Rock Lee’s Springtime of Youth 09: as if to prove itself against the anime adaptation, this was another great chapter. The jokes about the Hyuuga looking the same, Neji as master of tsukkomi (even against clothing), Hinata’s way of running off and the bizarre sight Naruto came across all made me chuckle. The only thing that was a bit weird was Akamaru’s…yeah.

Naruto 581 had some of the nicer art in Naruto for a while – but it ended on some ridiculous new power pulled out of nowhere (guh) and a whole lot of people coming to realisations that should have been obvious and just make these great ninja geniuses sound really slow. And I don’t know how Kishimoto will get out of this without Sasuke either giving up on his goals (which will cost the title its big showdown) or just totally, wilfully misunderstanding his brother.