>>281115571
I know Editor-kun gets much credit, but it must have been so exciting for Kishimoto to write this. To finally have your rival characters square off, all the pieces of the storyboard are in place, in the Valley of the End where two previous masters dueled. If anything like in a Naruto rewrite I would've referenced who the two statues were earlier, don't wanna spoil. Either way Naruto really reaches some narrative peaks with this arc, any author should be proud. Hell I'm jealous, Kishi is even having some creative attacks drawn like clone whip.
Mangaka and authors often talk about having "that moment" that they were writing towards or really wanted to draw but had to build towards. That idea oozes off of a lot of this volume, even though most of Naruto was written by the seat of his pants week by week