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By now, you have most likely read the final two chapters of the Naruto manga.

I'm sure we're all feeling really confused and disappointed in the ending, particularly about how badly Kishimoto butchered his own story and characters.

But I would like to say that I will keep Heaven and Earth running for as long as people want to post here.    It really hurts to see the manga end in that way, but many of us have great memories here, and we all met new friends here. 

To everyone who is staying, and everyone who is leaving, thank you all so much for your support and for being part of H&E for the past ten years!  You have all made this a special place, and you will always have a place in my heart.

Thank you!

Since we are already starting to see posts telling other members to 'get over it,' let's get one thing clear about Heaven & Earth, from this point forward:

No one on this site will be criticized for the length or outpouring of their grief.

Got it? If you badger or harangue or insist for people to 'get over it' or 'just calm down,' no matter how well intentioned your tone, YOU WILL BE TREATED AS A TROLL AND BANNED. 

This is a haven for NS shippers and will continue to be. If you cannot be supportive during this time, then you can choose not to respond. This site is not your personal forum to criticize others and how they handle their grief.

The NS ship didn't die. There are plenty more NS comments and theories, fan arts and fictons to come. H&E will be here to support all of it.

And unfortunately, though the manga ended, the Naruto story isn't over yet. It's still going, just in other forms. H&E will be here as we wade through the rest of the anime and the movie and the New Era Project, whatever that may be. 

Going forward, let's all pledge to keep this site as a haven for NS shippers, and work together to limit criticizing, non-supportive posts. This is not a sunken ship. It is battered, but it still floats. A botched ending after 698 chapters of develpoment doesn't erase all the NS moments, parallels and foreshadowing that came before. 

Now more than ever, let's make this site a haven, a safe place in the storm for NS shippers. Let's all work together to make sure it stays that way. Please sound out if you feel the same!

I don’t even know where to begin with this. First of all I want you guys and girls to read what I’m about to write here and pay very close attention. And the most important thing, think about what I’m saying.

Secondly as you know or don’t know I am a NaruSaku fan. However I’m a Naruto fan first. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t have bothered to read/follow this story in the first place for so many years. I care about the story, the characters, the messages it tries to send more than I care about Narusaku.

Before I start I recommend all of you to go right now on Google and search for “how not to write and ending” or “the do's and don'ts of endings” so you can understand what a writer should do in an ending and he/she shouldn’t do.

Ever since I read this ending, I’ve been desperately trying to understand what the hell I just read. Every single time I think about it I get headaches. And I can’t believe this catastrophe. The first time I saw the spoilers and I said to myself that those are fake, but then the chapters got released and I actually saw that those spoilers weren’t fake. I sort of went in a sort of depression, not really a depression but you get what I mean, I was confused and I felt really strange for about a week and wasn’t able to think properly. This is what happens when you allow yourself to get attached emotionally to a fictional story. I’m never going to do that ever again. But after I let go of my emotions and let myself think properly and objectively look at this ending. I came to a simple conclusion. This ending makes no sense whatsoever.

Now you might say well you’re just a Narusakutard that can’t accept that Naruto and Sakura didn’t end up together and now you’re just kittening about it. But like I said above I’m a Naruto fan first and a NaruSaku fan second. Throughout this rant I’m constantly going to remind you of that in order for you to understand that I care about the story and everything else more than I care about NaruSaku.

So let’s begin. Naruto’s ending is the worst ending in the history of storytelling. You see everything an ending should be like provide resolution, resound the themes, and provide closure on the sub-plots and the characters. Give some of these characters their moment to shine. All these things it should do it fails at, doesn’t care to or does something completely ridiculous. The characters are completely out of character (in case you have no idea what that means, it means when a character behaves outside their established personality), the lore is just destroyed, things happen without any explanation or exposition. It’s unbelievably poorly put together. Or it’s just one giant lie, more on that later.

Remember this isn’t me kittening that my favorite pairing didn’t happen therefore the story sucks. It’s something so much bigger than the pairings.

You see an ending should answer previous questions that were raised during the story. This ending not only that it didn’t bother to answer the questions that were raised but it completely ignores them like these things never even existed. Plus it actually gave us more questions. Nothing got answered in this ending and nothing makes any sense in this so called ending.

First let’s look at this ending and see these brand new questions. But before that I’m going to talk about lore. Lore is established information and knowledge we learned about the universe in which the story takes place. When a question of lore is raised in an existing scene either contradicts pre-established info or creates new lore with no explanation. Expecting the reader to believe it somehow. The first problem is called a retcon, the second is poor exposition. In the former this is what happens when the writer is unable to remember the details he/she wrote. In the latter the writer is to lazy to establish new ideas properly through basic techniques by using details and exposition.

Ok enough with the pairings. Now some people said that Kishi sold out, that he sold out and that’s why we got a NH/SS ending. Ok that would explain those two pairings; however it doesn’t explain all the other crap that is present in this ending.

For example: Why did Naruto gave up, why he treats his own son like that. Some of you might find it funny that Naruto’s son is acting exactly like Naruto was when he was a kid. You’ll say it’s a parallel, it’s entertaining. However that’s exactly the problem. Naruto changed. Look at the child’s behavior. It’s very clear that he’s being neglected. You can’t possibly tell me that Naruto the character that understands pain, suffering and loneliness better than anyone else. The character that we’ve seen so many times that craved for a family.

Finally has one and completely ignores his son and wife. Remember we also saw how much Naruto wanted a family in Road To Ninja, we saw how happy that made him. And now he would rather drink, eat ramen from a can and go on Facebook than spend time with his own son. There’s no way in hell that this is Naruto. This isn’t the kid that we’ve followed for so many years; this isn’t the same character that was filled with love, that showed caring and love even to his worst enemies. Remember back in the day when Naruto acted badly. Iruka would’ve talked to him and treat him to Ichiraku. The third Hokage would’ve just laughed. None of them would’ve treated Naruto like he treats his own child.

But the way Naruto treats his own son is exactly the same he was treated by the villagers. Naruto didn’t become the solution to the problem, he became the problem. He’s own kid is treated like trash. He tells his kid to deal with it because he would rather spend time in his office doing nothing; I mean really what was he doing? Drinking, eating ramen and going on Facebook. His own son even wrote on the Hokage monument “sh*tty dad”. That’s catastrophically bad. And this shouldn’t even exist.

I mean ok he ended up with a girl he never loved. But why should the kid be punished because he never had the guts to tell Sakura how he really feels. He just gave up.

To be continued.

In your honest opinion, do you think Kishi sold out and gave in to NH/SS? Cause now that you mentioned the fact that it was a strategic move by Kishi for Sakura to have thought of Sasuke when questioned by her fodder admirer, it seems to me he didn't sell out and that this was the course of action he had in mind all along. 

Here's what I can't get past.

Let's assume that as NS shippers we totally misinterpreted a number of Sakura's moments as regards Naruto.  

+ The fact that Naruto instinctively knew what Sakura wanted to hear about her forehead meant nothing.

+ Although Naruto was nearly killed by Gaara while fighting to save Sakura's life, Gaara found it a life-changing experience but Sakura was left unmoved and unimpressed.

+ Yamato didn't mean that Sakura felt true love for Naruto.

+ Despite her vow to not make anymore mistakes or keep getting things wrong, Sakura's confession to Naruto was nothing more than a manipulative half-truth to coax him out of danger.

+ Sakura wasn't talking about Naruto when she told the Lover-nin that she already had someone.

+ Instead of showing any concern or indication that Naruto was misleading himself thinking she was his girlfriend, Sakura hits him in the head in a comedic way -- even though she knows from Sai and her own observation during the confession that Naruto loved her.

+ The fact that Naruto acknowledged her strength and desire to fight as Team 7 while Sasuke offered nothing, Naruto's support of her achievement didn't really matter to her.

+ Despite Sakura's passionate identification with Naruto and his dream, she did not see herself as part of what he loved or what made him strong.

+ Despite indicating to Sai that she didn't trust Sasuke's motives when he returned, and admitting that her feelings for Sasuke were pathetic, Sakura did not hesitate to abandon Naruto's feelings for her when Sasuke made a sudden reversal at the end.

Okay.  So we were wrong about all of that.  Got it.  Likewise:

+ Although we never knew it, Sasuke was in love with or interested in Sakura all along.

+ When he originally left Konoha, saying she was annoying and then saying "thank you" really meant he loved her.

+ The times Sasuke tried to kill Sakura or was not interested in saving her because he deemed her inconsequential, it really meant that he loved her so much that he preferred she died so he could be hated.

+ When Sasuke was trying to kill Naruto as his "only friend," he wasn't mentioning Sakura because she meant so much more to him than a friend because he was in love with her.

+ At the end, Sasuke instinctively knew to focus his attention on Sakura's forehead after all, and reveal that he always loved her.  

So our interpretations of SS were completely wrong the whole time.  Okay.  I suppose it is technically arguable that all of those moments were misread by NS fans, and actually supported SS and we simply didn't see it because of our shipping blinders.

Okay.

But I submit that NS fans were persuaded by the main theme of the story to view NS as likely to succeed.  It wasn't so much that we ignored the possibility of SS, but why on Earth would we expect that at the end of the story Naruto's feelings and nindo would actually not mean anything?  That in the end, the hero's reward for his hard work, determination, and selfless love for his friend and girl would be rejection and heartbreak?

Naruto was in love with Sakura for the entire manga.  Hinata may have loved him, but he never returned her feelings.  He never even thought of her in a potentially romantic light once.  We as NS fans weren't blind to Naruto's feelings for Hinata; such feelings were never there.  

As I said on the other thread, the existence of this upcoming movie is a cheap, insulting retcon to explain how he falls in love with Hinata.  If it's necessary to show him falling in love with Hinata in a movie, it means he was never interested in her in the manga.  It means his love for Sakura existed until the last chapter, and was not only rejected in a disgusting manner but was never even addressed again.

I don't accept that NS fans were idiots with poor reading comprehension skills.  In a story bearing the hero's name as its title, and the hero therein is consistently characterized by his difficult past, his need to be loved and accepted, his determination, dedication to righteousness, his devotion to saving Sasuke, and his love for Sakura, it wasn't crazy to think Naruto would be the one to succeed in love.

Instead, Naruto is the only one who lost and ends up settling.  It makes me sick.

Hi guys, watch this, Thanks to meekosfreedom   http://meekosfreedom...ers-please-read

(I made a sketch)

huge pic

The real ending:

Sasuke: Hey, Naruto...you still awake?"
Sasuke turns to see Naruto not saying anything.
Sasuke: "Naruto?"

Naruto finds himself in a black void.
Naruto: "Where am I?"
Nothing seems to be around and walks up to a lonely campfire in the middle. He sits down and runs his fingers through his hair and only now noticing that his missing hand is back. He smiles, closes his eyes, and relaxes.
Naruto: "So...this is it, huh?" He sighs. "I have no regrets. Life wasn't so bad. I made some great friends and it was actually kind of fun. Well, maybe I do regret one thing...I regret not being able to tell her how I felt..."
Disembodied voice: "So go and tell her, honey."
Naruto: "Huh? Who's there?"
Minato and Kushina appear standing side by side smiling.
Naruto: "Mom? Dad?"
Kushina: smiling "Don't give up so easily. I told you to find a girl like your mother and you know who that is...so tell her."
Minato: "Son, listen to your mother who is probably smarter than both of us..."
Kushina: "Probably?" Kushina gives Minato the look
Minato: "Okay okay, you are smarter."
Naruto laughs and smiles at his parents
Naruto: "Mom...dad....thank you."
"Naruto....Naruto....Naruto...."
Black void fades

Naruto opens his eyes barely and see someone crying above him.
Sakura: "Naruto....please....Naruto wake up..."
Naruto: "Sakura-chan?"
Sakura smiles and is crying over him. She wipes her tears and hugs him
Naruto: "Easy, Sakura-chan." Naruto looks at Sasuke who is standing up next to them. "What happened?"
Sasuke: "Well...you died and Sakura brought you back. The First Hokage gave me his powers and I transferred them to Sakura to heal you."
Sakura is in his chest and looks down at his newly reformed hand. He then holds Sakura close.
Naruto: "Sakura-chan, I never got to tell you...."
Sakura: "I know...I know..."
They embrace lovingly and hold each other tight. Sasuke smiles looking at them and remembers Karin.
Naruto: "What about..."
Sasuke: "The others? They are being released as we speak. I did it while Sakura healed you."
Naruto: "Thank you, Sasuke."
Sasuke: "No...don't thank me...It's all you."
Kakashi appears
Kakashi: "Okay, everyone seems to be waking up from the tsukuyomi. Good work, Naruto. Come on, let's go home."
Sakura and Kakashi help Naruto up and help him to walk. Sakura looks around and notices Sasuke is gone.
Sakura: "Where did Sasuke go?"
Naruto: "Sasuke is going to go find his own journey..."
Sakura looks at Naruto and he stares back
Naruto: "...and we'll be here when he gets back".

Tsunade: "Oiy, what happened?"
Shikamaru: "We were released from the Tsukuyomi."
Ino: "I had such a great dream"
Kiba: "Me too."
Shino: "Hmmm...."
Hinata: "Naruto-kun freed us."
Tsunade: "Wait, where did Orochimaru and those three others get to?"

Sasuke is seen standing over a hill watching the sunrise. Karin and the rest of Team Taka walk up next to him
Karin: "What do we do now, Sasuke?"
Sasuke thinks of Naruto and smiles
Sasuke: "Where ever the wind takes us..."
They walk off.

Some years later
Naruto is at the Hokage desk and is writing in a book. The camera moves around and we see him older and him jotting something down.
Sakura: "You're gonna be late if you don't hurry up..."
Naruto looks up to see Sakura standing in the doorway wearing a doctor's coat and pregnant.
Naruto: "I'm sorry, Sakura-chan. I lost track of time and I was just finishing up."
Sakura: "Still the same Naruto."
Naruto gets up and walks over to her. They kiss and Naruto gently holds her tummy
Sakura: "I hope our son can be as great as you."
Naruto: "How do you know it is a boy?"
Sakura: "I am his mother, I can tell"
Naruto: "I still can't believe this is all real. it feels like a dream."
Sakura: "Well, believe it."
They smile at each other
Shikamaru shows up
Shikamaru: "Kage Naruto, the rest are waiting for you. This is a pain."
Naruto: "Sorry. Shikamaru. I can't believe peace can be achieved here and now."
Sakura: "Well, then you better hurry."
Sakura places Naruto's Kage hat on his head.
Sakura: "Now get going. They are waiting for you."

Naruto leaves for the meeting and is shown sitting down at the table looking around at all the other Kages and with Gaara smiling at him.

Naruto: "Welcome...everyone.."

Scene cuts back to Naruto's desk and is shown a book that reads "Tales of a Gutsy Ninja 2."
The end.

...

I. am. VERY disappointed in  you guys. Really, I am.  All I'm seeing on this thread is negativity, negativity, negativity.

So for now on, this thread is now CLOSED until further notice. Whenever any new legit info out, PM any of the mods/admins for permission to add/post it in here.

So I was thinking of how chapter 700 was more of an advertisement to part three rather than a conclusion to the series. A Reboot, but it shouldn't excuse Kishi of the awful way he handled it.

Right of the bat 700 started off in questionable fashion with Bolt seeking the attention of his classmates by loudly proclaiming about an amazing prank he's planned. While the intention was probably to establish 'Like Father, like son' , the execution raises eyebrows and the ramifications are awful.  

Kishi had established that Iruka and then Naruto resorted to become pranksters only as a way to seek attention, only to make people notice them. They were orphans and had no other alternative. So why would Bolt,  who has parents and a sister, do the same...? what does it tell you about Naruto and Hinata..? 

Quite simply, it was a cheap way of trying to establish the father-son similarity. But then Sarada...stalks ? Neither Sasuke nor Sakura were ever shown to stalk anybody as kids. So where does Sarada get this from..? Bolt is just like his father, Shikadai is shown to have the same lazy personality of Shikamaru... but Chouchou apparently doesn't get angry like Choji when called a 'fatty'.

Why so many inconsistencies..? 

Next we see Ino, Sai, Choji and Karui out in the field. I found it laughable that the best thing that Kishi could come up with for these families was the InoShikaChou combination again ! One generation was okay,two was pushing it but the same for even the third generation..?! So Lazy BUT even this cannot compare to the sheer laziness in which Rock-Lee was handled. The next gen kid whose name wasn't even mentioned is a carbon-copy of Gai and Lee.

Sakura wasn't spared from Kishi's evil clutches. Ino and Karui were outside with their husbands, Temari was catching-up with her brothers, Ten-Ten is working in her shop, Hinata is outside with her daughter, even Moegi is shown in the Hokage office..... but Sakura, the strongest and most-talented of all the Kunoichies, is dusting shelves and waiting for her-jackass of a husband, who has not a care in the world, to show up. 

" Naruto and Sakura mutually understood that they were not romantically interested in each other. So they had to be separated "-- Kishimoto's latest interview. Okay, so they were not in love but why should they be separated..? Sakura should be working and she should be there in the Hokage office by Naruto's side. 

But being close with Naruto would make Sakura a terrible woman I guess. She has to stay away from him and stay inside her house like a good waifu waiting for a husband who may or may not show up. Meanwhile , Sasuke can do whatever the hell he wants to. No rules bind a man like him    

So disgusting but none of these can compare to what followed. This has already been said countless times but that doesn't make Naruto's cold-hearted words to his son any less awful.

'' Dad, I just want you to notice me and spend time with me '' and the response..'' I know its hard for you.. but son, just learn to endure your loneliness '' . 

Kishimoto might as well have drawn a panel of him stabbing Naruto in the heart because he assassinated Naruto anyway. Why, Why on Earth would Naruto be so cold-hearted when he went through the same ? Why would he fail to understand his son when he spent so many years convincing everyone that he understood Sasuke's pain and suffering..?! 

Konohamaru reprimands Bolt but of all people, Iruka defends Naruto's actions. The same Iruka who had gone through the pain of loneliness, the same Iruka that shed tears in part 1 when he said -" I understand your pain Naruto, you feel lonely and it hurts and I could have been there for you more. I let you down. No one should have to suffer that pain ". Did Kishi forget this ? The same Iruka now says- " One day Bolt will understand " ......?!   

To cap it all off, when Konohamaru scolds Bolt , Naruto is shown to be thinking- ' Konohamaru, you did the same with the third in the past '. 

Are you kidding me now, Kishimoto ?!  Konohamaru did not trouble his grand-father because he felt lonely. He did so because he was tired of being called 'Honorable grand-son' and he wanted people to call him by his own name. Konohamaru only wanted a identity of his own. Its a complete joke that Kishi forgot this. 

Everything swept under the grand notion that Naruto is now a mature man and this is what I hate. So the matured Naruto believes that pulling pranks to seek attention is wrong and its better to just suck it up and 'endure' instead. Naruto is indirectly saying that the things he did as a child were silly ! 

Basically Kishimoto made Naruto mock his own painful childhood. He's not just mocking Naruto, he is mocking every one of us fans who sympathized with Naruto's loneliness and rooted for the kid to prove everyone wrong by becoming Hokage. Kishimoto, you hack ! Remind me again why we invested so much time following your manga...? On second thought, forget it. I don't want to hear any more bs that comes out of your mouth and tarnish the characters I loved.  

Like I said, we didn't read the manga wrong...and no I don't believe this bull that "I decided long ago that NH was the end pairing." That all sounds like excuses rather than reasons...and how can we be sure what is a truth and what is a lie anymore?

To me, the reason for all of this, makes sense in the context of way the manga was written. I don't think Kishimoto had a hand in writing the The Last movie at all or at leats the romance aspect of it. I think they forced his hand on the pairings and he had to make NH/SS canon because Studio Perriot made it in the movie. That is the only way to really explain any of it...and now he has to lie to try and cover the fact that the studio screwed up by saying "Yeah, this was all planned."

Call it a conspiracy theroy if you want to, but the fact that this idea that "all this was planned for a while" makes no sense in according to the context of the manga story itself just proves that someone is not telling the whole truth. There is too many red flags to accept this kind of crap and I can't believe anybody is. People lie all the time to better suit their case...why should Kishimoto be any different?

You all point it out yourselves "If NH was planned long ago, why did we get all these NS moments?" Because it wasn't planned long ago. It was probably only planned maybe in the last year or so and Kishi was forced.

I am going to quote V for Vendetta here: "Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."

 

Ofcourse they're not going to tell the truth. Not if it's going to make them, Hinata, or the new naruhina movie look bad. Like I said, the whole reasoning that naruhina was all made to make Sakura look good sounds like some sort of (bad) PR statement -- like all Sakura fans really have no right to question his  decision because it was written 'for her benefit'.

 

Now there's a big gaping hole that the parallels and foreshadowing has left. I think it's going to be quite obvious for people to see where this story was headed; maybe Kishimoto left it like this on purpose because he didn't like NH or SS himself, or maybe he couldn't be bothered to care in the end to even remove them from his story. Who knows.

 

 

Ofcourse, we'll never know if he actually flipped flopped or not, it's not going to look good or him or his story. But honestly, just because I'm a narusaku fan, it does not mean I have permanent shipping goggles that hinder my mind from interpreting literature.

 

There was absolutely no point putting in the love-letter nin scene if it was not about using dramatic irony to point out that the ideal Sasuke that Sakura loves does not exist. There is no point having several different characters point out Sakura's "feelings" towards Naruto if it was purely meant to be unrequited. None of the long-running parallels that have applied so well to Naruto and Sasuke (ending with them dying on top of Madara and Hashirama's statues, who were finally able to make the peace sign) were even addressed with Naruto and Sakura, even though the comparisons were there. Kishimoto could honestly not have made it less painfully obvious that Sakura was the girl Kushina talked about, both in the manga and RtN.

 

Instead we get Sasuke poking Sakura's forehead, which he wanted to disintegrate with the rest of her body only three chapters ago.

 

Honestly, there's just so much narusaku in the story that it leaves you feeling completely blindsided to see them not get together, or at least not get any closure.

I completely agree , I think the fact that he completely erased their bond NS  no interaction no nothing like they never existed like it never was a core part of the story  when they were so close and smiling around each other  hurts the most  , even in this movie you can see that they are to distant from each other  when that was never the case . Kishimoto and SP had to diminish NS bond completely erase it  so they can make NH/SS to even have a chance   and this is how we know that we aren't the ones reading it wrong but Kishimoto simply sell out . 

-nods- Every day and everytime they open their mouth it is always a different story, but the one thing they cannot just erase is the manga itself. No matter what they do they can not change any of it to fit their words. They would have to go back and rewrite 15 years of manga just to make this ending work and they can't do that. People won't accept that...at least I think they won't. The damage is already done and no amount of excuses or PR statements can fix it. They already dug their own grave and now I just hope it bites them in the ass. I already been told Naruto sales have plummeted and they seem to be trying to do "damage control" to save the movie PR, but it seems like people are not buying it.

This is why I am laughing now and why i don't accept this idea that we read it wrong. It's so easy to blame ourselves for misunderstanding it, but that only because people let what the assistant said get to them.

If you push someone enough to the point that they insult and blame you, then you know they know they were wrong. They just don't want to admit it.

Sorry for the long post - but all these comments are spot on.

WE DIDN'T READ IT WRONG. Please don't buy into that. This is exactly why this movie has been made.

Every creator makes choices about how h/she wants their work to be interpreted. NaruSaku is handsdown the most supported, foreshadowed and developed pairing in the whole 15-year creation. If you doubt this any of that development, then look at the fact that Naruto never stopped loving Sakura. Ever. Not once. Even his last words in 698, as the Naruto we knew and recognized, were "Thank you, Sakura-chan," words which are only ever used in a statement of love in this manga.

As part of a huge international brand, Kishimoto the author is a very small part of the larger picture. He is a cog in a very big machine. He's an important cog, to be sure, but he's really, really small in comparison to the whole thing. The only part he has any control over is the manga. That's it.

These are all handled by other staff and outside sources:

Manga - publishing, distribution, marketing, and the merchandise plus its advertising and marketing

Movie - written plot, casting, animation, marketing, scheduling of interviews and advertisements, ticket sale and promotions, and sales of merchandise, plus its advertising and marketing

- and this excludes all other ancillary staff necessary for getting that manga out the door.

Even though Kishimoto is sitting atop the one of the world's most popular manga, he has very little control of what's underneath him. And if its determined that the brand will make more money going one direction instead of another, then that's the direction they're going to go, whether Kishimoto wants to or not. 

And there is no way Kishimoto would ever be allowed to go out into the world and speak against the direction. Not if he wants to keep being on the payroll. And he knows understands that completely. Naruto is a BIG BUSINESS.

My point to this is that the manga, the one thing that Kishimoto has the most control over, was written for NS. Over and over and over again. Even up to its ambiguous end. I think at some point he knew that the ending was going to have to go toward NH. Whether that was 8 years ago or 2 we may never know. But he celarly had opportunities to build in NH and SS in a way that it didn't feel like a betrayal. Yet he still didn't. He continued to reinforce Naruto's connection to Sakura. 

I think he wrote what he wanted, sprinkled in enough Hinata interaction to string that story along (knowing there would be a movie in the future about it), and when it was time to end the manga, he tacked on the last two chapters. There is ZERO SasukeSakura development. There is ZERO mutual NarutoHinata development. There is consistent Naruto Sakura development.

Honestly, I think Kishimoto just gave up on his story. It's clear to everyone that any semblance of a plot stopped after the Pain arc. The war arc was nothing but filler character after filler character, with the sick train wreck of Obito's story in the middle. 

But Kishimoto could have developed any ship he wanted, yet he didn't. He chose to steadily build on NS. That lie of omission — not developing SS or NH when he had years to do it — tells us something: That NS was not as far behind as he claims it was. And interviews that sound conspicuously like damage control are not going to change that. His actions here speak a lot louder than his words.

He may be a sexist human being, and he be an author who royally f*d up his story in the end. But the NS development was there, consistently, steadily. From beginning to end. And that was Kishimoto's choice to include it, reinforce it, parallel it and foreshadow it.

And if this was a truly happy ending, then Kishimoto would have drawn a happy Naruto finally achieving his goal. Hokage with Sakura on his arm. But he didn't get it. And so Kishimoto didn't have the stones to illustrate anyone getting a romantically happy ending together. Not NH, nor SS. He just let it all fall apart, and the movie people will put together a new storyline out of the pieces that are left over.

I feel a lot of things about this ending: heartbroken, angry, disgusted, etc. But one thing I absolutely don't feel is wrong. NS is there, all the way through the manga. And the statement that fans were reading it wrong is just a lie to sell people on the movie and the new series that will spring from it.

http://www.chatte-ge...with-sasukarin/

I am done! I could've went a little big more in-depth with the second half but I cannot take it anymore, I need rest haha. Plus it's nothing I haven't established already in the beginning.

Hope you guys enjoy.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!

Grrr....one more LAP....

So, I finally read that recent interview with Kishimoto, and I've decided he's a complete tool.

Passive and insecure. After many attempts he struggled on a gimmicky storyline, but he had no idea how to carry on. His only special talent seem to be in making cliffhangers. But they aren't really cliffhangers if they lead the readers nowhere and contribute nothing to the story. They are just a giant flashing sign that the author is drowning.

No wonder he's gotten as far as he has in the commercial world. He's their yes-man. He's even admitted he's not capable of writing without good guidance, and once that left, he was rudderless. So that's why he so readily sold out his characters/story for popularity contests and editor/publisher suggestions.

As for Sakura and his 'not understanding why she was so unpopular'all I have to say is WHAT A COP OUT. A writer alone determines the fate of the character, not the reader. If he wanted her to be more popular, then he could have written her with more developed and complicated storyline. He should have made her more important to the story. This is his only job.

Instead he answers the questions as if he was powerless. Even when the interviewer suggests 'it was too late to drop her (Sakura) from the storyline' Kishimoto is ambivalent instead of outraged. This bonehead interviewer acts as if it's common knowledge that Sakura was just a frivolous part of the storyline. But she was intrinsic to it. It's Hinata that was the throwaway character (only built up by the anime). But instead of defending his work or explaining it, Kishimoto just meekly agrees. 

Kishimoto doesn't even understand his own work. He seems to me very passive and malleable. 

I mean, imagine dropping Hermione in the middle of the Harry Potter series, because the fans likes Luna Lovegood better? Dropping the main female lead for a secondary character who doesn't make a real contribution to the story until the end of the series. That's what the interviewer is suggesting!! But Kishimoto says nothing.

If Kishimoto had written a better story for Sakura, showing her development along with the rest, then her reception would have been different. Had he seen her story through to it's resolution, with her changing and evolving to love the Naruto as much as he had always loved her, then fans would have loved her. There is no mysterious formula here. Naruto's the hero, the story centers around what he wants. And part of his charm is that he's always loved this girl who has been just out of his reach. And through the whole story he's steadily closed that gap. It's Kishimoto who let down the story, not the characters.

The anime drove fans to Hinata, no one's in doubt of that. The manga simply didn't feature her enough to warrant any kind of real shipping. 

But Kishimoto is the one who made Sakura's unpopularity a reality. He's the one who stopped promoting her and writing for her. He's the one who's given her an ambiguous storyline in relation to Naruto and Sasuke — loving Naruto and going overboard for him, but then crying and begging for Sasuke.

Kishimoto wrote that.

He reinforced that ridiculous popularity of a throwaway character with no story, passive behavior and big boobs

No one else did. And blaming it, even obliquely, on the popularity of fans and pretending he had no control over what he was writing shows just how much of a tool he is. Literally.

Sometimes artists are visionaries, expressing their story as only they can. But sometimes the artist is just a pen, waiting for someone else's hand to guide him. This is Kishimoto. He may have started with a vision, but he long ago let go if it and gave over control to someone else. Now he's just a tool directed by the anime team, the publishers and the businessmen above him. 

He's mystified by Sakura's lack of popularity, but he doesn't even realize that he's the one in control of it. Instead he blames it on the fans. But reading beneath the lines, he knows the story has gone wrong. That's why people are still asking about Sakura, and he's still making excuses. He knows the story has unraveled, but he's can't admit that it's his own fault because he didn't stand up for his own work.

This is exactly what Miyazaki was talking about in that article. That the otakus and fans are driving the industry instead of the other way around. And he may have had Naruto in mind when he gave that interview.

I've gone through levels of closure since the end of the manga, and this interview is just another door closed for me. After this, I don't have any sympathy for Kishimoto. Instead of protecting his story, he just handed it over to others. And the fact that he blames fans for the failure of characters is the last and loudest insult. Kishimoto is the failure here. No one else is to blame.

What angers me the most is Kishi's excuse that Hinata was the first person to understand Naruto. Seriously ? I'm supposed to accept such bs from the guy who wrote the story..?! 

What exactly did Hinata understand about Naruto other than his pain of loneliness and his nindo ? Maybe, just maybe Hinata was able to understand Naruto better initially simply because she was suffering from the same kind of pain.. ?

'' Sakura only understood Naruto by the middle of the story '' - Yes Kishi, Sakura was a 10 year old girl who had a very normal childhood. She did not understand Naruto initially because unlike Hinata , she did not experience loneliness. How can you expect a 10 year old child to understand others when even mature adults are sometimes incapable of that ? 

As far as I'm concerned, I see no fault in Sakura. She was simply acting her age. Its beyond ridiculous to compare Hinata and Sakura then ! Hinata only understood Naruto because she had the same problems as Naruto. This led her to observe Naruto more closely and she found out about his nindo.

Sakura had no reason to do the same. To Sakura, Naruto was this obnoxious prankster who always got into trouble. Only when she was put into the same team as Naruto did she understand that there is more to Naruto than a troublesome brat. How exactly does figuring out Naruto a little later make Sakura any less worthy..? 

What happened after that ? Hinata's 'understanding' of Naruto never went beyond his nindo while Sakura understood his dreams, she understood his abilities, his pain of being a Jinchuriki, the importance of his bonds with Sasuke, Jiraiya etc. Its safe to say there is no one who understands Naruto as much as Sakura.

The epitome of their difference in understanding can be seen when Hinata and Sakura are thinking about Naruto in the War arc. Hinata was all 'me, I want your hand, I want to walk together with you, me ' while Sakura was ' Us, your dream is in front of our eyes, no matter what you say we'll do everything together'. 

If indeed Hinata was supposed to be that special person to Naruto, why is it that she never ever was shown to even care about his dream about becoming Hokage ? Why is it that Sakura ended up being the only person who, from the beginning till the end, showed an unwavering and selfless devotion to Naruto's life-defining dream ?

Kishi can do all the mental gymnastics he wants in the interviews to try and convince everyone that Hinata was always the one. What he cannot do is erase from our minds the 698 chapters of his manga. And its there for all to see that the person who always understood and stood by Naruto's side is Sakura. 

Holy Crap.

Naruto The Last is already on DVD. That was super fast

The DVD

He's lying to himself, and I hate people who lie to themselves.

I hate it.

But not just because the design is boring and uninspired. It's more than that.... The feeling it imparts is isolation.

This is not a happy, feel-good cover. It says nothing about Naruto finally meeting his goals. It says nothing about his happiness. It says nothing about his love of his team (or Sasuke). It does not tell a story about the character (Naruto).

Look at every other cover up until now. They are dynamic, involve multiple characters and are almost always engaging the audience. And if they're not, then the characters are fighting each other. But in almost every one, Naruto is looking at the reader.

Like the ending — where the Naruto we knew disappears while Sasuke is narrating, only to return in the epilogue as a hardened Hokage, with the hopefulness and boundless enthusiasm of his youth washed away by the burdens of adulthood — this cover reflects a Naruto that is alone in his responsibility for the village. This is his life now. And the fact that he doesn't engage the audience is a very strong statement of how much he has changed. 

A good image tells a story, without having to use any words or cutlines or cues to inform the viewer. The viewer "reads" the image. 

But there is no true story to read in this image. This is the end. Naruto has turned his back on the viewer. We can't know if he's happy or sad. Stressed or angry. We know nothing about the person he was before. We only know that he is the title that's on his back. And that he is alone in his responsibility of the village.

Think of the alternative way that the visual story of Naruto as Hokage could be told by simply having Naruto turn around:

- Naruto leaning against the balcony rail, smiling at the viewer, with the Hokage hat and cloak flung over his shoulder in a jaunty manner. The message here is that even though he's alone, he's happy and he's succeeded in his goal. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, his number one fan, the only one who has truly been with him since the beginning. The message is "I did it! We did it!"

- Naruto leaning against the balcony rail, smiling at the viewer, the Hokage hat and cloak flung over his shoulder, and behind him is the whole village, with the rookies and Kakashi, Tsunade, etc. looking up at him smiling and cheering and holding signs saying congratulations. The message is that he's finally met his goal and the village is acknowledging him. 

So that's just with him standing there. But the cover could also show Naruto as Hokage in any other way:

- Naruto laughing with Tsunade at the Hokage desk, but now he's in the seat.

- Naruto with the hat on, leaning his arm on the next youngest Naruto, and then the next, with the whole line of Naruto's looking up at the oldest, the Hokage who's finally achieved his goal

- Naruto with the other Hokages, standing around him smiling, while Naruto is in the center in brightest color being acknowledged by them.

So yeah.... If you think of all the choices that Kishimoto could have made for a dynamic, rousing sentimental ending...this cover — Naruto alone with his back turned to the viewer — is not it.

My honest opinion is that the cover reflects more about Kishimoto's feelings than it does about Naruto reaching his goals or being the last volume of the series.

I think Kishimoto was ready to be finished. So he drew the quickest, easiest, most non-sentimental cover he could. He portrayed Naruto as turning his back on his fans and his youthful adventures and giving himself up to his life and duty. (The show's over. The doors are closing, everybody out.)

I think Kishimoto wrote the end to Naruto with himself in mind. Naruto is jaded and tired, putting his work responsibilities above everything else. He is so tremendously OOC, it's like you're not even reading the same character. I think Kishimoto started his time writing Naruto as youthful and hopeful, but now he's 20 years older and tired of it, and sees how different life is now instead of when he was just starting out. He's jaded. 

There are two take-aways from this cover: First is that Naruto is standing watch over his village. Second is that he's turned his back on everything else. 

It's not a positive message.

So I can't help but think that somehow it reflects Kishimoto's feelings at the end of the series. He's turning his back too. He's ready to be done with it.

Yes, the cover shows Naruto as Hokage, but there were lots of different, more positive ways to show that. The image could have imparted a range of emotions such as humor or achievement or nostalgia or camaraderie. But instead the only emotion that is shown is closure.

Naruto is alone. His duty is more important that goofing off for readers anymore. This is the end. Show's over. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.