Naruto chapter 498: JEEZ MOM KNOCK BEFORE YOU JUST WALTZ IN MY SOUL LIKE THAT
Our chapter opens with Naruto and his mother deep in conversation. Specifically the conversation of who the hell are you and what are you doing inside my soul. Mom lets out some remarkably eerie laughter and tells him to guess. Naruto guesses wrong, Mum pops him one.
Haha, domestic abuse is funny!
Anyway, turns out Kushina's apparently been a little hot-blooded and semi-violent since birth. So she's basically a female version of every ridiculously manly mecha pilot in the history of anime. I'm going to have to think long and hard about whether or not that's actually kinda hot. Anyway, that's where Naruto must get it from, but the genes are obviously watered down because Naruto sucks and his mom is actually kinda cool. Oh, you hadn't pieced it together, Mr. Hero? That's right, she's your mom. You really don't get how shonen works, do you?
HUG'D.
...Y'know what, I'm gonna have to punch something for that. Emotion has a very hard time building up if hugging is the solution to every damn problem he comes across. Just for that, Naruto will be referred to as....
*Wikipedia Run*
...Tenderheart Bear for the rest of this recap.
Meanwhile on the outside, the MAGICAL SOUL HUG has halted Naruto Tenderheart's transformation. Kushina promises to chat with the kid later, then launches an assault....
Wait, how many innermost beings does this kid have? He's talking to his mother's spirit inside himself fighting the Kyuubi's influence inside himself. Apparently he has a Russian Doll Soul.
Anyway, Kushina reinforces the assault on Kyuubi, thus proving that Tenderheart can't overcome any of his own obstacles without like five people providing him with handicaps a decade in advance. He then comments on how hot his own mom okay seriously Kishimoto. Incest is creepy. And Tenderheart is not a "Hunk", so shut up.
Also, Kushina talks like a valley girl when she's flustered. Strange verbal tic.
Minor flashback occurs, featuring how Tenderheart's parents met. I'm not entirely experienced in the ways of romance, but I'm pretty sure that's one of the two things most kids absolutely do not want to know about their parents, second only to how their own conception came about. Anyway, then met up in Ninja school and Kushina aspired to greatness. Tenderheart then makes yet another remark assuring me that his bloodline should end here and now. Sorry, Kushina, I blame it on your hubby. Furthermore, all the boys made fun of Kushina when she was young. Then she beat the everloving shit out of them. Dammit, why can't she be the main character?
Minato wanted "Everyone to acknowledge [him] and become a great Hokage". So apparently his goal is to get noticed, and then let everyone else run the village (Granted, I blame this misinterpretation on the translators rather than Kishimoto himself). Anyway, blah blah boring Hansel and Gretel plot Kushina's hair is a terrible analogy for an old Japanese proverb.
Kushina concludes by declaring that she likes to say one thing to men who like her hair in general; "I love you".
I will not make an incest joke here, because this is a perfectly healthy sentiment between mother and son (not so much with HEY MOM YOU'RE A TOTAL BABE). I will, however, point out that considering how many men consider red hair attractive, this seems like a very loose condition for undying affection.
As the chapter concludes, Tenderheart gives himself a truly terrible nickname. The end.
