Confession time: I was the last of my geek friends to read Naruto. I’d loved anime and manga since I first watched DBZ (good times!) and I was just as obsessed with the Japanese Arts as the rest of my group. This was a good few years ago, back when an official Naruto dub was only a gleam in the producers’ eyes, and I held an enduring suspicion of anything that was too popular. [Conspicuously adjusts glasses]

Yet when I finally started, I realized that (sometimes) popular things are popular for a good reason. Naruto has ninja with incredible powers, tragic back-stories, and giant monsters—that’s a nice chunk of fun right there! By the time the Akatsuki started showing up, I knew that I was hooked for life. And let me tell you, this volume is a serious nostalgia bomb for yours truly!

For those who haven’t heard, 3-in-1’s are little manga omnibuses that give you three volumes worth of manga for just $14.99—roughly half of what you’d spend if you bought each separately. Naruto 3-in-1 Volume 6 contains Naruto Volumes 16, 17 and 18, so give it a shot if your collection’s missing a few!

Kicking off with the finale of Orochimaru’s attempted destruction of the Leaf Village, Naruto and Gaara exchange their final blows. Elsewhere, the Third Hokage falls, and, defeated, Orochimaru escapes, though not without losing something near and dear to his heart—the use of his arms.

The good news is that, now that the snake guy’s taking a breather, we get to see the epic new villains: the Akatsuki. And who better to introduce the group than my personal faves, Itachi and Kisame? Seriously, these guys are amazing! Itachi can lock you up in your worst nightmare with one eye, then burn you up with unquenchable fire with the other. And, of course, he just oozes AWESOME! (Sure, slaughtering his entire clan and putting Sasuke on the dark path to vengeance adds a bit of a dampener on his coolness quotient, but hey—nobody's perfect!) And Kisame…he’s one smooth criminal who will hit and strike anything in his way with that crazy sword of his. Rock on, you magnificent villains!

Speaking of new characters, we also meet another of my personal favorites, the lovely slug princess herself, Tsunade!  Now that Hidden Leaf has lost the Third and Forth Hokages, it’s time for a Fifth; Tsunade, last of the Three Great Ninja, is the only viable candidate. (Jiraiya’s not interested, likely because he’s much too busy mass-marketing his literary forays into perversion.) Trouble is, the Princess is nowhere to be found.

Tsunade cannot leave the betting parlors alone even though her gambling skills are roughly equal to the average gastropod’s knowledge of ergonomics. She keeps the loan sharks at bay by hiding her identity beneath permanent appearance-altering jutsus, so it’s up to Jiraiya to track her down.

While on their hunt, Naruto finally gets the chance to start training his (future) signature move, the Rasengan. For readers familiar with Shippuden, it becomes seriously surreal to watch him struggling so hard to learn his signature trick.

Unfortunately, Jiraiya’s not the only one after Tsunade. Turns out Orochimaru hasn’t given up on his inalienable right to bear arms, and believes that since Tsunade’s the best healer, she can help him. And he’s willing to pay a very fancy price—the resurrection of her dead brother and boyfriend…this guy has a talent for kicking people in the teeth, doesn’t he?

All in all, this is a really solid chunk of storyline. Epic battles, awesome intros, and several plot-points that’ll have major payoff years in the future. And if there's a hole in your colleciton, or you're trying to get a friend into the series, these 3-in-1s are just what the doctor ordered. 

Naruto 3-in-1 Vol. 6 is available now at VIZ.com.

by Chris Turner