I have some theories about what is going on with Naruto's marketing lately.
That the redesigns, the merchandise, the final chapters, the retcon and subsequent hard-sell of NH in the movies are all pointing to a larger project on the horizon. Or at the very least higher ticket and product sales in the short run.
One of the biggest indicators, to me, has been Hinata's redesign as a possible way to bring in new viewers to the fold, specifically girls. Hence the flat-chested, self-confident girl that looks nothing like the manga Hinata. They're hoping that girls will want to be her, while guys will want to be with her.
Trang95 posted an excellent post from planknojutsu on tumbler about the potential marketing from Ch. 700 on, and his theories about what is happening.
Honestly, I think NaruSaku is over, yes. I have a lot of reasons why, and I’ve thought so since chapter 700 came out. For a brief period of time, I thought there might be some trick here, a genjutsu, and I vaguely held onto that hope up until Chatte posted her theory about it. However, although she had GREAT points and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt why NaruSaku SHOULD be canon, she went at it from a purely art/storywriting perspective, which doesn’t explain the motives behind WHY it might be a genjutsu or WHY it might just be the real ending.
You see, as soon as I looked 700 over I immediately theorized a motive for why it was so off the wall. Whoever decided to make it obviously wouldn’t be sitting there thinking “How can we make a shitty ending to Naruto??” and laughing with maniacal glee. That’s not how these things work. The person/people would have to have SOME kind of reasoning that should explain this ending. The moment I connected the dots to the New Era Project and the sequel—that’s when I knew.
Chapter 700 is not an ending at all. It’s not intended to be. Chapter 700 is an advertisement. It’s a teaser, and it’s all about money. Chapter 700 is the beginning of a sequel. I already made a post about that (linked above), but I’m going to go into even greater depth this time and explain exactly why I am 100% positive about this.
Let’s look at what we have:
- A main character who is a young, spunky boy with a very sympathetic chip on his shoulder: he isn’t taken seriously, his voice isn’t heard, and he is lonely. To combat this, he seeks attention, even if it is negative.
- A co-star who is a young, quiet girl that has a strange affinity to the spunky young boy. He doesn’t seem to notice her, but she seems alright with simply watching him. She finds his behavior relatable due to her own family issues.
- An array of (very) conveniently peer-aged characters with different personalities, dynamics, and various opinions about one another. We get a brief look into each of their lives and get a feel for their character types very specifically. Note: This is one of the most telling signs that his is a sequel intro and not—in any way, shape or form—a proper ending.
- An excuse for our (former) main characters to be just a little too busy to immediately intercede in the zany adventures of the children. The women are waysided as housewives which is a decidedly disempowering move, relegating them to “at home” by design. Naruto and Sasuke are so preoccupied that they barely see their own children.
- A new villain. In Sasuke’s panels, he appears to have someone following him. This implies a potential villain to me, and the fact that even he is not able to properly detect this threat shows that it must be someone/something extremely skilled. Something that could pose a threat to Sasuke could also pose a threat to Naruto—convenient! Something so strong that our (former) main characters are in danger, making way for new characters to do something about it!
- A fresh new take on the Naruto world with updated technology that will help the current youth relate more closely to the children on screen. This also serves as a way to make the most likely extremely unoriginal sequel stand on its own a little tiny bit more.
- A name for the main character that translates perfectly into something “cool” in English. Meet Bolt, American [NaruHina] fans! I can’t speak for how the other names will be localized because Salad is a fucking joke.
- A new set of problematic adults for the youth to “fix.” We have our new pre-Godaime Tsunade in Naruto, a jaded adult who has accepted and been beaten down by the unfortunate realities of the world—like the idea that there will always be lonely, neglected children. We have the unsettled Sasuke who still hasn’t found what he’s looking for, apparently. I don’t think he has as nice of a parallel to compare to, but it seems as though some of his childhood problems are yet unsolved. Bolt and Salad to the rescue!
- A new set of clan logos to hock off onto people as merchandise.
We are also getting, as we all know, a film to kickstart interest from a whole new set of viewers (and plenty of old ones) which portrays our heroes and heroines in this new light. It will and establish their “out-of-character” selves as a new status quo. I put OOC in quotes specifically because this entire ending is the beginning of an un-canon sequel series, so technically in this new continuity, they are all in-character starting around chapter 699.
There is no need to take the sequel as canon. Many of us deny the canonical nature of sequels like Black Butler 2, the Escaflowne film, and so many other strange sequels that somewhat butcher the characters for the sake of fanservice or the weird fantasies of the [new] writers/creators. After all, we all know that there are only two Terminator films.
I believe what happened to create this ending are two things:
1. The Naruto team screwed up big time and were more out of touch with their fandom than they realized. All of the character polls lately have listed Hinata as the most popular female, if I’m not mistaken. I am willing to guess that foolish corporate goons wouldn’t distinguish the love of a character from the love of a ship. “THAT’S the popular one? Then make the main character get with her.”
2. The team responsible for absolute trash such as Blood Prison was employed to make the film. I understand that Kishimoto helped to write it, but even the best of writers cannot salvage something that is inherently flawed at its conceptual foundations. (Yeah, no matter how many times he makes them rewrite the script, too.)
Now some of you may be wondering about things like the inconsistencies and overall horrifically bad quality of Chapter 700. I am very curious about that too. The Studio Pierrot logo on Naruto’s ramen cup is part of my personal answer to that. Hinata was given more screentime, more depth, and more importance in the anime made by SP, which shows their favor for her (they even break the fourth wall through the characters several times in the omakes to state that Hinata is more popular with them than Sakura is). This makes me believe that they have some serious sway in what happened in the ending. Perhaps they pitched their ideas of how much profit would come of a Hinata-centric film and were convincing. I don’t really know or care how it happened, but I strongly believe that this ending was not Kishimoto’s ideal by any means.
I hear his statements about it being his plan from years ago with just minor changes, but that statement can be taken in many different ways. For a 15 year long manga, a one-and-a-half-chapter-do-over could be called “minor,” even if he was misleading us by justifying the word that way. Minor (or small or w/e word was used) is subjective. He didn’t mention pages or panels or chapters. Kishimoto was likely unhappy with the ending and produced a trash chapter as his only means of getting the real word out. People’s theories about Salad looking like Karin’s child and Bolt having a Haruno-esque hairstyle could very well be part of him dropping out these hints. As Chatte mentioned in her beautiful theory, the chapter entitled “The Real End” could also just be one of those hints. Kishimoto isn’t a fool. He wrote us a fairly beautiful manga, though it wasn’t perfect. He made extensive and intricate parallels, wrote consistent and relatable characters (specifically the main ones and their greatest influences), and built a fascinating set of morals for us. This is EXACTLY why people think this ending is a farce. It loses all of that. Chapter 700 is ugly and filled with embarrassing errors, it has shockingly inconsistent character depictions, and it just… drops all those lessons and morals.
But just because it upturns a 15 year old manga, that does not mean it is fake.
What we have here is something that Kishimoto did not decide. That much is abundantly clear to me. Everything was waysided based on money, popularity, and the hope to get the largest payoff possible.
"But how can something like that happen? It’s his manga!"
Things like that happen constantly in the entertainment industry. Just one example off the top of my head is the writer of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers. She despised the Walt Disney film from the moment it was written and never stopped hating it. She signed the rights over before seeing how the film would be created and thus was publicly complained. Another example is the creator of Spongebob. He wanted his show to end, but Nick continued it on, and the quality dropped immediately when he left the project. There is a good chance that Kishimoto was silenced in some way, either by legalities or simply because he sold out.
I get the feeling that, if anything, he somewhat/partially/in some way lost rights to the end of the manga. This is because he had two years to write something that lead to the ending we got in chapters 699-700. Two years to link the manga to what The Last is selling us. Why wouldn’t he take advantage of that time to make his manga flow sensibly? Why did he make Sasuke and Sakura’s interactions painful to watch—so bad that it has been triggering for some people who have suffered from abuse? Why doesn’t Naruto begin to reciprocate Hinata’s feelings in some way? Why do Hinata and Naruto converse a total of 15 times (with ONLY 6 in part two) in 700 chapters of manga? Why does Naruto tell his father that Sakura is his girlfriend? Why does Minato verify that the “girl like me” that Naruto’s mother mentioned is indeed Sakura? Why does Sakura literally hold Naruto’s heart in her hand and pump it? Ironically, her medi-nin skills were useless during this moment for him—so Hinata could have played this role if Kishimoto had wanted her to. When an author wants something to happen, he or she can and will write to make it happen. Kishimoto did not write to make NaruHina or SasuSaku happen.
I stand by this, and I will never stop standing by this: the manga would be wildly different if Kishimoto had wanted a NaruHina/SasuSaku ending. I don’t care how long ago he knew he’d be going with NaruHina. NaruHina and SasuSaku do not match his manga, especially toward the end.
These reasons and many others are why I am certain that the ending is not Kishimoto’s first choice, that it was likely pushed onto him due to corporate fuckery, and that chapter 700 is not at all an ending—it’s the shitty beginning of a shitty sequel for shitty profits.
Because hey—why bother wrapping a series up and letting its fans rest in the peace of knowing they got something whole and well-rounded? Instead, leave them hanging and desperate to understand all the missing pieces, then give them the teaser so they are slightly more likely to watch a shitty sequel, if only to fill a painful hole in their hearts.
This ending sucks.
And now we are learning that some of LadyGT's comics might have been pulled from Pixiv because of copyright infringement on the Naruto brand.
So....Thoughts? Theories? Has Naruto's marketing gone overboard for the final film? Or is it part of a bigger plan to usher in something completely different?
Persona 5 hype 
