"... he was mere inches away from killing his own daughter."
Boruto Gaiden is another proof of plot setup that goes nowhere. At that time I can't comprehend how on earth an author capable of producing one of the most successful manga all time, to come up with Boruto Gaiden.
There's no point to the story at all. lol. A father who has never visited his wife and kids for 12 years? A wife that has little recollection whether his husband wear a glasses or not? Let's not mention she pasted her photo on top of Karin's. There's zero thought process. Zero creativity to come up with compelling story. It further exposed us that Kishi is not as good as we thought him to be. No wonder the market corrects itself.
I have feelings about this of how they handled Sakura. And no matter how far I get from Naruto's botched ending, I think this will always be the most shocking and disappointing thing for me.
No reader wants to see their favorite character and heroine of the series turned into a literally housewife in maids clothes for a man she's A) not married to, B) doesn't seem to care about her and C) doesn't want to see her or the child produced from apparently one night of sex (with no relationship).
It was such blatant Sakura bashing at the end. By all of them, Kishi included. He sold out his heroine. If anything, it should have been Hinata, the clan princess, at home dusting her family's memorabilia and playing the dutiful wifey. It's literally all her character was made for. Instead they took away all of Sakura's accomplishments and made her stay at home to take care of the Uchiha legacy that even Sasuke doesn't care about.
It was the ultimate scene of character destruction, and Kishimoto drew it.
Add to that the little cat-and-mouse game of did Sasuke really love her? Is Karin the mother? What they are really saying is 'look how low and desperate Sakura is to still chase after Sasuke even though he might have...possibly...probably got someone else pregnant. And now she's raising their child.' It was a gimmick to get people to read Boruto...but it's rooted in just more straight-up Sakura bashing.
And even Naruto's nonsense speech about how you feel not what's real or not. What garbage. The guy who was regularly meeting with Sasuke, and who knew his supposed 'best friend' had left his former love interest high-and-dry with a baby and house payments. And yet he doesn't come right out and say to Sarada, "Sakura's your mom. Go home and stop hurting her feelings. She's got it hard enough since Sasuke left."
Instead his words still dance around the idea that Sarada is adopted. Total garbage from Naruto, and just more Sakura-bashing, only this time from out of the mouth of the one who said he loved her best.
You can not tell me that if they knew how popular SS was now, they would have written her this way!!! Right?!
Nobody gives a crap about Hinata or Naruto now....but the Sakura and Sasuke fans are rabid for her and for the ship. It's kinda like...uh, where ya been?!? Sakura was great before, when ya didn't care a bit about her! lol
But the morally grey, dark-haired character and the beautiful, strong heroine is soooo popular right now. Hello, Reylo much? Rhysand and Feyre from ACOTAR or Cardan from the Cruel Prince series?!
I've seen so much art about Sasuke and Sakura, so many little excerpts from their book (like where he gives her a ring), so many people saying that Sakura is their 'queen.' If they knew she was going to be this popular, and that a resurgence of SS was what was going to come out of Boruto, I think the creators would have taken an entirely different direction with Sakura.
Kishimoto gave in to the Sakura haters and really tried to write her off at the end of the manga and the beginning of Boruto. But the SS fans have turned that over.
Which shows that yes, they absolutely do not know how to write for their characters or even what their audience really wants.
And Kishimoto is a terrible writer. Yes he was/is a good illustrator, and he comes up with scenes that have some dramatic plot twists. But when he really shined he had a editor with a strong sense of the whole storyline, and kept Kishimoto to that framework. When that editor left, it quickly turned into just a series of conflicts and resolutions. There was no more story.
So it doesn't surprise me that Boruto goes nowhere. After the battle with Pain, Naruto didn't go anywhere either. We just didn't know how bad it was yet.
The fact that they bashed Sakura so badly, and yet she's turned out to be more popular than ever because of SS tells me they are still just winging it.