God I don't know about you guys but this whole fight was completely unsatisfying..and it's not just because the bad guys won for once.

Usually when the enemy ups the level of the battle, the good guys are supposed respond in kind. You know, with some super new technique or hell, just plain ingenuity! Instead, Asuma had like no bags of tricks in his arsenal besides that exploding ash cloud, while Shikamaru just ends up temporarily pushing that immortal guy out of his circle. Who needed to play a million chess flashbacks just to figure THAT strategy out??

In short, this arc was two bad guys demonstrating new techniques on some weak punching bags, with none of the classic evenly-matched give n' take. And they won't say why Hidan's immortal, or what makes Kakuzu so badass, and they don't even tell you who the King of the chess pieces is. I dunno, I just don't know why Asuma, who I thought was cool, had to die in such an pwnage, helpless fashion. He didn't redeem himself AT ALL. And now after two weeks, this episode just shows him dying/flashbacks, followed by next week's customarily boring funeral episode.

This arc started with two unbelievably cocky bad guys, and it finishes with two of 'em still cocky. DAMNITOL!!!