I'm torn on this ep, as it had potential to be the best so far, but It had a few issues holding it back from being anything more than a 3.5. Zabuza's goal is to kill the old man, and he's in a perfect situation where Kakashi is out of play, and he can send his water clone to finish the kids. Why wouldn't he wanna get this over and done with, but instead he starts yapping. I'm gonna call it yapping, because it clearly lacks substance. At this moment of time, we do not need to be getting into full on conversations about this guys backstory to show how dangerous and strong he is, we can already see that because he trapped Kakashi. Whilst the kids are trying to hatch a plan, and are just talking to each other, his clone is literally just standing there instead of taking action. Anyway, that's not even my main issue with this confrontation, as again his goal is to just kill the old man, and the only thing stopping him is the kids who he's not afraid to kill but his clone just isn't killing them 😭. Ik this is fucking dark for something that could be described as a "kids show" but he has sasuke in his hand, where he could just choke him to death, but instead he throws him. Instead of using the sword on his back and stabbing him whilst he has his foot on top of Sasuke, again he starts yapping. When Naruto runs at him, he just kicks him away instead of you guessed it using the big ass sword on his back. Anyway all of that just felt very very unnecessary. Also Sakura rn is completely fucking pointless, I've heard rumours that Naruto can't write any good female characters, and it's started off like that. Literally her only purpose is to say "Sasuke 😥". Genuinely that's all she does. I've been shitting on the ep this whole time so I'll talk about some things I actually like about it. First of all, I liked the animation, even though its dated, and the action was good if you can look past the flaws. I really liked the Naruto flashbacks, and a nice little bit of development for his character, whilst reiterating his goals and motives. Although it was unnecessary, the dialogue was solid, and it was the most serious episode so far. I did still like it and it was enjoyable, but it made me annoyed at times, and I expected a little more since its the highest rated so far. 7.2/10