QFT. Sakura is no longer the heroine, because she's not popular enough. It's so stupid. Even if I could forgive everthing else, I can't forgive an author who will freely admit that he would willingly change his story based on popularity. I am aware that Naruto is a commercial product, but that's not really the point. The point is that if Kishi is willing to change the heroine based on popularity, then who's to say that he won't change other parts of his story.
What this is basically telling us is that it's not about telling a good story, it's about popularity. Quality doesn't matter as long as it makes a profit. Naruto is nothing more than a cash cow. It was already a cash cow even before the ending, but at least it still had a somewhat compelling story. Now that's gone and what we're left with is essentially a glorified reader poll disguised as a story.
What's even worse is that this direction was based on what is essentially a minory of the fandom.
Not surprised. His interviews portray him as someone who can easily be manipulated lol.
Yeah. I can't tell whether Kishi is greedy or incompetent or or just plain stupid. I think it a little of all three. It's obvious that he wants to be succesfull and make money, but at the same time it seems like much of the succes of Naruto can be attributed to his first assistant Yahagi. This has probably given him the mindset that listening to input from others is always a good idea, which it is, but it's also important to have a creative vision and stick to it, otherwise the story gets messy and incoherent. Unfortunately Kishi is either too stupid or too naive to understand this the result is the mess that is 699/700, The Last and now Part 3.
Edited by TerrorKing, 03 February 2015 - 09:33 PM.

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