21 replies to this topic

[KnS]

Well.  Where to begin?

 

I said several times that I would have no problem admitting it if I turned out to be wrong, and I don't.  Here it is:  I was wrong.  Very wrong.

 

I was wrong not just about NS being the pairing we would see at the end, but wrong about Kishimoto.  I defended him so many times within the threads of this forum, and I truly believed he would honor the commitment he made to his story -- to his hero.  But I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

For the record, I have not and will not read the final chapters.  Kishimoto and the hustlers at The Naruto Franchise^TM can't make me, and choosing not to read it is the only form of protest I have.  I saw the scans in the preceding days, and that is enough.  

 

However, I asked Nate River to report one result to me.  I wanted to know if Naruto finally got the chance to confess to his Sakura, and I have since been told that he did not.  That Naruto's feelings for her were never even addressed.

 

There's no point in going into the hows and whys.  You all know.  It makes no sense.  In the end, the hero was not the main character of his own story.  In the end, Naruto did not win the girl he loved or overcome all the losses and regrets of his predecessors.

 

And it's not just that this non sequitur (that's Latin for WTF) ending stresses my grey matter.  It hurts my heart, too.

 

Most of you probably don't know that I'm a chronic severe pain sufferer (due to nerve damage in my face and neck), and have been for more than ten years. It's not an easy thing to live with and still find good ways and new reasons to keep going.  Why mention this right now?

 

Because Naruto, the character, has been a bright spot for me.  From the moment I met him in the anime in 2009, his attitude and goofy charm was so much fun.  So inspirational.  Such an indomitable spirit.  He was a kid with everything against him, but he was determined.  He was so loveable.  All he ever wanted was a chance to prove himself worthy and valuable.

 

But he never got one with his Sakura-chan.  I think about his face when Sakura said she loved him that day in the snow -- how much he wanted to believe it -- but it was never true.  And that makes me sad.  I feel sad for Naruto, and I feel sad for Sakura that she never saw him for what he could have been to her.

 

And I feel... cheated.  Not just because NS didn't happen, or because I feel Kishimoto betrayed Naruto's heart.  Although it may sound weird, I also feel cheated because I didn't get to ship Naruto with Hinata.  

 

I am always a canon shipper.  Always.  I've said that multiple times on these threads.  If I had thought for one moment -- one single moment -- that there was a place in Naruto's heart for Hinata, I would have entertained the possibility of that ship.  Hinata was never written as a girl who would be a good match for Naruto, but if I had thought that's what he wanted -- if he'd shown even the slightest romantic inkling toward her -- I would have been on board for Naruto's sake.

 

But none of that was there.  Naruto and Sakura were always billed as the hero and heroine of the story, but in the end it was Sasuke and Hinata whose feelings, actions, dreams, and lives mattered most.  I simply can't get my mind around it.  

 

The hero never even gets a chance to confess to the girl he loved for the entire series, while Sasuke walks away with her free and clear.  Instead, Naruto ends up with a girl he never loved, while Sakura ends up with the guy who never loved her.  

 

And for what?  The entire manga feels empty now.  Wasted.  Unfinished.  The story's soul was Naruto's quest to make his dreams come true, and we got to see none of it.  Not winning Sakura, not becoming Hokage.  We don't even get to see him be friends with a redeemed Sasuke.

 

Sigh.

 

As corny as it sounds, Naruto was like a little brother or a surrogate kid to me and I’m going to miss him.  But I don’t want to see any more of his fictional life that, thanks to Kishimoto's incomprehensible choice, I will only ever see as a life half-lived.

[Exact]

I admire your protest. Had you posted this earlier, I would've joined you. 

 

It's a slap in the face and it hurts so much because I also ship cannon pairings... if there was any hint that Naruto was thinking romantically about Hinata, I would've opened my mind to it. 

 

I will say that the spoilers is why I'm numb and not outraged and throwing tantrums. 

[Iwantbuns]

And I feel... cheated.  Not just because NS didn't happen, or because I feel Kishimoto betrayed Naruto's heart.  Although it may sound weird, I also feel cheated because I didn't get to ship Naruto with Hinata.  

 

I am always a canon shipper.  Always.  I've said that multiple times on these threads.  If I had thought for one moment -- one single moment -- that there was a place in Naruto's heart for Hinata, I would have entertained the possibility of that ship.  Hinata was never written as a girl who would be a good match for Naruto, but if I had thought that's what he wanted -- if he'd shown even the slightest romantic inkling toward her -- I would have been on board for Naruto's sake.

 

But none of that was there.  Naruto and Sakura were always billed as the hero and heroine of the story, but in the end it was Sasuke and Hinata whose feelings, actions, dreams, and lives mattered most.  I simply can't get my mind around it.  

 

The hero never even gets a chance to confess to the girl he loved for the entire series, while Sasuke walks away with her free and clear.  Instead, Naruto ends up with a girl he never loved, while Sakura ends up with the guy who never loved her.  

 

And for what?  The entire manga feels empty now.  Wasted.  Unfinished.  The story's soul was Naruto's quest to make his dreams come true, and we got to see none of it.  Not winning Sakura, not becoming Hokage.  We don't even get to see him be friends with a redeemed Sasuke.

 

Sigh.

 

I agree with this completely. Looks like Kishi took an ending out of his butt to give a conclusion, but in reality it didn't conclude anything.

 

There are absolutely no hints of Naruto loving Hinata, or Sasuke loving Sakura. So what the heck just happened? I could literally name fanfictions that would've been more believable than what we got here. No out of character Sasuke. No ignorance of Sakura's developing feelings. No Hinata becoming the heroine, when she wasn't even present 80% of the canon storyline. And most of all no Naruto who didn't achieve his dreams, and where his feelings are unaccounted for. When they aren't just thrown away in the trash. Kishi hinted at them multiple times in Part 1 as well as Part 2. Why Kishi? Why show them? Why make them exist? Why make them so selfless? Why make Sakura start feeling the same way?

 

If Hinata's love was supposed to tower over Naruto's, where was she in his life?

 

I'm just so disappointed. I also tend to ship things in canon, when they make sense and seem enjoyable. But SasuSaku, I just won't stand for. NH I understand, but SS is complete BS from Kishi. Complete BS.

Edited by Iwantbuns, 06 November 2014 - 11:15 PM.

[Verilance]

I agree with your post and I as well will not be reading the last chapters at least for a very long time as well I will not be purchasing the rest of the manga volumes nor reading anything else Kishimoto writes.

 

It is not about the pairings though in my mind from what I have heard I have to do a big WTF about possible secondary pairings, it is more about Kishimoto has betrayed everything I believed the manga was about and that alone makes me very sad.

 

the only thing Naruto has done for me now is by existing introduce me to a world of much better mangaka

 

I grieve at the shoddy conclusion to what until now has been an excellent manga

[8Hogake]

Naruto is basicly saying that Jerks always wins.

[Darkness]

And that's why the very first thing I disliked about chapter 700, was it's title: Naruto Uzumaki!

 

It is not Naruto.

 

It is everything else. It is Sasuke Uchiha, it is Hinata Hyuuga, it is even Sakura Haruno, who've earned the man she has been fangirling since the beginning. But there was nothing about Naruto in those pages. The Hokage seat means nothing, when everything else about him was rendered meaningless. His very nindo, the PoaLT, the girl he wanted so much... everything I loved about this character, discarded. Just like that.

 

You are right, KnS. Naruto is not the main character of his own story. What a disappointing ending...

[MolinMondo]

Couldn't have said it better myself. I feel betrayed. As I've said before, I feel stupid for giving Kishimoto the benefit of the doubt.

 

He really has sold-out his integrity as an author. The mere thought of Naruto now reminds me of this terrible OOC ending.

[tricksie]

You're completely right. And if it makes you feel any better, your shipping was not misplaced. NS was canon for everything but the last two chapters. I read it, having skipped the spoilers and any hint of what was happening. I was prepared for an opening ending. Never in my wildest imaginings did I think it would be an NH one. And certainly not SS.

 

It's a total betrayal of everything to that point. Part of me wants to categorically go back through the manga and list out the NS moments (Lovernin, Sakura's confession, Naruto showing off his new kyuubi form in saving her, the hug, the POAL, etc., etc.) and say "Does that mean she still loved Sasuke? Even then?" But part of me knows it's pointless. It is still an NS manga to me. I will never believe that in those moments she was simply concealing her love for Sasuke, and just using Naruto. I will never be convinced that Sakura's reflection of "I already love someone" was meant for Sasuke. And that when Naruto told Minato Sakura was his girlfriend, he really meant to say Hinata. 

 

The development was for NS. They have been together in all the movies, all the advertising, everything. Hinata has never been shown to be a main character. Just a two-dimensional character in the larger cast.

 

So shipping them and believing in the direction of the story was never wrong — I promise you, it's not us, the readers, who got it wrong. It's Kishimoto. He never resolved any of the storylines except for Naruto's fight with Sasuke. He just slapped an epilogue chapter on, and that was it. That's a cop out. Instead of fixing anything, he dropped it all. 

 

I wish I hadn't read the last two chapters. Just this once, this one last time, I wish I'd looked at the spoilers. 

 

I'm like you, I wouldn't invest my time in an unsubtantiated pairing. And it's not like shipping NS was some great leap of fantasy. It wasn't. It's had steady development. And that's why I think we aren't the ones who are wrong. It's Kishimoto. 

 

It's been a long time since I liked my version of Naruto better than Kishi's. And I like yours a lot better too. I hope that when you are feeling a little less betrayed by all this that you can turn back to your fanfic and finish your creations. Naruto in "Wilderness" absolutely was a bright spot. I think you captured who he is perfectly, and I would really really welcome seeing the development in the manga being played out in your fiction instead.

 

Hang in there. We're all in the same boat together.

[Nate River]

You're completely right. And if it makes you feel any better, your shipping was not misplaced. NS was canon for everything but the last two chapters. I read it, having skipped the spoilers and any hint of what was happening. I was prepared for an opening ending. Never in my wildest imaginings did I think it would be an NH one. And certainly not SS.

 

It's a total betrayal of everything to that point. Part of me wants to categorically go back through the manga and list out the NS moments (Lovernin, Sakura's confession, Naruto showing off his new kyuubi form in saving her, the hug, the POAL, etc., etc.) and say "Does that mean she still loved Sasuke? Even then?" But part of me knows it's pointless. It is still an NS manga to me. I will never believe that in those moments she was simply concealing her love for Sasuke, and just using Naruto. I will never be convinced that Sakura's reflection of "I already love someone" was meant for Sasuke. And that when Naruto told Minato Sakura was his girlfriend, he really meant to say Hinata. 

 

The development was for NS. They have been together in all the movies, all the advertising, everything. Hinata has never been shown to be a main character. Just a two-dimensional character in the larger cast.

 

So shipping them and believing in the direction of the story was never wrong — I promise you, it's not us, the readers, who got it wrong. It's Kishimoto. He never resolved any of the storylines except for Naruto's fight with Sasuke. He just slapped an epilogue chapter on, and that was it. That's a cop out. Instead of fixing anything, he dropped it all. 

 

I wish I hadn't read the last two chapters. Just this once, this one last time, I wish I'd looked at the spoilers. 

 

I'm like you, I wouldn't invest my time in an unsubtantiated pairing. And it's not like shipping NS was some great leap of fantasy. It wasn't. It's had steady development. And that's why I think we aren't the ones who are wrong. It's Kishimoto. 

 

It's been a long time since I liked my version of Naruto better than Kishi's. And I like yours a lot better too. I hope that when you are feeling a little less betrayed by all this that you can turn back to your fanfic and finish your creations. Naruto in "Wilderness" absolutely was a bright spot. I think you captured who he is perfectly, and I would really really welcome seeing the development in the manga being played out in your fiction instead.

 

Hang in there. We're all in the same boat together.

 

 

The whole fandom is. I'm utterly mystified as to what the constant tying of Naruto and Team & to the previous team 7's, the tying to Kushina, the background story of Minato, Kushina, the exact pattern repeated over and over. I don't see the point. If it's going to be NH/SS, why not spent all that wasted time on them? Why spend so much more time developing NS and constantly reaffirming Naruto's feelings to utterly bail on it at the last second. It's really the worst of both worlds. 

 

It's not so much the pairing for me either as if it were NS with the exact same ending, I'd still be ripping it for it's total failure to resolve anything.

[KnS]

I wish I hadn't read the last two chapters. Just this once, this one last time, I wish I'd looked at the spoilers. 

 

I just couldn't face them.  Like I said, the scans I saw were enough.  

It's been a long time since I liked my version of Naruto better than Kishi's. And I like yours a lot better too. I hope that when you are feeling a little less betrayed by all this that you can turn back to your fanfic and finish your creations. Naruto in "Wilderness" absolutely was a bright spot. I think you captured who he is perfectly, and I would really really welcome seeing the development in the manga being played out in your fiction instead.

 

Thank you, that's really nice of you to say.  I just don't know if I'll be able to recapture the feeling -- the belief -- that I would need to write them convincingly.  : (

 

My Gaara fic is a different situation.  That plot wasn't blown out of the water, and I really like that fic.  I love exploring Gaara and his family dynamic.

[Jenskott]

You know, it has been a while since I have read a Naruto fic, but maybe I break my hiatus with yours.

 

I understood completely. I also ship canon pairings usually. I might have been more receptive to NH/SS if Hinata had got some rol in Naruto's life after the Chuunin exams, anf if Sakura's love for Sasuke had been portrayed like something other than an one-sided crush that only hurt her and held her back (Sasuke leaves Konoha? She becomes Tsunade's diciple and improves greatly. Sasuke returns? She inmediately forgets his abuse and she became his... not, she did not became his wife. She became his baby-making factory and his house's caretaker. He left as she has to take care of their child and cleaning their home).

 

But facts are facts.

 

Unfortunately I am the kind of guy that builds his interpretation of the characters basing on canon. That is what allows me denounce "Naruto goes back to the village with Sasuke and Sakura beats him for hurting her precious Sasuke-kun as all villagers stone him and he leaves, disgusted" fics like the crap that they are. So can I ignore canon when it suits me? If I wanted to write NS fic I would to account for Sakura having never moved on. If I write a sequel fanfic I would have to find a way to fix the NH/SS marriage and children issue (and I do not like reading or writing cheating/adultery stories, nor derailing or killing characters in order to give way to my favorite pairing).

 

Then again... Kishimoto ignored his own canon when it suited him, so why should we respect it? If you ignore the LAST TWO CHAPTERS of the story and you only consider the remainder 698 you fic is perfectly feasible in canon.

 

It reminds me of a Demotivational poster featuring Avenger Hank Pym backhanding his wife. The line was: "Out Of Character: When fans are unable to recognize when a moment is legitimately bad writing that should be forgotten and ignored in the future"

[rikakim94]

Naruto is basicly saying that Jerks always wins.

 

Yeah if people are going to argue that main x main always happen than i could say the same for the coolguy/jerks always win. naruto,slamduck and digimon are examples of that. 

Edited by rikakim94, 07 November 2014 - 10:55 AM.

[8Hogake]

To me 699 is okay with me but the 700 doesn't cut it with me.

 

The Scene of Sasuke poke Sakura's forehead to me is more like a Tsunade kissing Naruto's forehead. Sasuke sees Sakura only as a young sister not a lover.

[Smiter]

Every single post in here is hitting the nail on the head.

 

I understand exactly how you guys feel, especially you KnS and Trix.  I really hope you guys will carry on writing!  I'm also planning to write an AE (alternate ending) fic where I try to keep everyone in character and have everything make sense.

 

It's just unbelievable that Kishimoto continued to keep building up and hinting at NaruSaku, right up to and including the last War Arc, then he dropped it all in favour of two pairings that were completely one-sided and had little development in the past 15 years.  In order to make NaruHina and SasuSaku happen, Kishimoto destroyed the growth of two of my favourite anime characters, made a lot of characters act OOC, erased the existence of other characters (Yamato and Team Taka), and completely discarded 15 years of build-up and hints.

 

Like I have said before, it's a very bad joke.

 

I just cannot forgive Kishimoto for completely destroying the characters of Naruto Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno.  Their personalities, dynamic, and growth were massive reasons that I shipped NaruSaku in the first place.

[Niky]

@Tricksie

I am begging you!!!

Please, continue and finish your masterpiece (I don't want describe it like 'fanfiction').

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE... I LOVE YOUR WORK!!  

[Silent Storm]

lol it's not even about NaruSaku anymore. The entire ending just leaves me in awe at just how out of place it is to the Naruto world I came to love, so much that I am actually laughing.

 

Naruto is scolding his son and telling him to suck it up because he's hokage.

Naruto can't even appreciate the same pranks he pulled when he was younger.

For all her hard work and development for Sakura it's all erased and she is illustrated as a housewife.

Sasuke is a deadbeat dad.

Previous hokages look like kitten and bitter.

Kakashi and Guy look like kitten.

Bee looks like kitten.

Ino and Anko look like kitten.

The kids look like kitten.

Chouji and Karui?

TenTen runnin an unsuccessful shop.

Skyscrapers behind Konoha (??????)

No resolution to anything.

Everyone looks bitter.

Taka, Orochimaru and Kabuto disappeared.

Yama-who?

No insight into the world of Naruto after the war.

No scene of Naruto being elected Hokage.

No callbacks to characters that died like Jiraiya, Obito, Minato, Kushina.

 

All 4 will be turning in their graves now. Kushina and Minato especially.

 

NaruSaku not happening is one thing but the entire delivery of this chapter and the characters pretty much spoiled the story for me. If anything take solace in the fact that NaruSaku is in no way associated with this epilogue.

Edited by Silent Storm, 07 November 2014 - 03:47 PM.

[Lady_duckish]

lots of my ships have been noncanon, and when i started to watch/read Naruto I was just coming off a ship loss. I told myself to really try to go for what i thought would be the most likely ship. That bench scene happened, and Naruto told the girl he loved exactly what she wanted to hear, and I just knew it. I knew he was going to grow on her, she would come to respect him and with time she would naturally fall in love with him. If you go through  some of my recent post, you'll notice i keep using the world "natural" because a NS ending wouldnt have needed some silly movie to fill in the gaps or show either character falling in love with the other. Naruto already loved Sakura and all I was waiting on from Sakura was a(nother) confirmation of her feelings for him. If Kishi had any respect for the relationship he wrote between those two, he could have gotten away with one pg of Naruto finally confessing and Sakura letting him know one more time right in front of the boy she used to love that she had fallen in love with him (Naruto) instead. 

 

If anyone calls a NS delusional they are just prancing around on their high horse. 

 

On another note, i hope you feel better soon KNS. I think you should do whatever makes you feel best. The mental, physical and spiritual health comes before anything else (: You are an amazing writer, but please don't let the pressure put you in a bad place. Not that anyone in here is pressuring you, i just know some ffn reviewers can be nasty when they are not getting what they want 

[ALESSE]

I'm with every one on this one.

[Narufan85]

Silent Storm hit the nail on the head, as did KnS. There are many endings, even with SS and NH, that could have been satisfying. Instead we got a 20-page add for a next gen manga.

[Konohakitten]

You're completely right. And if it makes you feel any better, your shipping was not misplaced. NS was canon for everything but the last two chapters. I read it, having skipped the spoilers and any hint of what was happening. I was prepared for an opening ending. Never in my wildest imaginings did I think it would be an NH one. And certainly not SS.

 

It's a total betrayal of everything to that point. Part of me wants to categorically go back through the manga and list out the NS moments (Lovernin, Sakura's confession, Naruto showing off his new kyuubi form in saving her, the hug, the POAL, etc., etc.) and say "Does that mean she still loved Sasuke? Even then?" But part of me knows it's pointless. It is still an NS manga to me. I will never believe that in those moments she was simply concealing her love for Sasuke, and just using Naruto. I will never be convinced that Sakura's reflection of "I already love someone" was meant for Sasuke. And that when Naruto told Minato Sakura was his girlfriend, he really meant to say Hinata. 

 

The development was for NS. They have been together in all the movies, all the advertising, everything. Hinata has never been shown to be a main character. Just a two-dimensional character in the larger cast.

 

So shipping them and believing in the direction of the story was never wrong — I promise you, it's not us, the readers, who got it wrong. It's Kishimoto. He never resolved any of the storylines except for Naruto's fight with Sasuke. He just slapped an epilogue chapter on, and that was it. That's a cop out. Instead of fixing anything, he dropped it all. 

 

I wish I hadn't read the last two chapters. Just this once, this one last time, I wish I'd looked at the spoilers. 

 

I'm like you, I wouldn't invest my time in an unsubtantiated pairing. And it's not like shipping NS was some great leap of fantasy. It wasn't. It's had steady development. And that's why I think we aren't the ones who are wrong. It's Kishimoto. 

 

It's been a long time since I liked my version of Naruto better than Kishi's. And I like yours a lot better too. I hope that when you are feeling a little less betrayed by all this that you can turn back to your fanfic and finish your creations. Naruto in "Wilderness" absolutely was a bright spot. I think you captured who he is perfectly, and I would really really welcome seeing the development in the manga being played out in your fiction instead.

 

Hang in there. We're all in the same boat together.

 

This, I mean what does it say about an author when his own fans produce better versions of his character then himself. I will treasure Naruto in others fanfics, like Trickse, KnS, and many many others. I will treasure the Naruto I wrote,and I will give him justice when it comes to being a real father.