Did Kiba run away with Akamaru? That was what I was getting from massive interpretation of the images. No Shikamaru this week. Makes me sad.

Flame of Recca was good but the ending seemed sort of rushed. Kishimoto isn't doing bad right now. This seems more like character development time. After these series of fights, things should move along (at least that's what I think). We hadn't really seen much of anyone except Naruto and Sasuke, and it makes a boring story to only have two characters people care about.