You know what really pisses me off? The whole manga's theme is about BONDS. More specifically, bonds formed with family and friends--not necessarily bonds pertaining to romance. This theme is centered almost completely around team 7 and their own respective bonds with each other, as well as other friends, teachers, and family in the story.
The main bond focus has always been team 7. The entire story was centered around that bond and progressed because of it. The story emphasized the pain of such a bond breaking and withering over time, and the super-objective in the story was to replenish and strengthen this bond in order to not only heal it (and the people associated with it) per se, but to also make it stronger and more mutual and reciprocated. Bringing Sasuke back was the only way to start healing the bonds between the team as respective teammates and comrades. Healing and strengthening the bond was the only way to achieve true happiness and complete closure for everyone involved in the team. So in knowing this, you'd think that there would've been some significant and heart-warming team 7 moments in the last chapter of the series that was all about team 7 and the bonds formed within said team as a collective group. But nope. No interaction between them as a team--as a group of friends at ALL. Yes, Naruto and Sasuke had significant moments in 699. And Sasuke and Sakura shared a bullsh** moment. But what about them as a team? ALL interacting together. Like family and old friends. Instead, all of the interaction is focused and centered exclusively around Sasuke rather than the interaction being centered around the team as a whole.
That's why I'm so MAD. In the epilogue, we do not get to see the team bonding like old times or even interacting together as a whole in the slightest. We don't even get any evidence (whether implicitly stated or not) that all of them remained extremely good friends, all supporting one another. Instead, what do we get? We get Naruto bonding/interacting with Sasuke in 699. Then Sakura interacting with Sasuke in 699. And that's it. We don't get anything more than that concerning team 7. Instead, in the epilogue, panel space is wasted showing everyone paired up, along with their irrelevant children. Panel space is wasted by focusing on Bolt and Sarada in an attempt to set-up part 3 when INSTEAD, the EPILOGUE should be focused on tying up all the loose ends. Panel space is used showing the team as a separated being, all in their own individual lives (and individual panels, mind you). Almost like all of them went their own separate ways. They are shown separately. Unbounded to each other. It gives off the impression that they are disconnected in a way. They are no longer whole or complete as a team or group. It's an utter mess. Instead of Kishi focusing on bonds centered on friendship and companionship (a crucial and main theme to the story in its entirety), we get Kishi focusing on the weak and under-developed bonds centered on romance instead (which were not NEARLY as important as the theme centered around friendship and supportive comrades was).
Everything the story stood for is tossed out the window COMPLETELY. You'd THINK Kishi would show team 7 together at least in the same panel in the epilogue, but he DOESN'T. Hell, he doesn't even show the poorly though-out "canon" ships together in the same panel. This ending is such a joke I cannot stand it. The whole purpose of bringing Sasuke back was to reform, refine, and renew the bonds involved with team 7, but we don't even get any complete closure on that. Or anything, really. Never, ever would I have imagined the ending of Naruto would turn out so poorly. Kishi has always had some poor writing at times, but I NEVER thought it would ever be THIS BAD. This ending is the epitome of failure in every sense of the word. And it's not just because of NS not becoming canon, either.
Oh, and one more thing: before anyone tries to tell me that'll we see team 7 interaction/bonding in the movie, let me just start by saying that that's bullsh**. The manga was so heavily influenced by team 7 as a whole and so entirely centered around it that closure should've been given in the MANGA, which started it all to begin with! Team 7 was SO IMPORTANT throughout the entire course of the manga--the entire 15 years--that time and panel space should've and needed to be devoted to giving complete closure and satisfying interaction between Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, and even Kakashi as teammates. I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SEE A MOVIE, NOR SHOULD ANY JAPANESE FAN NEED TO WASTE MONEY ON A MOVIE, TO SEE THINGS THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN ENTIRELY RESOLVED IN THE MANGA--THE ORIGINAL WORK.
Really? Because clearly no other person does evil deeds, let's all balme it on a guy who died centuries ago... Is this why Nagato, Jiraiya, Obito and Minato died, for this loser (Naruto) who didn't break kitten?
good for you dude how about showing how it's done. C'mon don't make your MC say stuff if you don't know how to handle it. Realistically speaking it was impossible to break that cycle, because there's more than one, what's possible is to avoid some of them to start and break a few old ones. He had the chance for Naruto to realize that and have him try to show it to the world, but we get nothing more than a: "Your peace is a lie, mine is better just because I say so."
Naruto, honestly, kitten you, you had the balls, but not anymore...
give it a few more decades and we'll see how they're doing... I'm not saying there weren't glimpses of Naruto doing this, because they were, but he did it indirectly and achieved an utopical peace out of nowhere. The real problem with this asspull of an utopical peace, is that now there's no meaning to becoming a Kage, because he achieved that peace. What a way to kitten on your character's initial dream, remember: "I'll become Hokage"
