Ebisu Returns: Naruto's Toughest Training Yet!

At the Konoha Hospital, Naruto hopes to reach Kakashi through Sasuke's room, but Kakashi announces that a superior instructor will take over his training, and Ebisu steps in to claim the role. Naruto grumbles at being coached by a man he considers weaker than himself and starts to bring up the time he beat Ebisu with his Harem Technique, only for the tutor to clamp a hand over his mouth and buy his silence with a meal.

Once Kakashi departs, Ebisu dares Naruto to escape him, promising to quit as his tutor if he manages it, which would also free Kakashi to teach the boy directly. Naruto's attempts, from transforming into a billboard woman to scattering shadow clones in every direction, all fail against Ebisu, who conjures his own clones and runs the real Naruto down. Treating him to ramen at Ichiraku, Ebisu breaks down his chakra problem: Sakura spends exactly what a jutsu needs and Sasuke a touch more, while Naruto burns far beyond it. Naruto counters that he can still pull off feats the other two cannot, which Ebisu chalks up to the Nine-Tailed Fox's power being within his reach.

They head to a hot spring town so Naruto can train on walking across the water's surface. He repeatedly tumbles in, but grasps the basics fast enough that Ebisu revises his opinion and privately deems him an excellent Leaf ninja. Ebisu then catches a white-haired man peeping into the women's bath and moves to attack, only for the stranger to summon a frog and knock him out with ease, recognized by Ebisu an instant before he falls. Having seen his elite instructor dispatched so swiftly, Naruto is left stunned.

The episode is number 52 of the original Naruto anime, adapting chapters 89 and 90 of the manga, and it belongs to the Chunin Exams storyline. It aired in Japan on October 1, 2003, and in English on September 16, 2006. Its trivia notes it was the last English dub episode broadcast on Adult Swim's Toonami. The opening theme is Far Away and the ending theme is Viva Rock: Japanese Side.