Naruto, Vol. 38

In this volume Naruto and the gang finishes of 2 of the Akatsuki members and naruto shows off his new technique Rasen Shuriken. But more importantly we get to see a more importantly we see a more mature and more powerful Sasuke. Orochimaru is very ill and needs Sasukes body for, ut Sasuke has other plans. Sasuke shows off a new technique on Orochimaru with his chidori which is in a form of a sword. Atfer successfully taking Orochimarus power Sasuke forms his own crew. Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo(where the curse mark is originally from). A great volume instead of the editing, besides that an awesome manga.

*Note that the following review may contain spoilers* I have been collecting the Naruto manga from volume 28 which, as far as the anime adaptation is concerned, the start of Naruto Shippuden. I have to say that I'm a little disappointed with Viz's editing habits in these volumes. For the purpose of this review I will only discuss the editing that is done in this volume, not the other ones. Aside from some of the swearing being toned down there are two major incidents of editing done in this volume. The first being on the eighth page of chapter 347. Konohamaru shows off his improved version of "sexy justsu," to Naruto which involves two naked women holding each other. In the original version you can actually see the women's faces and bodies, although even in the original nothing explicit is shown. In this version you can only see the women's silhouette's. There is another similar instance two pages later involving Sasuke and Sai in similar positions. Again, you can only see their silhouette's. This editing is a problem for me but not really a deal breaker. The manga continues from where we left off in volume 37 with Naruto and company battling it out with an Akatsuki member. This particular volume contains a very important scene involving Sasuke and Orochimaru; it is so important that I cannot talk too much about the second half of the volume without spoiling everything unfortunately. If you have been keeping up with this series until now there should be no reason why you wouldn't purchase this volume as well. Viz has included two bookmarks in this volume featuring Naruto on both of them. There are also bookmarks in volume's 39 and 40. Volume 41, however, does not contain bookmarks but stickers. As of this review 41 volumes of Naruto have been released in America and come April Volumes 42-44 will be released. At this point America will have all but caught up to the Japanese releases.