It’s been interesting watching Naruto: Shippuden lately as it works the backstory for Obito as you kind of expected this time of the year to be another filler period rather than story material. That’s actually going to happen soon as February’s episodes are going to be all about an original arc called “Kakashi Shadow of the ANBU Black Ops’ piece. With the early information out there, the series director Hayato Date answered a fan question on Twitter about the arc and the director indicated that their plan is that after this arc is over, they’re going back to the source material and then hope to run with direct adaptations for the rest of the year.
With original creator Masashi Kishimoto indicating recently that he’s getting closer to the end, that could play well into tying all things together with only a bit of padding out. At the moment, the manga is about fifty-six chapters ahead of the anime, so it definitely gives them room to work with.
[Source: Crunchyroll]