Pretty good episode, even though it's somewhat re-hash. They did a good job of setting things up and showing some detail to flesh out the scenes. Story was predictable with the Sand ninja needing help, otherwise how could the Konoha ninja "return the favor".

Animation was good at times, lackluster at times. You can really see the difference in animation quality when they showed the Sound 5 flashbacks.

Can anyone translate what Shikamaru wrote on the tree and the then bugs consumed?

To those of you questioning why the Konoha ninjas didn't attack in unison, I'd say the writers are trying to draw the arc out longer, so they can't defeat the enemies too quickly. Though I didn't like how they skimped on the Temari fight.