Hinata has a simple background with struggling for her own families approval, yeah she has her problems but so does everyone else in the series, i just hate how people always bring up the "Hinata struggled in this or that way unlike Sakura, Ino, Kiba," whatever, if anything is true in Naruto at this point, many people have their troubles but with Hinata's background and development, its so easily understandable, she just faints, doubts herself, gets encouragement, wash rinse repeat. 615 changes this a bit but its still minor compared to over developments. All she develops around is Naruto, Naruto, Naruto. For anyone just saying Sakura never changes, well she is not focused Sasuke 100%, one reason people like NaruSaku is not for the pairing, its because of Sakura and her attitude for how it changed towards naruto, mainly in events when she places Naruto above Sasuke and even herself all for Naruto.
When it comes to Hinata, her biggest downfall I just hate when people try to distort are saying she has major roles, she does not. It does not help it when a character not even in 100 chapters in a manga over 600 right now can somehow be considered important and critical.
Part 1, chunin exams, this was her only major role in an arc so far, after neji gets his ass kicked, she goes to the background for the rest of the time.
Part 2, pain with the confession and blocking the fatal blow but then she goes to the background for all purposes AGAIN, and now in the ten tails revival arc, chapter 615.
What I honestly hate most is how many of these fans hate sakura yet she was the one who saved hinata and they act like its nothing...
Anyways yeah, this is it, 1 real role in an arc and the rest are just scattered short moments with very very limited development. Nothing but scattered moments like the reunion on the battlefield, still its limited, just cause she appears and talks does not make development, just cause she is present in the same place does not make development as many think it does. Don't even try saying that the reunion in the Sai and her help in the Itachi Pursuit arc were roles. The Sai arc was just team 8s reintroduction for a short moment and for humor after meeting for the first time in over 2 years. The Itachi pursuit arc had no development for the leaf ninja, save Naruto. That arc was about Sasuke and Itachi, not the leaf ninja. It was also about Jiriaya to another extent. Otherwise, Hinata's overall roles are very very limited.
I would believe she would actually be important if she had a bigger role. Two characters who have bigger roles, Shikamaru and Tsunade. They changed immensely over the course of the series, had screentime for both physical and mental development, had fights to move the story along etc. If kishi gave hinata more time like these 2 I would be more inclined to say she has more importance but she does not. Gaara for only being in a few arcs has had more development than her. Even Bee the newest major character has a bigger role, hinata has been minimal to this all.
Sakura has her flaws but she is one of the most complex characters, being a main character she has had development around both Naruto and Sasuke but also herself, her outlook of initially hating and insulting naruto turned into friendship, she herself has been inspired by him and he was the reason she trained with tsunade, not because of sasuke because of naruto. She saw his pains with Kurama and the akakstui and wanted to do something about it. Sakura is not centered just around team 7 though, Tsunade has been one of her biggest influences and Ino as well beyond just being simple love rivals. Two of the biggest things on Sakura's development are how she feels about Naruto even as just friends she still sees him as a very important, she has close feelings for him but to what extent we don't know right now, possibly her biggest though is wanting to do something of great help for him, she wanted to prove herself useful beyond just training with Tsunade, this is a trait still present on Sakura, she tried again and again to do something to help naruto even at the cost of herself, this ranged from hoping to learn the wood style from yamato to protect naruto from kruama's power, to being so saddened by the pain she caused naruto and trying to free him from the promise, (even though naruto is still doing the promise along with his own reasons it could still be a death sentence and this is why she attempted to free him, but sakura was desperate and hurt and sai said he felt like he pushed her here), even as late as 573, she is resolved to help naruto till the end especially because he was always left to do the big jobs like pain and now the ninja world, she wants to help him more than ever.
Real reason people stick to NaruSaku? Its because they have the most interaction and development together, from the good to the bad and yet Naruto and Sakura still have a close friendship. They have brought happiness, humor, confusion, fear, anger, and hope to each other. They have grown through the good and bad. Their development is like a realistic one, built off the good times and the bad, its at the point they know each other very well. In the same way naruto protects sakura a lot, sakura tried to protect him when it came to the akaksktui. They have had many good times like when the felt they were getting closer to Sasuke and gave each other inspriation for their efforts. They both suffered whenever Sasuke ran away. They both hurt each other in some way yet have been able to forgive each other, Sakura never once though differently of naruto when he struck her in the 4 tailed form she knew this was not naruto, she knew that naruto had a good heart and would not do that, naruto was hurt when he found out sakura would try to kill sasuke, not because she risked dying, naruto could not imagine or live with himself if all his bonds broke right there. Their development reached a point when they felt they didn't even deserve each other, naruto for the promise, sakura for the pain she caused him. Sakura herself was hurt when trying to get naruto off the promise. Even eariler in part 1, sakura still saw naruto as an idiot but was willing to give up on the chunin exam so naruto had a chance to become hokage. This changed after he saved her from gaara and epsically after the promise to get sasuke back. Naruto would ruin his own chances to be with Sakura if it meant getting Sasuke back but he originally for her but he also saw Sasuke as a brother. Even if he got sasuke back, he did it in the hopes that she would notice him in a better light and still be good friends. Obviously this changed a lot due to their time together, they are at the point they are bound to each other with the promise, the promise became something binding all of team 7, not just naruto to do something for sakura, the purpose of it has caused so much development between them and the effort to get sasuke back, thats what is a major driving factor. But its not just the promise, again many other events have had them go into good and bad points and still they come out strong as with their relationship.
I could spend all day talking about this but i think this is enough, Sakura still loves Sasuke but has close feelings and concerns for Naruto, its not impossible for her to change, its not proven that Naruto is over Sakura as many claim (rather there are just too many reasons saying he still loves sakura). Only time will tell, its because if this development was only friendship, well kishi proved he could do the best type of friendship in the series over any romance he could make between any other 2 character.
I'm gonna end it here. this is only a small sample of the overall relation for naruto and sakura.
Edited by Inferno180, 28 March 2013 - 04:04 PM.