KnS

I'm not interested and they've been trashing the story and its characters for so long why would I expect that to change? It's the one constant.

How stupid and nonsensical it is will increase depending on where Sakura's novel falls in the so-called timeline.

Like... Sakura knows she's infertile and has worked out a dark plan to steal some of Karin's viable ova so she (Sakura) and Sasuke can at least create the illusion of having a child together.  No one will dare question their love, even when the child looks exactly like Karin.....

Sigh.  /sarcasm

It wouldn't surprise me if it's about her dark desire to turn her back on everything and everyone -- give up her role/place as a medic and disappoint Tsunade -- all so she can follow Sasuke on the road because his presence... the very air he exhales is all she needs.

The fact that the summary begins with her medical work making her feel "hard-pressed" makes it sound as if that work is in the way of her doing what she really wants to do.  Like be a doormat, mother of an abandoned child, and a housewife.

I didn't really care about NH at first but now my eyes have been opened. NH is a disease that consumes all within its path for its own continued existence. As soon as it runs out of things to destroy it dies

Well, not NH just H.  It's as if the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster got together, then Zuul appeared before Kishimoto and forced him to choose the form of the Destructor.  He focused on the dumbest, most useless, inept, selfish, and pathetic thing he could think of and.....

BOOM!!!   Hinata became the Destructor!  Whimpering, whining, and stuttering her way through the Naruto universe as she stomps on fifteen years of history, foreshadowing, relationships, and characterization, her knitting needles piercing the hearts of anyone who tries to stand in her way.

Didn't Kishi say he wasn't going to pair Shikamaru with anyone? Oh wait, I forgot. Everyone needs babies. Gotta pair them all!

All he said was he wasn't interested in writing a romance for Shikamaru into the manga.  That's not the same as saying he would never pair him with anyone.  There was plenty of foreshadowing about Shikamaru and Temari in the manga anyway.

And Ino might get dragged down too.

To be honest, in my opinion -- at least in terms of personal life stuff -- Ino doesn't have far to fall and pretty much deserves any dragging down she gets.  In the manga she was characterized as shallow and more than a little bitchy.  Her fascination/obsession with Sasuke when she didn't even know him or interact with him was disgusting.

That said, she is likely to be trashed further, and in other ways she doesn't deserve.  Nothing and no one will escape the character assassination parade that's going on.

Hinata by far. Because Jar Jar as annoying as he was, he didn't destroy the Star Wars universe.

Meesa thinking Hinata looking pretty bad now, betcha betcha!

Gaara's character, apparently he talks funny

What is "talk funny" supposed to mean?  

The best way to prevent it is to have Toneri burn it and Naruto moans as Hinata asks him who is it from. He will tell her it's from his mother and she will feel deeply sorry.

That's a better idea for sure, but out of character for Hinata.  She isn't capable of feeling deeply sorry for anything personal Naruto might experience.  From what we've been consistently shown, Hinata only has deep feelings for herself regarding Naruto -- not for him, his feelings, or his hopes and dreams.

She is always focused on him, but only in terms of how what's happening to him affects her.  

It seems to me that while the movie's so-called plot is ridiculous, it didn't have much hope of being otherwise if it was going to be all about Hinata.  

Hinata was and is a one-note character who despite the kittenish, sugary exterior is a revoltingly useless and selfish spoiler of the entire Naruto legacy.  

For fans who either can't recognize that about her or just don't care, the movie's "plot" is good enough.  It doesn't really matter to them, as long as they see her get what she wants.  Everything else -- including Naruto himself -- is expendable.

The thing I love about this picture is Petr Čech.  The rest of his team is celebrating their FA Cup win, but he takes the time to console Harry Kane.  It makes me love Čech a lot.  What a totally cool thing to do.

P.S.  I think Harry Kane is great too, but I'm glad his team lost.  Go Blues!  Go Chelsea!

This is a rough translation, it's just the gist of it

"Lately this is what I think if you write manga, there will be annoying voices around,harsh judgments, and opposing opinionsbut you should not lose or else that's all it'll ever be. You must believe in urself and firstfinish the manga. Go about it like you're proving urself. That is the type of power that is needed in manga. Do your best."

Some say he is saying this to new mangaka but most say he is discreetly playing the victim since alot of people are pissed about this

What if he's not talking about the fans at all?  What if the "annoying voices" and "harsh judgments" and "opposing opinions" are those of his bosses, editors, and other business relationships who may have forced him to make choices he never imagined or wanted?  

What if he's discreetly trying to tell other mangaka not to sell out, or not get in a position where you have no choice?

The truth is, we don't know for sure why any of this has happened this way.  It certainly isn't what Kishimoto planned, because we can see from the story that cannot possibly be true.  We can see from the ongoing character destruction and retcon nonsense that there was a decision made to CHANGE EVERYTHING so the franchise could be taken in a different direction.

We don't know what Kishimoto's role was in this disaster.  Not really.  It's easy to blame and disparage him, but the degree of his responsibility in this mess is unclear.  Did he get hit in the head one day and suddenly decide he'd wasted his time writing it a certain way for 15 years?  Did he make an unfortunate and short-sighted business agreement that made him money but sacrificed his legacy?  Is he just guilty of being passive and bowing to the pressure of stronger personalities?

The only thing we know for sure is that THEY'RE ALL LYING that the current state of the manga and its characters was ever intended.  The story doesn't support it.

The whole thing is like a staged crime scene now.  It's so obvious that things have been tampered with, and done in a way that hopes to mislead the audience that it happened naturally.  Their only option is to lie and keep lying because the forensics don't support their claims.

You know what's worse? He made a fool of Jiraiya, Nagato, Itachi, Zabuza, Granny Chiyo, Sandaime Hiruzen, Iruka, Bee, Chief Toad, Tsunade and all others . He made an ass clown of everyone! He proved that they are fools!

It's true.  The scope of what had to be destroyed to elevate Hinata to a level she doesn't belong encompasses everything.  Total scorched earth.

It boggles my mind to think there is a single fan anywhere who can't see what happened for what it really is.

Wow! I just found out that the story derived from twilight fanfiction.


So now we have the world's three musketeers of vomit-inducing love stories: twilight, fifty shades of grey, and Naruto

P.S. I shall spare myself the torture. Haha

As for Fifty Shades... it is kind of similar to SS, I suppose, but with the worst of Sakura and the worst of Hinata combined.  A girl attracted to the dangerous type for no good reason combined with being naive, sheltered, senseless, and seeking personal empowerment through a relationship with a man who exploits and abuses her for his own gratification.

I haven't read the Shades books nor seen the movie, but it isn't necessary to understand it's the lowest kind of vapid, lurid fiction.  Don't be fooled by its popularity.  It's like how people collect around a gruesome accident; it's disgusting and stomach-churning, but some people get a thrill out of it or just have to see what other people are looking at.

Thinking today how strange it was in the Last movie that they played up Hinata's knitting. They were really going out for girls with that ploy. It's a ninja manga, about fighting, and what is the biggest promotional prop?? A knitted scarf??

 

Why didn't they give out weapons, or gender neutral necklaces? No, knitting a scarf. So you have two avenues there: either girls wearing a red scarf (of any fabric), or targeting crafty girls who will then knit one for themselves and significant others. They've also created very easy cosplay costumes to recreate. 

 

All of this, all of it, goes against the traditional fan of the Naruto manga, 15-25 males. So either the audience began slowly shifting to include more women, or SP/editors began pushing for the manga to jump tracks and appeal to a different audience. 

 

And when I say audience, I mean those who are consistently buying copies of the manga as they come out. Not those of us who are reading it online, for free, etc. The core of that audience is 15-25 males. 

 

I still think the anime started driving the manga at some point, not the other way around. And maybe at the end, it was bringing in more money and held more clout over the manga story, so they went for the NH romance which was so heavily played up in the anime. I don't know.

 

At some point the decision was made to move Naruto from a male-centric to female, action-centric to romance, shonen to shoujo (is that right?). And the knitted scarf is just another overwhelming part of that shift. Why not publicity props that supported the Naruto or Sasuke or the main characters of the series? Nope. Hinata. The whole ending revolves around her. 

To me, the knitting -- the choosing of a domestic, girly thing -- isn't all that surprising when Hinata was the focus.  

Weapons wouldn't make sense because Hinata is not a competent ninja.  She's really not much of a ninja at all, and throughout the story -- either the manga or the anime (I stopped watching it quite a while ago) -- she has been consistently characterized as a weak girl in way over her head.  She's always self-absorbed, never happy or confident in her life's path, and not capable of making the strides necessary to improve her performance.  

The movie further proves that there is no intention of changing these aspects about her; she's characterized, again, as a consistent failure who cannot demonstrate even the simplest ninja skills.  She has to be bailed out and saved, over and over, and her sole purpose is her single-minded focus on her feelings for Naruto.

Gender-neutral necklaces?  No need.  Hinata is not gender-neutral, and the rest of the characters don't matter.  They are/were merely window dressing to support her as she pursued her personal, life-consuming love story.

The thing I find interesting is that the franchise has sacrificed everything for what is, in my opinion, a thoroughly repellent character.  Again, the movie demonstrates that Hinata doesn't even care about her poor sister.  She's incapable of setting aside her own wants and feelings long enough to take responsibility for her endangered blood relative.  It's disgusting.

When you take it all together -- the cluelessness, incompetence, helplessness, and narcissism of Hinata along with the systematic downgrading and destruction of all the other characters in the service of making her love story a reality -- what does it say about the taste and motivation of the franchise operators?

Forcing the focus on a pathetic character who is so contrary to the original theme of the story results in a smoldering, toxic cesspool.  Now they're pitching a tent over it and selling it as a circus.

I'll be coming back in +100 more pages.

Great!  We'll see you then.  Just make sure any posts you make are on topic or posted in the random thread.

i really am disgusted with myself for ever liking this series. i mean, i saw the early signs, but i just brushed it off as nothing to be concerned about. i questioned the things he's done at times, but i believed that no matter how ugly it got that ns would pull through.

I feel that way too sometimes.  I feel badly because I feel that my certainty might have persuaded some people to hang on for something that ended up not happening.  I wasted a lot of time and effort defending Kishimoto and believing he had a plan.  Shame on me.  

@KnS Take care of yourself. Wish you a speedy recovery

Thanks.  I'm recovering from pneumonia.  It's been a rough couple of weeks.

and besides sasuke got what he wanted ? He ended with someone he had no feelings for , was robbed of his justice and his final resolution regarding his goals. I believe his ending was pretty bad too

That's only because Kishimoto painted Sasuke into a corner by not giving him a realistic motivation.  Making Sasuke two-dimensional and so single-minded in his stupid goals made it impossible to resolve his character in a way that made any sense.  

After being so irrational, hateful, and essentially aimless (so easily influenced) throughout the entire story, we're supposed to buy that he's suddenly capable of commitment, marriage, and fatherhood -- and believe that he loved Sakura all along despite displaying a consistent disinterest in her survival.

But yeah.  It shows just how far the series has sunk that even Sasuke has faded and blurred into the background of the Hinata Show.

Anyway, what I'm saying is "decide". All or nothing.

by the way how many of guys would be willing to buy the last volume only to burn it. I would actually get a great pleasure out of it. 

I wouldn't want them to have my money or think my purchase represented quality, support, or even interest.

They'll never get another dime from me.

ETA:  I'd rather take a $20, write the volume number on it, and then set it on fire.

Why are they trying to erase someone who was integral to the story, self-empowered and supportive of the hero, no matter what? It makes no sense. And if you love the story, then you would have to recognize her importance to the plot. 

 

It takes so much greater effort to wipe her from relevancy than it does just to give her a happy ending. So, why are they doing it? (I know, it's a bit of a rhetorical question there. For Hinata, obviously.)

It seems to me that the decisions that were made -- to pair SS and NH against the grain of the rest of the story -- left them with little choice.  In order to make NH happen, everything else had to be subject to corruption.

It's really not possible to give Sakura a happy ending.  In order to reposition Hinata as the most important person in Naruto's life and his love interest, Sakura has to be removed as Naruto's closest confidante and go-to person for his feelings and interest.

Likewise, Sakura can't be super confident and capable or succeed at a lot because she will outshine Hinata who is useless -- and remains so even in the movie that focuses solely on her.  Hinata is weak, pitiful, and incompetent.  Sakura cannot be better in any way or Hinata's image will suffer.

And then there's the fact that in order to give Naruto to Hinata, it meant that Sakura -- despite her growth and maturity and tangible closeness with Naruto in the story -- was stuck with Sasuke.  There was no love between Sakura and Sasuke in the original story, and no development of Sasuke as a person with really any feelings at all.  Sasuke and Gaara sort of switched places, and Sasuke ended up the character with love only for himself.

The truth is, all the characters are ruined.  It's not just Sakura.  Naruto is completely destroyed as well. And Sasuke?  He's clearly not important to the story anymore either, with the possible exception of assisting Naruto in some kind of fight.  He's got nothing to add to the domestic subplots, so fights and warrior activity are all he's good for -- and that's only if such a situation is contrived.  How is that going to happen a lot in an era of peace?

See, it wasn't a simple decision to go with NH and reward Hinata.  To make it happen in both the short and long term requires the deconstruction of everything that went before -- precisely because Hinata was never meant to be Naruto's mate or the most important character of the franchise.

 

Really makes "The Real End" chapter that much more significant. Kishimoto must have known the train was already jumping its tracks. 

 

yeah, I hated the stooges too.

The way I see it, they (Kishimoto, SP, SJ, et al.) are changing so many things about the story and characters -- either blatantly or through loopholes they apparently believe allow for seamless revision -- and scrapping the rest that doesn't support or no longer fits with their new narrative -- that I don't understand why fans who don't want go along on their acid trip can't do the same.

If they don't have to adhere to the established narrative, or care about characterization, or continuity, or logic, or feel any shame at all in trashing huge parts of the story they decided they didn't want -- like the title character's integrity and heart --  why can't we trash or ignore the parts we don't want?

Why should any former fan of this series be considered foolish or in denial because they take the same tack as the author(s) and sales team?  "I'm choosing to pretend X, Y, and Z didn't happen. This is what really happened...."

They sold us a certain set of characters, relationships, and universe rules.  We don't have to buy the add-on pack that ruins everything.