31713 replies to this topic

[James S Cassidy]

See... was NaruHina even popular outside the US?

 

It's been YEARS, so I can't remember, but did we ever find out what the Japanese thought of the pairings? Because realistically, they matter a lot more than we do. Anime and manga are popular here now, but it's still made to be consumed by a Japanese audience and a lot of them care more about that than over here. Wasn't Kishimoto shocked to find out, only a couple years before the end, it was popular over here?

 

I know SasuSaku and NaruHina were popular over here, but it might just be assumption that it was all "listening to one group of fans over the other". The behind the scenes stuff gleaned from interviews I've heard since poking around here again sound like a Benny Hill routine. There's also the possibility that maybe they just genuinely didn't care when it came to the pairings and just went with whatever. It's not like any of the ones chosen had solid foundation.

What's really striking is if you look at the history of Naruto popularity charts. For most of the run, Hinata never made the top 10 in popularity. Sakura was much higher with Kakashi and Sasuke and Naruto usually taking the top spots.. Somewhat closer towards the end of the manga, the popularity polls took a HUGE shift to where Hinata was in the top 6. How did the polls shift so radically in such a short amount of time? I don't believe it is because Hinata's popularity shot up overnight. I really believe that the reason why Hinata's popularity shot up was because most of the regular Naruto fans quit the manga entirely and stopped caring. Especially when the manga took radical changes and just kept screwing everything up.

We have to remember that in Japan, Sasuke and Kakashi were the most popular characters for a really long time and KakaIru and SNS were the top pairings people enjoyed. How did nH all of sudden shoot up and Hinata's popularity shoot up so radically? Well, easy to skew the results when most fans abandoned the series and the only ones left were Hinata fans. Sure, she never became number 1...I don't think...but the fact that she jumped from not even in the top ten to being more popular than Neji and Kakashi really strikes me as odd.

I am not gonna post them all, but just to show how radical it changes.
One of the first popularity polls. Hinata is 10. Kakashi is 1. Sakura is 4.
http://i63.tinypic.com/iepagn.jpg

More where Sakura is higher and Hinata is even lower
http://i63.tinypic.com/w2d2me.jpg

Ones where Hinata doesn't even show up at all
http://i64.tinypic.com/2agjnde.jpg

Then you have this
http://i66.tinypic.com/28hec1t.jpg

The discrepancy is just.....huge, but you notice that people were voting less and less as the series continued which means that while other fans broke off from the series, the Hinata fans stayed which could explain her higher popularity. However this is only speculation. It is easy to skew results when less people vote. One thing you do notice is Sakura is always in at least the top 12 save for one time and Hinata mostly stayed below her.

Of course we can't forget this little gem. (Don't read the comments, folks. You'll get mad)
https://www.crunchyr...iately-break-up

So we know Japan is not too thrilled with NH and SS especially with the teens.

Bold: This one is a hard one to discuss because Kishimoto has been on record saying his editors and Sawyer's youtube video told him Hinata should be with Naruto. We know people have been telling him that nH should be canon and since most of Japan seems to be against Hinata entirely....kind of easy to put 2 and 2 together.

Until the real truth is revealed, it is the only explanation I got unless you want me to say Kishimoto was pressured by his editors (still a minority opinion according to Kishimoto since Junko, His own wife, and half of SP wanted NS.)

What is the truth and what is the lie?

 

Edited by James S Cassidy, 14 December 2018 - 08:17 PM.

[Bail o' Lies]

Naruto's popularity took hits over the years from what I recall: The hunt for Itachi arc, Pein, 5 Kage conference, and the War Arc. Though from Namenash's research; Naruto was able to maintain its popularity until Neji's death afterwards the manga never recovered, and was always on the decline.

 

Hinata always had her fans but she never had enough to become what her fanatics wanted; the sole focus of the story. That's why people started calling nH the pairing of death in Japan after the last for the various missteps that movie took, and the straw the broke the camel's back was when they decided that it was more important to make her tripping the most beautifully animated thing in existence than put any effort into animating the two main characters dying.

Edited by Bail o' Lies, 15 December 2018 - 02:30 AM.

[RulesofNature]

Hell, even Naruto's VA was pulling for NaruSaku and you could tell she's just trying to keep things polite. I've seen it before with other characters in other shows. You can't come out and call out the show in most circumstances, as it would be effectively cutting ties to the related studio, so you talk around the issue at points. It's only in extreme situations that it happens.

 

Then there's the whole thing with The Last, from the demands for refunds to it being the worst reviewed Naruto film to fans being disgusted by commercials where Sakura says she's no longer the heroine... yeah. When the franchise decides to crap all over it's heroine, who was one of it's most popular characters, no wonder the fans left.

[Yyubie]

The Last Naruto the Movie rating yahoo japan

https://movies.yahoo... MOVIE-/349882/

 

Guess they're tired covering the movie failure with damage control fake positive comment. The rating drop from last i see it was around 3.8 to 4 , now it's 2.8.

 

Boruto movie rating yahoo japan

https://movies.yahoo... MOVIE-/352385/

 

I don't know why this movie rating can reach 4.3 ... it beat road to ninja which is 3.8 (drop from 4.2 last i see years ago).

I heard the naruto - sasuke vs momo is good , i also saw it on number one spot on top 10 anime fight.

 

I guess as long as the fight scene is good people don't care about anything else. A good fight pretty much decide whether a move/anime quality is good or bad ?

[NaruSaku fan in Kentucky]

Can you think of an author that wrote what he wanted and not the fans?

[NaruSaku fan in Kentucky]

And also, is Hinata the Kim Kardashian of Manga. What I mean is she got popular by doing absolutely nothing.

[Bail o' Lies]

Guess they're tired covering the movie failure with damage control fake positive comment. The rating drop from last i see it was around 3.8 to 4 , now it's 2.8.

 

I don't know why this movie rating can reach 4.3 ... it beat road to ninja which is 3.8 (drop from 4.2 last i see years ago).

I heard the naruto - sasuke vs momo is good , i also saw it on number one spot on top 10 anime fight.

 

I guess as long as the fight scene is good people don't care about anything else. A good fight pretty much decide whether a move/anime quality is good or bad ?

People mainly liked it because it was SNS heavy, and their was a good fight scene in the end. Also the story of Boruto wasn't complete at the time.

 

At this point people weren't shown it three different times. So, people could ignore the Naruto neglect and Bolt is an ass because both in-theory were resolved at the end, but the anime and manga had different ideas.

Edited by Bail o' Lies, 15 December 2018 - 05:14 PM.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

What's really striking is if you look at the history of Naruto popularity charts. For most of the run, Hinata never made the top 10 in popularity. Sakura was much higher with Kakashi and Sasuke and Naruto usually taking the top spots.. Somewhat closer towards the end of the manga, the popularity polls took a HUGE shift to where Hinata was in the top 6. How did the polls shift so radically in such a short amount of time? I don't believe it is because Hinata's popularity shot up overnight. I really believe that the reason why Hinata's popularity shot up was because most of the regular Naruto fans quit the manga entirely and stopped caring. Especially when the manga took radical changes and just kept screwing everything up.

We have to remember that in Japan, Sasuke and Kakashi were the most popular characters for a really long time and KakaIru and SNS were the top pairings people enjoyed. How did nH all of sudden shoot up and Hinata's popularity shoot up so radically? Well, easy to skew the results when most fans abandoned the series and the only ones left were Hinata fans. Sure, she never became number 1...I don't think...but the fact that she jumped from not even in the top ten to being more popular than Neji and Kakashi really strikes me as odd.

I am not gonna post them all, but just to show how radical it changes.
One of the first popularity polls. Hinata is 10. Kakashi is 1. Sakura is 4.
http://i63.tinypic.com/iepagn.jpg

More where Sakura is higher and Hinata is even lower
http://i63.tinypic.com/w2d2me.jpg

Ones where Hinata doesn't even show up at all
http://i64.tinypic.com/2agjnde.jpg

Then you have this
http://i66.tinypic.com/28hec1t.jpg

The discrepancy is just.....huge, but you notice that people were voting less and less as the series continued which means that while other fans broke off from the series, the Hinata fans stayed which could explain her higher popularity. However this is only speculation. It is easy to skew results when less people vote. One thing you do notice is Sakura is always in at least the top 12 save for one time and Hinata mostly stayed below her.

Of course we can't forget this little gem. (Don't read the comments, folks. You'll get mad)
https://www.crunchyr...iately-break-up

So we know Japan is not too thrilled with NH and SS especially with the teens.

Bold: This one is a hard one to discuss because Kishimoto has been on record saying his editors and Sawyer's youtube video told him Hinata should be with Naruto. We know people have been telling him that nH should be canon and since most of Japan seems to be against Hinata entirely....kind of easy to put 2 and 2 together.

Until the real truth is revealed, it is the only explanation I got unless you want me to say Kishimoto was pressured by his editors (still a minority opinion according to Kishimoto since Junko, His own wife, and half of SP wanted NS.)

What is the truth and what is the lie?

 

Wasn't it said that Kishi's editors and Shueisha actually cherry picked heavily biased polls and presented them Kishi as "what the fans wanted"?
 

 

Naruto's popularity took hits over the years from what I recall: The hunt for Itachi arc, Pein, 5 Kage conference, and the War Arc. Though from Namenash's research; Naruto was able to maintain its popularity until Neji's death afterwards the manga never recovered, and was always on the decline.

 

Hinata always had her fans but she never had enough to become what her fanatics wanted; the sole focus of the story. That's why people started calling nH the pairing of death in Japan after the last for the various missteps that movie took, and the straw the broke the camel's back was when they decided that it was more important to make her tripping the most beautifully animated thing in existence than put any effort into animating the two main characters dying.

And let's not forget the EXTREME difference in animation quality with Naruto vs. Pein when it just looked like crap most of the time and yet Hinatatas' confession looked to be where most of the budget (for several episodes) went along with adding in stuff that never happened in the manga.

 

Hell, even Naruto's VA was pulling for NaruSaku and you could tell she's just trying to keep things polite. I've seen it before with other characters in other shows. You can't come out and call out the show in most circumstances, as it would be effectively cutting ties to the related studio, so you talk around the issue at points. It's only in extreme situations that it happens.

 

Then there's the whole thing with The Last, from the demands for refunds to it being the worst reviewed Naruto film to fans being disgusted by commercials where Sakura says she's no longer the heroine... yeah. When the franchise decides to crap all over it's heroine, who was one of it's most popular characters, no wonder the fans left.

Blatantly lying to the fandom about what the movie is about in order to get the pre-order ticket sales money, then refusing refunds when the fandom inevitably finds out the truth.

[VanitasDS76491]

The thing with hating Sakura is simple: She got in the way of their ship, and simply chose to hate her no matter what. As someone mentioned, people like Sawyer claim Sakura reminds them of the girls that friendzoned them in highschool...if you're a 20+ year old dude and are still holding a grudge over that, that's probably why.
Also, when your story is targeted at a younger audience, you're going to have a vocal segment that hates one aspect of your story, but if you actually take the time to read what they say, you can tell they have no idea what they're talking about. 
The easy thing for Kishimoto to have done was to prove everyone wrong about Sakura. Have her fight regularly, show her in a better light than Hinata (which he kind of has been doing) and just have her be willing to fight against, if not get outright over Sasuke. During the first part of Shippuden, the haters were silent. Even they had to admit they looked forward to seeing her abilities, but Kishi's mishandling her in the war arc permanently damaged her in the eyes of many.

At least with the Naruto wiki, they TRY to write professionally and appear unbiased. Even I can't blame them; their job is to give the facts in regard to the current canon, regardless of whether or not they feel the story's gone off the rails.
 
These people seem to like the idea of Kishimoto being a master troll, without realizing they are actually damaging his reputation in claiming that. Even bad writers are at least genuinely trying to make a story. If we take there word for this, Kishimoto only wasted everyone's time. In addition to wasting our time, he wasted the NH fans' time. Instead of developing the relationship clearly so no one would cry foul, he instead gave us no reason to like NH in the first place.
 

It's nothing new. Young people see something they like, they get butt hurt when they find a critical opinion. It's so important to them to feel validated they will attack anyone who thinks otherwise. Unfortunately, some carry this attitude well into adulthood. 
 
I remember when Korey from Spill/Double Toasted once did a show, bringing up how their fans were going "Man, I agreed with you up until this point", to which he shouted "Yes, because WE'RE TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!"

spill.com that brings me back those were the guys that had a better than sex rating for there highest rank movies and it was animated?

[VanitasDS76491]

Seriously they put Sakura, Lucy and many others, while Hinata is not there. She should be a kittening definition of a what USELESS means! sigh......
 

I don't know why Lucy is on there she's useful and has a lot of wins more than hinata and at least it was part 1 Sakura and not her as a whole.

[Namaenash]

...

The revelation from this interview hurt me a lot more than the outcome of the canon pairings. It's one thing when a writer makes a kitten ending to a series, but it's another when you learn nothing about the series that made it special was even their idea. As you said, it was a house of cards that was going to fall at any time. 

It also explains why we haven't heard from his Sci-Fi manga. None of the other editors were as generous as Yahigi; most may suggest ways tot make the story better or more marketable, but Yahigi practically wrote the damn thing for a long time. From what I understand, Kishimoto pitched several series during the war arc, but none were picked up. 

He doesn't have the excuse of being too busy with Boruto. The current creative team just asks him "Is this okay?" and he approves it or not. He gave the current artist full reign on Sarada's...interesting clothes, and it's Ikemoto who oversees the anime. It feels like he's not doing his own thing right now because he literally can't find work anywhere else. 

...

 

Precisely. It's knowing that nothing has ever been planned all along that disappoints the most. I can relate to what you're feeling.

 

Kishimoto announced his Sci-Fi manga since mid of 2015. That's 3 years ago. Earlier this year, we've gotten another news about it. Yet, nothing has materialized. No promotional material, no posters, nothing... Will he publish it in 2019? Maybe. But that also means that he need to exit completely from Boruto.

 

He knows exactly that it will go downhill with Naruto New Generation. The moment he shared in the interview that "he doesn't mind other author taking over the existing franchise" , deep down, it was not an act of kindness. He was trying to dodge a bullet.

 

If he's doing a good editorial / supervisory work, Boruto manga would at least retain the existing fans. The only measure that's available out there (i.e. sales), indicates otherwise. Either he's not doing his job well, or he do it deliberately to make some room for his next Sci-Fi manga to get some market share. He wouldn't want his new manga sales to perform less than Boruto's.

 

 

It is not Ikemoto that oversees the anime, its the other one that does the writer Kodachi.

 

"According to Mr. Taguchi, Kodachi himself is responsible for the screenplay of the anime. "There are six or seven screenwriters, supervised by Ukyo Kodachi. They create alternative stories and submit them to the Kodachi, if strong scenes happen that could dramatically change the characterization of the characters, e.g if Boruto had to kill someone, Kodachi comes into play to monitor everything."

 

No matter. Whether they have seven screenwriters or twenty screenwriters, without a good source material, it'll be difficult to develop a story upon. You can see from the structure that there are no fixed source material for this franchise. Why there's a need to have one person overseeing the manga, and another one overseeing the anime? Why do we need Kishimoto to supervise the manga, instead of the usual editor?

 

This further tells us that there's a disconnect. Ideally, a story should be authored by one person or few people with resonating thoughts. Take a look at Tolkien with "The Lord of the Rings", or Rowling with "Harry Potter". These are very good source materials people can build upon.
 

 

I know I have already commented on this post before, but after rereading it I have more i'd like to add. What is truly the greatest realization is the fact that it seems like Kishimoto didn't seem to care enough.

I am wanting to be an author as well. I want to write books and make money where people can read and be inspired. That means I put my heart and even soul into it. Not that I don't make mistakes, but rather if I do, i want to fix them or even try to improve upon them. This is where to me Kishimoto has failed. Yes, maybe we did give him too much credit, but did he not care at all about this series? If he was bad at writing romance, why not try to learn and improve? If he was bad at writing females, why continue to make female characters prevalent in the series? He could have asked his wife, his family, anyone he was close to to do research and make the writing better. Why didn't he do that? This is where I question a lot about Kishimoto as a person.

To go even farther, why was his editors and such seem so adamant that the story had to be written the way they wanted it to be written rather than to improve what Kishimoto wanted to do? Why were these people so selfish to push their own agenda of Hinata and not say improve on the real bad aspect of the story? Instead, they made it all worse and then look all surprised when people abandoned it in droves.

I think this is what really gets me. Why were they so blind to the real issues and didn't focus on improving them and instead pushing their own agenda of pairings?
...

 

Arrogance. That's all there is. When they feel that they're big, they ignored the group of people that made them big (i.e. Japanese fans, which accounts for roughly 90% of Naruto's income).

 

 

What's really striking is if you look at the history of Naruto popularity charts. For most of the run, Hinata never made the top 10 in popularity. Sakura was much higher with Kakashi and Sasuke and Naruto usually taking the top spots.. Somewhat closer towards the end of the manga, the popularity polls took a HUGE shift to where Hinata was in the top 6. How did the polls shift so radically in such a short amount of time? I don't believe it is because Hinata's popularity shot up overnight. I really believe that the reason why Hinata's popularity shot up was because most of the regular Naruto fans quit the manga entirely and stopped caring. Especially when the manga took radical changes and just kept screwing everything up.

We have to remember that in Japan, Sasuke and Kakashi were the most popular characters for a really long time and KakaIru and SNS were the top pairings people enjoyed. How did nH all of sudden shoot up and Hinata's popularity shoot up so radically? Well, easy to skew the results when most fans abandoned the series and the only ones left were Hinata fans. Sure, she never became number 1...I don't think...but the fact that she jumped from not even in the top ten to being more popular than Neji and Kakashi really strikes me as odd.

I am not gonna post them all, but just to show how radical it changes.
One of the first popularity polls. Hinata is 10. Kakashi is 1. Sakura is 4.
http://i63.tinypic.com/iepagn.jpg

More where Sakura is higher and Hinata is even lower
http://i63.tinypic.com/w2d2me.jpg

Ones where Hinata doesn't even show up at all
http://i64.tinypic.com/2agjnde.jpg

Then you have this
http://i66.tinypic.com/28hec1t.jpg

The discrepancy is just.....huge, but you notice that people were voting less and less as the series continued which means that while other fans broke off from the series, the Hinata fans stayed which could explain her higher popularity. However this is only speculation. It is easy to skew results when less people vote. One thing you do notice is Sakura is always in at least the top 12 save for one time and Hinata mostly stayed below her.

Of course we can't forget this little gem. (Don't read the comments, folks. You'll get mad)
https://www.crunchyr...iately-break-up

So we know Japan is not too thrilled with NH and SS especially with the teens.

Bold: This one is a hard one to discuss because Kishimoto has been on record saying his editors and Sawyer's youtube video told him Hinata should be with Naruto. We know people have been telling him that nH should be canon and since most of Japan seems to be against Hinata entirely....kind of easy to put 2 and 2 together.

Until the real truth is revealed, it is the only explanation I got unless you want me to say Kishimoto was pressured by his editors (still a minority opinion according to Kishimoto since Junko, His own wife, and half of SP wanted NS.)

What is the truth and what is the lie?

 

 

I personally won't count too much on popularity polls since the feedback loop methods are flawed. It doesn't mean that it's not accurate. You can see the correlation between these popularity polls versus manga sales. And as you rightly put, the amount of people putting their votes in early days vs in later days have been steadily declining. The more we see HInata gaining top spots in top 10, the lesser the manga volume sales perform.

 

In any case, I'm satisfied enough to know that Naruto manga sales declined since vol. 64 published (where they put the handholding cover, it's 20% year-over-year decline). The franchise has lost more than 80% of its sales till date. From ~1-2 million first week sales to just 90k first week sales with the latest volume release. Best of all, no NS involvement in all these decline. Haha!

 

NS is dead story wise. NS fandom have moved on and won't come back. Now, the people who killed it is confused why the hell they lost their market share, although they were super confident NH/SS are the biggest, most loyal readers. Turns out NH/SS fandom is just a small dog that barks the loudest. They can call us 'salty', but they can't deny the fact that all the while, NS fans are the one financing this franchise.

[dl316bh]

I'm sure it didn't help that the pairings got borked, but I kind of doubt the viability of an action manga as a franchise died because of it. It can't be understated just how long the overall plot had been circling the drain. Characters are why people ultimately invest in most fiction, but it's incredibly difficult to care about them when the events that comprise their lives are utter nonsense.

 

I get what company I'm keeping - and "the mangas other problems probably had a lot more to do with the series decline than pairings" is probably not a super popular sentiment on a shipping forum where everyone's far from thrilled about how it all panned out, even years later - but, I don't know, I cared about NaruSaku and I got the hell out of dodge long, long, long before it was clear that wasn't happening anymore. I suspect a lot of people on both sides of the ocean were the same. The plot turned into a tire fire. Eventually the smell's just too bad.

Edited by dl316bh, 16 December 2018 - 06:21 AM.

[Bail o' Lies]

I'm sure it didn't help that the pairings got borked, but I kind of doubt the viability of an action manga as a franchise died because of it. It can't be understated just how long the overall plot had been circling the drain. Characters are why people ultimately invest in most fiction, but it's incredibly difficult to care about them when the events that comprise their lives are utter nonsense.

 

I get what company I'm keeping - and "the mangas other problems probably had a lot more to do with the series decline than pairings" is probably not a super popular sentiment on a shipping forum where everyone's far from thrilled about how it all panned out, even years later - but, I don't know, I cared about NaruSaku and I got the hell out of dodge long, long, long before it was clear that wasn't happening anymore. I suspect a lot of people on both sides of the ocean were the same. The plot turned into a tire fire. Eventually the smell's just too bad.

It less because of bad romance as much as them making the romance the entire story at the end to justify their last minute change.

 

"I thought they didn't even really bother explaining it and that was why they needed an entire movie to make the whole thing seem like it wasn't a complete asspull?"

 

That movie was their explanation which destroyed the entire series to do so.

 

 

Precisely. It's knowing that nothing has ever been planned all along that disappoints the most. I can relate to what you're feeling.

 

Kishimoto announced his Sci-Fi manga since mid of 2015. That's 3 years ago. Earlier this year, we've gotten another news about it. Yet, nothing has materialized. No promotional material, no posters, nothing... Will he publish it in 2019? Maybe. But that also means that he need to exit completely from Boruto.

 

He knows exactly that it will go downhill with Naruto New Generation. The moment he shared in the interview that "he doesn't mind other author taking over the existing franchise" , deep down, it was not an act of kindness. He was trying to dodge a bullet.

 

If he's doing a good editorial / supervisory work, Boruto manga would at least retain the existing fans. The only measure that's available out there (i.e. sales), indicates otherwise. Either he's not doing his job well, or he do it deliberately to make some room for his next Sci-Fi manga to get some market share. He wouldn't want his new manga sales to perform less than Boruto's.

 

No matter. Whether they have seven screenwriters or twenty screenwriters, without a good source material, it'll be difficult to develop a story upon. You can see from the structure that there are no fixed source material for this franchise. Why there's a need to have one person overseeing the manga, and another one overseeing the anime? Why do we need Kishimoto to supervise the manga, instead of the usual editor?

 

This further tells us that there's a disconnect. Ideally, a story should be authored by one person or few people with resonating thoughts. Take a look at Tolkien with "The Lord of the Rings", or Rowling with "Harry Potter". These are very good source materials people can build upon.
 

Arrogance. That's all there is. When they feel that they're big, they ignored the group of people that made them big (i.e. Japanese fans, which accounts for roughly 90% of Naruto's income).

 

I personally won't count too much on popularity polls since the feedback loop methods are flawed. It doesn't mean that it's not accurate. You can see the correlation between these popularity polls versus manga sales. And as you rightly put, the amount of people putting their votes in early days vs in later days have been steadily declining. The more we see HInata gaining top spots in top 10, the lesser the manga volume sales perform.

 

In any case, I'm satisfied enough to know that Naruto manga sales declined since vol. 64 published (where they put the handholding cover, it's 20% year-over-year decline). The franchise has lost more than 80% of its sales till date. From ~1-2 million first week sales to just 90k first week sales with the latest volume release. Best of all, no NS involvement in all these decline. Haha!

 

NS is dead story wise. NS fandom have moved on and won't come back. Now, the people who killed it is confused why the hell they lost their market share, although they were super confident NH/SS are the biggest, most loyal readers. Turns out NH/SS fandom is just a small dog that barks the loudest. They can call us 'salty', but they can't deny the fact that all the while, NS fans are the one financing this franchise.

Kishimoto is a supervisor for the manga. However, if you check that latest interview; you will find out Boruto actually has another editor Taguchi. They just don't mention him that much because they need to sell kishi still on board. Kishimoto never was planning on doing Boruto because its existence is based on the agreement that he could finally end Naruto, and move on. The reason he hasn't could be a few possibilities from he not allowed to, to he doesn't want to. As for his advice, I imagine it just answering any question they have with BS, or trying to find a justification for their story.

 

As for a source material; they have the Boruto movie -which both already done-, and they have that flash-forward; which the anime can't use till the manga is done with their current arc. Beyond that, the anime has to wait for Kodachi to write it; since he the closest thing to a head writer. But the manga story moves slow even for a monthly manga,and this manga has a weekly anime nipping at its heels. Which means their is very little material for the anime to work with. So, the anime staff are doing their own stories that they will make sure are accepted as canon.

 

They are currently being punished for their arrogance. Seeing as their fantasy international fanbase was a no show, and they largely living off licensing now.

 

Is there anyway to see Boruto's TV rating? At this point its the only thing we don't know for certain is on the decline.

 

Since, both the anime and manga seem to want to avoid Boruto/Sarada like the plague focusing on other things even if it could be a replacement for NS, they are not giving it the room to do so.

Edited by Bail o' Lies, 16 December 2018 - 08:19 AM.

[dl316bh]

It less because of bad romance as much as them making the romance the entire at the end to justfy their last minute change.

 

 

I thought they didn't even really bother explaining it and that was why they needed an entire movie to make the whole thing seem like it wasn't a complete asspull?

[KClaws_2]

I think part of the problem when it comes to North American fans is one I've seen a bit; they honestly forget that it's not made for them and that popular styles, tropes and character types in Japan play into things like sense of humor over there. I see "abuse" brought up a lot in Anime, usually with heroines like Sakura, because they occasionally hit the male main character for being a dumbass, while the other girls an angel because she doesn't do that. Completely forgetting it's slapstick comedy not meant to be taken seriously at all and Japan loves that sort of thing. It's fiction and it exaggerates character tics. Unless it's Love Hina - which did eventually veer into uncomfortable territory with how often it happened - or something like Evangelions Asuka, which was deliberately meant to show how behavior like that in a more realistic setting would send serious mixed messages and is the sign of a screwed up person, it's not serious violence or meant to be taken seriously.

 

 

See... was NaruHina even popular outside the US?

 

It's been YEARS, so I can't remember, but did we ever find out what the Japanese thought of the pairings? Because realistically, they matter a lot more than we do. Anime and manga are popular here now, but it's still made to be consumed by a Japanese audience and a lot of them care more about that than over here. Wasn't Kishimoto shocked to find out, only a couple years before the end, it was popular over here?

 

I know SasuSaku and NaruHina were popular over here, but it might just be assumption that it was all "listening to one group of fans over the other". The behind the scenes stuff gleaned from interviews I've heard since poking around here again sound like a Benny Hill routine. There's also the possibility that maybe they just genuinely didn't care when it came to the pairings and just went with whatever. It's not like any of the ones chosen had solid foundation.

 

I remember browsing Love HIna fanfiction back in the days. Most everyone wanted Keitaro to be paired with Motoko or Shinobu because Naru was a "Tsundere kitten!" It just feels really weird to me to be into a series that contained a trope that would trigger you so bad. If I felt tsundere characters were immoral or just painful to watch, I would simply not look at the series. Just having that element should be a sign it's not for you. Some will argue back "Well, if it was a boy hitting a girl, you would call it abuse!" While I might find such a thing disturbing, I would at least recognize it's intended as a comedic effect.

 

As for whether NH and SS were popular in Japan, well...SS was. Good girl changes bad boy trope is a guilty pleasure for many girls I guess, but I don't think there was a huge outcry to make it canon.

NH I really haven't heard much about it Japan. Hinata otakus, but I don't think there was a big war like here in the US. 

Shortly after the Last, a Top 10 list sampled from random people in Japan came out with couples that should break up (or just ones they didn't like). NaruHina made the 10th spot, and SasuSaku made the 6th. Granted, it wasn't a perfectly scientific poll (and I believe many pointed out that many of those who voted seemed to be yaoi fans), but it was still interesting to note.

 

Seriously they put Sakura, Lucy and many others, while Hinata is not there. She should be a kittening definition of a what USELESS means! sigh......

 

WatchMojo is full of kitten. I know that seems like a petty thing to say just because you don't agree with a list, but they do have a pattern of not thinking things through.

 

In their Top 10 Gundams list, they stated they would count ONLY Gundams. I think Turn X, which is NOT a Gundam, made number 9

In their Top 10 anime assassins, Kenshin took number 2. Now, yes, he was an assassin in the past. But that's not a reflection of what he was in the main storyline. I feel there should have been a huge discrepancy there.

And they made a Top 10 Naruto characters list. Sakura made number 6 or 5, while Hinata only got an honorable mention. I remember a lot of anime reviewers crying fowl at that list because of that back then. So, seeing them now put her on a useless list reeks SUSPICION.

 

Sadly, a lot of "men" here in the US would rather have that out-of-fashion, mindless, soulless, ambition-less, subservient female sex doll rather than an equal partner in an actual relationship. Their "manhood" demands they be the one in charge and be served on hand and foot by the female while still being allowed to do as he pleases, including relationships with other females so they can "ensure their procreation" and other BS like that.

Yeah, this is a bit of a disturbing trend. They bash the idea of feminism without realizing that this ideology can be interpreted many ways like religion. A movie or series gets a female lead, the "SJWS" are taking over! They freaked out over Wonder Woman back then, and if a female gets so much as a moment they freak out. Even if many female led movies are bad, they act like it's because they star women, NOT because of a bad story, bad acting, etc. Or in some cases, suddenly act like they actually cared about a property before (She-Ra) Hell, if a female character has one measly flaw they denounce her as a bad character. 

Honestly, it feels like a fad and characters like Sakura unfortunately get caught in it.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

I remember browsing Love HIna fanfiction back in the days. Most everyone wanted Keitaro to be paired with Motoko or Shinobu because Naru was a "Tsundere kitten!" It just feels really weird to me to be into a series that contained a trope that would trigger you so bad. If I felt tsundere characters were immoral or just painful to watch, I would simply not look at the series. Just having that element should be a sign it's not for you. Some will argue back "Well, if it was a boy hitting a girl, you would call it abuse!" While I might find such a thing disturbing, I would at least recognize it's intended as a comedic effect.

 

As for whether NH and SS were popular in Japan, well...SS was. Good girl changes bad boy trope is a guilty pleasure for many girls I guess, but I don't think there was a huge outcry to make it canon.

NH I really haven't heard much about it Japan. Hinata otakus, but I don't think there was a big war like here in the US. 

Shortly after the Last, a Top 10 list sampled from random people in Japan came out with couples that should break up (or just ones they didn't like). NaruHina made the 10th spot, and SasuSaku made the 6th. Granted, it wasn't a perfectly scientific poll (and I believe many pointed out that many of those who voted seemed to be yaoi fans), but it was still interesting to note.

 

WatchMojo is full of kitten. I know that seems like a petty thing to say just because you don't agree with a list, but they do have a pattern of not thinking things through.

 

In their Top 10 Gundams list, they stated they would count ONLY Gundams. I think Turn X, which is NOT a Gundam, made number 9

In their Top 10 anime assassins, Kenshin took number 2. Now, yes, he was an assassin in the past. But that's not a reflection of what he was in the main storyline. I feel there should have been a huge discrepancy there.

And they made a Top 10 Naruto characters list. Sakura made number 6 or 5, while Hinata only got an honorable mention. I remember a lot of anime reviewers crying fowl at that list because of that back then. So, seeing them now put her on a useless list reeks SUSPICION.

 

Yeah, this is a bit of a disturbing trend. They bash the idea of feminism without realizing that this ideology can be interpreted many ways like religion. A movie or series gets a female lead, the "SJWS" are taking over! They freaked out over Wonder Woman back then, and if a female gets so much as a moment they freak out. Even if many female led movies are bad, they act like it's because they star women, NOT because of a bad story, bad acting, etc. Or in some cases, suddenly act like they actually cared about a property before (She-Ra) Hell, if a female character has one measly flaw they denounce her as a bad character. 

Honestly, it feels like a fad and characters like Sakura unfortunately get caught in it.

A.) Funny thing is that Motoko started out just as bad if not worse than Naru. Heck, she was basically a near-Feminazi (disliking Keito simply because he was male) because of her sister, Tsuruko, going and getting married. She just became easier to like because she tended to be more and more dere as the series went on whereas they kept playing the whole "misunderstandings" angles and such with Naru, keeping her "angry" (I admit, I liked Motoko a lot more when she started mellowing out too).


B.) Same. I never heard of NH being so popular in Japan and only a little SS but even those SS fans first wanted Sakura to ACTUALLY get through to Sasuke and change him first so they could have a REAL relationship and not the nothing they have now.


C.) You can also tell how a lot of the anime-related lists tend to be based on far more mainstream Western-released anime and their fan base unless it's a topic that doesn't have a lot of such anime to use. Otherwise, if it were based on Japanese opinion, Hinatatas would more than likely have been in Sakura's place or at least have part one Sakura much lower and Hinatatas near the top.

In terms of the Turn X, I've heard it go either way. I can see why some would consider it a "Gundam" because of it being called the "brother" of the Turn A Gundam and there being Gundam-like eyes and such, but for me personally, it's only a "Gundam" if it's actually called a "Gundam" in its name somewhere. Like, even the Gundam F91 originally was NOT a "Gundam". It was simply the Formula 91, but the crew of the Space Ark, during the chaos of the Crossbone Vanguard's attack (who didn't even know what it was called as they were merely a skeleton crew), gave it the "Gundam" name because of its appearance with its face mask closed and so it became forever known as the Gundam F91.

Even the Akatsuki Gundam in Gundam SEED Destiny wasn't initially called a "Gundam" either until a while after (though it's easy to see why it would gain the name).


D.) And, of course, there's just plain old hypocrisy. A lot of those screaming "SJWs!" at films don't seem to have a problem picking and choosing, like I don't see them screaming such a thing about Jyn Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; with numerous calling it one of the best Star Wars films. You don't see them screaming about Leia herself when she shows off badassness in the OT. And when it comes to anime, they'll be calling Sakura "useless" and "one of the worst anime girls / characters ever" out of one side of their mouths while drooling out the other at the idea of being stepped on girls by Taiga from Toradora or Louise from Zero no Tsukaima and other tsunderes that appear "worse" than Sakura.

[jak123]

Of course we can't forget this little gem. (Don't read the comments, folks. You'll get mad)
https://www.crunchyr...iately-break-up

 

Some of those couples are genuinely terrible from a story aspect, but then some are just butthurt shippers.

 

10. Naruto and Hinata - Totally agree.

 

7. Gundam SEED's Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne - They could have been better, but its they put them together at the end to make sure Kira had a love interest. Honestly I thought it would be Cagalli before they pulled the "actually twins" out of their ass. To add to that, Cagalli and Athrun weren't great either.

 

6. Naruto's Sasuke and Sakura - Totally agree even more than Hinata and Naruto.

 

5. Nisekoi's Raku Ichijo and Chitoge Kirisaki - This actually makes sense in the story, this is an example of butthurt shippers who liked Onodera.

 

2. Sword Art Online's Kirito and Asuna - They are a well built couple. Butthurt shippers who like one of the other girls.

 

1. Detective Conan's Shinichi Kudo and Ran Mori - Been building this up since the very beginning. Probably butthurt shippers who like that other girl who was made tiny since she's close to Shinichi/Conan as well.

[dl316bh]

I remember browsing Love HIna fanfiction back in the days. Most everyone wanted Keitaro to be paired with Motoko or Shinobu because Naru was a "Tsundere kitten!" It just feels really weird to me to be into a series that contained a trope that would trigger you so bad. If I felt tsundere characters were immoral or just painful to watch, I would simply not look at the series. Just having that element should be a sign it's not for you. Some will argue back "Well, if it was a boy hitting a girl, you would call it abuse!" While I might find such a thing disturbing, I would at least recognize it's intended as a comedic effect.

 

I can't remember if it was the manga or the anime - probably the anime - that had her hitting him every few minutes, it seemed like. I'm good with the slapstick and understand that's just something Japanese fiction likes and isn't meant to be taken seriously as violence (fiction always ramps up drama and reactions anyway, even here), so I always just raise an eyebrow at people who get upset about it. But I remember thinking it got uncomfortably silly in Love Hina. But that might just be my opinion. I don't think I ever finished it.

 

WatchMojo is full of kitten. I know that seems like a petty thing to say just because you don't agree with a list, but they do have a pattern of not thinking things through.

 

Yeah, they did a best anime couples and worst anime couples and Kirito/Asuna were on both.

 

I just shrug and move on - and I think they have different people doing the lists and presenting them, which explains the discrepancy - but it's worth a chuckle and an eyeroll.

 

Yeah, this is a bit of a disturbing trend. They bash the idea of feminism without realizing that this ideology can be interpreted many ways like religion. A movie or series gets a female lead, the "SJWS" are taking over! They freaked out over Wonder Woman back then, and if a female gets so much as a moment they freak out. Even if many female led movies are bad, they act like it's because they star women, NOT because of a bad story, bad acting, etc. Or in some cases, suddenly act like they actually cared about a property before (She-Ra) Hell, if a female character has one measly flaw they denounce her as a bad character. 

Honestly, it feels like a fad and characters like Sakura unfortunately get caught in it.

 

I talk about this a lot with a friend of mine who has a philosophy degree and pays a lot more attention to the goings on in the world, including stuff like this, and we've kind of come to the conclusion that it's an outreach of identifying spaces as "theirs", seeing the writing on the wall and not wanting to give it up. Speaking as a straight white male, we've traditionally held all the power in the world, including in entertainment. I think in the last couple years, there's been a realization that's been changing - female characters aren't just there for eye candy anymore, women are actually admitting to and openly enjoying video games more, there are more female and ethnic leads in games/comics/film - and there's been a panic and, despite the fact that it's probably way too late now, an attempt to push back and put the genie back in the bottle through harassment and attempts to run people off.

 

We saw this blow up fairly recently with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which, gonna just go ahead and say it, I might like even more than Empire at the moment. That entire movie was an examination and deconstruction of the things that had happened through the entire franchise to that point, from the "we stay and fight to the last, we can pull this off" type of last stand that could cost everything if it failed to outright putting into the text of the franchise that the Jedi got too far up their own ass and ended up sealing their fate because of it, as well as explaining things you don't think about but which are equally important, such as "who funds these freaking space rebellions?" with an honest "oh damn" moment. What's focused on by the type of people in question? Too many women doing cool things, so they must hate men, Luke didn't just join and kick Kylo Rens ass - even if his story was ultimately far more powerful this way and even if, when he came back at the end he was still so rad he metaphorically saved the day over the telephone - so they must hate men, focusing on dumb things like "why don't they just warp speed carriers through all the fleets" like the "resistance" wasn't already incredibly resource starved in that movie and couldn't afford to just warp spaceships into the enemy willy nilly and so on. There's not liking a movie and then there's just being silly about it.

 

A lot of those screaming "SJWs!" at films don't seem to have a problem picking and choosing, like I don't see them screaming such a thing about Jyn Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; with numerous calling it one of the best Star Wars films.

 

You know what's funny? I think the people who honestly believe it's one of the best are in the minority. I've never seen discussion of a Star Wars film go quiet so quick in my life. Conversation dried up about that film before it was through its first month and even then it seemed like all anyone wanted to talk about was Vader showing up and dicing people up with a lightsaber like the "badass" they thought he should be.

 

Which, hoo boy, could I say things about how stupid I found that and how blatantly a "look who it is" cameo it was. Mainly Vader wouldn't kittening soil his hands with that business. I swear, it's like people didn't even watch the original trilogy sometimes.

 

You don't see them screaming about Leia herself when she shows off badassness in the OT.

 

I think what most of fans like that remember of her, honestly, is the bikini. Because that's all they ever talk about. And even that's funny. I keep thinking, you know, how Leia choked the life out of the person who put her in that outfit to degrade and oogle her the first chance she got. Anyway, I think it's let slide there because she was "best girl" and the only one of note, really. Like, what other significant female character is in the original trilogy? Mon Mothma? That's the closest, right? And she doesn't do much more than exposit a bit.

 

Nisekoi's Raku Ichijo and Chitoge Kirisaki - This actually makes sense in the story, this is an example of butthurt shippers who liked Onodera.

 

I never, not even once, felt sorry for anyone upset by a canon pairing like this. If you can't see a pairing like this coming, you either don't understand structure or fiction or are willingly ignoring the obvious. I don't even care who is "best girl", it's just not happening. They're the title characters. The title is literally a word translated out to describe their relationship at the start of the show. It's the same for something like Golden Time. Like, really? Cool, you like Linda, but she's not the main character and is not one of the two leads the story revolves around. She's an important character, yes, but she was never winning. It'd be like if Toradora had Ryuugi hook up with Minorin other than the girl he stands next to in all the promotional material and whom the entire opening revolves around in addition to him. To bring it all back full circle, Naruto is one of the only ones that bucks the trend and what happened? It rang false with both the canon pairings. Why? Because all the development was put into the relationship between an entirely different pairing, so the canon pairings come off as shallow and downright silly. There was a reason everyone on the board back in the day was sure NaruSaku was happening. Hinata and Sasuke sure weren't getting the development with the leads.

 

I mean, geez, pattern recognition and understanding the basics of presentation and story structure is a thing.

Edited by dl316bh, 16 December 2018 - 05:21 PM.

[NaruSaku fan in Kentucky]

I wish Kishi was more like Tetsuya Nomura. At least he cares about his fans.

[jak123]

D.) And, of course, there's just plain old hypocrisy. A lot of those screaming "SJWs!" at films don't seem to have a problem picking and choosing, like I don't see them screaming such a thing about Jyn Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; with numerous calling it one of the best Star Wars films. You don't see them screaming about Leia herself when she shows off badassness in the OT. And when it comes to anime, they'll be calling Sakura "useless" and "one of the worst anime girls / characters ever" out of one side of their mouths while drooling out the other at the idea of being stepped on girls by Taiga from Toradora or Louise from Zero no Tsukaima and other tsunderes that appear "worse" than Sakura.

 

But they pick and choose because they don't see everything like that. Jyn Erso was a well written character. I think you have it backwards. It's usually the "sjw" types that kitten and moan if a female character shows any sign of weakness. Usually using the phrase "strong independent woman" and if that woman character has even an ounce of sexuality, there are accusations of objectification and sexism thrown around.

 

 

 

I think what most of fans like that remember of her, honestly, is the bikini. Because that's all they ever talk about. And even that's funny. I keep thinking, you know, how Leia choked the life out of the person who put her in that outfit to degrade and oogle her the first chance she got. Anyway, I think it's let slide there because she was "best girl" and the only one of note, really. Like, what other significant female character is in the original trilogy? Mon Mothma? That's the closest, right? And she doesn't do much more than exposit a bit.

 

Alot of people hated LJ because it was poorly written schlock. And aren't you insulting Leia for thinking that? That you believe people only remember her because of Return of the Jedi and her slave outfit. She had a lot of great scenes throughout the original trilogy. Frankly it's feminist types that are the true sexists because they believe women characters shouldn't be sexy.

 

 

Yeah, this is a bit of a disturbing trend. They bash the idea of feminism without realizing that this ideology can be interpreted many ways like religion. A movie or series gets a female lead, the "SJWS" are taking over! They freaked out over Wonder Woman back then, and if a female gets so much as a moment they freak out. Even if many female led movies are bad, they act like it's because they star women, NOT because of a bad story, bad acting, etc. Or in some cases, suddenly act like they actually cared about a property before (She-Ra) Hell, if a female character has one measly flaw they denounce her as a bad character. 

Honestly, it feels like a fad and characters like Sakura unfortunately get caught in it.

 

Most of the people who bash feminism now a days is because they were bashed first. I'm totally for equal rights, but hate this current incarnation of feminism. They treat men like kitten, A large number of male feminist allies are rapists and pedophiles (South Park was right. It's all about crushing puss), and they don't want equal rights. They want special treatment, but disguise it as equal treatment. You are being disingenuous that just because a movie has a female lead means people will hate it and call it SJW. They hate it when the movie gets promoted and we are told that the only reason it's being made is because 'muh feminism" like that crappy Ghostbusters movie. If you are talking about the WW movie, it got pretty much universal positive praise. If you are talking about when WW first appeared in the comics, well parents didn't like her because she actually had connections to BDSM originally because of her creator. Again, you are being disingenuous. LJ got hate for it being bad, but it also had Rey one of the most boring leads I've seen in a movie in a long time. People were mad about She-Ra because they are turning into typical modern day progressive animated schlock.

 

And the reason I'm talking this way is because I'm tired of all these political ideologues coming into nerd culture and destroying IP after IP all for the sake of them pushing some sort of agenda. Oh and if you are wondering, I'm center left.