I gave up on it after Itachi died, but I feel like the pressure of being one of the most popular mangas of his time and the weekly deadlines affected his storytelling since pre-shippuden was p good

yeah i was thinking like. after part one the plot went in a direction that was literally too big for him to handle well especially with such a huge universe and cast, esp since he seemed pretty set on focusing on sasuke and naruto from the beginning