Naruto and Sasuke's decoy windmill star attack on Zabuza outweighs all the kickass stuff they do later, mostly because they were (for the series) effectively Badass Normals at the time.
Naruto saving Inari and his mother from Zabuza's henchmen, Zouri and Waraji before he goes off to help Kakashi and the others fight Zabuza and Haku.
Zabuza. Charging into a 100+ group of mercenaries with nothing but two limp arms and a Kunai in his mouth, kill a least twenty then Killing Gato.
Haku. The guy could have easily killed Sasuke, who was depicted to be one of the strongest characters in the series. Afterwards, he wasn't beaten by Naruto; he asked for Naruto to kill him. After even that, he changes his mind and transports himself right in front of Zabuza in about .05 seconds to stop Kakashi's Chidori.
Rock Lee's fight against Gaara and the first time we get to see the full extent of his power. If he had faced anyone — ANYONE ELSE — other than Gaara in that section of the exams, he would have been in the finals easily, and even Gaara needed TWO Deus ex Machina to beat him. It was plain to see: Neji knew that if he were that "anyone else," he'd have needed a slight change in wardrobe.
That's immediately preceded by a Crowning Moment of Funny, considering that when Guy tells Lee to take off his training weights, he holds them out and drops them. Temari's thought (that he can't get past Gaara's sand even after dropping a couple of pounds of weight) is completely thrashed when the weights hit the ground AND SEND DUST CLOUDS FLYING HIGH INTO THE AIRAND THEY BREAK THE CONCRETE FLOOR. Cue Jaw Drop.
Forget the fight. After the match is ended by default, Lee stands up again, refusing to admit defeat even though he's unconscious.
Also in one of the fillers (the one with Raiga), Lee had a fight scene in which he unconcious for the first 30 seconds or so...I think it's safe to say any fight Lee's in is a Crowning Moment of Awesome waiting to happen.
It should be noted that most of what he had to do, namely the Gates, pushed him so far past his limit he was dealt nigh-irrevocable damage (made even worse by Gaara) only one person could heal.
With the release of the fourth movie, it's safe to say that Lee defeating his opponent while using the Gates AND the Drunken Fist can be added to this list.
Naruto's fight against Neji? It showed the first signs of the end of Naruto's Bratty Half-Pint phase and his evolution into a credible ass-kicking ninja.
Naruto: People called me a failure. I'll prove them wrong.
The most awesome part? "Trapped, by your speciality, Shadow Clone...." Then he reveals his way to mastery of that jutsu: he had failed three genin exams in a row since the test always mentioned the regular Clone Jutsu, which he actually hadn't mastered at all at that time.
The greatest part was Naruto, on the brink of passing out, borrowing chakra from the Kyuubi... in front of thousands of spectators! The last time the world has heard of a release of that chakra was when the Kyuubi itself attacked the Leaf 12 years before. The fact that Naruto REASONED with the Kyuubi, even temporarily, should have earned him a Chuunin rank. That would break the Almighty Janitor role, though.
For Neji, too, this is a phase change: the friggin', arrogant bastard he was becomes, thanks to this defeat and to the next scene, a brave and true ninja, worthy of respect.
Neji was badass during the match, he reverse engineered his clan's ultimate attack, an attack that has yet to be mastered by the clan's golden child. 64 Palms!
What makes this fight even more cool is the fact that Naruto won the match with ONE HIT! Seriously throughout the whole battle his attacks were either dodged or countered. No sooner then he has Neji off his guard, Naruto waylays him with a punch and knocked him senseless he can't even get back up. The fact he did it when Neji starting a "You Suck" speech is even sweeter.
While Naruto won his fight against Kiba because of a fart, he had some nice moments in the course of it like tricking Kiba with transformation twice, thereby using his own jutsus against him especially the second time when turned into a third Kiba then turned into Akamaru after getting hit to make Kiba think he hit Akamaru worked quite well. This shows that he's actually taking Kakashi's lessons to heart and outwitting his opponents with his ability to defy their expectations of what he will do next (similar to his fight against Pain).
Indeed even the start of the fight is a Crowning Moment of Awesome, when Kiba knocks Naruto down thinking thats the end of the fight with everyone in the stands thinking similar (even Kurenai wasn't expecting much). Then Naruto gets right back up like nothing happened warning Kiba not to underestimate him. The look on everyone face is priceless.
Naruto's EPIC fight against Gaara. His masterful use of the shadow clone jutsu to turn a hopeless situation around and fell Gaara in his monster form and save the lives of both Sakura and a speechless Sasuke. Then, the battle gets even crazier when he uses a hokage level frog summoning technique to save himself from certain death, and take Gaara down once and for all, saving the village.
It's especially awesome because he's completely spent by the end of it and finally takes Gaara out by headbutting him and punching him in the head... and then, when they're both on the ground, out of strength and out of chakra - even though he sympathizes with Gaara and understands the hell he's been through - Naruto's still worried about Sakura being crushed to death so he starts dragging himself over to Gaara with his chin.
The awesomeness doubles when you consider the fact that Naruto has only been fighting actual battles for a couple of months, Gaara has been killing elite ninja since he was six. Gaara has been able to learn to tranform fully into his tailed beast for years. Naruto only learned how to use the Kyuubi's chakra at the most basic level days before. And he fights the battle with having no direct offensive jutsu. Oh and Gaara is the second most powerful Shinobi in the invasion force.
Made even more awesome by the fact that the finishing headbutt was strong enough to abruptly halt the entire village'sTheme Music Power-Up
Let us not forget Naruto's variation on Kakashi's 1000 Years of Death "jutsu," which in actuality was just a chakra-laced variant on kancho, a Japanese prank involving poking someone in the anus with both index fingers. Naruto used a kunai with an attached explosive tag. Yeowch.
Boom.
Awesome isn't just in the action, awesome in the SCENE. And you know what was awesome there (especially in the anime version)? Naruto is riding on Gamabunta against the giant form of Shukaku, but Gamabunta can't hold Shukaku in his current form. He gives his chakra to Naruto to perform a combination henge into something with claws and fangs. Naruto desperately tries to think of something appropriate as Gamabunta calls for the transformation and there's a burst of smoke, appropriately scaled-up for Gamabunta's size. And then, in its first appearance since the opening flashback in the first episode, the Nine-Tailed Fox explodes out of the smoke into battle with the Shukaku of Sand! That scene? That was mind-blowing.
The Third Hokage gets one in his battle with Orochimaru at the end of the chuunin exam arc. Their battle is ridiculously action packed.
Lets put this in perspective, the Third is an old man by now, he fights Orochimaru and the re-animated corpses of two predecessors as Hokage, at the same time and wins. And we're told that compared to him in his prime this was a miserable battle...
There's also his Heroic Sacrifice, which despite failing to kill Orochimaru, prevents him from using any more jutsu, forces him to flee, renders the First and Second Hokages' corpses unusable, and later on, forces Orochimaru to go to a new body prematurely, thus saving Sasuke from being used as his body.
Tsunade using the five-story tall knife of the Frog Boss to impale Manda, a massive snake, through the mouth when it was about to eat Jiraiya and the Frog Boss. Then, after Orochimaru's spent the better part of the last several episodes playing mind games with her, emotionally abusing her, and beating the ever-loving crap out of her to try and get at Naruto, Tsunade grabs him by his oh-so-convenient retractable extra-long tongue, and uses its elastic nature to deliver a head-on punch of epic proportions.
Made all the more awesome by the fact that Tsunade wasn't anywhere near her full strength at the time. Then again, if she had been, there would've been very little left of Orochimaru.
Why hasn't anyone mentioned before beating him up, she had just been stabbed in the chest several times and gave away several years of her lifespan away just to give Orochimaru said smackdown?
Even aside from the fight itself, Tsunade gets points for overcoming a deeply ingrained phobia in the heat of battle.
Underdog Hinata's first as of 437 Crowning Moment of Awesome, and the one that endeared her to the fans in the first place: "I'm not going to let myself look bad. Not now...not in front of the person I admire most who's finally seeing the real me."
Hinata shook off Neji's talk at the end of the same fight. The way she talked, it was clear she had no spite whatsoever toward him despite his attempts to cause her agony over a grudge beyond her control. Neji still got upset (likely due to similar reasons for having said grudge), but Hinata proved that marrying Naruto — her dream — would be karmic for her, since Naruto was among the few who recognized her worth.
When Neji puts the final blow on Hinata, rendering her unconscious and on the brink of death, Naruto gets pissed. Fortunately, the Five-Pronged Seal that Orochimaru put on Naruto to stop his rampage in the Forest of Death prevents any transformation. Yes, if that seal wasn't there, Naruto would have rampaged, just as he did against Haku. Nonetheless, the same scenario happens later on, but it is FAR worse.*
Hinata is again brought near death by Pain, and Naruto explodes into a 6-tailed form, further towards becoming the Kyuubi than ever before.
One of only about two cool things in all the filler is Hinata's Crowning Moment when she demonstrates her new technique, Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, simultaneously shutting down all three enemy ninja's insect jutsus, then upping her speed even more to take out the lead ninja's summoned Queen Bee. The filler may be pretty poor overall, but that scene is a real stand-out.
Also her taking out Jiga (the magnetism ninja from the Land of Vegetables filler arc) with, basically, one hit. She's not the strongest character, but she had the smarts to use his own power to finish him. The method she used burial in iron sand was Nightmare Fuel, but effective.
Naruto, in the Forest of Death: first, punching Sasuke and stopping Orochimaru's snake, second, by more or less beating the Rain Genin by himself.
Neji defeating an opponent while having two fist-sized holes through his upper body (shoulder and stomach respectively)
Winning the fight wasn't anywhere near as awesome as what he said after the fight: No one can determine another's destiny. It really shows how he's grown up
Itachi has a Crowning Moment of Awesome (and Moral Event Horizon) when he kicks Sasuke's ass in the hotel scene.
And don't forget how he threw Kurenai's Genjutsu back at her and effortlessy managed to put Kakashi out of the picture.
Chouji's CMoA is without a doubt his fight against Jirobo. He's backed against the wall, and uses his final food pill - which will most likely kill him. He then kills Jirobo in one punch.
And let's not forget the line that goes with it. "This last attack is worth my whole life!" Yeah...
Not to mention that the last food pill gave him butterfly wings. That's right—he had girly butterfly wings attached to his back, and he still looked the most Badass he (or most of the other characters) had looked in the entire series, before or since. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.
Kiba, like Chouji and Neji, gets his moment in the sun during the Retrieve Sasuke arc. While fighting Ukon, who has fused with his body, he more or less accepts what he views as an inevitable death, and stabs himself in the stomach just to harm Ukon.
Shikamaru vs. Tayuya is loaded with awesome moments for both of them, but Tayuya probably gets the most awesome; that being that she actually manages to outmanuever The Chessmaster by unveiling a One-Winged Angel form that Shikamaru has next to nothing to counter with. This (and his subsequent saving by Temari) officially marked Shikamaru rethinking his opinion of girls for the rest of the series.
The Sand Siblings (Gaara, Kankuro and Temari) get theirs by rescuing Lee, Kiba, and Shikamaru respectively. To elaborate:
Temari defeats Tayuya with literally two swings of her fan. Most impressive is her summoning jutsu finisher: Shikamaru closes his eyes against the blast, and when he looks up,acres of forest have been devastated.
Kankuro also effortlessly defeats Sakon and Ukon, by trapping and impaling them with his "art of the iron maiden".
Gaara's whole fight against Kimimaro, though perhaps the most impressive is his gigantic Sand Tsunami.
For that matter, Lee's fight against Kimimaro. Unfortunately, his Worf Effect is active as ever, but if there's one thing Lee knows, it's how to make losing look damn impressive. Especially cool when you take into account the fact that; A) He just recovered from very major surgery about 5 minutes before the fight, and B) he does better than the main character did. The fight could also be seen as a CMOA for Kimimaro too, considering that he kept up with two people who are probably the two strongest genin in the show and it wasn't even them who did him in, but his disease that killed him seconds before he killed them.
Gaara's duel with the wolf lady in the second movie is also pretty awesome. Especially his taunting ("first time fighting a shinobi?") and his Sand Lightning Rod.
Kabuto fighting Shizune, then Tsunade, then Naruto, and win every time (while the fight with Naruto appeared dual KO, Naruto needed immediate medical aid and Kabuto is back on his feet in a bit) while having enough chakra left to go help Orochimaru afterwards a crowning moment of awesome.
Naruto vs. Kabuto is a moment of awesome for Naruto as well, especially his "I refuse to die!" statement when Kabuto tries to stab him.
Shino, during the first round of the Chunin Exams, he's fighting Zaku, who has quickly recovered from his broken arms, and is ready to blast Shino into next week with his awesome jutsu. Well, it turns out Shino knew he would try that, so he plugged up his arm holes with bugs. So his arms were blown up. Hoist by His Own Petard, indeed. His whole fight with Kankuro just exudes awesome.
Kakashi's first battle against Zabuza. It ended with Zabuza being terrified of his opponent.
In the second fight, Kakashi holds back for ages... then finally loses his temper.
Stay out of this, Naruto! This is my battle. Zabuza's mine.
The Valley of the End. Just... The Valley of the End. You only get a single image, over 2 pages, but after that, you realize that while Yamato might be powerful, he is still a weakling compared to the actual 1st hokage.
Shikamaru. In his first fight his opponent seemingly catches him in a paralyzing Genjutsu, at which point she proclaims she'll keep throwing needles at him until he gives up. He replies by demanding that she keeps her promise and to kill him quickly. Just as she's about to comply he manages to catch her in his Shadow Possession.
He then makes everyone in the arena thing he's gone crazy by forcing his opponent to mimic him throw a shuriken, he dodges, and his opponent bashes her head into the wall in process.
During his second battle he spends 3/4 of the chapter/episode, sitting in the shadow watching the clouds go by while his mentor confidently exclaims what a genius he is. Then as his opponent uses her wind attack to attack him causing dustcloud to emerge between the two of them he uses the opportunity to devise and launch a makeswift airballoon using his jacket, a kunai and his headband. After she narrowly avoid the shadow that's extended by it, he catches her. Turns out he was maneuvering her to that exact spot from the very beginning. He then walks up to her to inform her and the referee that he's giving up.
He has another three during his first mission as a Chuunin. First his team gets stuck in a earth barrier that's absorbing their energy. He starts offering their surrender just so the man in control of it gives up his location. After analyzing the situation he figures out where his best friend needs to strike to get them outta there. This was also a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Chouji as he was one of the only two people to not lose faith in Shikamaru, who up until this point was viewed as fairly useless. Also a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming as it showed they're much closer teammates then any of the other are with their teams.
Finally the way he analyzed his opponents attack patterns by memorising her fingermoves on the flute she used was very impressive, as was him tricking her into coming closer to utilize his technique more properly.
Despite being The Load for the most part, Sakura Haruno had a BIG CMoA in Part I. That would be the one where she got the Important Haircut that let her get free from the Sound Genin, realizing that it was her turn to protect Naruto, Sasuke and Lee instead of just standing on the sidelines. Her physical strength showed fully only years after that, but THAT moment was the starting point; without it, there'd be no Action Girl Sakura, ever.
Why is no-one giving love to the feature films? From the first movie, two words: Rainbow Rasengan.
Sakura's 'cherry blossom blizzard'.
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, andOffhand Backhand. This is immediately followed by the King and Prince helping him with his Rasengan. The latter is also a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
No one mentioned the fourth Hokage yet?
1. At the Third Ninja World War he was so feared by the enemies, that Ninja from Iwa was given the order to flee in the case THEY JUST SAW HIM!
2. Why? Because this guy was able to perform a space-time ninjutsu, which allowed him to slaughter ENTIRE PLATOONS BY HIMSELF with just a little help of some random dudes!
3. And he developed Rasengan!
4. Of course, his personal Crowning Moment of Awesome was the sealing of Kyuubi into his son! For note, he sealed something, which could level MOUNTAINS off into the belly of a little baby!
5. 439, this is all.
For all the flak he gets for being a member of the Spotlight-Stealing Squad and a Creator's Pet, Sasuke still gets one when he fights Orochimaru in the Forest of Death. The moment is capped off by the debut of his Dragon Flame Jutsu.
Another moment Sasuke gets is in the eliminatory matches, he has a cursed seal which if he activates will send him straight to the dark side, the seal is activated by using chakra, so he has to fight with only taijutsu, his enemy still activates it but in the end he stops it using only willpower.
Yet another comes from his fight vs. Haku, protecting Naruto from what he thought was a death blow. Hence why this lurker can't quite hate him as much as she should.
HOW IS IT THAT NO ONE MENTIONED NARUTO VERSUS SASUKE!!! That fight is like THE DEFINITION OF CROWNING MOMENT OF AWESOME! That fight made you cry and want to hug both characters while still being. Crazy violent!!!
How about the fight on the roof? Most of the time, Naruto had been depicted as inferior to Sasuke. However, starting with the Chuunin Exams, he began to slowly edge his way toward Sasuke, and by then, he and Sasuke were actually fighting on equal grounds. Hell, Kakashi outright says that Naruto could have killed Sasuke had they landed their attacks. (Given what it did to Kabuto and that water tower, that may not have been an exaggeration on his part.)
Sasuke: I'll admit it. You're definately strong. It's because you know the pain that solitude brings just as I do. It's that very pain that makes you and I stronger, Naruto...which means if I can just break that bond, I'll be able to achieve even greater strength! It's time you and I have this out as equals, but you're still not gonna be able to lay even a single scratch on my forehead. I know that hasn't changed, at least.
Naruto: Fine. Guess there's no point in talking anymore, Sasuke!
Sasuke: Enough, no more words. From here on out, we stick to fighting. Come!
While most of the filler is generally hated for being poor quality and goofy at times, one moment that is truely awesome is the last episode of Naruto before the time skip. Gaara is facing a man named Seimei, who is wearing what he calls ultimate armour, with good reason as it can attack from range, defend him and absorb chakra. Seimei has previously imprisoned Gaara in a chkra draining prison, which has drained Gaara of so much chakra that he's had to call upon Shakaku's, partially transforming him and breaking out of the container. Then in the actual episode, when it looks like Gaara is actually going to use Shakaku again, his partially transformed body parts revert to normal as Gaara remembers Naruto's words to him during their fight. This is awesome enough, as Gaara would've had to contest with a rather large amount of Shakaku's will in the process, but Gaara then proceeds to reveal that he's pulled off a Batman Gambit, fooling Seimei into believing he had no chakra of his own left. Gaara then proceeds to use the Sand Tsunami technique by crushing the nearby rocks and cliff formation, pulling off the offensive version of the Shakaku defence he used against Kimimaro while his chakra is still being drained by the armour, and then finally crushing Seimei as the armour is no longer able to keep Seimei above the sand.
I am Gaara of the Desert. Wherever there's rock, wherever there's earth, I can make more sand.
Where is the entry for the Kakashi Gaiden story? The last fight was full of those! First we have Kakashi saving Obito from a high-level ninja. Said ninja is then scarred because he mistakes Kakashi (a thirteen-year old at the time) for his father. Then Obito activating his sharingan and saving Kakashi after he got his left eye slice protecting Obito. After that, the fight Obito and Kakashi, who had hated each other up until now, showed so much teamwork and defeated another high-level ninja. Then Obito sacraficing his life in order to save Kakashi from getting crushed. After the incredibly sad scene of Obito and Kakashi's final talk, Kakashi get's the Sharigan inplanted into him, then, dear lord, the coolest part of the story. Kakashi avenging Obito's death. the effects of Kakashi's shattered blade falling to the ground gives more awsomeness of scene. The falling blade shows how fast the chidori was and gave an awesome "Who won?" ending. the story was one of the best written parts of the series in the first place, but it was truely epic near the end.
Very minor and underplayed, but... first part of the chuunin exam. Neither Sasuke or Naruto can answer anything... but Sakura can answer all of them without much difficulty. Awesome.
From his introduction to his death by self-sacrifice, Deidara is just one of those characters that exudes awesome. Heck, Deidara is MADE of Crowning Moments Of Awesome. His battle with Gaara-in which Gaara got owned by a crazy-awesome plan to use the sand Gaara had used to RIP OFF HIS ARM against him and blow up Gaara's sand-cocoon from the inside whilst grinning his head off-is a favourite moment in Naruto.
Gaara also gets a little Crowning Moment of Awesome when, instead of pulverising Deidara with his sand, he sacrifices himself to save the village from Deidara's C3 with a pretty kickass defence technique. Giant Sand Ceiling.
Also a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Naruto after he finds Deidara and Sasori sitting on top of Gaara's apparently dead body:
Also, Armless Deidara vs Team Gai and Team Kakashi proved that it WAS a fair fight when Deidara, sans arms, scared them all shitless and then hid underground in a sweet little moment of deception.
But Deidara vs Sasuke was LEGENDARY, and ruined only by Sasuke's Deus ex Machina at the end. That giant clay Deidara, along with his scary-as-hell particle attack and the sheer awesomeness of his Magnum Opus (plus his revelation that he was able to counter the Sharingan, actually) was just made of pure crazy-awesome win.
Deidara managed to put so much awesome into his demise, some hardcore Sasuke fans even thought Sasuke's Ass Pull survival was enough for tem to resign their fanclub membership
Tremble! Be afraid! Recoil in despair! Cower in awe, and cry your heart out! Because my art...IS AN EXPLOSION!!
Sasuke for beating Deidara as thoroughly as he did. From analyzing and countering all of his attacks, to remaining so damn calm Deidara completely lost his mind from rage over Sasuke indifference, and finally by having a backup plan made in advance to render Deidara final blast meaningless.
Shikamaru defeats the nigh-immortal Hidan by turning his own power against his partner elsewhere, then blowing him to pieces, which fall into a deep pit. Hidan's head remains intact and alive, which gives Shikamaru an opportunity to describe to Hidanjust how screwed he is before burying him alive, andlighting a cigarette just like Asuma did. Moreover, when Hidan shouts some dribble about how Jashin will judge him, Shikamaru states "the only judgement passed here will be mine." Awesome.
Kakuzu gets his by being able to handle four different enemies single handedly, one of them being the badass Kakashi.
Sakura's fight against Sasori, proving that she was no longer The Load and had finally become a credible Action Girl, finishing the process she started with her Important Haircut. She starts the fight being controlled by Chiyo and ends it smashing through dozens of Sasori's puppet army.
Sakura faking the poisoning and destroying the Sand Kage puppet. I honestly thought Sakura was dead from that moment. Reminisces Choji's battle somewhat since I thought he was going to die too.
There was also when she punches Sai in the face after smiling and laughing off his insults about Sasuke. There is no question in her awesomeness when she says, "I don't care one bit if you forgive me."
The whole damn episode was one crowning moment after another. For instance, when — after having been slashed open and poisoned again — she goes berserk, reels in Sasori by his hose-thing and punches him apart. (Recalling Tsunade's Part I fight with Orochimaru.)
Sakura: You little—
She got one before then. Pretty much the entirety of "The Medical Ninja's Student" was composed of Sakura being awesome and take-charge in saving Kankurou.
Jiraiya's crowning moment of awesome is unquestionably his last fight.
Seconded and made all the more awesome for when he wills himself back to life.
He also gets one in the first series. After Itachi has finished beating the living daylights out of Sasuke, he decides to come after Naruto. Jiraiya decides to get involved in the fight, and Itachi — who, keep in mind, has been introduced as a fighter without peer and who has kicked the crap out of everyone who's attempted to fight him — decides it's time to run.
That is really put in perspective when Itachi tells his partner that the two of them together would fight Jiraiya TO A DRAW. Two of the most powerful Akatsuki members equals Jiraiya. Pure awesome.
The game Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 has an extra awesome moment in Jiraiya vs. Pain. In the game continuity, Jiraiya doesn't lose his arm or get his throat crushed, but he's still clearly dying. In this timeline, he didn't kill the Animal Path and send it back to the village. The moment comes after he picks himself up one last time, and uses his last bit of chakra to form an enormous Rasengan and utterly obliterate the Animal Path, even using the phrase Naruto used in canon when taking down Deva Pain: "Give up... on making me give up!" Appropriately, in the game's final fight, when Deva Path is getting pwned by Naruto's Rasengan, he sees an image of Jiraiya superimposed over Naruto.
Guy's definitely comes when he's fighting the Kisame clone in Shippuden. He opens the Sixth Gate, busts out a never-before-seen attack, and flattens the clone. Awesome.
Lets not forget his Big Damn Heroes moment when he saves Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma from Itachi. He roundhouses Kisame, reveals a counter-tatic to Itachi Sharingain genjutsu and reveals that he's already sent a call for reinforcements.
Sasuke has one off panel CMoA we only see the result off: as a training session he defeats 1000 random shinobis without receiving a single scratch and, despite using his sword, managing not to kill any of them as he refuses to do so.
He also had another one shortly after that. No matter how you look at it, there's something inherently awesome (albeit creepy) about someone trying to steal your body and you instead trapping him, gaining all of his abilities in the process.
The group known as "Hawk" have been getting theirs in the recent chapters. First, Karin reveals that she can heal others by letting them absorb her Chakra. It causes her pain, but she lets Sasuke use the technique to heal him. Next, Jugo saves Sasuke from certain death (Kira Hachi, their opponent, had just blown open his chest and neck) by using a special skin graft. Next, Suigetsu throws a gigantic tidal wave right at Kira Hachi. There is no other word than awesome.
Killer Bee has been getting his lately. Let's put it this way: if beating the crap out of Mr. Spotlight-Stealing Squad himself isn't awesome, I don't know what is.
Killer Bee has followed up an already impressive streak with his greatest one yet: transforming one of his tailed beast's tentacles into a clone of himself and using it as a decoy, letting it get captured by Team Hawk while he escapes. The sheer awesomeness of watching Ataksuki just standing there speechless as their "captive" transforms back into a tentacle while in the middle of the tailed beast sealing ritual cannot possibly be overstated. It almost felt like a bone thrown by the author to the Sasuke-hating fandom by having a relatively minor character make his Sharingan almost useless, skewer him like a pincushion, take his best shots pausing only to write new lyrics for himself, tear open his chest like a gutted fish, and finally, after the inevitable happened and Sasuke won the fight, turn out that he let Sasuke win, made him look like a fool in front of Akatsuki, and had the last laugh by escaping to write an epic ballad! And let's not forget that he did all of this just as part of his planto go on vacation.
Killer Bee had no way whatsoever of knowing he was going to face Sasuke (and his team) nor the nature of his attacks. The tentacle thing was an improvised last ditch move to not get killed/captured by Sasuke once being hit by the inextinguishable black flames of one of Sasuke's Sharingan's hidden techniques, Amaterasu. It's still very impressive though that he was able to think such escape method on the spur of the moment while experiencing excruciating pain.
Naruto had one serious Crowning Moment of Awesome towards the end in the latest anime episode, when he uses his new Wind Release: Rasenshuriken for the first time in real combat. The sound and power of the technique in its charged, spheric state is enough to make even Kakuzu, a semi-immortal man who fought Shodai Hokage and survived, acknowledge that a single hit from it would result in his death.
He has one more during a flashback in the same episode when Kakashi and Naruto is testing his Wind Release: Rasengan by smashing it into a normal Rasengan created by Kakashi, Naruto nullifies and destroys Kakashi's Rasengan in addition to scarring his hand gravely to the point where he actually doubles in pain. The scene climaxes as Kakashi glances back towards Naruto with awe and not only sees his resemblance to Yondaime Hokage, but acknowledges that Naruto has surpassed Yondaime by developing a technique that not even Yondaime himself could bring that far.* No love for Kakashi? Not even for taking out an S ranked ninja who'd just claimed to be immune to physical attacks before he even knows you're there? Sure it doesn't stick but unless you've got some cheap immortality trick you'd better watch your back.
A very rare, but well-deserved CMoA to the directors and writers of the Shippuuden anime writing staff. After decades of trying with various formulas and schedules, they have finally discovered how to create the ultimate Filler story arc: By combining it with Adaptation Expansion. Sit down for a minute and think about it. 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 Battle Royale With Cheese at the end of the arc. And think about that one, too. Did you ever think in a million years that you would see any canon antagonist, let alone Akatsuki, appear in a filler arc?
The recently released 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 backround. 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 Kyuubi and revved it all the way up to four tails, returned to normal, immediately continued on to the Big Bad's Cool AirshipDoomsday 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.
This deserves it's own mention here, since it happens in two movies. The Big Bad's base starts to spontaneously combust, while Naruto's Nakama watch from very far away. Both times, his friends just assume that it's Naruto who caused the massive destruction they're in the process of witnessing, despite the fact that there is no possible way for them to know for certain. For all they know, the Big Bad could have won. Especially in the fourth movie, where there's no plausible reason for the Big Bad to even want to preserve the former base. However, everyone just flat out ASSUMES that Naruto has done it again and that the destruction's just a side effect of his fight. They're right, but still.
Despite everyone hating Sasuke at the moment, I feel the need to point out two of his Crowning Moment of Awesome abilities that he uses in this movie. 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 a Crowning Moment of Funny, 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. After this instantly comes ANOTHER Crowning Moment of Awesome, this one Naruto's: 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.
You all seem to be forgetting one: Four-Tailed-Form Naruto's MONSTROUSLY LARGE energy attack against Orochimaru. Can't wait to see how the anime will handle the 6-Tails' version used against Pain.
Not to mention using it later to vanish Deidara's giant fireball in about 3s - being already exhausted from having used it twice before.
Teams 7 and 8 are searching for Sasuke, and they can't find him, right? Cue Kiba revealing that, over the timeskip, he's developed his sense of smell to where it's superior to a dog's.
Tobi revealed to be Madara Uchiha and the Leader of Akatsuki. Not only was it a plot twist that no one could've possibly seen coming, but the lightning storm setting served to introduce the series Big Bad with an unworldly flair. It's made even better in the anime with an almost apocalyptic theme song.
Sasuke vs. Itachi was extremely awesome. Both sides used the full extent of their arsenals. The highlights would be Sasuke's Kirin and Itachi's usage of Susanoo.
Itachi's real Crowning Moment of Awesome was him defeating Orochimaru, while blind and injured, with one attack.
The Pain Invasion arc
Because if you read it, you know it deserves a section all on its own
Pain's Crowning Moment of Awesome happened in the latest chapter. After encountering Kakashi, Pain is quickly backed up against a wall as Kakashi charges him with a Raikiri. Pain casually dodges it at point blank range by tilting his head to the side. When Kakashi tries again a page later, Pain follows it up by effortlessly sending him flying and destroying the wall he's pinned against with a spherical force blast. Without moving an inch.
Of course, Kakashi, Choji, and Choza (Choji's dad) then collectively get two: first Kakashi pulls a lightning clone trick on Pain's fifth body and then the father and son both come out of nowhere to use their giant fist to utterly crush the thing, and then Kakashi turns the first Pain's repulsion ability against him by attacking him as a distraction, having Choji and Choza roll in from each side, and countering Pain's deflection of them both by grabbing the ends of a chain Kakashi laid out around Pain, leaving him unable able to move or use his power against Kakashi. Go teamwork! It doesn't work... but it still manage to kill at least one Pain.
More recently Sakura is seen taking out a giant centipede with one punch when several older shinobi have failed to subdue it while working together. She then calmly heals a little girl's scraped knee.
Pain's greatest Crowning Moment of Awesome is still, you know kicking the entire village of Konoha's ass singlehandedly; not just with raw power, but using his powers to high tactical effect. For instance, using 1 body's power to launch the summoning body to enter Konoha from the air and thus avoid patrols, with the summoning body summoning all the other Pains upon landing, who then scatter to wreak havoc, but still pop up without warning to give each other fire support.
Pain's Shinra Tensei. Its so basic yet so powerful...
He then turns the Village into a crater with one move, wham episode that was... Orochimaru couldn't do even with the combined power of two Hidden Villages. This one dances on the line of Moral Event Horizon and Crowning Moment of Awesome but it should still be mentioned.
Some would argue that Pain, despite having blown off so much chakra and given away a few years of his life (coughing blood too), then takes on a Took an A level in Badass Naruto with an army of Toads and wins continues the streak of awesomeness of his. He then verbally smacks down Naruto for wanting justice/revenge due to his killing of Jiraiya. A What the hell hero done by a villain? Oh, did I mention he does while having Naruto impaled one the ground a sword lodged in both the latter's hands.
Konohamaru smacking Pain dead-on with a Rasengan.
That was a double Crowning Moment of Awesome for both Konohamaruand Naruto: the fact that Naruto is now teaching younger students is just... Wow. He taught an A-level technique like that to a Genin. That takes more than power; it was the first time in my mind I could actually see Naruto as Hokage, not just as the kid who-will-be so... yeah, a Crowning Moment in the series IMO, which is kind of funny given that it's so... short and Naruto isn't actually present...which almost somehow makes it even more badass Also, if you notice Naruto taught him before'' the Time Skip, which means Konohamaru was able to learn the technique more or less on his own. Think about this too
The fact that he taught it to a genin is slightly undercut by the fact that...
Since Naruto taught Konohamaru the Rasengan before the time skip, he wasn't even officialy a ninja yet, he was still IN TRAINING
Oh, dear god. Naruto has returned home. And he's wearing a copy of the Fourth's flame-patterned jacket, wearing the Frog Summoning Contract across his back, in Sage Mode standing on top of Gamabunta, flanked by two other equally impressive relatives, and having himself the biggest Big Damn Heroes moment in the entire history of the manga!! He then starts a five issues of pure awesome has he and the frogs take on the guy who took on the leaf village effectively single handed and won. As of issue 436 Naruto has taken down five of Pain's six bodies. Jiriaya could only take down three and they got better pretty quick too. Even Pain admits Naruto had done better anyone ever has.
Let's break down what happens-Pain launches one body to kill an exhausted Tsunade, Naruto jumps the 100 metres or so to reach her from atop Gambunta and smashes the body with a Rasengan. It took Kakashi a lot of hingikery, Chakra and help to do the same.
In Issue 431 Pain summons three Giant beasts at Naruto, he grabs the Rhino one by the horn mid charge and throws it hundreds of metres into the air. He blasts the other summons into the sky with clones and oversized Rasengans. Leaving the Frogs to finish the summons (which they do midair) he charges at Pain's bodies. The Jutsu absorbing one charges at him, they lunge each other, both miss, then Hungry Ghost Pain's face distorts and the body is sent flying and gets crippled. Naruto in Sage Mode can hit people without physical contact by controlling surrounding natural energy. At that point, the Holy Shit Quotient meter broke down, went home, and called it a day.
In issue 432, Naruto freaking throws his immensely destructive, double-edged Wind Release: Rasenshuriken, cutting one of Pain's bodies in half while bypassing the dangerous drawbacks of the technique completely.
Next Issue: after Naruto's Sage Mode fails, Fukasaku summons a Nature Chakra-charged Naruto clone to the battlefield, which restores the real Naruto's reserves of nature chakra, allowing him to re-use his Sage Mode and ranged Rasenshuriken twice. Even still, when his second Sage Mode is due at an end, he still got a third clone on the frog mountain ready for summon.
Hey, you forgot what happens next. Regaining Sage Mode he throws the first Rasenshuriken and God Realm Pain, but its absorbed by a revived Hungry Ghost realm. Naruto then creates a dust cloud with smokes bombs and Rasengans. Another Rasenshuriken swings out of the dust Hungry Ghost realms moves to absorb but the its a transformed Naruto who then tackles said body in order to allow the real Rasenshuriken which was right behind it to hit God Realm. It doesn't work as that bodies powers return and dissapate it. It then turns out to be all a feint so Naruto can take down the body that can revive the others, Hell Realm. Pain exclaims "What" after having been had. That's right, bitch: NANI!
Heck, after that, Naruto seems to get captured and all of his power drained, so what does he do? He fills himself up with Sage Chakra, which gets instantly sucked into the Pain body holding him, which turns into a stone frog from the Chakra overload. Kamina would be proud.
But like all good things, shit hits the fan when a series of crappy events ends with Naruto getting owned and stabbed into the ground. Made worse when Pain tells him "The world sucks and I'm going to make it suck less. What's your plan?", and Naruto has NOTHING. Naruto got beat by words, of all things words, which makes him go all six-eight tailed fox on him later on.
Simultaneously subverted and played straight when Hinata took on Pain in order to protect Naruto and got immediately annihilated.
Then again, it's quite awesome if you consider that she had often failed C- and D-rank missions (which involve minimal risk and are often menial labor) in the past due to lack of self-confidence and previously had been unable to even look Naruto in the eye, and now is willing to take on the most powerful ninja in the world and potentially die to protect Naruto- while telling him how much he means to her and that she loves him. It goes to show how far she's come and that she's possibly changed the most out of any of the Konoha 11.
In the anime, Hinata's plan works pretty well: She knows that Pain is out of her league, but she's only pretending to fight him — her true goal is to attack the chakra spears that are impaling Naruto so that he can get back to fighting Pain. While the rest of the village are sitting on their butts waiting for Naruto to save them, she's the only one who sees that - this once at least - Naruto is the one who needs to be saved. Technically, she doesn't quite manage to save him from the chakra spears, but she does manage to break him free from the effects of Pain's Hannibal Lecture.
After Hinata took on Pain, the Big Bad, and sacrificed herself, giving Kishi Naruto an excuse to have Unstoppable Rage, Naruto's Berserk Button has been pushed down, held down, beaten down with a sledgehammer and left to short out the breakers as over the course of about four panels he goes from being pinned down by a series of Pain's black chakra spikes to freeing himself with a transformation to his Four-tailed Fox form and straight from there, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, to a never-before-seen Six-tailed Fox transformation, complete with demonic chakra forming the beginnings of a fox-shaped skeleton around his body. Ladies and gentlemen, the Holy Shit Quotient meter regrets to inform you that it's Readings Are Off the Scale. Take your complaints about Sasuke elsewhere, fans; there's no place for it anymore in the face of 100,000 volts of pure undiluted shocking.
That attack that Pain used to turn Konoha into a crater? Six-tailed Naruto just grabbed it and pushed it back at him. Admittedly a smaller version, but seriously, nothing else has stood up to that.
Also it should be mentioned, how Kyuubi ripped the necklace of the First Hokage off and smashed it, when it tried to seal him.
In quite possibly the single most crowning moment of awesome ever, just as Naruto's about to give in and remove the seal releasing the Kyuubi, THE FOURTH GODDAMN HOKAGE appears in his head, pulls him away from the cage, verbally bitch slaps the fox and then THANKS IT for giving him the opportunity to see his son again. And apparently the seal was set up to do this from the beginning.
I would call that an asspull if it wasn't SO GODDAMNED AWESOME!
Let's just call Minato Namikaze, the fourth Hokage, a walking Crowning Moment of Awesome. There is rarely a panel he is in where he is not doing something awesome.
Chapter 440, after getting a pep talk from his dad and having the Fox's seal reinforced, Naruto reverses the transformation, reactivates Sage Mode, and gives Pein a look that shouts "Round two you son of a bitch".
Chapter 441, Naruto stabs himself with a chakra rod so that he can find Nagato's location, to which Pain's only response is "bastard". He then does the shadow shuriken attack using rasen shurikens.
Chapter 442, Naruto backs up his double Rasenshuriken with at least 100 shadow clones disguised as rocks, and even when that fails to end the battle, he finally has an answer for Pain- a Rasengan to the stomach, backed up by not only his clones but the spirits of his forebears.
And he does so while reciting a line that the character from Jiraiya's book he was named after said; "You give up... thinking I'm going to give up!"
Pain dodging the shadow shuriken by stabbing two clones and flipping up was pretty awesome. Naruto using a number of clones to keep himself from being pushed back by the Shinra Tensei was wicked awesome. The God Realm even fell to his knees when he saw Naruto was still close.
Though it had been stated earlier, when Naruto finally meets Pein and Pein tells his flashback, the scene where the Sannin - yes, all three of them... are shown having their asses handed to them by Hanzo truly goes to show how strong that one man was and, of course, it highlights how much it took to kill the old Ame war chief.
Remember the statue that Akatsuki uses to seal Bijuu? In a flashback, Pain used it as a combat summon.
After Danzo & Hanzo forced Yahiko's death, Nagato, in an act of righteous fury, sicced his demonic summon on the whole lot of enemy ninjas, killing an entire army by himself.
After four hundred and fifty chapters. Naruto finally comes home to the welcome he deserves. It's about damn time.
Episode 166 of the Shippuden anime was rendered perfectly and added some flashbacks about how Naruto and Hinata met, plus it has high quality animation. Crowning Moment of Awesome for Hinata, the Shippuden staff and animators.
Also they answered the long standing question in the fandom about how does Hinata know that Naruto has the Kyubi, turns out she knew all along, from the first moment she saw him.
Hinata manages to not only last a few minutes engaging Pain but ACTUALLY LANDING A BLOW ON HIM. Yes, the resident Shrinking Violet actually hit an Omnicidal Maniac head on. It's not without reason that Naruto claimed in Episode 165's omake that Hinata is the staff favorite.
Of course, the thing that makes it even better than the manga version is that as well as showcasing Hinata's refusal to give up even when she doesn't have a chance, it also removes the What an Idiot element of the original scene by making Hinata's objective not to attack Pain (which is literally nothing short of suicide) but to free Naruto, which could have turned the entire battle around. And she almost manages it! If you hadn't read the manga version, you might even believe she could do it!
One other thing they changed was that in the Anime, the words from Hinata that actually made an impact on Naruto are when she repeats Naruto's motto: "It's my Ninja way!" after telling him that she loves him.
In 167, its Four then Six Tail Naruto vs Pain...Crazy Awesome all around. Machine gun Menacing Balls, Pain beating Four Tail Naruto forcing him to go Six Tail...and Chibaku Tensei animated.
And a freaking meteor shower attack from Eight Tail Naruto busting out of the Chibaku Tensei.
Let's give some love to Tsunade here. Exerting all of your Chakra to save an entire village and then still willing to go against Pain has to count for something. Sure it was rendered moot later and Boring, but Practical, but I'll be damned if wasn't a good moment.
Everything supposedly awesome that Naruto did against Pain gets dramatically put into perspective when you consider the fact that he had just curb-stomped the entire Leaf Village before grav-bombing it into a giant crater with his mind. If he'd been at full power, he would have crushed Naruto. Not to mention the fact that Naruto had foreknowledge of Pain's abilities, Pain couldn't use his most powerful body's abilities for a large part of the fight, and Pain still managed to beat Naruto and pin him to the ground.
Aha, but then Naruto, with only the sheer, burning flame of his hope for peace, convinces Nagato to restore the entire village. Kind of lame, but still Awesome. Also, it would have kind of ruined the series if Konoha had been destroyed for good.
The Summit of the Five Kages Arc
The following all take place within the same DAY.
Danzo has the Sharingan!
It is revealed soon that Danzo has Shisui's sharingan.
The Raikage's response to Naruto's claim that killing Sasuke will just restart the cycle of hatred: "I will kill Sasuke. It's up to you to make sure it stops there!"
Sai to Sakura in Chapter 458: "Sasuke causes Naruto pain...but I think you do, too." Despite the fact that Sai has been crippled emotionally since childhood, his [1] is such that he's much more considerate and sensitive to others' feelings than Sakura, who's supposedly more intelligent than her teammates. He's come a long way from Danzo's lackey to a really, really, REALLY great friend of Naruto's (and therefore, Sakura's). How great? Well, a great friend is someone who will not just go along with everything you say, but harshly pointing out your faults, even when it's hard, when you may not want to hear it, and because it is needed.
459 finally gives a Crowning Moment of Awesome to Zetsu for popping out of the floor directly between all 5 Kages saying "helloooo", getting the drop on all 5 of them. Zetsu's got ballsball for pulling a stunt like that, even if that is technically only half of him.
After chapter 460 there is no doubt left that Raikage is Badass. He...
Chapter 461 provides them for Raikage and escorts, and Suigetsu and Jugo.
Raikage and escorts effortlessly counter Sasuke's attack, and use a genjutsu all to similar to Tien's Solar flare to blind them, and all around nearly kill Sasuke. Raikage even breaks Zabuza's sword in two.
Suigestsu and Jugo saving Sasuke from certain death at Raikage and escort's hands.
Jugo's Curse Seal level 2
which seems to involve beam spam
Raikage pulls a quick threefer. First he gets hit directly in the chest by raikiri, only for it to go in about an inch and cause a minor flesh wound that is barely even visible. Second, he wrecks Sasuke's shit. Third, when Sasuke recovers and puts up a wall of fire, Raikage handles it with the same grace he handles every physical barrier between him and his immediate objective, IE punch it out of existence.
The true awesome is the fact that he first friggen Tigerbombs Sasuke into the ground, and is apparently setting up to go full-on Hulkmania on Sasuke with a legdrop. Unfortunately, we already know that Sasuke is going to somehow asspull his way out of it... But it still doesn't diminish the pure awesome of watching him wreck Sasuke's shit like the guy owes him money. He also looks to have SMASHED THROUGH the Susanoo.
He SACRIFICED HIS FUCKING ARM to break though Sasuke's defenses like it was slowing him down!. That is pure ownage.
It was slowing him down. It got set on fire, thus it was not badass enough to remain on his body. So he used his other, far more badass hand, to literally karate chop off the useless appendage.
Here's the kicker: His left hand is his dominant hand. He doesn't stop there, later tag-teaming with Killer Bee to decapitate what appears to be a clone of Kisame with a double Lariat.
"DON'T FUCK WITH THE RAIKAGE, BITCH!!!" anyone? Binktopia scan, by the way.
Please, you think punching flames hotter than the sun would hurt him?
Consider the damage done by the Tigerbomb. Really, look at the page where it shows the fallout; where it shows how small the raikage looks in said fall out. Look at where the ground level is in comparison.
Sasuke effortlessy takes out Shi by trapping him into a Genjutsu and then he fought the Raikage to a draw and actually made him lose an arm.
This also shows another Badass aspect of Minato, the 4th Hokage. Apparently the Raikage, clad in his lightning Jutsu which increases his reflexes, to the point of the Yellow Flash. Yeah, apparently Minato was that fast on his own. (The way it's phrased makes it seem like Flying Thunder God doesn't count, btw).
Chapter 464 has the Sand siblings effortlessly rescuing ninja from Sasuke's Amaterasu. Combined with Gaara demonstrating that both his sand and his trademark absolute defence are better than ever.
Not to mention Kankuro revealing his new puppet: Sasori.
Chapter 466 is pretty much undiluted awesome from panel one all the way to the finish.
First, the Mizukage pretty much pwns Sasuke with her two Kekkei Genkais, Lava (Earth+ Fire) and Boil (Water+ Fire)
Next, Black Zetsu uses a technique to restore Sasuke's chakra and keep him going.
After that, the Tsuchikage uses a jutsu that summons a giant freaking block to crushatomize Sasuke (presumably an Earth+ Wind or Lightning Kekkai Genkai).
In short, combined with the Raikage's previous awesome, this chapter served to demonstrate why these people got be to Kages: they are four of the most badass people in existence. Danzo doesn't count because he's a coward.
Finally, Madara appears before the Kages, in which he mocks the Raikage and declares the Fourth Shinobi War.
Considering that the Sasuke faced all 4 kages (other then Danzo) one after another with little time to heal or recover in between the fights and still manages to survive, that is pretty awsome two when you stop to think about it.
Chapter 467. The Raikage, who's been owning the last few chapters in terms of Crowning Moments, moves to plow right through Madara like a knife through butter. Madara just stands there and lets the attack phase right through him with that freaky time-space trick he's got. He then sits down and tells the four Kages (not counting the fleeing Danzo) his grand plan to hypnotize the entire planet with the power of the combined form of the nine demons, and states that unless they comply, there will be war: Two Jinchuriiki and a whole bunch of humans against an immortal, A band of powerful humans, and 7 of the most devastatingly powerful creatures to walk the earth. Despite the issues of fighting such a powerful foe, all of the Kages refuse without hesitation (again, excepting Danzo). That takes guts.
Forget Raikage/Madara, the real king of this chapter is the Sage of 6 Paths. According to Madara, he encountered a ten tailed beast that was literally all of the tailed beasts put together. It is more or less directly stated to be an eldritch abomination with the capacity to destroy the world. The Sage sealed its soul inside HIMSELF, apparently without sacrificing anyone, then used its power to create the MOON as a prison to store its body. He then split its power into the 9 tailed beasts, as well as granting the Uchicha and Senju clans power to control them via soul and body. In short, he curbstomped an eldritch abomination and made it his pet.
Killer Bee continues to be made of Crazy Awesome. He tossed a PENCIL coated in RAITON, which Kisame states had a higher penetrating force than a Fuuton, at Kisame, which misses, but punches through a tree, and into the snow. Kisame even states it could have punched a hole in him if it hit. A PENCIL COULD HAVE KILLED KISAME!
Kisame and Samehada also show why they were Itachi's partner. Samehada literally drinks up Killer Bee's Raiton, and even a bijuu cloak of four tails like afternoon tea. Samehada can also be used like a whip, and that is a five foot blade being swung on the equivalent of a rope. Also, when Samehada is completely released, all those bandages unwrap, and it gets a MOUTH at the tip!
And now Kisame has just fused with Samehada to become even more powerful and sharky than usual.
Shark!Kisame traps Killerbee, Sabu, & Ponta in a gigantic dome of water that moves whenever he does. Sabu & Ponta are at risk of drowning, so Killerbee lures Kisame away. Unfortunately, the ensuing battle leaves Killerbee unconscious, while Kisame de-merges and returns to normal. ...Except when he tries to hack Bee's legs off to 'make him easier to carry', Samehada, apparently quite attracted to Killerbee's chakra, turns on Kisame and protects Killerbee, even giving him a bit of chakra before Kisame punts it away. The chapter ends with Kisame picking up one of Bee's swords and preparing to hack his legs off.
Chapter 473: The greatest tag team move in history. What makes this even cooler is that, on the next page, Killer Bee is TREMBLING before the Raikage. Who only has one arm. Further proof of Raikage's Badass credentials.
No love for Kisame GRINNING and complimenting the brothers' speed as his head, sans body, flies through the air?
Lets make note of a tiny detail. Raikage is left handed normally. It's hard to pump up the awesome beyond that. The fact that he's able to destroy Kisame with his non-dominant arm the same day he loses the other is just icing on the cake.
Chapter 475. Madara is fighting Danzo's guards. He gets one with his special sucked through time and space technique, but in doing so is infected in the arm with that guard's flesh eating virus attack. Madara just rips his arm off and kicks it at the other guard to distract him enough to suck him away too.
Danzo vs Sasuke was pure Awesome. So far Danzo had been stated to be the Rival of The Sandaime (The freaking God of Shinobis) a Political/Manipulator Master Mind and then he takes the Sharingarm to show how utterly badass he is and then Sasuke beat the living shit out of him. Over and Over again like some second class Ninja. For all his "Im holding back" crap, the guy was sacrificing his secret card and literally having to rip a hole in reality just to survive the next 5 seconds of the Battle. It was hilarious when he said he "wanted to save chakra to face Madara" when Sasuke owned his Kuchiyose in one attack, killed him again (by using a "weak genjutsu" he just sneered minutes ago) lose his arm and then took Karin as a hostage. What does Sasuke do? Chidori him anyway and before he (finally) died activating a extreme powerful sacrifice technique... by a panel later both Sasuke and Madara deadpan how dangerous the technique was oh and remember that Sasuke had only completed Susanoo that single moment and he was simple wing it as it went. As put in The End of Sasuke Uchiha Fic Danzo. He died. A lot
Not to mention delivering an excellent and wholly justified "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Sasuke as he fights him, deconstructing his life's work as simply lashing out at others in anger.
Danzo was holding back, and he was kind of exhausted too and his trump card Shisui's Eye couldn't be used at the start of the fight. And he wasn't dying like a 'second rate ninja'. He was testing Susano'o's defenses and range. Despite Sasuke 'killing' him several times, for almost the entire fight he was losing. Danzo was playing with him. It took Danzo some massive mount of CIS and PIS for him to lose at the last second. Madara even commented if Shisui's eye was active at the start of the fight? Sasuke wouldn't have won, and Danzo wouldn't have to sacrifice all that chakra to maintain Izanagi. Which makes Danzo...kind of awesome. He's Hiruzen's age, but fighting with someone not only not even at half his age, but winning for most of the fight.
Danzo wasn't playing with him. He only didn't use Shisui's Eye... that doesn't mean he put no effort in the fight. And the fact that Danzo stole the eyes he used in this fight from Sasuke's dead family and took Karin hostage after all his talk about self-sacrificekinda dampens the awesome. Also, Sasuke was exhausted too. I mean, he just fought three Kages and was nearly going blind.
Sasuke sacrificing Karin to kill Danzo was a Moment of Awesome with Fridge Brilliance. Danzo spent his whole life advocating his principles that a ninja should never show emotions on the battlefield and should place his mission above his comrades. It was a fitting ending for him when Sasuke obeyed exactly those principle to kill him.
Danzo having rigged his body with a seal that creates a sphere of destruction when he dies. You know it's hardcore when the guy can literally kill you from beyond the grave. Granted, it didn't work, but it doesn't detract.
Even better; Kakashi kicking Sasuke in the gut just afterwards. A lot of Sasuke-haters exploded with happiness.
Chapter 484: Big Damn Heroes again!! Naruto's turn this time, needing to save Sakura. Again...
Sakura running on the roof of a tunnel to sneek up on Sasuke and stab him also qualifies for Crowning Scene Of Awesome, being a rare moment where a ninja actually acts like one, even if Sakura screwed it up after that and forced the above hero moment.
Also Kakashi warping two Susano'o arrows in the span of a second or two. Badass.
Shippuden just keeps going and going with their current trend in filler quality. The latest filler lets us see one of the Jinchuriiki 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 so far, with a character that Naruto can relate to, and the end of episode 148... Oh, hi there Pai- Oh Crap!
YMMV on the quality of the filler, but the fact that the inclusion of Akatsuki members in filler actually makes them more watchable could count as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for them.
In Chapter 489: Kabuto strikes again, and also states clearly that it is indeed Kabuto in control, not Orochimaru. Then, he makes Madara get a Oh Crap look on his face (or his eye at any rate) by going all Necromancer and using Edo Tensei to resurrect Nagato, Kakuzu, Deidara, Sasori and Itachi. The look on Madara's face is priceless.
In chapter 490: Kabuto shows how much of a Magnificent Bastard he has become in when he finalizes his alliance to Madara. How, by revealing he has a sixth corpse which even Madara is afraid of.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know what that corpse that upset Madara so much was: it was Madara!
The Kyuubi Training Arc
Naruto Shippuden movie 3: Naruto's gigantic Rasenshuriken is not the only Crowning Moment of Awesome; each one of the Rookie 11 got their part in the movie*
though Ino's contribution was completely innefectual and she was no help at all in killing the chimera-beast
, and Tenten got to finish The Dragon! The movie itself is one since Kishimoto worked on it.
494, all the Kumo Ninja get it. Bee especially at age five being chosen to be the wild Hachibi's new Jinchuuriki and being the first person to master it! Not only that, despite the fact his best friend Motoi tried to kill him, he bared him no ill will. The ending doubles as a Crowning Moment Of Heartwearming when he and Bee reaffirm their friendship. Then there is the group of Kumo Ninja who restrained the Hachibi for sealing, lead by A, the future Fourth Raikage, and the Third Raikage themselves. The Kumo Ninja managed to physically restrained the Hachibi, a beast who is one tail away from Kyubi's power, with just chains before sealing it. Oh, and A? He cut off the Hachibi's horn, hence is the person who is responsible for the Hachibi having three horns.
495. The Shut Up, Hannibal! to beat almost everything else: what Naruto's autograph would have looked like, reading "No. 1 Hokage Candidate: Naruto" which defeated Naruto's Evil Twin (actually, his manifested hatred) that a few chapters ago could not be defeated by every jutsu he has up his sleeve.
Let's just go ahead and call Chapter 497 a Crowning CHAPTER of Awesome.
This needs elaboration. First Kyubi uses the Menacing ball, the attack the Four Tails and Six Tails used right off the bat, firing at Naruto. Killer Bee then catches it with Hachibi, which eats the ball. Then Naruto attacks the Kyubi with the Gargantuan Rasengan after entering Sage Mode in just a second! Then he ''tosses' the Kyubi, making him slam flat on his back and finishes off with a Giant Rasenshuriken! That folks is the Holy Shit Quotient breaking down.
I call Under Statement. Here, unspoiled as of Episode 247, is pretty much the most boring way anyone could put this Made of Win chapter:
Using his mother's love as a counter for the Kyubi's hatred, Naruto resumes his battle with the Fox. From there is straightforward Serial Escalation. First was his normal Rasengan Barrage, which briefly stunned and annoyed the God of Hatred that Kyubi was, then he entered Sage Mode and used the Sage Art: Non Stop Gargantuan Rasengan Barrage to knock the fox on his back. He then began siphoning off the chakra, first getting five tails out, then he immediately followed up with a Wind Style: Rasen-shuriken and got the REST of Kyubi's chakra, and absorbed it into himself; however, the awesomeness does not stop there. The Kyuubi's chakra, free of malevolence, formed a glowing aura around Naruto that resembled none other than the Rikudou Sage! The Kyuubi's true anger showed, and he still had enough power to form a Spirit Bomb sized Menacing Ball. Then Naruto imprisoned him in an stronger, new seal of Naruto's own design. So Naruto basically punched out Cthulhu, put Kyuubi on a new leash, and has become a perfect Jinchuuriki like Killer Bee.
The music used for the anime version of Naruto VS. Kyuubi in the first part of episode 247 somehow manages to make it even more awesome. Listen to it here. (01:35-03:55)
Not just the music, but the animation. The Rasenshuriken's power is ramped Up to Eleven in the anime, and the new form doesn't disappoint.
Gotta give props to the Kyuubi, since he (albeit barely) managed to prevent the Rasen-Shuriken from engulfing him and tearing him to shreds (though he would re-heal anyways). Also, the clone that threw the attack? He pushed the Kyuubi away from his chakra with the Rasen-Shuriken's enormous blast-sphere. Throwing a powerful attack is one thing, but controlling its resulting explosion? That was just... incredible.
From 502 - we get the Fourth Hokage blocking a full-powered Fox Menacing Ball by using a variation of the Hiraishin no Jutsu to teleport it to an entirely different place! Minato is Crazy Awesome and a walking Crowning Moment of Awesome.
Minato's Crowning Moment of Awesome continues in 503! Actually defeated Madara after injuring him with the Rasengan and putting a rock with the Hirashin Seal in his body, then he stripped Madara of his Kyubi control. He literally sealed that power that Madara used, releasing Kyubi off his control. Then after Madara retreated, he teleported back to Konoha, summoned Gamabunta to crash on the Kyubi's body to stop it from completing its menacing ball, and THEN teleported the entire demon away. Then he comes up with a plan so Kushina can see Naruto when he's all grown up, and insured a way that Madara would finally be completely defeated by sealing half the Kyubi's chakra into Naruto.
Kushina gets her own one as well when confronted with Minato teleporting the Kyubi right to them she immediately restrains it and reckons she can drag it back inside her and take it with her when she dies. Physical God vs Mama Bear. No contest.
And continuing into Chapter 504, We have Minato and Kushina both diving between the Kyuubi and Naruto when the former tries to kill the latter before the sealing process can be completed. Not only do they both move together to shield their son, Kushina grabs the claw as it exits her stomach and physically stops it from reaching her child. This would be the second time in two chapters that Kushina has overpowered the Kyuubi, while weakened from birth, and guaranteed to die from the strain of having the Kyuubi ripped out of her body. Not to mention the whole claw-through-the-abdomen thing. Bad. Ass.
Now that he's got his new powers, Naruto shows off by detecting Kisame's negative feeling inside Samehada, then Flash Stepping to intercept him when he tries to run away; he slams the man so hard he actually gets his foot caught in the wall by mistake! Kisame escapes, but then Guy tries to use the Waterfall of Truth at that very moment. Assuming Kisame to be his dark side, Guy does the most logical thing he can think of: elbow-check it into a cliff.
Guy does not disappoint. When Kisame tries to get away, Guy jumps straight to the sixth gate and gets thrown by Bee's giant ox arm to catch up. Then he summons his turtle from way back in the Chunin exam in midair (the turtle was not happy about that) and jumped the rest of the way. Upon landing and seeing Kisame trying to pass off a scroll to a shark summon (which he then hides among a bunch of clones), Guy uses Morning Peacock to kill most of them. Faced with the ones underwater, he opens the seventh gate and makes a giant tiger head of of chakra to hit Kisame's giant water shark head. Even if he goes to the eighth gate and dies, Guy will officially be the most badass taijutsu user in existence.
it's even more awesome once he explain he didn't used even a little of chakra. it was pure strenght
Gai gets one in chapter 507. Come to find out, the gigantic tiger he created wasn't made out of chakra. Gai just punched so fast and so hard that he literally formed a gigantic tiger head out by pressurizing air with his fist into a nuke. Said nuke ends the fight between Gai and Kisame by, well, exploding all the sharks to death and putting Kisame decisively out of the fight. Oh, and when Gai tells you not to move? You better not freaking move.
508 - Kisame still has enough within him to trap everyone just enough to summon some sharks to put him out of his misery him by EATING HIM WHOLE, AND duping Team Good by boobytrapping the scroll Gai obtained and ensuring his information did find its way to Madara. To be his very definitely final death, it surely topped himself. We'll miss you.
The Ninja War Arc
Konan lives up to the hype. She destroyed part of Madara's mask and took his arm, and now she's doing a 'parting of the sea' with her paper jutsu...its incredible.
Take a second look...Konan's not parting the sea with paper, she created that entire lake/ocean/whatever out of paper. Holy. Shit. Talk about terrain advantages.
Damn, both Madara and Kabuto show how big magnificent bastards they have become. Kabuto, thanks to Orochimaru, knows Madara's secrets as well as the importance of Zetsu. Madara then reveals that he basically planted a new, mindless Hashirama, which he's using it to clone White Zetsu's...and has created an army of 100,000 of them.
By Ch. 514, we can simply say that this series has already taken Serial Escalation as one of its cardinal rules: With Onoki engaging Deidara while being protected by Akatsuchi, Kurotsuchi (revealed to be actually Onoki's granddaughter) showed her proficiency with Lava Release (dibs on a potential reationship to Four-Tails jinchuriki Roshi) and Water Release in trapping Kabuto. Magnificent Bastard the latter is, he reveals just how good he has been at using Orochimaru's powers by molting and turning into a horrific snake-man, capturing Yamato in the process and delivering him to Madara, who by this point is wielding his original Sharingan and one Rinnegan.
A bit of a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the old fence-sitter Onoki, as well. Up in the air, above Deidara and a good distance away from the giant turtle island, Onoki prepares to blast the mad bomber with a dust element jutsu, only to be stopped by Akatsuchi because from that distance his technique would disintegrate the giant turtle island. That's right: that crotchety old man's bodyguard is afraid that said old man might accidentally obliterate an entire island with his jutsu. Think about this for a second. What other jutsu have we seen that is capable of disintegrating a giant mother-fucking turtle island? Not Rasenshuriken, not Amaterasu, not even Deidara's C4. That little old man can cause destruction on a scale that only probably only the Ten-tails itself (and maybe the Nine and Eight-tails as well) could even hope to match. I am now of the opinion that Onoki's dust element jutsu are only referred to as such because everything hit by them is destroyed so thoroughly that only dust remains. Badass GrandpaUp to Eleven.
Chapter 515. Onoki carries the entire Island Turtle from the sea to Kumogakure one handed. Naruto begins learning to control his new powers. The Konoha 11 return. Sasuke's back but still blind. Gaara is the entire freaking commander general of the ENTIRE ARMY. Kakashi's a general. We fully see the entirety of Kabuto's Edo Tensei Army...which includes the past Kages, Akatsuki members, the six dead Jinchuuriki, Zabuza, Haku, Hanzo, Kimimaro, Chiyo, Asuma, Hizashi, DAN...This... BEST. CHAPTER. EVER. War is on!
Naruto can use the very same chakra arms that he used against Sasuke and Orochimaru now, and an accidental squeeze of them can shatter entire rocks. His Super Mode is getting more great.
MILEAGE SHOULD VARY ON THE EDO TENSEI ARMY THOUGH: we have to remember that while it is an awesome display of Really Magnificent Bastardry on Kabuto's end, we still cannot forget that these very people are the most important people (emotionally as well as politically) to the entire Shinobi army. How do you fight the one you value/love the most when the only way to deal with them is to send them to an eternity of suffering in the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. This last point asks a question: WHO THE FUCK WILL BE ABLE TO USE THE DEAD DEMON CONSUMING SEAL ON THAT PERVERSELY-OVERPOWERED TON OF ZOMBIES?!!
That's it. We REALLY need that Crowning Moment of Evil trope.
A minor one for the anime adaptation of this chapter, episode 256. The moment when the commanders step forward, the 'camera' swings back and pans over the entirety of the Allied Shinobi Forces, all cheering their leaders on, while "Departure from the Front Lines" blasts in the background. It's something incredible seeing the full united might of the Five Villages.
Chapter 516 brings us more awesome from Gaara, when he convinces the entire army to work together for the time being. He then challenges anyone who still has trouble with the Sand to take it out on him when the war's over!
Oh yes. Oh, oh yes. This Rousing Speech is definitely Made of Win and therefore merits quoting in full:
There are no enemies here because we've all suffered at Akatsuki's hand! So there is no Suna, no Iwa, no Konoha, no Kiri, and no Kumo! There are only "shinobi!" And if you still hold a grudge against Suna, 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!''
The word "shinobi"... it made everyone's faces change. To further emphasize the power of that word, goddamn "Departure from the Front Lines" blasts out ONCEAGAIN at that exact same moment, as Gaara completes his speech. That "young man" has single-handedly united the entire world to defend the two most important people, the two last Jinchuuriki, Killer Bee and Naruto.
Chapter 518: Under Kankuro's leadership, Sai, Omoi and the standing members of the Surprise Attack Division working together, manage to defeat both the Zombie forms of Deidara and Sasori through clever tactics, use of the terrain, teamwork, and traps. It was awesome.
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.
This made extra special as this Crowning Moment of Awesome wasn't immediately overshadowed by his siblings,as it was in the Sasuke Rescue Arc.
We all seem to be forgetting when Sai sees that the enemy has used his surrogate older brother. His response? Flip. his! SHIT! Yes! Sai, the emotionally stunted ROOT agent has a Roaring Rampage of Revenge! He creates big-ass ink warriors that swiftly beat the ever loving shit out of Deidara and Sasori!
Chapter 519 has a meta-awesome moment. Turns out that the ultimate attack that a Jinchuuriki can learn is the "Tailed Beast Bomb". A certain non-Jinchuuriki saw this attack and decided to co-opt it for his own usage. That man was the Fourth Hokage. The technique was Rasengan.
Chapter 521, the first Large Scale Battle of the War Arc has begun. First of all, Kitsuchi and the awesome kunoichi known as Kurotsuchi, his daughter, create a Zetsu Clone army volcano. Hana Inuzuka, who was supposed to be a medic, turns into an Action Girl and uses a buzz saw technique to compliment her brother's. Hinata attacks with Neji and blows Zetsu's away with an Eight Trigrams Empty Wall Palm. The entire army attacks with cool attacks...then Haku ambushes Sai, who is FLYING, with a Demonic Ice Mirror. Then Rock Lee, Kakashi, and Sakura arrive, with Lee intercepting Haku and Kakashi intercepting Zabuza... EPIC.
Chapter 522 (wow, this is Kishi's best arc yet): Not content with just Zabuza and Haku, Kabuto summons the entire previous generation of the Seven Swordsmen of The Mist.
Chapter 523: [[spoiler:HotDAMN! The last generation of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Mist have just shown why they were so feared amongst the Shinobi Nations.
More than that. We learn that Zabuza's Decapitating Carving Knife can't be destroyed. All the damage it gets will be regenerated when it slashes into a victim's blood. It can theoretically regenerate from a single shard due to that power. DAYUM. And Fridge Brilliance in why Suigetsu thought he could take on and beat Kisame using it.
Chapter 524: After the mindless Zabuza cut through Haku, injuring Kakashi slightly, we got a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming of when Kakashi remembered Naruto just fresh from the Wave Arc, he then stomped Zabuza's mindless form, cutting its hand off and freezing it for Ensui Nara to use the Shadow Possession Technique. After Mari used her Cloth Binding Technique to bind both Zabuza and Haku and prevent them from being resummoned by Kabuto (pissing him off for once), Kakashi finally stops playing around and declares he's going on a rampage against the remaining Zombies. At the same time, Gaara's sand detected Mu, the zombie of the Second Tsuchikage-who was completely invisible, setting up for some epic Kage-level combat next chapter!
Chapter 525: Neji using the Full Body Blow to blow an Zetsu to pieces, Onoki showing he REALLY won the Super Power Lottery-his Dust Release contains both Fire and Earth...and finally Wind. Its a Kekkei Tota, a higher level of Kekkei Genkai that only he and Mu, the Second Tsuchikage knew. And also Shikaku's effortless new battle plan to deal with the new threats.
Chapter 526: Darui continues to demonstrate that he and the rest of the Cloud Nin are a force to be reckoned with by demonstrating a black lightning technique he was taught by the previous Raikage, tearing through a section of Madara's army with a panther made of lightning!
Chapter 527: two of the resurrected shinobi are the Cloud Shinobi Kinkaku and Ginkaku, a pair of JerkassBash Brothers, who at one point in their lives were swallowed by the Kyuubi. How did they respond? By surviving two weeks in it's stomach, until it couldn't handle them anymore andthrew them up.Your Mileage May Vary on the rest of the chapter, but seriously. BAD. ASS.
Chapter 528: With Darui this close getting sucked in Kinkaku and Ginkaku's gourd, his consistent apologies for his failures changed his "taboo word" from DULL to SORRY, allowing him to cop out and turn the tables on the JerkassBash Brothers, even getting Ginkaku sucked into the gourd. Oh, and do you remember that the weapons Ginkaku and Kinkaku were using could only be used by people with immense chakra? That Darui manage to use them for a bit (even while in the real danger of biting it) shows how far this awesome bastard can go.
And of course, it can only be topped by Kinkaku losing his shit over his brother's defeat and transforming into a Nine-Tails Tailed Beast form a la Naruto and Sora.
Chapter 529: Giving them the limelight, Ino-Shika-Cho Generation 2 was called to back up Darui and successfully distracted the raging Kinkaku, allowing him to be sealed in the same pot that was formerly used to seal the Eight-Tails. Of course they would have not succeeded without Kitsuchi's Dynamic Entry with the Second Division.
Chapter 530: Ino keeping her cool and showing she's the Cool Big Sis of her team. Kakuzu showing he's a Magnificent Bastard, not being bothered by being cut into four pieces by Izumo and Kotetsu, and actually tearing out a ninja's heart that day. Dan actually resisting Edo Control and asking when the barrier technique is ready so his Ghost Technique won't work. Finally...Hanzo takes out Kankuro's entire team by paralyzing them and gets intercepted by Mifune!
Chapter 531: Mifune vs Hanzo. Classic Samurai vs Ninja. And it was epic to say the least. Mifune fought Hanzo in the past, and nearly died after losing due to Hanzo's Kusarigami striking him faster than he could strike Hanzo, getting a blow in the head. During their duel in the modern era, Mifune completely shoots down all of Hanzo's attempts to use ninjutsu, revealing he's a master of Iaido-the art of the quick draw, strike, and resheathing. When Hanzo's Salamander swallows him, he just cuts himself out. And then finally, he cuts Hanzo's scythe in half and cuts him in half, winning the duel and saying that unlike Hanzo, he didn't let his skills dull.
Chapter 532: After winning the duel, Mifune proceeds to call out Hanzo for losing his faith and betraying his ideals. After he's done, Hanzo responds by using the broken remains of his Kusarigami to commit Seppuku. Kabuto, realizing that Hanzo is starting to disobey him, tries to turn Hanzo into a mindless puppet, the key word here being tries. But Hanzo decides not to have anymore of that shit, no, instead he keeps still long enough for the army to seal him away. How? through sheer force of will. Proving that Kabuto's mind control isn't quite as effective as he thought.
This requires an explanation. Kabuto tried to turn Hanzo into a mindless pupett just when Hanzo committed Seppuku and was stunned from the poison overload, clever move from Hanzo.
What, no mention of Ino Yamanaka? Lets see-she saved Choji TWICE, the second time taking over his body and fighting their sensei Asuma to a stand still and pushing him back all the while lecturing Choji. Lets face it, this arc is doing wonders for the kunoichi, Ino, Hinata, and Tenten being the primary examples. All becoming full on action girls and growing into ladies of war.
Not to mention the beginning of the chapter, Asuma, who is normally respectful of Choji's taboo word, realizes that he has no other way to get him to fight seriously, and so pushes the button. Hard.
Asuma: QUIT YOUR BLUBBERING, YOU WORTHLESS FATASS! FIGHT ME!
And a special mention for Naruto. Apparently, he's become so soaked in win that he can sense chakra...from inside a room that's been designed to hide chakra. That's pretty badass, to say the least.
Chapter 535: After quickly figuring out that Iruka and the others are lying to him, Naruto tackles through two members of the Akimichi clan, Shino's dad, and a member of the Nara clan, Iruka and three random ninjas, only to fall victim to the Nara's Shadow Bind jutsu. However, in Sage Mode Naruto can sense the ongoing war from half a country away or he read the Nara's mind, and after a talk with Iruka who explains the situation and traps him in a barrier, Naruto casually breaks free from both and escapes with ease. When Aburame Shibi attemted to use his bugs to drain him of chakra, he almost immdeiately discovered that the Nine Tails' chakra was too much for them and the whole tactic proved ineffective.
Chapter 536 had plenty. Bee and Naruto teaming up and heading to the battlefield? Check. Plowing through more ninjas assigned to stop them from leaving the island? Check. The ninja army's victory over the army of Zetsus and Choji defeating Kakuzu? Check. Madarafinally entering the fray? Check. Madara ending the chapter by summoning none other than the very Demonic Statue of the Outer Path itself? CHECK!
Chapter 537 has Madara using Gedo Mazo to smack down everyone, before declaring that tomorrow the Moon's Eye Plan will be complete.
Chapter 538: Its revealed that Kyubi has almost gotten its full form back from feeding from Naruto's chakra and begins an Hannibal Lecture to show how gulliable and foolish Naruto is becoming about the War and Sasuke. However, Naruto retaliates, after the flashback he asks "Are you done yet?" walks right into the seal and slams Kyubi down by the Torii so they could talk face to face. He then tells Kyubi that HE'S the fool, and that he'd find something to do about the war and Sasuke.
And before that, when Kyuubi start questioning him, Naruto glare at the Kyuubi and tell him "You'll need to learn to stop underestimating me".The look in his eyes was so intense that Kyuubi take a step back
This really needs to be emphasized: The chapter pretty much consisted entirely of Naruto telling malevolence made flesh to stfu!
Chapter 540: Neji didn't turn evil. It was Zetsu disguised as Neji all along. Kudos to Sakura for realizing that before he got the jump on her and smashing her fist on his sorry head. Glad to see your Action Girl status is back, girl.
Because a pig doesn't have hands! And of course, Kage Team Up!
A needs some credit too; Tsunade praises a Kyuubi-powered Naruto for being able to keep with A. Yes, this guy's so awesome Naruto needs a tailed beast just to keep with him!
How about young Bee, who looks like barely 5 years old...equaling A-a teenager at that point, in strength? Being the only person who could match A's strength and successfully perform a Double Lariat?
Not to mention that a general training technique in Kumo is the MOTHERFUCKING Double Lariat?! Their badassery has no visible limits; THEY are Kabuto's only downside.
Chpater 542. Minato vs A. A uses his Lightning Nintaijutsu against Minato, who of course dodges with his teleportation technique. The look on A's face completely makes the moment.
Also a moment to show just how awesome A is, however: His Nintaijutsu is so fast and strong its only counter was instantaneous movement.
Chapter 543. Bee defeats his fully charged brother, despite not using his Bijuu at all, in a lariat clash and tells him how he's underestimated him for years, proving to A that Bee has genuinely surpassed him and A will let him and Naruto go and fight to save the day.
A gets one too by holding off both Bee and Naruto for a considerable amount of time, countering Bee's tricks and Naruto's speed.
Chapter 544. A acknowledging Naruto as the savior and allowing him to pass.
And Naruto finally proves to be the fastest alive, avoiding A's fastest attack using his Flash Step in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode. This makes Naruto one of only two people to ever dodge A's best speed. The only other one, Minato, had mastery of a time-space jutsu that allowed him to teleport. Naruto did it through footspeed only.
Also in Chapter 544, Madara has recreated Nagato's "Six Paths of Pain" technique, only he's using the former dead Jinchuuriki for the paths. On top of that, he's given them one Rinnengan and one Sharingan each, for added uberness. Considering that Jinchuuriki are by their nature exceptional ninja, proven by the fact that they successfully caged the tailed beasts, considering that they may or may not have access to their former prisoners' chakras as a matter of being controlled by Madara, and considering how dangerous Pain's paths were before, this is most likely Madara's plan to equal out the presence of Naruto and Bee in the war. You might not like it, but it's definitely making the HSQ overheat.
Naruto chapter 545...Garuto is back. The Holy Shit Quotient breaks down AGAIN and we don't even know if it can be fixed! Basically, Naruto shows the fruits of his Nine-Tails Chakra Mode Training...by pwning an entire division of Zetsu Clones.
Not just that, he shows 3 new moves: 1) Rasenrangan: multiple Rasengan "launched" against the zetsus with the chakra arms. 2) Rasenkyugan: a giant rasengan that can "grow" arms, and grab the zetsus smashing 'em against itself. And 3) mini-RasenShuriken which shouldn't need an explanation.
Out of all those new moves, the mini-Rasen Shuriken took the cake. Making tiny chakra arms out of his fucking FINGER was inexplicably awesome, the same way the four-tailed Naruto (in his first appearance) grew a chakra arm out of one of his massive chakra arms was. Also, the mini-shuriken, which was about the size of Naruto's hand, cut through the leg of an approx. 50-foot Zetsu clusterfuck. Imagine a Mass Shuriken Shadow Clone, similar to Minato's in The Movie, pulled off alongside that.
Admiration for Onoki as well: his clash with his master Mu, both using Dust Release, creates a crater spanning much of the desert they're fighting on.
Lets put this in perspective about Gaara's power: His father, used to dealing with Shukaku's rampages thought the initial sand wave was from Shukaku being released. His shock that Gaara-who doesn't even have Shukaku anymore created the wave? That means Gaara's as strong as the one-tail Eldritch Abomination that slept inside him for 15 years!
It's even more awesome than that. Gaara's dad explicitly says that his sand arms are "much stronger than they used to be". Gaara is MORE POWERFUL than he was as a Jinchuriki.
547: Gaara is becoming GARara, he subdues three Kages at the same time and overpowers his dad's Gold Dust-the perfect counter for his sand, completely!
And this is also a CMOA for Gaara's mother Karura (and from beyond the grave!). When she told she told baby!Gaara that she'd protect him as she lay dying, she meant it - and ultimately fulfilled it.
549: Naruto isn't so helpless against Nagato or Itachi anymore. Effortlessly intercepting Itachi's speed and beginning to force him back in taijutsu, countering Bansho Ten'in from Nagato and fighting Nagato on even terms now...oh did I mention that Naruto wasn't even trying to fight back against Itachi when they clash, just trying to get answers? And B is proving to be awesome, using Samehada to cut right through Itachi's Fireball, transform his hand into the Hachibi's to block Itachi's Hozenka (putting fire over shuriken to increase their lethality), breaking Itachi's genjutsu and forcing him back.
550: Itachi is free from being controlled by Kabuto and can now do as he likes. AWESOME
And we can applause Itachi's magnificent Plan to make Sasuke protect Konoha in case he would transplant Itachi's eyes, even if circumstances ended up with it being used on his own reanimated corpse, instead.
Well, even though the main purpose of the attack didn't work out, the Shinobi army now has an unkillable version of Itachi on their side. This is likely worth more than Sasuke.
551: Nagato beats down Naruto, nearly steals his soul and fends off an attack from Killer Bee. Then Itachi pulls a Big Damn Hero moment and rescues them both. Nagato pulls out the Catastrophic Planetary Construction. And then the good guys blow the fuck out of it.
Not even Naruto's Six-Tailed Form could break a Chibaku Tensei before. Naruto, Itachi, and Bee couldn't do it on their own, this chapter confirmed it. It took the next three strongest guys in the entire Narutoverse just to beat Nagato, who only got stabbed due to the confusion of Chibaku Tensei being destroyed. Nagato was that strong! No wonder why he was called invincible.
552: Itachi's speech to Naruto. And also, "Every jutsu has a weakness." What a Determinator.
Naruto's Big Damn Heroes. "We need a powerful Wind user!" "I'm the only Wind user!" "EXCEPT ME!"
Can count as Offscreen Moment of Awesome actually, but seeing the Second Mizukage sigh in annoyance after he wore out an entire battalion (and this is while he's shouting directions!) only prefigures how difficult and opponent he really is. One can only wishes it gets an Adaptation Expansion.
The Third Raikage was beastly. He was a One-Man Army, taking on 10,000 soldiers all on his own over three days.
Naruto's plan after back up plan to hit the Third Raikage with a Rasenshuriken. The entire exchange looked like it was slow motion!
The Third Raikage takes a direct hit from Naruto's Rasenshuriken. And thanks to his lightning armor, it doesn't even scratch him. Which just becomes more awesome when you remember that lightning is supposed to be weak against wind.
It was actually said the Third Raikage's body was the reason why he tanked the Rasenshuriken, while his armor was blown away.
555: After Naruto asked the Hachibi how he managed to wound the 3rd Raikage, Naruto comes up with a strategy. Use Sage Mode to sense danger ahead to dodge and hit the Raikage's arm while his technique is still active with a Sage Boosted Rasengan so that his technique would hit himself. It worked before it's revealed that the 3rd Raikage's scar comes from his own technique and that he wounded himself by accident, thus never mentioning it to anyone. Awesomeness by Analysis indeed.
What, no love for Gaara and Onoki in chapters 556 and 557? Gaara locates the clam in 556 while holding out against the Second Mizukage's attacks. Onoki, whose running out of chakra and couldn't use Jinton, forms a Rock Fist and smashes it, but its too weak since he didn't put his back into it. Making the rock fist heavier with his Aggravated Rock technique, puts his back into it (and throws it out) to destroy the clam. Gaara then seals the Second Mizukage in a pyramid. Then when the Mizukage broke out with his Jokey Boy technique, Gaara formed a plan in 557 after learning about. And he blocked the massive explosion to save his division. Finally he located the Mizukage, put him in another pyramid but the Jokey Boy clone ripped off the tags and the Mizukage poked his head out. However when Jokey Boy attacked Gaara...he got a Suna Bushin with Gold Dust inside it. Thus, Gaara stopped the explosion and defeated the Second Mizukage who commended him, calling him the 'Golden Egg' of the Kages.
558: We learned that the Naruto that defeated the Raikage and Muu were clones. Each of Naruto's clones are on a battlefield to defeat the White Zetsu transformed into allies.
Naruto acknowledges Hinata's near-sacrifice and assures her she's strong, while his other clones arrive on the battlefield and begin single-handily turning the tide.
We see some of Kakashi's rampage, taking out one of the Seven Swordsmen for Sai to seal him into his drawing paper.
560: Madara's activates his true power... THE RINNEGAN!!! And then he uses its power to create/summon a giant meteor over the opposing forces! Can he get any more awesome?
How about Gaara, Naruto's clone, and Onoki actually countering Susano'o and finding its weakness-namely that it doesn't guard right under the user's feet? Wild Mass Guessing is confirmed on there too! Not to mention the fact all three were tired when they nearly beat EMS Level Madara?
561: Where to begin?
Onoki singlehandedly weakens the meteor enough to save the army.
Madara uses power he stole from the First Hokage to unleash an entire forest against his foes.
Madara's arrival pisses off Kyuubi so much that he gives Naruto his power free of charge. Which Naruto uses to summon an army of clones who all use Great Rasengans to stop Madara's Wood-Release in its tracks. Even Madara is impressed.
This one was not emphasized enough. The Kyuubi is working with Naruto willingly now!
562: Poor Holy Shit Quotient, you've broken down again. Oonoki gives Madara his Shut Up, Hannibal! speech. Choujuro cuts Black Zetsu in half, expanding his sword to enormous size. Tsunade and A use Mabui's teleportation technique (which only the Third Raikage could survive before) to get to the main battlefield. Tsunade actually becomes the first to hit a solid blow on Madara in the entire fight. And finally, the ultimate teamup of all Five Kages.
Even more awesome, Tsunade hadn't even started to regenerate when she attacked Madara. She was nowhere near her full strength and still cut up yet she managed to land an attack.
563: Naruto and Tobi finally begin their clash! With Naruto pulling a Flash Stepheadbutt. The look in Tobi's eyes is priceless.
It's the gravity of the situation that makes it more awesome! Naruto is finally about to do battle with the man responsible for the deaths of both of his parents, Akatsuki, the Kyubi attack, and threatening to kill Naruto in the first minute of his life! The audience has waited long enough.
The Five Kages unleash a beating on Madara. Raikage even breaks his Susanoo with a punch (casually blowing Mu away along the way).
564: And the long-awaited battle begins! To say that the resurrected jinchuuriki aren't a pushover is a very big understatement.
Oh, but it did. Tobi mentions he should have phased through it. What kind of headbutt did Naruto give him?!
And finally, the resurrected jinchuuriki start transforming into their beasts! Seeing this, Bee starts his own host transformation saying, 'I'll go first'! Can we expect Naruto to do the same?
Naruto giving Tobi a Shut Up, Hannibal! speech and saying that he's gonna tear his mask off his face and stop his moon's eye plan.
And in 566 we get a Big Damn Heroes moment from Kakashi and Guy as they ambush Tobi just when he's about to take down Naruto.
568: Guy and Kakashi back to back versus five fully transformed jinchuuriki. So they charge in opposite directions and destroy everything in front of them with the Morning Peacock and a razor wire made of lightning. Are there any Kage vacancies yet?
Chapter 567: Naruto on this page, forcing open the mouth of one of the Tailed Beasts to prevent it from eating him.
569 is mostly a montage of all the awesome things Naruto has done up until now, followed by him once again pulling a shadow clone switch, this time to free Son Goku.
This montage is actually the Kyuubi recalling all the times that Naruto overcame his limits through hard work, and changed people's opinions about himself/the world through his downright inspiring actions. It ends with the Kyuubi (AKA Kurama) pretty much silently challenging Naruto to change the minds of ALL the Tailed-Beasts through his actions, like he has all those other times. While sporting a very scary smile. Yes, Malevolence Made Flesh pretty much just admitted that he won't be too upset when Naruto eventually proves him wrong about all humans looking down on him.Naruto really CAN make friends with anybody.
"You haven't changed at all; that's why I want to help you too. Naruto, if you want to do something for us, then do what you've always done: prove it to us with your actions, because...
"That's who you are!"
570: After Naruto frees Son Goku from Tobi's control, Kurama sees his host as a genuine ally to himself and to other tailed beasts, and accepts him as a partner. Finally, Naruto fist bumps with Kurama himself and OPENS THE CAGE!
... And yet this does not even hold a candle to Ch. 571, which haves us witness Naruto and Kurama finally pulling off the Nine-Tailed Jinchuriki form (which makes the already-badass Garurumon line look like pretentious posers), wiping the floor with all the other active fully-formed tailed beasts before finishing off with a Bijudama showdown (Kurama+Naruto vs 5 Tailed Beasts, throwing up the same volume of chakra condensed in humungous Bijudama).
What about Bee in the Hachibi form backhanding the Gobi while catching Sanbi with it's tails?
Chapter 572: Damn, that is one huge explosion. Naruto's tailed beast bomb is equal to 5 from lesser demons. He out nuked five individual nukes.
Chapter 573: To help morale, Inoichi broadcasts to the entire armed forces at once to tell them how Naruto, Bee, Kakashi, and Gai are holding their ground. The speech was so impassioned that he went over the time limit, overtaxing himself—but it inspired everyone to push forward and help!
Sai deciding he can now tell Naruto that he knows that friends are is another one. He's come a long way.
Suigetsu gets a quick one in 574. While wandering around one of Orochimaru's old hideouts, Juugo goes berserk and punches him. Naturally, the punch just makes him turn to water. Then Suigetsu uses his water to casually suffocate Juugo on the spot (to unconsciousness, not fatally), and is clearly expending no effort to do it.
574 also has Karin starting her escape from captivity like a boss. She pretends that she's having a breakdown where she keeps going back and forth between loving and hating Sasuke. When the Konoha guards get bored of listening to her and turn their attention away, she reveals that there's a blade hidden in her glasses and cuts open the picture she has of Sasuke, revealing even more tools for escaping from her cell.
574 Sasuke has finally revealed his new powers and tries them out by completely destroying the place he was staying in. After he gets outside, he kills some White Zetsu for information about the war and runs into who else but his reanimated older brother, Itachi. Itachi proves that he's still the cooler brother by not even stopping (he's got important bad-ass older brother stuff to do) and shrugging off Sasuke trying to grab him with a Susanoo arm. Given Sasuke couldn't beat Itachi when his brother was dying from a fatal illness, I'd say this new perfect health Itachi could probably take on this upgraded Sasuke.
575: Using Heroic Willpower, Onoki resists Madara's technique to put him to sleep...and then blasts away the entire landscape with Jinton. Which also decimates Madara's Susano'o and leaving him with the first real injury he'd suffered that wasn't self inflicted.
Madara states that he let himself get hit by Onoki since he could've absorbed the attack but wanted to show them Hashirama's face to make them give up.
576: After multiple pages of Madara insulting her skills as a Senju, medic-nin, and kunoichi, Tsunade gives him a Shut Up, Hannibal! by telling him that even if she can't use the Wood Release or heal herself without medical ninjutsu, if he thinks she's just a weak kunoichi, he's got another thing coming.
577: Madara gets another Shut Up, Hannibal! from Tsunade. She smashes through his Susano'o on her own and Onoki and A hit the other side. Even Madara said her Super Strength is greater than A's. And Mei is strong enough to counter Madara's area covering Katons!
578: From Tsunade surviving Madara's MokutonFATALITY with an instant healing technique and Madara whipping out the Tajuu Mokuton Bunshin no Jutsu (giving even Naruto's iconic and Biju-powered Kage Bunshins a run for their money), I'd say these pale in comparison to this exchange between Kabutomaru and Itachi:
Sasuke reminds Itachi that he's always said "later, later" when it comes to Sasuke... so Sasuke going to help him beat Kabuto (without killing him) so he gets his answers now. Maybe a Heel Face Turn isn't impossible anymore... It other words the Uchiha brothers team up for the first time.
579. We start to get a taste of Kabuto's full abilities, him dancing around Sasuke and Itachi's Susano'o, showing he mastered Hozuki Clan techs...Uzumaki Clan techs...and Jugo's clan's techs. And then he reveals his Super Mode...Sage Mode Snake Style!
Put simply, if you can make ItachiUchiha go Oh Crap, you're doing something awesome.
In chapter 581 Kabuto says he and Sasuke are not so different because they both wish for the destruction of the Leaf Village and says he should join him. In response, Sasuke says "I'm not like you".
Chapter 582: Kabuto lands a devastating blow on Itachi before he can set up Izanami, by exploiting his need to protect Sasuke. If Sasuke wasn't there, or if Itachi was alive? He'd be under Kabuto's control again or dead!
Itachi also responds to Kabuto saying the "Uchiha are nothing" by telling him that he reminds him of his past self and because of that he will lose.
Chapter 584: After Orochimaru hit Kabuto's Berserk Button by revealing the plan that he was supposed to be killed by Mother, Kabuto managed to push the chair Orochimaru sat in over and repeated slashed into his chest.
Chapter 585: Kabuto bisects Itachi just as he's about to activate Izanami. Not to mention Kabuto shows he's mastered all the DNA he's gotten...which includes the Sound 4 and Orochimaru.
Chapter 586: Itachi activates Izanami which traps Kabuto in an endless loop.
