect the Ten-Tails hand on her own with a Vacuum Palm, while her father needed both hands. And she sends it flying back all the way across the battlefield! Ino mind-controls Obito again at a speed faster than even Naruto's Tailed Beast Mode. And Shikamaru and Choji restrain the beast's tails!
  • Naruto is now so powerful that his chakra can be felt all the way to Konoha.
• Naruto finishes powering up the rest of the alliance, uses a Double Rasenshuriken to slash through two of the Ten-Tails' tails at once while the entire alliance forms up around him in the shape of the bird that represents Neji's will. Hinata heals Naruto's dislocated shoulder with her Gentle Fist and Lee kicks Madara in half while Naruto throws his Rasenshuriken at Obito. Simultaneously the connection to the Ten-Tails is severed and Obito and Madara finally lose ground.
  • It needs to be repeated: Rock Lee, the physical-only taijutsu student, got to kick Madara Uchiha in half!
  • What makes this moment even more awesome is that Madara's Smug Snake attitude slipped.
• Orochimaru has summoned Hashirama, Tobirama, Hiruzen, and Minato by cutting open the Shinigami's stomach itself. He also got his arms back.
• Hashirama displays the "Badass" part of his Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass characterization. His chakra is so potent that it scares everyone else in the room.
  • His sheer killing intent is enough to destroy a building!! One has to wonder the amount of whoopass he'll unleash on Madara if -or rather, when- he joins this War.
  • And this is only what happens when he gets mad at his younger brother.
• Finally, Hashirama desribes in all its glory the battle between himself and Madara. Madara covers the Nine-Tails in Susanoo armor. It's strong enough to tank Kurama's own Tailed Beast Bomb and counters Hashirama's Wood Palm technique by cutting through SIX mountains. That means this fusion is three times as strong as the normal Perfect Susano'o which can bisect two mountains! No pushover, Hashirama's counter is Sage Mode, which gives him the equivalent of a mixture of Chakravartin and the Buddha itself, dwarfing the Kurama-fused Susano'o as they charge into one another.
• Basically, the Uchiha are given the silver medal again, and again, and again, and again. Even Tobirama was stronger than Izuna, who was equal to Mangekyo Sharingan using Madara. Tobirama kills Izuna with a predecessor to the Hiraishin no Jutsu which Minato uses: Hiraishingiri or Flying Thunder God Beheading. All very satisfying for confirmation.
• It's pretty cathartic to see Madara Uchiha ultimately being defeated by a clone, one of the most basic tricks in a ninja's arsenal. Which in a way is also a Call-Back to Naruto, defeating the younger Neji, himself a long-haired embittered young man, with his Shadow Clone.
• The four reanimated Hokages standing on their respective statue on Hokage Mountain, ready for battle.
  • Sasuke decides to join the battle, vowing to stop Madara from erasing this world and everything Itachi stood for.
• The Ten-Tails shows exactly why the Tailed Beasts were reffered to as Living Natural disasters....By summoning a massive Storm filled with lightning, floods, and dozens of tornados in an instant. This attack is aptly named "the Cataclysm". The epicenter turns into a supermassive lightning-infused mushroom cloud.
  • Naruto No Sells the Cataclysm, saving his comrades by using up all his chakra. Now weakened, Hinata leads a group of Shinobi to barricade him while Sakura heals him.
• Minato arrives at the battlefield and teleports the Ten-Tails' super-massive Tailed Beast Bomb away with his Space-Time Barrier with absolute ease.
  Minato: "Am I late?"
  • Ino surpasses her dad, talking with tens of thousands of shinobi with her clan's telepathy without an external device to keep her safe. When asked if she could do it her response was that didn't matter if she couldn't because she would!.
  • Shikamaru's plan, despite not being enough, was rather inventive too.
  • Sakura's Rousing Speech to the alliance to not give up is also an awesome moment to see. She's infecting everyone with Naruto's Determinator traits.
  • Kakashi's Shut Up, Hannibal! to Obito when the latter pulls a Final Temptation on Kakashi. After listening to Obito moan about how the world is full of trash and an awful reality Kakashi strikes back with a Call-Back Obito's speech from the battle of Kannabi bridge about Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! and signifying the end to him treating him differently than any other enemy.
    Kakashi: "In the world of Shinobi those who break the rules are called trash. However...The ones who don't treasure their friends are worse than trash. And the ones who don't treasure their friends' feelings are even worse than that. I won't get rid of what once were your feelings..." (Readies Raikiri) "Even if it's you refusing them."
• For the first time in years, Team 7 stands united on the same side, ready for battle. And, along with the reunited Team 7, comes the reunited Rookie Nine.
  • When Minato warped the Tailed Beast Bomb away, he also had time to place his special kunai at strategic points. He uses them now to teleport himself, Tobirama and Hiruzen, impressing the Second.
    Tobirama: "You're quick at striking, too."
    • Not to mention Minato utilizing the half of Kurama's chakra sealed in him and going into Nine-Tails Chakra Mode. Even Kurama himself was both surprised and somewhat annoyed at how Minato could control the chakra from his other (untamed) half in such a short span of time.
• Sakura finishes forming the Yin Seal, Tsunade's technique that lets her heal without using hand seals and reveals that she hasn't been able to fight at her full strength at any point since the Time Skip. Sakura proceeds to punch one of the Ten-Tails' miniature clones so hard it plows a path through the rest of them, while she flings herself into the air and comes down with a punch that shatters the land and wipes out almost all the clones. Bonus points for how Naruto looks absolutely terrified of her while Sasuke gives her a proud and flirty smirk, as seen here◊.
  • Sakura's new seal has been translated to be 'Byakugo no In', or 'Strength of a Hundred Seal'. Instead of using it to heal without seals (though its possible she can given its also derived from the Yin Seal), it seems to increase her power by a factor of one hundred. A lot more awesome in hindsight. Tsunade's first apprentice, Shizune, had attempted to master the seal but had failed as well.
    • Whether the author had been planning this or just did it to stop complaints, it's hard to argue with the results.
• The rest of the Rookie Nine show that they didn't just lounge around while Team 7 got stronger.
  • Team 8. Kiba combines two jutsus (one of them being Naruto's famous Kage Bunshin), allowing him to transform Akamaru into a massive beast that would make Cerberus of Greek Mythology proud. Shino uses his bugs and another justu known as mushikui, he destroys several clones. Hinata goes full Lady of War mode and connects the 64 Palms to attack at full strength.
  • Team 10. As Chouji rolls around and makes himself bigger, Shikamaru directs his "route" with his shadow jutsu, and Ino keeps the trio together with her Psychic Powers. The jutsu is called "Human Boulder Yo-yo".
• Team 7 summoning Gamakichi, Aoda, and Katsuyu. It's especially significant for Sarutobi, who's reminded of the Sannin, He declares that it's the dawn of a new era and that Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura carry the future of the ninja world on their shoulders.
• Naruto and Sasuke combine a Wind Style Massive Rasenshuriken with an Inferno Style Susano'o Flame Control to form a giant swirling exploding disk of black-flames doom that engulfs the Ten-Tails.
• Kakashi finally defeats Obito. The entire battle is awesome, alternating between the present and a friendly sparring match in the past. One of the most well-choreographed duels in the series, ending with the two of them impaling each other with a lightning-enhanced kunai / black rod respectively.
  • Obito also receives one after a fight. When Kakashi pierced him through and through with the help of Raikiri, he falls to the ground for a while. Then he rises with a huge hole in his chest and smugly smiles, telling him that he let him win in this fight and that he wins the war. He did not lie about the first.
• Madara physically forces Obito to use Rinne Rebirth that really is a fitting punishment for Obito after all of the horrible things he's done.
  • Although now that it's known that Madara manipulated Obito in order to enact his plan from the beginning by setting up Rin's death, this moment plays a little different.
  • Furthermore, it also means that Obito was unable to bring to back everyone who died to atone himself.
• Obito manages to become the Ten Tails Jinchuuriki despite being on the verge of death, resisting Madara's control and thwarting his plan.
  • Let's add to this fact that Obito planned it from the very beginning. Obito knew that Madara going use him for own resurrection and he knew that Madara placed a seal on his heart which prevents him from becoming the Ten Tails Jinchuuriki. So he specially pulls Kakashi and himself into Kamui, isolating the two of them from the rest of the fighting and goaded Kakashi into stabbing him in the heart in order to remove Madara's seal. So Obito was playing everyone, even Madara, for fools.
  • Also the fact that Obito played everyone BUT not Naruto. Naruto was the only one who had ANY clue on what was happening seeing that the seals, which folded Obito differed from those that did Nagato. And then Naruto saved both Minato and Sasuke at the same time, reacting before either of them and preventing them from being sealed inside Obito as well.
• The hokage showing just how badass they are. Minato prepares a new technique that combines the Shadow Clone jutsu with the Flying Raijin and the Rasengan. Tobirama unveils his Tandem Paper Bombs jutsu, summoning explosive tags to continuously explode on Obito. Hiruzen fights Obito one on one, uses a giant form of his Shuriken Shadow Clone jutsu and manages to analyze Obito's new technique.
• The sheer power of the Ten-Tails starts crushing Obito's mind. This is represented by a) a photograph of his genin team being cut away, and b) his image of himself being ripped apart, ending with his head being split in two. Just when it's about to destroy his memories of Rin, Obito regains control and "pulls himself together" while screaming his defiance. Cue Bishōnen Line.
  • Bonus points for doing with his own willpower what took Naruto help from his parents to subdue a weaker Bijuu.
  • And makes it even more impressive when later even Madara Uchiha couldn't fight the will of the Ten-Tails despite being powerful enough to shrug off everything thrown at him before that.
• Naruto remembering how Flying Raijin works and saving both himself and Sasuke by grabbing onto Minato with his chakra arms. Even Minato and Sasuke were impressed.
• Tobirama saving Naruto and co.. As Obito's energy ball is about to detonate, he warps next to Minato, grabs the Truth-Seeking orb, warps behind Obito and sticks it on him. Bonus points for casually saying "Here, you can have this back" as he does it.
  • Naruto and Sasuke team up with another Inferno Style: Rasenshuriken while Minato and Tobirama use a special move with their Hiraishin to make it hit Obito. First Minato lets himself be hit by Naruto and Sasuke's attack as Tobirama appears behind Obito...who uses Reciprocal Round-Robin Flying Raijin jutsu to change places between Obito and Minato, and Obito gets hit with the full force of their Flame Control and Rasenshuriken combination while Minato is uninjured.
• Having deduced that ninjutsu won't work on Obito, but sage attacks will, Naruto does a combo teleport/sage rasengan with Tobirama's help, scoring a direct hit combined with a Shut Up, Hannibal! moment. The effectiveness of this attack even convinced Obito to stop screwing around and jump to his endgame.
  • Also, Tobirama's praise of Naruto figuring out Obito's weakness to Senjutsu before he did, amending that he shouldn't call Naruto 'dumb' like he did before.
• Tailed Beast Mode Naruto's grand return...and Minato and Naruto starting to join both halves of Kurama together again.
  • Not to mention the other half of Kurama giving a pep talk to Minato, proving that Naruto even managed to convince the dead half of the Nine-Tails that he was worth trusting.
• Naruto gives his greatest Shut Up, Hannibal! speech yet. When Obito tells Naruto that tomorrow is the anniversary of his parents death, he just says that it means it also his birthday and as long as he lives they won't be forgotten and the world won't end.
  • Naruto then saves the entire Alliance, including Jugo and Sasuke, after he reactivates all the Version 1 Chakra Cloaks he gave to them and linked them to the main source, allowing Minato to use Hiraishin no Jutsu to teleport everyone out of the barrier since all their chakra is touching.
• Naruto and Minato fight side by side and Naruto boosts his Super Mode abilities by combining his Sage Mode and Tailed Beast Mode into one.
• Sarutobi pops up after a long absence to save Naruto by using the Adamantine Staff to free him from the roots of the World Tree. Particularly badass because the Tobirama and Minato couldn't reach him.
• Despite Shikamaru's condition, Naruto's will is unbroken and his feelings, his heart transmitted through Ino's Telepathy, rally the Alliance so they're willing to stand against Obito once more. Note: this is something Hashirama Senju himself couldn't do. Not only that, Sasuke shows off his improved Susano'o which cuts through an entire massive root of the Divine Tree!
  • Before that everybody, including Naruto was totally crushed after Obito late Mindbreak revelation and near absolute power with chakra... and the next panel Sasuke attacks with Susano, showing no fear or doubt and absorb Juugo seal and perfect his Susano'o, while goading Naruto to keep fighting, which allow the entire army to get back to the fight by Naruto's memories.
• Naruto's able to break through Obito's black sphere with a Tailed Beast Bomb while unconsciously healing Shikamaru from the brink of death.
• Naruto in Tailed Beast Sage Mode and Sasuke in Perfect Susano'o combine their powers into the same Nine-Tails Dragon Zord that Madara had made, but better. Not only that, Naruto creates nine Giant Rasegans in each tail...and has almost all the Konoha 11 (who all get a Tailed Beast Mode Cloak)—minus Sakura, who's still healing people—wield them to smash through Obito's Yin-Yang megashield. Sasuke's Sage Mode-enhanced PS Sword then slashes through the Sword of Nonoboko and cuts Obito clean in half!
  • Special heartwarming mention goes to Rock Lee, since it's his first time using Ninjutsu, even if it is by proxy!
• Naruto making Obito realize that some part of him is on Naruto's side with the rest of the alliance.
  Obito: I possess the same will and body as the Sage of Six Paths. I am the second sage of Six Paths!
  Naruto: Wrong! You're Obito Uchiha!
• Obito has lost. He rejected Naruto's offer, and Naruto shows him that Rin wouldn't approve what he's doing and when that doesn't work, he literally grabs Obito's hand which shocks him enough that all the Tailed Beasts are then freed from the Ten-Tails.
  • You know you're a Messianic Archetype when you successfully reject the Redemption Rejection.
  • And then there's the entire alliance forming people chains and pulling in order to drag the trapped Tailed Beasts out of Obito first in loving detail and then an amazing sky shot that makes you realize how huge they are and that yes, that's everybody in there to save the Tailed Beasts.
  • A posthumous one for Jiraiya. Lying defeated on the ground, Obito discusses the reasons for why he lost, remembering Nagato's betrayal of him and Naruto's victory. He says that it was because they followed Jiraiya's ideals that they got the better of him, and in Naruto's case, using Jiraiya's ideals, he united the Shinobi of the world to defeat Obito, even as the Juubi Jinchuuriki. "You could say I was defeated by Jiraiya." Jiraiya, who died believing most of his life was a failure, is the one to inspire the whole damn world to unite and defeat the closest person to a God in the end.

Final Arc

• After Madara is resurrected into a living body ^note via the Rinnegan, Madara proceeds to blitz Sage Mode Naruto & Sai, steal Hashirama's sage jutsu chakra and no-sell all of Sasuke's attempts to kill him. Then, he faces the remaining Tailed Beasts and the army, whilst declaring that he would capture them all. He did all this whilst blind.
• We have a team up, we never thought would ever happen: the Tailed Beasts, Naruto, Bee and Gaara. It was awesome just to see the nine Tailed Beasts together, even if Kurama and Gyuki are just Naruto and Bee in their Tailed Beast forms.
• Madara gets a single Rinnegan eye. He heals up to full since the damage he took from NINE Tailed Beasts wasn't even that bad, except an arm he lost which he replaces with a Zetsu arm. He summons the Gedo Statue from inside Obito and proceeds to humiliatingly push back the aformentioned Tailed Beasts with his new ability Limbo: Border Jail. And all of this with just one eye.
• Sakura shows us her Determinator credits. After hearing that Naruto is dead, using her remaining Chakra she makes a chakra scapel so she can directly massage his heart and give him CPR till they can revive him.
• Karin is able to unlock her Uzumaki powers, causing Orochimaru to compare her to Kushina. Using her chains, she is able to greatly destroy Spiral Zetsu's statue. All that so she could reach the dying sasuke in time to save him.
  • Karin gets hit by the attack that killed Neji and shrugs it off. Yes, she can even heal herself by biting herself.
  • And then Suigetsu defends Karin immediately by blowing Spiral Zetsu's head off with his finger guns.
  • With teamwork from Taka, they are able to incapacitate Spiral Zetsu, with Orochimaru using a Cursed Seal as the coup-de-grace.
• Although this is pure Nightmare Fuel, Madara becomes the Ten-Tails' Jinchūriki. And it's a more complete form, looking more human than Obito did. Plus, he didn't go through the Almighty Idiot phase Obito did, because he and the beast's goal are the same, stripping mankind of freewill. Evil Is Easy actually.
• Madara extracts the Kyuubi from Naruto, stabs Sasuke in the heart, and becomes the Ten-Tails Jinchuuriki. Last hope in the form of the yin-half of Kurama in Minato, was stolen by Black Zetsu and Madara has come for his second eye. Obito of all people saves the situation, overpowers Black Zetsu and uses him as life support, then proceeds to shove his hand into Madara's chest and absorb some of the chakra to save Naruto. Let's remind Madara now is Jinchuuriki of Ten-Tails and Obito to shove his a bare hand into Madara's chest, herewith sarcastically laughing to him right in the face and states that he is not Madara, but Obito Uchiha, the person who wanted to become Hokage.
• Obito and Kakashi team up to fight Madara. Except it's not a battle of jutsu, but a battle of wits. And they win.
  • Obito gets in the Kamui dimension and gives the Yin half of the Nine-Tails to Naruto, saving him.
  • In a similar vein, Kabuto kept some of Orochimaru's chakra and is using his Sage Mode to save Sasuke.
  • Guy pulling a Big Damn Heroes to save Kakashi from Madara's attack. In turn, he get saved from Madara's attack by Lee.
• Guy is prepared to open the eighth gate and sacrifice himself in order to protect his comrades and stop Madara.
  Guy: The green days of Konoha are over...the time has come to become the red beast.
• Flashing back to Guy's life as a child, we find out that his father was an eternal Genin, stuck at the lowest rank of ninja for over 20 years of his life, which somehow makes all of Guy's moments with Rock Lee doubly heartwarming. And yet his father, who could not use ninjutsu or genjutsu, learned to open the eight gates, and using that power, he showed up and saved Guy's team by fighting off the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. Alone. And killed four of them before dying. Badass is In the Blood, clearly. Guy then proceeds to deliver an epic Shut Up, Hannibal! to Madara that manages to make all his ranting about the springtime of youth make perfect sense before he attacks Madara. And Madara is caught completely flat-footed as Guy gets in his face.
  Guy: EVENING ELEPHANT.
• The name Evening Elephant makes sense when the attack is a punch so fast that it makes a pillar of air attack your opponent. Even Madara thinks taking 4 to 5 hits is bad. Taking a direct hit would be out of the question.
  • The attack is so powerful, Madara blocked it and still wound up at least a few kilometers into the ground.
  • Minato reminds us why he is Hokage: despite having no arms, he analyzed Madara's powers and created a great plan using his, Kakashi's, Lee's and Gaara's powers, allowing Guy to get a direct hit on Madara.
  • Kakashi admits that his Mangekyo eye has gone blind, but he can still use its abilities if he gets close enough. Awesome.
  • Guy punches Madara through his Absolute Defence shield, thanks to a combination of sheer Badassery and teamwork from everyone. Madara is so excited by the whole thing that he states that Guy is the most fun opponent he's had since Hashirama and seems pretty petulant at the idea of Guy running out of steam.
    Madara: Of all those who have fought me over the years, there's no one who surpasses you at taijutsu! I, Madara, declare you the strongest!
  • With all eight gates open, Guy is able to match Madara's free flight by propelling himself with the force of his kicks alone.
• Naruto ends up meeting the Sage of the Six Paths in his mind, whose soul is able to travel through time. And then he reveals that the Senju and Uchiha ancestors reincarnated into multiple generations, and that Asura, the Senju ancestor, reincarnated into Naruto.
  • Asura vs Indra. A scene shows their battles are at least on the same level as Madara and Hashirama's battle.
• Just two words: Night Guy. That's right folks, when Madara is able to withstand the Evening Elephant, Guy reveals he still has one more stage of pure awesome to go.
  • Night Guy does not disappoint. It starts with Guy creating a Dragon of his chakra and then flying straight at Madara. Night Guy is a kick, a kick so powerful that it bends space; just when Madara thinks Guy has overcommitted, space itself is warped just so Guy can hit him anyway. Connecting the kick broke Guy's leg in several places and punched a huge hole in/through Madara's torso and blew off his left arm. That's right: A taijutsu move did what flashy overpowered ninjutsu and all nine Tailed Beasts could not: It almost killed Madara.
  • The animated adaptation lives up to the awesomeness in style. Animated, the 'Night Guy' attack resembles nothing less than a giant crimson dragon the size of a freight train, and moving with the speed of one too as it/Guy barrels into Madara, pushes him back a great distance and slams him into the base of the Divine Tree. Oh, and to top it off, the animators seem to have straight-up taken a page out of Asura's Wrath for his adapted appearance.
  • Guy vs Madara should have been nothing more than a demonstration of The Worf Effect in action. But Night Guy is so awesome that no one, not even Madara himself, feels like Guy jobbed out, and is flat out the most damage Madara takes in the entire arc.
    Madara: I almost died, you bastard.
• The kicker for all of Guy's sheer badassery during the fight with Madara? If you look at his outfit during said fight you'll see that he still has his leg weights on. That's right, Guy was ready to go toe-to-toe with one of the strongest people in existence, and he still did it with a handicap.
• How does Naruto make an appearance after being on the brink of death for so long by making a Big Damn Heroes moment saving a dying Guy from Madara's attack and actually kicking one of Madara's Yin-Yang balls back to him, showing off the cross eyes from Tailed Beast Sage mode.
  • Just in case there were any doubts about Naruto's ability to make an entrance: he uses Son Goku's powers to create a Lava Style: Rasenshuriken. It is as cool as it sounds, so powerful that it cut down the entire Divine Tree.
  • Madara somehow survived all that.
  • In the anime is shown that Madara absorbs the WHOLE TREE to become its final jinchuuriki.
• Naruto and Sasuke stand ready to fight Madara. And they have some new powers to show:
  • Naruto has the Six Paths Sage Mode. Basically, it's the same powers as the Ten-Tails Jinchuuriki combined with Sage Mode. He is now able to use Yin-Yang Release to create the same Truth-Seeking Balls as the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, reshaping two of them into staves.
  • Sasuke then reveals that he's awakened the Rinnegan combined with his Sharingan.
• Naruto and Sasuke are more than a match for Madara. With Naruto showing off a Magnet Release: Rasengan thanks to Shukaku, while Sasuke uses a Six Path powered Chidori.
• Thanks to his Rinnegan, Sasuke is able to see Madara's shadows created by the Limbo: Border Jail jutsu. Naruto can't see them, but he can sense them. Madara realizes he can't defeat them, so he makes a tactcal withdrawal to take back his left eye (which is currently Obito's left eye).
  • Since he needs to get in the Kamui dimension, Madara steals Kakashi's Sharingan while flying by him at high speed!
• Team 7, as in ALL of Team 7, Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi against a full powered Madara.
  • Naruto shows off his mastery of Yang Release (or Light Style), the basis of all medical ninjutsu, by regrowing Kakashi's original eye! He's probably a better medic now than Sakura and Tsunade combined.
• Sakura, despite realizing she is a bit above her league, refuses to give up and tries to help Naruto and Sasuke in anyway possible. Showing that she like Tsunade has learned the automatic healing jutsu. She is Tsunade's equal.
• Madara creating dozens of Chibaku Tensei without effort, each of them as large as the trunk of the Divine Tree. You know, the jutsu that Pain used to fight the six-tailed Naruto back then in the Invasion of Pain arc. Madara creates much bigger versions and uses them like a rain of meteors as if it was a walk in the park.
  • Even more impressive / awe-inspiring/utterly goddamn terrifying: it looks like Madara literally just uprooted an entire country to achieve this.
  • Naruto and Sasuke easily destroy the meteors. Sasuke uses an updated Susanoo and Naruto uses a Tailed Beast Bomb Rasenshuriken.
• The Infinite Tsukuyomi has begun! While everything is based around Nightmare Fuel, it did leave some awesome tidbits. First and foremost is the fact that Killer Bee survived having Gyuki extracted from him.
  • Also, Sasuke's Susannoo being able to block the Infinite Tsukuyomi. He free-falls, ignoring the meteors, rushing to shield Team 7 from the moonlight. At the same time, Naruto destroys the falling Chibaku Tensei en masse. With complete and utter ease.
• Madara receives Laser-Guided Karma at long last, stabbed in the back by Black Zetsu who gives him "The Reason You Suck" Speech mocks him for thinking about himself that he could manipulate other people without being manipulated himself, and tells him that the moon's eye plan was itself a lie, its real purpose was to resurrect Kaguya and Madara now made himself the perfect vessel for her return.
• Naruto saves Kakashi, Sakura, and Sasuke with his Flight Technique and Chakra Arms, and clashes with Kaguya. Briefly, he's able to stalemate the god of the Narutoverse and give Sasuke an opening to attack from above.
• Naruto gives a huge Shut Up, Hannibal! to Kaguya and Black Zetsu, effortlessly ripping Black Zetsu off himself and Sasuke!
• Crossing over with Funny Moments, Naruto punches out Kaguya... By using the Sexy Reverse Harem Jutsu on her! As Kakashi put it, the fact that the pervert jutsu of all things (nearly) manages to save the world is both awesome and hilarious.
• Naruto's clone manages to revive Obito, although they both know the latter doesn't have long to live, since he had the Ten-Tails extracted from him.
• Naruto using Multi Shadow Clone jutsu and Kokuo's strength to turn the tables on Kaguya and force her to open her dimensional portal so Obito and Sakura can teleport through. He also manages to fool her with one of his clones to make her and Black Zetsu think that they killed the original!
  • Naruto proves to be so dangerous that Kaguya decides to kill him rather than absorb his chakra. That's right. God thinks Naruto is too big a threat to keep alive.
• Sakura maintains her link with Obito while being burned by acid. Girl must have acquired some Determinator traits from Naruto.
• Kaguya and Black Zetsu finally pressed Naruto's Berserk Button hard. He tears Kaguya's left arm off like a piece of paper, separating in two. Yes, Naruto just tore off the arm of a god. And he's pissed as hell now!
  • At the same time, Obito's death was one also, despite being both Nightmare Fuel and a Tear Jerker. Nearly any blow this MOFO has suffered through out the series were either no selled like it was nothing or he managed to survive through sheer luck, determination, or having a back up plan and the fact it took a one-hit kill from Kaguya to finish him for good should speak for itself. But the best part is that he tells Naruto to be Hokage at all cost before dying. A badass to the end.
  • A minor one in this scheme, but Obito, even after being impaled by Kaguya's fatal attack, still manages to save Kakashi from his own attempted Heroic Sacrifice with Kamui. To his absolute last moment and just like the last time they parted, Obito gives his all and entrusts it to Kakashi.
• Obito comes back from the afterlife to give Kakashi a gift... Specifically, a DOUBLE Mangekyo Sharingan. That is all. Kakashi puts it to good use, summoning a perfect Susano'o.
  • Naruto throwing nine different elemental Rasenshuriken, one for each tailed beast. Kaguya gets such a beating she goes into her One-Winged Angel form.
• And one hell of a Throw the Dog a Bone moment to Sakura. Just as Naruto and Sasuke are about to seal Kaguya, she tries to dodge by flying above them. Having none of that, Sakura hops out of Kakashi's Susanoo and punches her in the face. She's able to do lasting damage too, knocking off Kaguya's horn!
  • Kakashi's gained a whole new level in badass. He can now use Kamui Shuriken and Kamui Raikiri!
• Naruto and Sasuke sealing Kaguya with Chibaku Tensei.
  • Naruto NOT Talking the Monster to Death with Black Zetsu, and repaying his constant taunts and his interference in the lives and happiness of generations of shinobi by throwing him in the planetary object where Kaguya is being sealed at the time. And with that, avoiding the same thing happening again after Kaguya is defeated this time. And giving a hell of a Kubrick Stare after that!
  • Kaguya has been sealed along with Black Zetsu in her own dimension, which only SHE could easily access (it's unclear how many beings exist that can go these dimensions but they are certainly few). Considering that only Hagoromo was powerful enough to get Team 7 out of that dimension (but even he required the combined power of every Kage in history just to get a normal summoning jutsu to work, though he states he needed help because he had given his powers to Naruto and Sasuke), this time she's likely sealed for good.
  • As mentioned, the Sage of the Six Paths summoning ALL the dead Kages who ever lived (even Gaara's father, a notorious Jerkass) to help in bringing back the Old Team 7 back to Earth.
• Sasuke declares he will execute all 5 Kage still trapped in the Infinite Tsukuyomi and then uses his newly-obtained Rinnegan to trap all Tailed Beasts, declaring he will launch a revolution on the Ninja World. Naruto unflinchingly decides it's time to end the cycle of hatred between Ashura and Indra. The long-awaited final bout between Naruto and Sasuke is about to take place!
• Naruto and Sasuke's Final Battle:
  • Sasuke's acknowledgement of Naruto and their Epic Brofist while using Susano'o and Tailed Beast Mode respectively.
  • Naruto manages to create a perfect Rasengan without the aid of a shadow clone.
  • The battle drags on and they're both nearly exhausted. With their chackra nearly depleted, they resort to a good old fist fight and it is as glorious as it is gritty. They just keep trading punches and kicks for hours, while bruises appear and even losing some teeth. By the time the sun starts to set, they are without any strength left, but none are willing to give up and just keep fighting.
  • An understated one. After both have reached their limit, Kurama tries to hand Naruto some more chakra only for Sasuke to absorb it with the Rinnegan. Using this to create a Chidori, Sasuke prepares to finish off his only friend... [[Determinatir but Naruto won't give up so easily.]] In a flash, he springs to his feet and LAUNCHES Sasuke into the rockface with an uppercut that even Tsunade would be proud of. And that was without any Chakra.
  • The fact that after their battle the Final Valley looks like it was hit by a nuke.
  • And, at the end, Team 7 has been reunited again, and Sasuke has reconciled with both Naruto and Sakura individually.
    • The animated adaptation cranks the awesomeness up and rips off the knob. From picture-perfect art & visuals, capturing the emotions of the fight blow-by-blow, and even the additions manage to bring chills. Said additions include-but-aren't-limited to bringing back Sasuke's long-absent Kirin technique, him using Universal Pull in conjunction with a powerful Amaterasu-type technique, Sasuke in his Tailed Beast Susanoo form killing a Kurama clone, and even "Heavy Violence" from the original series' soundtrack playing over Naruto using Uzumaki Barrage (and past that). All of it culminates in the buildup to their true final clash, where Naruto's Rasengan is helped formed by the spirits of everyone rooting for him, along with Sasuke's Flame Control Chidori aided by Itachi's spirit. Even the music (or lack thereof at points) adds to the awesomeness, with the themes used being fittingly simple-yet-grandiose at the same time.
• As Obito said, Kakashi becomes the Sixth Hokage after helping save the world.
• The Epilogue: After a long, hard journey, Naruto finally becomes the Seventh Hokage after Kakashi decides to retire thus making his dreams come true. Not only that Kurama was able to live in peace without anyone making a fuss of it.
  • You can see just how much Naruto has grown. He's performing excellently as Seventh and is evidently more mature when compared to his younger self. As for Kurama, you can imagine just how well the village has accepted him especially when he's peacefully napping (and drooling) while Naruto attends the Five Kage meeting.
  • After everything, Konoha's 11+ get a happy ending, many of them with kids of their own. The next generation has begun.
  • A small one, but Chocho (daughter of Chouji and Karui) deserves special mention. When her friend, Inojin calls her "fatty", unlike her dad, she doesn't go ballistic. She answers that she knows she's fat.
  • Masashi Kishimoto and Eichiro Oda exchange dual Shout Outs to each other over this chapter. Kishimoto has the Straw Hat Jolly Roger graffittied on Naruto's Hokage bust, while Oda cleverly sneaks in references to Naruto on the cover art for the chapter of One Piece that came out in that particular Shonen Jump.

Part II Filler Arcs

• The Three-Tails Arc. You have all the regular elements of filler: A Filler Villain, some abilities that have not been seen before and probably won't be seen again, and a deviation from the original manga. However, this filler actually advances the canon storyline! And as far as it goes, it's actually good and interesting to watch. The only way it could be made better is if the Konoha ninjas, Orochimaru's henchmen, and Akatsuki all get into a three-way epic battle at the end of the arc.
• The Tsuchigumo Kinjutsu Arc. It lets us see one of the Tailed Beast hosts that only got the chance to appear in the art books (due to being killed off before we even know he existed). The story is good, with a character that Naruto can relate to, and the end of episode 151... Oh, hi there Pai— Oh, Crap!!
  • We get another Adaptation Expansion there during Naruto's fight with Tobi's Six Paths in the anime. Utakata and Naruto talk to each other telepathically and we see Utakata fight Pain, go Version 2, take out the chameleon, Preta Path, and Human Path, while Deva and Asura Path were needed to put him down.
• The Chikara Arc. Of specific note is when Naruto, in Sage Mode, is facing off against a dark clone of himself in 4-Tailed Form. Naruto utterly dominates the fight, dodging and blocking the 4-Tails' attacks with contemptuous ease and landing one crushingly powerful blow after another, making one of the most terrifying abominations seen in the series look like a basic genin.
  • Also of note is when Naruto, due to the seal being drained by the clone, is given chakra by the Nine-Tails, leading to a 6-tailed Tailed Beast Mode; however, things go downhill when the Nine-Tails takes advantage of it and Naruto goes into a 7-tailed V2 mode. After a side character, Minna, reminds him that her "parents" need to be saved, Naruto remembers his father, filling him with hope and transforming into an incomplete Nine-Tails Chakra Mode. Keep in mind that this is before he conquered his darkness.
• Shadow of the ANBU arc. Basically it fills in a lot of things that Kishimoto skimmed over. Such as Kakashi being an ANBU operative, how Yamato joined the normal ANBU, and it kicked it off with the Uchiha Massacre with Shisui in a major role. Highlights include extremely good fights between Kakashi and Yamato, and Danzo fighting Shisui to gain his Sharingan!
• The New Chunin Exams arc, detailing what happened to Yagura and Fū before the Akatsuki got them, finally shedding some light on two highly interesting characters.
  • In the same arc, we have Gaara practicing taijutsu. It's as awesome as it sounds.
• It definitley Makes Sense In Context, but the fact that the elderly Nekobaa was able to a. convince Ni'i, a Jinchuriki and b. that Ni'i had enough control to get the paw print of Matatabi onto the paper without harming anyone, considering what happens most times anyone not named Killer B or Naruto let their Tailed beasts out.
• Killer Bee: Rappuden has the nine tailed beasts and jinchuuriki working together to reclaim their stolen chakra. It culminates in them all overpowering Sasori, Deidara, and the Gedo Mazou statue by firing Tailed Beast Bombs side-by-side. Not even the Statue's own Tailed Beast Bomb could stop it.
• In Gaara's Bond, Team 7 is sent on a joint mission with a Reformed, but Rejected Gaara and two other Sand ninjas. The Sand ANBU are trailing them to eliminate Gaara, but made the mistake of telling Team 7 their plans. Naruto gives one of them a good punch in the mask, and Kakashi calmly puts his hand on another's shoulder before using his lightning blade.

The New Era:

Kakashi Hiden

See Kakashi Hiden: Lightning in the Icy Sky

Shikamaru Hiden

See Shikamaru Hiden: A Cloud Drifting in Silent Darkness

The Last: Naruto the Movie

The last story of Naruto Uzumaki... Is love.

See The Last: Naruto the Movie

Sakura Hiden

See Sakura Hiden Thoughts Of Love Riding Upon A Spring Breeze

Konoha Hiden

See Konoha Hiden: The Perfect Day for a Wedding

Gaara Hiden

See Gaara Hiden: A Sandstorm Mirage

Akatsuki Hiden

See Akatsuki Hiden Evil Flowers In Full Bloom

Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring Month

A spin-off miniseries about the next generation of ninja, the children of the Konoha 12. It focuses on Sarada Uchiha, who finds herself having questions about her family.

See Naruto Gaiden

Boruto: The Movie

A spin-off movie focusing on Boruto Uzumaki and his quest to surpass his father, the legendary hero and Seventh Hokage, Naruto.

See Boruto: Naruto the Movie

Boruto: Naruto Next Generation

A spin-off sequel focusing on Boruto Uzumaki that takes place before and after the events of Boruto: Naruto the Movie.

See Boruto

Other:

Movies

• From the first movie:
  • Naruto defeating the main antagonist Dotō with a Rainbow Rasengan.
  • Sakura and Sasuke defeating Fubuki and Mizore. First, Sakura uses her 'cherry blossom blizzard' to distract Mizore. Then Sasuke uses his Lion Combo to send Fubuki plummeting towards Mizore which blew both of them up due to their chakra armours.
  • Naruto managing to outrun a friggin' train while still carrying an adult person on his back, and dodging said train, based solely on pure willpower!
• Gaara's fight against Ranke in the second movie is also pretty awesome. Especially his taunting ("first time fighting a shinobi?") and his Sand Lightning Rod.
• From the third movie: Naruto generating hundreds of clones in order to catch an ally, and managing to stomp the Big Bad into the ground as a secondary effect. For those of you keeping track, he effectively combined a Zerg Rush, Foe-Tossing Charge, and Offhand Backhand. This is immediately followed by the King and Prince helping him with his Rasengan. The latter is also Heartwarming Moments.
• The second Shippuuden movie contained quite a few crowning moments as well.
  • First, Sai, for showing the Elite Mooks from the Sky country how aerial battle is done.
  • Shino, for having his bugs destroy the entire enemy attack force by himself,while a heavy metal version of Flight of the Bumblebee plays in the background.
  • And most notably Naruto, for showing off his truly Herculean stamina throughout the entire movie; this was clearly noticeable when without stopping overmuch in between, he carried a wounded guy to the hospital, went on a mission to the Fire Country's outskirts, got poisoned by a fish, fought a purple worm, went Nine-Tails and revved it all the way up to four tails, returned to normal, immediately continued on to the Big Bad's Cool Airship Doomsday Device where he was beaten to a pulp, subsequently beating the Big Bad to a pulp to get even, and beating him to a pulp again after he activates his chakra-devouring Lovecraftian Superpower, which Naruto overcharged by feeding him more chakra than he can absorb. And when that was finished and the enemy still wouldn't heel, he decided to help everyone escape and remain behind by himself so he could have fun demolishing the place for good measure. Oh, and do consider the fact that it was strongly implied that Naruto was just returning home from a mission at the start of the movie.
  • Sasuke gets two as well. First, his ability to have freakin' epic teamwork with Naruto despite the fact that he hates him. We see it time and again: if those two are not at each other's throats (sometimes literally), they're working together to defeat whoever they're fighting in the most epic way possible. Second, his ability to look straight into the eyes of someone who has his life in their hands and, doubling with Funny Moments, call them "pathetic." He also deserves mention for literally tossing Amaru into the boat after she refuses to leave Naruto behind, and then clearing the ramp to save the lives of everyone in the boat.
  • Naruto gets one when he cuts off Sasuke from the airship and promises to bring him back to Konoha. And then goes on to destroy the airship, despite knowing that doing so will probably kill him.
• The third Shippuuden movie: Naruto's gigantic Rasenshuriken is not the only Moment of Awesome; each one of the Rookie 11 got their part in the movie. And Tenten got to finish The Dragon!
• Naruto Movie 8:Blood Prison is full of moments as well:
  • Ay's fight with the imposter Naruto.
  • Most of Sage Mode Naruto's fight scenes.
  • Killer B's Big Damn Heroes moment.
    • Everyone else's Big Damn Heroes moment.
  • Sage Mode Naruto defeating Satori with a Wind Style:Rasenshuriken allowing Muku to finally rest in peace.
• Dear lord does Naruto Movie 9: Road to Ninja have a lot of these:
  • Minato's Flying Thunder God is awesome, he has a lot of teleportation hax in this movie.
  • Naruto putting on his father's Hokage coat (Well, in this universe, it's Sakura's father's)
  • While Naruto's fighting Menma, he is helped by the AKATSUKI.
  • Note that the only alternate reality character who sees through Tobi's tactics and forces him to retreat is none other than the alternate Itachi.
  • In fact a lot of Naruto fighting Menma.
  • Menma summoning the Nine Tailed Fox, the actual, physical fox and Naruto countering by summoning Kurama.
  • The climax. To protect Naruto, Sakura fights a fusion of Menma and Tobi. Naruto meanwhile remembers his training with Jiraiya and confidence renewed he mimics his father; saving Sakura, charges at Tobi, flips behind him and hits him in the back with a Rasengan.
  • The very fact that Sakura managed to not just be, but to actually stay proactive, and being portrayed as the Main Heroine, was a super plus. To the point that after she was rescued from being kidnapped, she made up for it by fighting Menma one on one... And doing better than Naruto did.

Other Media

• Because we were only supplied one tableau for the battle between Hashirama Senju (1st Hokage) and Madara Uchiha, the video game Ultimate Ninja Storm: Generations went out of its way and animated the entire battle for us. It's as glorious as you would expect two legendary shinobi to be.
  • And this battle might just Take Whole Lot More Levels in Badass with the last pages of Chapter 620 and especially with 621. The final part of the Generations battle is the only part that's been outright disproven by this, though. The rest is plausible.

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