Naruto Shippuden

Akatsuki Suppression Mission - I loved it. Prob one of my favorite arcs in Naruto so far with some great character moments. First...we meet Hidan and Kakazu, members of the Akatsuki criminal organization. They are fantastic. I was worried they wouldn't live up to the others we've met so far like Sasori and Deidara, but I think Hidan is one of my favorite bad guys in the Naruto universe so far. He was so fun to watch be a psychopath...and him being devoutly religious to a god that demands slaughter was just great. His pairing with Kakuzu, a much stronger, more serious, in it for the money kind of unbeliever was fantastic. Their banter i found hilarious and I couldn't get enough of them. It's also an arc that features more of Shikamaru as the main protagonist rather than Naruto so thats a nice chance of pace. The action sequences felt very fleshed out too. It broke the classic naruto pattern of power move, long hesitation, power move, long hesitation. Hidan, Asuma and others fighting with weapons and actually throwing hands was a lot of fun to watch. I did think Choji and Ino felt kinda useless tho...wish they had done more than say characters names during moments of silence. All in all this arc was pretty simply, Konoha ninjas finding Akatsuki members nearby and confronting them and it was lots of fun to watch.