It's always struck me as odd that the Rasen* supposedly has to be hand delivered and can't be thrown, however once it connects with an enemy it seems to detach from the user and continue doing it's destructive thing as the target is pushed away from the user. Once Naruto hit Kakuzu with Rasenshuriken the doom ball seemed to get stuck to him and he and it both flew a good 100+ feet before the doom ball evolved into giant doom cloud. If the technique can push the target that far before 'activating' I don't see why Naruto shouldn't be able to just throw it at someone and have it hit them and then turn into the doom cloud.

Anyway, I liked the ep overall. I'm glad Shikamaru got the lighter back, and I thought Hidan's mad ravings were decently done. However, I also thought that Kakuzu did a little too much standing around. I don't see the point of him just waiting around for them to confer and decide what to do as opposed to trying for an attack of some sort while Naruto was down the first time. It was like he was just waiting around for them to come up with a way to kill him.