Naruto Episode 201: Multiple Traps Countdown To Destruction

This is yet another one of the infamous dragged-on-for-more-than-a-year series of fillers and this particular ep ends the Gennou-the-trapmaster saga.

The rookie 9 battle it out with old man Gennou, trying to dispel his carefully set out traps of gastronomic proportions and ending his spree of evil. Once they discovered his actual goal was to blow up Konoha's version of Mount Rushmore in the quest of burying the village for dead, rather than blowing up the actual village per se as we were previously led to think, they wasted no time in demonstrating teamwork and camaraderie in typical Naruto-style.

After foiling Gennou-san's final most disastrous twist in his weebil plans, old man Gennou dies... Shikamaru discovers a well-worn picture of Gennou's son which slipped from his now-lifeless clutch and does a double take. The dude looks like Naruto! And when all is said and done, it was revealed that the genius trap-master had intentionally made his exploding tags defective so Konoha wouldn't have actually been destroyed anyway. All because he met his late son's look-alike ie. Naruto outside Ichiraku one fateful day in Konohagakure, and altered his plans knowing he didn't have long to live. And thus ensued his large-scale treasure hunt with his 'son' as a last happy memory of sorts before he had to depart the world.

After all, as Chouji so aptly puts it,

"Anyone who enjoys eating Ichiraku ramen can't be a bad guy"

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Mmm, ramen. ^_~

PS: Next Naruto ep is the last on the Wed timeslot. The one after is a 3-episodes-back-to-back 90 min special on the 5th of October (whee~~ my birthday! I sense an indulgent spree...of the retail kind ^_~) and this marks Naruto's move to the Thursday timeslot. The week after will be a 60 min special and then a 2 week hiatus before ep 206 come October 19th! I'm hoping all these milestones mean that the end of the filler run will be abound!=D