Last week Naruto closed out the Tsunade Arc, which ended with Tsunade beating Orochimaru pretty badly. With that behind them, the gang heads towards the leaf village. On the way they make a stop at a hot springs for some rest and relaxation. While everyone is relaxing at the hot springs, two ninja appear from a village where Tsunade ran up a huge debt. With Tsunade's refusal to pay, Naruto decides to help the ninja get Tsunade to pay her debt by pretending to be kidnapped and holding himself for ransom. Instead of Tsunade handling the situation, Shizune decides to handle it herself by posing as Tsunade herself using a clone Jutsu.
What ensues is basically a cat and mouse game of Naruto trying to get at Tsunade's red suitcase and Shizune trying to handle the problem before Tsunade figures out that anything is wrong. Jiraiya wasn't given much to do either; he basically spent the whole episode in a hot tub with old women inside with him. Of course everything ended up being okay, and it turned out Tsunade had paid the debt a long time ago. It was sad though, because the two ninja had basically been searching for Tsunade for three years for basically no reason.
Well not every episode of Naruto can be important, and this episode was basically just something to give them to do, so we didn't have to see them just walk. The episode definitely wasn't anything great, but it was at least somewhat entertaining. Tsunade and Naruto have really great chemistry, and it's always fun to watch them interact; and even though it was Shizune posing as Tsunade, it honestly felt like she was the real Tsunade.
We were even treated to clone Naruto's being chased by clone Tsunade's. There was nothing great about this episode, and there isn't a doubt that it'll be something that we probably won't remember when we look back at great Naruto episodes, but it was a nice little adventure on the way to the leaf village. Next episode the gang finally make it back to the leaf village, so Tsunade will be able to heal Kakashi and Sasuke and Rock Lee. It's been a long time since we've been to the leaf village, so it'll be cool to see some faces we haven't seen in a while.
