A really good episode. It makes me happy to be able to say this after the Asuma-Akatsuki fight, which left me unsatisfied. The artistic (direction included) aspect of this episode were pretty much perfect. No small thanks probably to the absence of one Naruto...

Who's Naruto's new captain, anyway? Maybe they pushed that troublemaker to Kurenai. Looking aftet that idiot is a full-time job, after all, so she would have no time to mourn Asuma too deeply and be lost in despair.