Hey Phantom thanks for responding back!
Don't take offense to this because it was something I overlooked since when I wrote the post it was pretty late at night where I live and I've been dealing with 12-13 hour timezone crisis since I got back home... but hopefully I can explain my point more clearer now on this.
The comedic moments between NaruSaku don't necessarily bother me at all and in fact I do enjoy those moments a lot. What I meant by saying that those moments are treated as jokes is that at times when we do certain where we get something intimate between NaruSaku & you have a character just disrupt the tension away from them.
Plus I do love other series that tackle the whole tsnudere love trope whether its from Rurouni Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakusho, Black Clover, etc its always great to have amazing comedy banter between a couple and when it comes to NaruSaku I loved that aspect about their dynamic too.
The point I was just making was that when I was looking back on how NaruSaku was handled in the manga... from a writing perspective I just personally wanted more intimate moments between Naruto and Sakura where they are thinking about one another.
We talked about how other series have the tsundere love story and here's a couple examples I wanna bring up:
take Rurouni Kenshin as an example:
- There are a ton of comedy banter between Kenshin and Kaoru and they are all really amazing and hillarious too, but what I appreciated about their relationship is that you didn't have other character interrupting them during their more heartfelt moments. A key one that comes to mind for me is when Kenshin left for Kyoto and you had this beautiful moment between him and Kaoru.
One other amazing example I always think of is Yu Yu Hakushou:
- Yusuke and Keiko have an really beautiful and rather deep love story in Yu Yu Hakushou that I don't think anyone is willing to argue about. Much like NaruSaku, they too have that goofy hero and tsundere love story trope similar to what we've seen before. What they have together is very similar to what Kaoru and Kenshin where when it comes to their serious moments it's always centered around them and what they want to do. 9 out of ten it rarely has to do with some other person involved as a third wheel.
- The moments that really strike a cord with me between Yusuke and Keiko is during the Dark Tournament where you have this nice silly moment where they are just being goofy, but it also turns into a rather intimate moment when Keiko performs Yusuke's similar gun pose and he just smiles in awe about it. But once again it was only a just between Yusuke and Keiko, and I know there are moments where you have other characters involved with them, but what I noticed is that even though they are present be it Kurama, Hei, Kuwabara, Botan, etc. they never really interrupt their more intimate moments together.
You brought up Black Clover and that is a really great one too:
- Asta and Noelle is a great relationship that I wanna see come to fruition and they have great comedic banter with one another. Which yeah some people might say it's been one sided more so from Noelle's point of view, and Asta just being well dense up until the the timeskip where I think we will finally get that moment between that pay off we've been waiting for, but the moment I really adored was when the royals were kitten talking Noelle about being a failure and you had Asta help defend her by holding her hand and she's there to witness it... Some will say "That's not really intimate, Lucky... find a different scene!" I mean you've had moments where Asta is really proud of how Noelle has come in strength like the Water Temple Arc and during her battle against Megicula before we got this final arc.
Those were also anime with typical anime tsundere tropes too, and it makes me wish NaruSaku had more of that.
Like I said it before, I adore the comedy moments between Naruto and Sakura and there are moments where things are serious about them (be it related to Sasuke or not), but I just wished from a writer's perspective we got more intimate moments between Naruto and Sakura.
If a series like Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakushou, and Black Clover can have intimate moments like that while also having the typical tsundere love trope going on then why couldn't NaruSaku?
Believe me when I say this, I wanted that for NaruSaku the most cause there was the makings of a good love story there and even now I can still see those elements too. I can acknowledge that 100 percent, but like I said I just think we needed more to further elevate it.
I really genuinely hope what I'm writing isn't frustrating you, Phantom. I really don't want there to be any arguments about this at all. Just a nice civil conversation is all I'm wanting to have here.
I don't want this post to come off as me attacking you or anyone here on the forums. I'm just sharing what I would've liked to see with NaruSaku and comparing it to how the other series that have the tsundere love trope as a part of it too.
If my post does come off like it's me being arguing back then I really am sorry because I don't want it to come off like that at all. I'm writing all of this with a clear, calm, collected mind set.
But you get what I mean though, right?