why doesn't Sakura get a pass? Well you answered it yourself already, Hinata "jerking off" and NaruSaku being a serious threat to NaruHina. Plus again, I like to bring up the special case as to why Sakura is not tolerated as a tsundere but others are much more beloved by fans; Naruto had a heartbreaking backstory that many want to coddle him for, so for Sakura, the default love interest, to hit him, belittle him, and not out right loving him from the start like Hinata, plus is a squealing fan girl for the cool popular bad boy and not for Naruto as fans think he deserves, makes many viewers see her as a horrible person. Other MCs either don't have a tragic back story, or their tragic back story has no visible effect on them in the present story line for fans to think that the resident tsundere is a heartless unsympathetic b---- for making the MC's life even harder. That's just a guess anyway but it makes sense if you think about it.
Besides, as you say, in a sense it's not that any other characters get a pass, their deluded fans THINK they get or DESERVE a pass.
State side, the tsundere's most well known example are through some of Takahashi's works and whose Tsundere's starte off pretty extreme. Akane, Kagome. Then there is stuff like Love Hina and Evangelion, and Chi Chi with DBZ. With that being your experience, yeah, I can understand. Sakura is a very mild tsundere, but with that as your back drop, you might be inclined to think here we ago again and have that stick.
Also I think Naruto's back story contributes. By the time she is introduced, the audience already knows his backstory and feels for him. Naruto's back story was incredibly effective in generating sympathy and allowing the audience to overlook or get past the fact that he was a brat. Then bench seen solidified that by taking his crush and moviving beyond shallow reasons. So when Sakura is introduced and is mean to him, it's not surprising people would dislike her for it. We know the world from his perspective and not hers and know things about his life that she did not.
You two bring up good points and you are right, but it only leads me to more questions about the fanbase.
I am gonna start with Phantom first:
It just goes to show how shallow this fandom is where they took everything at face value. How many other characters had heartbreaking stories that they despised? Obito has a heartbreaking story too, but many fans seem him in a bad way instead of the same way they see Naruto. What's the difference? If someone has a heartbreaking story why shouldn't we sympathize with them? How would you feel if someone killed the love of your life and that person was your bestfriend? Is that not heartbreaking or does this not count? RulesofNature mentioned that Sasuke gets a pass because people saw him as the cool rival character. Why only based on his cool rival character type and not his tragic heartbreaking backstory of his clan getting murdered, his family getting killed, and his brother is the one doing it? Is that heartbreaking? The fact that RulesofNature specifically said off the top of her head that Naruto's heartbreaking backstory (That we didn't know much about til later) is what gives him a pass, but Sasuke's cool nature and NOT his backstory gives him a pass is pretty evident that on the surface the only backstory people cared about....was Naruto's.
They didn't even care about Hinata's backstory of her father rejecting her because she wasn't strong willed enough to lead her people, but her sister was. They really cared about Neji's backstory and hated when he was killed because honestly which one is more heartbreaking? Neji being an outcast from birth because he is from the "other side" of the family with his father willingly take his own life. Neji lis then seen later saying "Now I understand the meaning behind that" is what made people cry so hard when Neji was killed and why Obito was unforgivable. This is also where many began to hate Hinata more because while Neji had a true horrific heartbreaking backstory...Hinata did not and she completely ignored it. She didn't even try to fix things in Neji's name. She cared more about Naruto and his injuries than she did even Neji. So I think this scene made a lot of fans take a step back and say "Is Hinata really such a great person? I don't think so since we loved Neji to death and he basically died for her and she couldn't even acknowledge his life let alone acknowledge his sacrifice."
Of course, in the beginning Neji was the badguy because he beat Hinata up and I guess this is why for a while he was hated by the pro-enders. "He was the bad guy that beat up poor little Hinata. We hate him." Though I have never seen many fans say this I do believe this is what became of that. So does Neji get a pass because we knew his backstory?
So at the end of the day only Naruto's and maybe Neji's backstory was considered legit and with everyone else it was superficial. Sasuke was only liked because he was cool, not because people sympathized with him. Obito has a tragic backstory, but because he killed people he was seen as a bad guy and people hated gim. How come when Sasuke kills people and attempts to kill Naruto and so many others all of a sudden people are like "Aww poor Sasuke?" It surprises me greatly that two characters be very much alike and both do evil things, but one is loved and forgiven while the other is reviled and rejected. Hinata was only seen as cool because she blindly loved Naruto for no reason and she was shy and pathetic in present time. Noone cared about her backstory as shallow as it was. Neji started out superficial, but soon turned into deeper thought. Sakura is hated across the board because again superficial means: "She was mean to him at first so she is always a kitten." The rest had their brief moments and dropped from existence.
How about Gaara? We didn' get his backstory til much later and he was killing everyone and everything mercilessly at first. Why aren't people still hating him? "Gaara is an kitten. He sucks. I wish he would die. He is such a bastard to everyone." How much Gaara hate do you see in the fandom? Again, first impressions. We didn't know Gaara's backstory and he first showed up as a huge villain. Now, if we say "Well, everyone later learned about Gaara's backstory and sympathize with him." Why? Why does this all of a sudden excuse all the bloodshed and all the bad things like trying to kill people and so much more? The answer is about as simple as anything....because Gaara is Naruto. He is exactly like Naruto in almost every way just even more cranked up. In fact, Gaara should be more liked than Naruto because his backstory is far more heartbreaking than Naruto's by a large margin. Even Naruto expresses this by showing how overtime he developed bonds with Iruka, kakashi, Sasuke, Sakura, more....(No mention of Hinata by the way) and that he was far more priveldged than Gaara at this point. Gaara had nobody until Naruto decided to make a bond with him. This is also why the Gaara Retrival Arc was so powerful because he felt that nobody could ever understand the hardships that Gaara and himself faced. (Again, Hinata not included)
Also, funny how if Sakura is mean to Naruto...she is considered a kitten, but if everyone else is mean to Naruto....nothing. I don't see people saying how Neji is an kitten for treating Naruto like garbage. Because Naruto beat him up? Sasuke was trying to literally kill him throughout the whole manga, but nobody calls him out on that one. "He is misunderstood" is the excuse we are given.
It's even funnier how Hinata gets all the glory for being this "cute and shy fangirl" for Naruto all because she cared about him, but Iruka, Jiriaya, Tsunade, and even Sakura herself on many occasions caring about Naruto get no praise at all. Nothing. I don't hear people talk about Iruka being that surrogate father to Naruto. The only other people that many sympathize with is Naruto's own parents and I think this is a good segway into what I want to remark upon with Nate.
Basically what I am saying is....favoritism has killed this franchise because instead of reading the story and each character as a whole, people picked and chose what they wanted and favored some aspects while ignoring others.
To Nate:
What I find interesting about this is that you mention that because we know Naruto's backstory she is automatically hated due to the bench scene. It's even funnier when the fans selectively ignore all the good scenes in the series. Looking at what Analyzer said about Sakura not being a Tsundere...if that is true, then why is she hated? Sakura was nice to Naruto after she understood him. Many of the villagers became nicer to Naruto after they understood him. Neji and Gaara treated Naruto like kitten, but I don't see people constantly hating on them. I don't see Neji and Gaara being told how bad of people they are.
Now, you might say that over time Neji and Gaara were nice to Naruto, but so was Sakura. She was being nice and supportive of Naruto long before any of these characters were supportive. So why is she still getting hate? People don't mention all the nice things Sakura did for Naruto during the whole entire series.
So why is it only Sakura that gets the "curse of the first impression" while everyone else people have allowed the change and reevalution? How many people hate Kushina because the first thing she did was hit Naurto? "Oh Kushina is an abusive mother."
Again, just looking at first impressions of characters what can you make of all the characters?
Sasuke is a emo.
Naruto is a brat
Sakura is a prissy kitten
Ino is a prissy kitten
Shikamaru is lazy.
Rock Lee is the ultimate motivated.
Tsunade is...kittens!!!!
Jiraiya is a pervert
Iruka is a nagging teacher
Kakashi is a genius teacher
Neji is an kitten
Gaara is an murdering psychopath
So why does everyone else, after learning more about them, get this change of idealogy about their character and move beyond the first impression, but Sakura does not? Sakura is the only character where people refuse to acknowledge anything beyond that so called "first impression." "She is a kitten...she hits people....she is obsessive...and she is a horrible person." It's like me saying "Kushina is a horrible mother and she is a kitten. I am glad she is dead because she left Naruto alone in the world." Would that be justifable based only on the first impressions of her character?
What kind of impressions would Minato and Kushina get if we had a story focused on them growing up, Kushina being a kitten to Minato, and Minato being the hero after a tragic backstory....and so on and so forth. Would they see Kushina as a kitten because she first treated him like crap? Let's throw in another shy character like Hinata into the mix. Would people want Minato to be with her and not Kushina or would the preconceived notion that Minato and Kushina getting together is inevitable and would they ignore all faults right off the bat?
I am truly curious about all of this. I am asking these question because it feels like people haven't asked these to people. It's like such obvious and common sense questions that people are just letting roll off and never giving thought about and it is these kind of questions that prove just what kind of fans people are when it comes to this series.
It even becomes more evident when you have Naruto NOW as an adult and as a father treating his own kids just like some of the adults that treated him like he was a kid and people are okay with this. Does Naruto's tragic heartbreaking backstory excuse all his behavior now? The neglect he has for his kids, the downright "too busy to give attention" like some adults were to him, the favoritism of one other person over his own flesh and blood like how Hinata showed favoritism to Naruto over Neji, and so much more.
Does Sasuke's "cool guy" demeanor give him the excuse to be a bad father that neglects his family and doesn't care about them at all? Is it all of a sudden okay for Sasuke to be bad to his kids because his family was bad to him? Does he get a pass because Sasuke is a tragic character with a heartbreaking story or because he is cool or is it because of something else.
To me, it is not the first impression that is the problem. No, it is the "false impression." This claim that these characters are one thing and not the reality that they are. Naruto is a huge scumbag. He is and no amount of tragic backstory erases that. It should not excuse that behavior. I myself have never let my low points in life become a reason to treat others like crap. Do we forgive a murderer for killing people all because his father raped him as a child? No. We still put them to death or life in prison. We still punish and hold people accountable for their actions despite their backstories. In fact, myself did the opposite of it all. Because people never listened to me, I made it a point to listen to others. Because people never gave me respect I chose to give others respect in return. Whatever I never got, I tried to give to others because I know how it feels to be on that opposite side of the fence.
Naruto should be loving and caring for his kid as his father because HE never had a father growing up and this is a plot device in the story that Naruto is never around for Boruto. That is Boruto's stuggle. Should we sympathize with Boruto and say "Hey, it is okay, he has a heartbreaking story?" I don't see anyone sympathizing with Boruto on anything. They see him more boring and too priveledged to be considered a tragic hero.
Ask these questions to anyone and you can get a sense of feel for who they are.
To me, the most pathetic character in the entire series is Hinata. She had everything to her name. She was born into a prestige family, she was rich, she was praised for being the daughter of the leader, but her father saw weakness in her because she was apprehensive and not becoming of a leader. "Poor poor Hinata. Awww, are you okay?" I like how Hinata gets pitied because her mother and father neglect her, but Boruto doesn't get that pity when his parents don't. Again, funny how people pity Naruto and Hinata, but noone else. Not one other person gets that pity.
Hinata is a selfish, priveledged, pathetic, character and the only reason why she got what she got was because everyone pitied her and this is why she never grew out of her "shy and pathetic weakling phase." Of course, Hinata fan's want it both ways and say that she is a powerful independant woman, but also can't seem to live without Naruto in her life.
Edited by James S Cassidy, 15 December 2017 - 01:13 AM.