yeah, back off the kid. he's new and jumping all over him is pretty shitty, not to mention borders on breaking the rules.

and, getting back on topic.... um... well, yeah, this episode sucked, pure and simple. i wound up watching parts of it while searching for the Gaara/Kankuro scene, and am still amazed at how poor the quality of the animation has gotten. i also couldn't care less about the villains, new characters and plots. not only are they irrelevant to the story, but they're poorly written and poorly executed. if this was any other show, and they had content like the past two years or so have had, the show would probably be canned and people fired and cast out of the industry.