The Land of Vegetables Arc is the eleventh filler arc in the original Naruto anime and the tenth of the Post-Sasuke Retrieval filler arcs.
Short Summary
Naruto, Hinata, and Chōji are sent as an escort for a group of merchants in the Land of Vegetables as a favor to the land's Daimyō who was friends with Tsunade. It turns out that three of the merchants are a princess and her bodyguards on the run from their country due to the machinations of the Janin; a trio of ninja brothers determined to kill the girl so that they may complete their takeover of the land.
Tropes:
- An Ice Person: Renga’s abilities centers around forming ice crystals from moisture and channeling the light through it like a prism for attacks.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Played with, princess Haruna isn’t a nice person to say the least, courtesy of her upbringing, but she’s not outright malevolent for fun, but she’s downright callous when she thinks it’ll benefit her.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Haruna has essentially been traded off as a hostage for the benefit of her country. She’s quite cold towards others as a result and sees her subjects sacrifices for her own sake as justifiable, such as using peddlers as decoys. She gets better.
- Evil Chancellor: The minister of the land of vegetables aided the Janin in their plans to take over the country, they didn’t trust him and ended the partnership when they had control of the nation.
- King Incognito: Haruna, the princess of the Land of Vegetables survives this way.
- Magnetism Manipulation: Jiga uses magnetism to control his Kusarigama and applying it onto himself to float and maneuver.
- Making a Splash: Ruigas’ fighting style centers around water.
- Petal Power: Harunas’ bodyguards, Kikunojo and Yurinojo, uses techniques involving flowers: Flower Ninja Art. This type of techniqu also combines some Genjutsu into it.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Harunas’ disguise as the male Shun works quite well.
- Terrible Trio: The Janin are a trio of brothers. The eldest Renga was by far the cruelest, freely admitting that he’ll happily exploit anyone, including his own brothers to gain power and profit. Jiga willingly killed their youngest brother Ruiga so he and Renga could have more power split two-ways than three. Ruiga may seem like the least cruel by comparison, but he did manage to kill one of Harunas’ bodyguards.
