As a Native Japanese I'm pissed off that a licensed company has dared to twist Kishi's words, taking it for granted that the Western readers can't understand Japanese and making their own story. If all the Japanese mangakas hard work are going to be twisted by the licensed companies that translate and sell them, then I'd prefer that it never goes out of Japan in the first place.
Well this is the deal with language and cultural barriers. Sadly as an American, I get offended by the mass majority of fans in my own nation who take the "Our American Culture > Every other culture in the world" Really makes me irked when these people don't consider things in our nation aren't exactly the same in another. This is the deal why so many people hate Sakura or may not understand what is going on, they don't know the character type she is, but they just instead react to calling her an abusive girl because in the U.S. apparently any type of stuff like that is abuse. Things made in other nations aren't designed for this culture as one unaware of other cultures would initially approach. In this case, Naruto is based on Japanese and other eastern themes, the only real western theme I can see there, is practically the hokage monument imitating mt rushmore. Thats all.
Whats funny is an American series like Avatar: TLA was made based on eastern themes and people had no problem with that. I remember there being so many censorship issues with Dragonball Z and One Piece because of everything they showed. The only eastern symbol I can think of which was changed for well historical reasons is a certain symbol which rests on Neji's head, due to what happened 70 years ago, aka dark history time for Europe that caused a lot of horror,this is why that symbol on Neji's head is an X almost anywhere else.
But I'd rather trust those fluent with it or with the subs once they come out. The whole deal with "don't fall for the first one you see" well if they really did it on biased stuff, well they are going to be in for a shocker since there is still nothing advocating Hinata like Kushina, yet there is plenty for this with Sakura, even before Minato drew the similarity. Other times it can just be filler dialogue but its just really really bad if this is what they do. I mean phrases deybyatto, no literal translation, this is why they gave him the believe it in the English dub anime but it died after the chunin exams a little afterwards, so he has no real phrase after this in the Eng dub. Sakura still has cha but that's because shannaro meant hell or f-yeah.
Deal is, its a shame in this case where the intial themes or dialouge is twisted just to say further sales. I don't really would go the full mile of calling it a conspiracy but maybe other times, they feel this must sound better, sometimes its a matter of tone and context, but in this case, it would still be wrong. Mainly just due to what we have seen in the story, Sakura=Kushina, Hinata does not = Kushina, we have a lot advocating Sakura and not Hinata, so if it was baised shame on the people who allowed this, otherwise it was just a dumb move. But its also one other thing, there are a few styles of Japanse just like there are a few styles of Germanic language, in fact even english has old english and modern english. Translations can be an issue no matter what due to languages having different alphabets too.
) I did it before really thinking about it, and seeing that while NS has the best points for now, it's still not officialy canon. Anyway you can see it here, and also the discusion I have with the other person. Maybe you can join if you want it. :)
