Things have quickly taken a prehistoric turn in Naruto: Sasuke’s Story—The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust as dinosaurs have entered the universe. It has been slightly funny that because this is the first exposure to dinosaurs in the Naruto Universe that both Sasuke and Sakura are just referring to all of them as dragons. That funny bit aside the whole plot with Zansūru’s plan to control the Land of Redaku has picked up. What we don’t know is how this circles back to Sasuke and Sakura’s search for information on the Sage of Six Paths, Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki. Let’s find out what happens next in part two of Naruto: Sasuke’s Story – The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust Chapter 7.
CREATIVE TEAM
Original Story Writers: Masashi Kishimoto and Jun Esaka
Manga Writer & Artist: Shingo Kimura
SYNOPSIS
The dinosaurs go on a rampage killing various prisoners at the Astronomy Research Institute. Sakura returns and immediately saves the remaining prisoners from being killed and has them leave for a safe location.
Sakura then searches Zansūru but finds nothing related to the revival jutsu.
Continuing her search Sakura runs into Jiji (one of Sasuke’s cellmates), who asks about what is going on. Sakura quickly explains how Zansūru is bringing dinosaurs back to life using fossils.
Hearing this Jiji shockingly hugs Sakura. Jiji then stabs Sakura with a poison-laced knife that leaves Sakura paralyzed.
Jiji reveals he has been working as a Zansūru plant in the prison and takes the polar particles that Sakura was caring for. Even though Sakura reminds him of his ex-girlfriend named Margo since she is not her Jiji kicks Sakura to the side.
Jiji then uses his jutsu to revive another dinosaur he dubs “Titan” (a Brachiosaurus). Jiji then has Titan start destroying the building Sakura is in. End of chapter.
REVIEW
Up to this point Naruto: Sasuke’s Story – The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust Chapter 7 has been a solid story. But this second part of chapter seven is the first time Masashi Kishimoto, Jun Esaka, and Shingo Kimura dropped the ball. And unfortunately, they drop the ball so far that it they lose sight of it completely.
Unlike the sixth chapter, which was similarly split into two parts, you can see how Naruto: Sasuke’s Story – The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust Chapter 7 suffered by being split in half. Because of this structure, the urgency isn’t as heavy as it was in the first part. Even when the prisoners are running for their lives Sakura saves them with no problem. That is certainly a problem for this story as Sasuke and Sakura are clearly overpowered compared to the threat level Zansūru actually is.
Because of Zansūru and his dinosaurs turn out to be more annoyances than anything else Kishimoto, Esaka, and Kimura must create a scenario for why Zansūru can gain an advantage. That unfortunately makes it appear they had to force to make Sakura look weak by having her drop her guard and be kicked aside by the random prisoner Jiji. This is by far the worst move that the creative team could’ve made.
Especially in the world of Naruto where we’ve seen how there have been various ways, including new techniques and bloodlines, to power up new threats that are not at all used here. Instead Sakura in a moment that makes her look foolish drops her guard letting Jiji, who really is just a random guy, hug her. This is something a veteran ninja like Sakura should’ve immediately picked up as being odd and not allowed an opening to get poisoned in such an obvious way.
This definitely goes into how Sakura has never been given proper development throughout the history of Naruto. While has had her moments at the end of the day this is the Naruto and Sasuke show. And in this case, Sakura is yet again placed in a spot to be saved by Sasuke, even though she is at a point where she has become a respected and powerful ninja. Jiji kicking to the side is just emblematic of how terrible this entire second part of chapter seven was for Sakura.
Making it worse is that this was all Naruto: Sasuke’s Story – The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust Chapter 7.2 was about. There was no further development in the greater Zansūru plot. The lack of balance with the page count given just further makes how this entire second part was to make Sakura look as bad as possible. There was nothing more to do.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Naruto: Sasuke’s Story – The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust Chapter 7.2 is by far the worst chapter of this entire series. There is no plot or character progression. All Masashi Kishimoto, Jun Esaka, and Shingo Kimura succeed in doing is further damaging Sakura’s character as someone that even after becoming an adult is only around to be saved by Naruto and Sasuke. The next part of this story will need to do a lot of work to recover from this absolute dud of a chapter.
Story Rating: 1 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 3.5 Night Girls out of 10
