Kishimoto's backpedalling commences!
New interview, wont translate all. If you dont have faith in me, just ask another translator.
http://eiga.com/movie/79681/interview/
short version :
Naruto ending up with Hinata was decided in the very early stages of the story.
Naruto being close to Sakura was a deliberate mislead, thats why the scenes of Sakura being compared to Kushina were introduced.
The Last Movie is not only the story of Naruto falling in love with Hinata, but it is the story of Sakura & Naruto parting ways.
He felt the story of Naruto falling in love with Hinata has to be propely explained, or it wouldnt be fair to the readers. Thats why the Last Movie exists.
kitten just got real. I can smell the sh*tstorm coming.
EDIT : I gave the interview to two others translators outside of the Naruto fandom, just in case I got something wrong.
So now he's saying Sakura wasn't considered to end up being with Naruto at some point. Sorry Kishi, not buying it.
What the hell, dude. Stop contradicting yourself. You either considered Sakura at one point or you didn't, make up your mind.
It's so obvious he's just trying to cover his ass and justify this kitten movie, the kitten couple it's about, and the overwhelming evidence of NS in the manga and the
severely lacking NH development in the manga.
If NH was decided in the "very early stages of the story," why the hell did he barely bother to develop it? He
easily could have. But he didn't even introduce Hinata until chapter 34, and her and Naruto barely interacted in it (while Sakura was introduced in chapter 3, before Sasuke even, as Naruto's love interest, and we got some touching scenes of the two). And, I guess this means Kushina (and the MK story ad relationship, even) was barely more than a tool to "mislead" readers, considering she's so much like Sakura and the comparisons were meant to mislead readers. That's actually quite cruel of him, to trick his audience like that. It's not clever or good writing at all.