The Art of War: A beautiful Tragedy
Silence. In empty space – another dimension, far away from the commotion of war – two high class shinobi face each other off: Kakashi versus Obito. No words are wasted. Only the fists talk. The hits echo through the space as the eerily beautiful fight choreography flows over the screen. Slowly and quietly tragic music fades in, as the memories of their sparring sessions of their childhood smoothly intercut with the ongoing fight. Rivals once, deadly enemies now. Young Kakashi wins, but when young Obito reaches his hand out for the handshake, old Obito pushes him back as he charges Kakashi with a final blow.
Kakashi, a man haunted by his many errors in the past and in many ways stuck in it must fight his old friend Obito, now detached from it. What’s so great about this fight is its presentation. Of course, this is a “Sakuga Moment”, which means the producers put more money into the scene as usual and hired a more prestige animation team. But more than that, the decision of using silence at the beginning of the fight, the excellent choice of music “Scene of a Disaster” by Yasuharu Takanashi and the relatively simplicity of the fight all add weight to this moment (verlinken zu “What is a Moment”). Of course, the tragic backstories of the two adversaries and their intertwined past add to this weight emotionally. At this point the series is close to an end, and loosing Kakashi is a real possibility, filling the fight with real tension. After all, why should there be such a heavy moment, if nothing important would happen? Unfortunately, that is an only weakness of this fight, since there are no real consequences to it. Both end up surviving and while Kakashi is taken out of the war for a while, he joins it later again in full strength. Obito even immediately rejoins the war and through a transformation becomes an even bigger threat to Naruto and the team.
Yet, the setting and the presentation, the importance of both characters and their familiarity with each other make this one of my all-time favourite fighting scenes.