It pretty obvious that sakura's role was reduce in the later half of part 2 and that was partly due to certain loud Western fans wanting hinata to replace her as the main female character and as naruto's love interest. Since that is how whether we like it or not was how kishimoto wrote it for his main female lead.
While yes she played a role in the kaguya fight, it was the bare minimum, with a forced ss moment and only one punch for a combined team 7 attack.
Hinata while doesn't do much at least appears in the boruto manga, sakura hasn't been in it in over 30+ chapters. Gaiden was an uhchia story so there isn't any reason for hinata to appear, but she got a movie before which I recall hearing how studio Pierrot advertise trailers/omakes of sakura having her role as heroine stolen from her by hinata.
Plus the uhchia have not been focus on boruto unless sasuke was involved in fight, and his daughter feels more like a side character. It's not until more recently that sakura got more spotlight in spin off material related, as when the ending happened she only had that hidden novel until restsuden came out.
While kishimoto may have not said that his canon relationships are toxic what has said does not sound positive, not to mention the comments about his wife being upset speaks volumes. The narusasu relationship not everyone likes, but at least it wasn't intended to be romantic and get them together.
Plus kishimoto's words about can't writing romance sounds like an exuse, by the fact he made a very problematic couple canon and the backlash that came with it. Not to mention pretty shallow with his comments that women can't move on from their feelings for a guy, while a guy is allowed to.
No one is deluding themselves with the obvious favouritism hinata got from studio Pierrot, heck even the strom game she got favouritism with mecha naruto story and that one sub mission called demons and angels where all the girls badmouthed naruto and she defended him. With kishimoto eventually caving in to the demands thos editors put on him when it came to hianata.
Given how you said naruto got done dirty by kishimoto due to his favouritism to sasuke, the same can be said for sakura with hinata.
I wouldn't call ss being open with 181 as that felt more like a rejection from sasuke to sakura as he still called her annoying. Plus in some ways ss was treated worse than sk, because sasuke still treated sakura badly during the entrie war until last 2 chapters.
From what I hear while yes ss was popular in Japan so was narusaku, most ss fans there expected narusaku to be canon and in genreal by the fandom there it was considered the golden paring. With that in mind makes more sense to make narusaku can as Japan it the franchises domestic fanbase.
Instead he alienates the fans there losing alot of them and goes to a fanbase that doesn't always spend income on the series as most fans in the west read stuff for free online.
But if he really wanted to play it smart he should of done an open ended where you don't know who ended up with who and tell multiple different multiverse stories instead of one bad timeline made worse by ikemoto's writing.
Edited by BlueStarSaber, 02 February 2023 - 01:42 PM.