First Shippuden meeting.
After this they work together to defeat Kakashi. It's self explanatory, so I'm going to cut down on the number of images used.
So, what happens here? Finally, I get to talk about what Naruto thinks. Naruto returns and runs into Sakura. Sakura is impressed at how much he has grown and she blushes. She then asks what he thinks of her appearance. He says she looks the same as always. Then there is the comic relief with the perverted jutsu and Sakura punching Naruto. Then they fight Kakashi together and continue to be impressed by each other.
You'll notice that in a lot of these panels, they react the exact same way to things with the same expressions. This is a rather charming effect and shows how similar the two of them are on a basic level, even if outwardly they're quite different.
There isn't a huge amount of stuff to explain about the events, so I am going to talk about some general ideas as well that apply to Naruto and Sakura rather than just this situation. Starting now.
Why did Sakura blush upon seeing Naruto? Because she's attracted to him? It's really not complicated. She's starting to kinda like Naruto. This is important for a point I will make later that is fairly devastating.
Why does Sakura punch Naruto when he does dumb s***? You know, I'm not going to bother with the obvious answer (She's a tsundere.) Instead, I will tell you why Sakura feels such a strong compulsion to do this.
She does it because she cares about Naruto. That sounds counterintuitive, right? Why does she hurt Naruto if she cares about him? It's because she doesn't want him to do dumb stuff. She wants him to be the best Naruto he can be, so she punishes him for being an idiot so that he'll stop being one. Also since she's always with him and is close to him, his behavior is a reflection on her, so she doesn't want him to make her look bad. But it's more so the first reason. She wants to make Naruto a better person because she cares about him.
People should be able to relate to this. If someone you don't care about does something dumb, you just laugh at them or whatever. But if someone you really like does something dumb, this hurts to see. You want them to stop. So Sakura stops him with physical force because she cares.
In the original Japanese, the "wonderful feeling of respect" she had for Naruto actually translated directly as "shining girl's heart". Make of that what you will. I know what I'm making of it.
Explain the other things that happened. Naruto says that Sakura looks the same, because to him, Sakura always looked beautiful. In some other moments, there is an aspect of avoiding flirting with Sakura after the events of the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, because after that he became convinced she would never love him, but I don't think that is at play here. Maybe slightly with the phrasing "You look fine", instead of something stronger, but it could be that he just doesn't want to get punched. Honestly, this isn't that important to me. Naruto could just be being stupid.
Sakura's warm smile: When Naruto does something good, Sakura often has this smile on her face. The meaning of it is that she has a feeling of warmth and happiness seeing that Naruto has come so far. Because she feels invested in his success for some reason that she doesn't really understand. What that is is up to you to determine. Considering the ending, it's absolutely f***ing nothing, but I digress. The one thing that is consistent to every iteration of this smile is that Naruto NEVER sees it. Make of that what you will, but considering the ending, make absolutely nothing of it because it meant nothing. Moving on.
Sakura and Naruto being impressed with one another. Sakura's reaction is pretty self-explanatory, but there's one thing to say about Naruto's. "She could kill me..." is rarely associated with an expression like that for most people. The fact she can kill him actually makes him love her even more, because he loved her when she was weak, and now she's really strong and he thinks that is so cool. Compare this to the scene in War Arc where Sakura punches something and is like "Do you think I'm a weak woman who can't compete with you?" And Naruto just looks like a scared dumbass. It's because Kishimoto removed his love for Sakura. Sorry, Naruto, but you aren't allowed to love her strength anymore. Now you just find it gross and scary, because you're being forced to be with Hinata.
I guess that's all.
Did Naruto love Sakura at this point? Yes.
Did Sakura love Naruto at this point? No, but she's attracted to Naruto and she likes him. I guess I'll talk about another side point here.
The only way SasuSaku can work, and I mean the one and only way, and even certain obnoxious pro-enders will agree with this: Is if Sakura's love is depicted as ridiculously deep and enduring, once-in-a-lifetime type thing. This is because it would take a very unique and strong love to survive all the pain and misery that Sasuke himself and her longing for Sasuke put her through. Oh, I forgot to mention that. She would need to be depicted as longing for Sasuke when he's not there. Which is something that she is never depicted as doing. In actuality she has an awesome time without him. The strongest emotion seen from Sakura regarding Sasuke in pre-war arc Shippuden is her being horrified that he is so evil and at the fact that people need to kill him because he's a criminal.
So after this one simple moment, Kishimoto made that kind of love completely impossible for him to establish. Because she's already emotionally cheating on Sasuke right now. She finds Naruto attractive and likes him ALREADY! That didn't take long. And this happens over and over until the end. Her love was not portrayed as enduring, her love was not portrayed as anything overly special. It was portrayed as selfish and it was portrayed as bad for her and she was portrayed as moving on from it. She thought Naruto was her best friend and she loved Sasuke. But she was wrong. Even as early as the Wave arc she blushed at Naruto. It was never true love to begin with. True love is exclusive, right? I guess she could love both of them, but then how is the love for Sasuke enduring if it couldn't even endure the existence of another dude? It had already failed to endure before Sasuke even tried to kill her or torture her! Now that is pathetic.
This is one of many reasons why SS doesn't work. Say what you want to about NH, I don't think it should have happened either. But at least Hinata was never portrayed as blushing at Kiba.
So what does this mean for NaruSaku? Sakura is starting to like Naruto, and Naruto already loved Sakura. So they're on the way. Not much to say here really. The pairing looked like a strong possibility before this, but after this point, it becomes more and more established and obvious until it becomes ineluctable. And then Kishimoto destroyed everything.
Rating: 3. It's not as bad as other scenes, but it brings to mind several things that are frankly awful to think about in retrospect. For instance, this scene alone establishes more interest from Naruto towards Sakura than he ever showed towards Hinata. And this is only one scene. It makes it obvious that Sakura can't possibly love Sasuke all that much. And it shows that they were a great team that never should have been separated. Unfortunately, they were.
Oh, Sakura. Sakura, Sakura, Sakura. You wouldn't be doing that if you knew the terrible retribution the fans will get Kishimoto to visit upon you as a result. If you knew, you'd grab your hand like you just touched a hot stove.
If you knew what they were going to do to you, you would be so horrified, Sakura-chan. But there's nothing I can do to help you. It's already been written. If I could change it, I would. But I'm just someone writing a forum post. I don't have the power to change anything.
But I can explain how f***ed up it is.
Edited by DrK, 30 November 2017 - 07:30 PM.
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Let me chop your legs and you'll never have your ligaments pulled again XD
