Not to mention that NH would have been displayed far more often and consistently like NS was while also being paralleled to previous generations like NS were. Instead, Hinata was consistently absent ranging from 50-200 chapters at a time and whenever she is shown again, it is literally nothing except "Naruto Naruto Naruto" and nothing about actually showing her improving herself (without having her hand held) or doing anything that useful for any character or the story as a whole (at least nothing that Sakura and/or someone else could have done just as well), If anything, some of her appearances were a detriment to her character and/or others, like her selfish confession moment against Pein or her rock-tripping scene.
Indeed, However I will say that Hinata was absent for a much greater estimate than 50-200 chapters of Naruto's life I'd say roughly around 500+ chapter range and that isn't an exaggeration.
Kishimoto's Wife as I pointed out numerous times is a NaruSaku Shipper, She absolutely hated and resented the decision her husband Kishimoto made by making NaruHina and SasuSaku the end pairings according to the interview that her AND Kishimoto partaken in, Heres the link:
http://www.animenews...omic-con/.94186
In the interview Kishimoto stated that he attempted to soothe her by making her feel better by telling her that she is based off of Hinata and more like her personality wise, But it's clear... that she is not... Because Sakura's character is combative, loud, argumentative and bold, and Kishimoto's wife in the interview stated that she disagreed with her Husband by saying that she is more like Sakura, the very fact that she is arguing and bashing her Husbands decision on the end pairings only further validates her claim that she is Indeed like Sakura,
When has Hinata ever been Loud, Combative, Argumentative and Bold ? Hinata has NEVER shown any of those personality traits, Hinata she goes along with anything people tell her to do or what ever mission to carry out WITHOUT question or her even being argumentative about it "I... uh... s...sure" "well.. I.. I guess... I... can..." Hinata has always been a delicate and submissive girl and Kishimoto claims his wife the woman who is constantly arguing about the end pairings in Naruto on a daily basis to be just like Hinata ?
Cut the baloney Kishimoto you are clearly lying just admit that you knew you were gonna lose fans when you focused on pairings. And you were right. So you opted for the "larger" fan base. NaruHina has a larger fanbase then NaruSaku However probably only 5-10% larger so to reduce as much damage as possible when he ended the manga with the pairings you choose the LARGEST pairing fanbase instead of the Pairing that is the most plausible and makes the most sense, NaruSaku.
Also in that interview, Kishimoto stated that he decided midway through the story, because Hinata acknowledged him and saw him for what he really was before Iruka.. which is a big load of CRAP!!! considering that doesn't mean much since she never approached the guy. Was she by his side all those years he was alone as a kid, hell no. That was Iruka, not Hinata, that's sad when even NarutoXIruka makes more sense then NarutoXHinata.
Kishimoto's story as to what he plans for romantic pairings is always changing. First he claimed he had planned NaruHina since the beginning, next it was NaruHina towards the middle of the story ? Kishimoto flip flopped more than a pancake in the interviews he gave after 700.
Kishimoto stated he "planned" NaruHina since the beginning of the manga ? And if that's true, why focus nearly ENTIRELY on NaruSaku? Why the need for all the parallels? Why have Naruto call Sakura his GF? Why no closure for Naruto and Sakura? Why does an irrelevant background character like Hinata get such favoritism? That's part of what pisses me off. How do you go from that to what is seen in 700? Then, The Last retcons and butchers characters as it pleases to fit the narrative. In the manga, Naruto has no fond childhood memories of Hinata yet, in The Last we're expected to believe that he met her before Sasuke. That's bull. Also, Naruto gives up the scarf Kushina made for him to keep from making Hinata sad. That makes no sense. Why would Naruto give up ANYTHING that Kushina made for him to make a girl he barely knows feel less jealous? Would pre 698 Naruto do that, after the emotional outpouring he showed when he met her, HELL NO! His feelings for Sakura, explained away with the most insulting of reasons, petty rivalry, BULLSHHIT!
These inconsistencies are what make it hard to accept The Last as anything by fannon made cannon. It was designed so that EVERYTHING simply fell into Hinata's lap regardless of how much it ruined the other characters, especially Naruto who's my favorite. Hinata is not the heroine and was never designed to be one, at least in the traditional sense. As far as Kishi is concerned, the heroine is simply the girl that gets in the hero's pants, no more no less. And it's pathetic that in the end, that's all her character amounts to, uninspired, one dimensional, paring fodder. She and all the other characters deserved better.
No, but what SHOULD amount to romance is the bond between characters and Naruto's bond with Sakura was stronger than any he shared with rest of the female cast. The Last just makes SHHIT up and throws in it there. Hinata gets a BS rare chakra type, Naruto receives his mothers scarf just as Hinata herself is making one for him. The worst part is when he gets guilt tripped via genjutsu into loving her, he couldn't fall for her on his own. And we know that Naruto understands love as he was in love with Sakura throughout the manga.
I say that to say this, the natural progression of love could be observed BEST through NaruSaku. They start as teammates, then over time become dear friends that share a bond in their desire to save Sasuke from himself. This was a MAJOR driving force behind both character's development and something Hinata had jack-all to do with. Truth be told, she had next to nothing to do with any of the hardships Naruto went through. Anyway, on the subject of NS , naturally one would expect them to move to the next stage which is love especially given that Sasuke have ZERO interest in Sakura, treated her like utter SHHIT while Naruto treated her almost like a princess. If Kishi wants to call Sakura a "bad woman" for falling for Naruto then that makes Naruto equally bad for falling for Hinata. Since in Kishi's mind giving up on your first love makes you the scum of the earth.
Regardless of whether you believe the development of Sakura and Naruto's relationship was romantic or not, there's no dispute of fact that there was a lot of focus on the bonds of Team 7, but with Sasuke gone and Kakashi not being their age, a lot of that 'Team 7 focus' was between the evolving friendship of Naruto and Sakura. At the beginning Sakura hated Naruto with a passion, At the end Kishi says she's the 'guardian of Naruto's dream' and her own dream is to see Naruto become Hokage, If you don't feel that there was anything romantic about their relationship, that's perfectly fine and you can make an argument for it, but how are you going to deny that Kishi didn't focus on Naruto and Sakura's relationship ? That's ridiculous.
Naruto confessed to loving Sakura, that is a fact. Prior to the war arc, Sakura's feelings for Sasuke were changing which is also a fact. Naruto NEVER acknowledged Hinata as anything more than a friend, fact. He called Sakura his GF, fact. Yet, because of The Last, all that was thrown out the window with a weak ass explanation, "red herrings". The ONLY reason Sakura did not end up with Naruto was because Kishimoto felt it would be unfair to Hinata and would make Sakura a "bad woman", confirmed in an interview. Why else would she choose a guy that tried to kill her on multiple occasions over the guy that has ALWAYS supported her? It defies logic and her character suffered IMMENSELY for it. Hinata got Naruto out of pity. He was guilt tripped via Neji's death, a damn scarf, and genjutsu into being with her and had his feelings for Sakura cheapened. Feelings we've known about for over 13 years. If you can live with that, I wonder how much of a fan of the story you were to begin with. Hina fans only care about Hinata's happiness and could seemingly care less about the amount of contrived crap that happens with her character. The story could go to hell and back (which it did) and as long as she came out on top, it'd be worth it. -___-
Before all of this shipping BS, I'm a fan of good story telling. The ending of Naruto was a MAJOR letdown and The Last was the topping on the SHHIT sundae. Believe what you will about me cause I couldn't care less. I'm taking to NARUTO fans, not blind NaruHina ones. Just because Hinata ALWAYS obsessed over Naruto doesn't mean they have to hook up. But then again, that's all her character is, "Naruto-kun", so maybe there was no other alternative. >_>
I'm complaining about more than just pairings but those are key. Why, because that's what The Last and 700 dropped on us, BS pairings. Naruto becoming Hokage was no shock, him being hitched to Hinata, THAT was a bombshell as were SS and the other random pairs.
So yeah, I will sit "here" and talk about the pairings. I will talk about the OOC moments in The Last and the retcons. I will mention the pointlessness of Neji's death or the meaninglessness of ALL the NaruSaku moments and parallels if NaruHina was always the intended end game. These are ALL problems IMO with the story, Naruto and Hinata They had less than 50 pages together out of 700 chapters. That's lacking to say the least.
NaruHina would have been plausible and made sense had it been given the panel time it desperately needed. 6 or so scenes out of 700 chapters doesn't convince me of it's legitimacy and I don't care how cannon it is. The Last was a desperate attempt to flesh it out that fell flat on it's face because it forces too many characters to act out of character and conveniently adds in past content to force a bond between Naruto and Hinata, one that did not exist before. Why didn't Hinata's character grow stronger, why is she still so timid around Naruto? What was she doing for those 2 years, stalking him like always? Her character is her crush, no less no more.
Nor was the interaction between NaruHina plausible. A one-sided confession that is NEVER addressed is not romantic. NaruSaku had better romance POTENTIAL because of the strength of their bond and their interactions
The only pairing I think is really bad taste was Sasuke and Sakura due to obvious reasons. For me Hinata and Sasuke ending up together would have been great character development for both. Hinata becomes more than her crush and Sasuke get a chance to interact with a girl he hasn't tried to kill yet. Also Sasuke and Hinata's personalities seem to match perfectly compared to his and Sakura in which she's the one that acts submissive (Hinata's Personality) which I always saw as out of character.
Both Hinata and Sakura understand Naruto but however Sakura IMO, knows better how many hardships he's been through. She doesn't "mistreat" him out of malice, that's just her temper similar to Kushina. I find NaruSaku interactions more enjoyable because she's vocal about her complaints with Naruto, Hinata's too shy. NaruSaku seems natural while NaruHina is awkward and forced.
Considering that we got a CANNON movie about the MAIN ship. The ships gave closure to the character's lives. Problem is, ALL of them were horribly handled and some got ZERO development, they just popped into existence. That is not acceptable, you have to JUSTIFY if you want your fans to accept it. Fans that actually care about closure that is. Some people just take whatever is thrown in their faces.
Kakashi stated during the war that Sakura's feelings for Sasuke had changed. Naruto told Minato to his face that Sakura was his GF AFTER the Hinata pep-talk I don't care about the NaruHina BS examples because they don't apply. All I'm getting is that NaruHina fans don't understand the traditional meaning of the term "girlfriend". It doesn't matter that romance wasn't a major theme Kishimoto had planned for the manga. Kishimoto brought into the equation and is obligated to justify it. He doesn't deserve a free pass.
And the NaruHina fans still don't understand the meaning of "girlfriend". In the case of Sakura, we NEVER get to see her feelings explained so all we have to go on is what the people who are close to her (Kakashi, Naruto, and Yamato) say. And NaruHina fans say Sakura performed otherwise, well we know why that is because Kishi stated himself why he wouldn't let Sakura be with Naruto. Hard to claim there was "little to no focus on shipping" when the ONLY cannon film is about just that, SHIPPING. Not to mention 700 with its shipping bombshells. >_>
The fact that the series ended with shipping as a MAJOR element is the issue. Yes, the majority of the manga did not deal with it but the ending, arguably the most important part of any story did. And no, the NaruHina fans don't appear to understand what girlfriend means going by their comments about how NaruSaku doesn't make sense. A girl who is my friend is just that, my FRIEND not my GF. In Naruto's case it was clearly meant to be taken as wishful thinking and a bit of a joke. He called the girl he liked his GF and she freaked out over it and hit him. It was comedic relief but, it's still meaningful because this was AFTER Hinata's confession and pep-talk meaning that Naruto still had feelings for Sakura what went beyond mere friendship, but not romance. You don't call someone you think of as a mere friend your GF. I NEVER said there wasn't any romance between Naruto and Sakura only that the potential for it was GREATER in that pair compared to NaruHina. Close friends with strong bonds stand a better chance of becoming lovers than mere acquaintances. And he and Hinata weren't much more than acquaintances with no real bonds.
Yeah, that NaruHina logic. "Don't like The Last or 700, you're just a salty NaruSaku fan". Must be nice to be so willfully ignorant >_>. I don't see how NaruHina fans do it. I swear they are like a gnat. The moment anyone voices discontent with the ending, you're all over them.
How about this, if your ship made logical sense and was developed, I'd be okay with it. If NaruSaku got proper closure, I'd be okay with it. If Naruto had not been guilt tripped and OOC in The Last, I'd be okay with it. If Hinata had become more than her crush and Sakura had not regressed in character development, I'd be okay with it. But we got none of those so I'm bitter as all hell, LOL. Followed this series too long to be let down this badly so hell yeah I'm gonna vent, whether NaruHina fans like it or not.
In other words, NarutoXHinata sucks.
Edited by BestSasuHinaSupporter, 19 June 2016 - 02:48 AM.
