Hiraishin

Remember when there was family portrait drawings of SS (with sas with his back to Sakura and salad) & NH families at Jump festa or whatever, and SS was like "SEE!!!! If Sasuke was barely with his family and didn't care about them he wouldn't pose for a picture with them would he????" even though those "portraits" were clearly contrived, like those group pictures of the K11 that are in the manga from time to time. Now it turns out that, Sasuke isn't barely with his family -- he was never with them at all. lmaooo I love it.

AHAHAHA i read this chapter because i saw someone talking about it and it seemed like it trashed SS. and it did.

 

man, we don't even have to kitten on SS cause kishimoto does it for us. funny, i'm thinking of these as the novels where they may or may not be canon but... this really is.

 

sakura.. you're trash. getting pissed and punching the ground to intimidate your kid because she's asking some understandable questions about your relationship with your husband (?). kishimoto really did assassinate her character -- more, now.

 

i have to admit i feel bad for salad though also her face looked pretty in a couple panels, i must admit. she looked frightened and upset when sakura punched the ground, and then she started crying... she's never even met her father. that's f**cked up. but it only confirms what we already knew -- that sasuke isn't there for his family. what a bastard. the least he could do it show up every once in a while. what is he doing that's so important that he hasn't seen his daughter and "wife" in, what? twelve years?

 

lol @ sasuke having a picture with taka but not one with his wife. or rather, "wife." i imagine karin will show up next chapter, if not soon, in a flashback or not. i wonder if salad will meet her... i can imagine that, maybe salad questioning her, asking her if she's actually her child. but i'm pretty sure this is just drama. salad will really be sakura's kid after all, and at the end of this mini-series (or at the end of the movie) they'll be one big happy SS family.

 

and i guess Naruto learned his lesson from 700.. taking the advice from the internet people i guess lol. at least he's actually spending time with his kid. hinata and himawari will probably make a brief appearance next chapter, or in the next few...

 

I would love to see SS' reactions and justifying of this.

He should have made her show up more often, made her a little more relevant, have her actually participate in fights (even if it's only as support). In part one (besides all the things I just mentioned), have her actively try to get stronger, even just a little bit -- since of course the big change needed to come at the end of part one, once Sasuke had left and Naruto was beaten up. In part two (again, besides all the things I mentioned), not have her all but disappear between the Sasuke and Sai arc and the Kage Summit arc. Be at least a little less hung up on Sasuke all the time (esp. in the Kage arc, but everything was terrible in the arc so I'm kind of not counting it.. and everything after lol). All these little things probably could have helped her in the polls.

Of course, there are other, bigger things that could have been done (like getting rid of her feelings for Sasuke, making her less "annoying" in part one, not having her dislike Naruto in early part one) but that would change her character too much. Her own development, and her development and relationships with other characters (namely, Naruto) would have been too different, and I quite like the way it is now (except for the last like hundred chapters ofc, and parts of the Summit arc).

Oh, and Sakura couldn't have beat Sasori alone. She needed Chiyo's help, just as Chiyo needed Sakura. It was a team effort, and without the both of them (esp. Chiyo) the outcome (not talking about win vs. lose, more like the connections that Sasori held, like to his mother and father, plus his emotions etc...) most likely would have been quite different. That fight is great the way it is, I wouldn't ask to change it.

No no no. The POAL wasn't a promise to himself (wtf?), it was a promise to SAKURA. That's why when she came up he talked about her feelings and how he understands them (because he knows unrequited love, too) before telling HER (not himself) "I'll definitely bring Sasuke back! Promise of a lifetime!" And later when Sakura visits him in the hospital after the VotE and she looks sad, he says he'll fulfill his promise (because he said it was a promise of a lifetime).
Not to mention when Lee showed up to help him against Kimimarou Lee reminded him of the promise he made to SAKURA, and in 693 Naruto tells Kakashi he made a promise to Sakura.

That makes no sense, making a promise to himself when sakura's right there and she put her faith him..
After Naruto made the promise Sakura thinks about how Naruto always understood her and always helped her. That coming after the moment he made the promise makes no sense if it was to himself. :\
He was already resolved to bring Sasuke back before Sakura begged him to.

The POAL was what cemented naruto's feelings as real, true love. That's why when Sai told Sakura Naruto loves her, she thinks back to the moment he made the promise, and when he tells her he'll keep his promise.

The POAL had nothing to do with his desire to save Sasuke (which naruto says himself in 469, if it wasn't already clear before - plus shizune says "naruto's not just doing it because he promised sakura!" Another thing proving the promise was for Sakura and his desire to help sasuke is independent of it), and everything to do with Sakura and Naruto's feelings for her. It is one of the most touching moments in the series (imo) and one of the most profound NS moments/scenes, proving Naruto's feelings and another show of his selflessness. Please don't try to erase that.

In order for naruto being so obsessed with sasuke to be believable, they would have had to bond much more in part one, more actual first hand evidence of their closeness/friendship/whatever; but if that would have happened, I don't think I would have found sasuke leaving to be so believable, either (which is how I felt when we found out young sasuke stalked young naruto too). catch-22.

She shouldn't have been purposefully written to be unlikable, which was Kishimoto's original goal with her. He thought it'd make things "interesting", well apparently readers disagreed. The thing l'll never understand though is why he seemed surprised at her poor recption. He took a gamble with her and lost.

That's what always gets me. You made an unlikeable character and -- surprise surprise! People didn't like her! What did he expect would happen? Honestly, he's so dumb. Why would you make the heroine unlikeable?

hahahhahaha that ns stronger than wife/husband thread on nf is just gold.

what's funny is the people saying that nh/ss dating and getting married means that their bond automatically > ns bond. do they seriously not know any couples who have outside friendships that are much greater/closer etc. than the couples' relationship?

Ugh that interview makes me want to throw up. All the SS praise and justification. There's no way they really think all that. They can't..

The most laughable part was how they said Sakura's love matured. Her confession in 693 was the exact same as the one in 181. Four years and nothing changed.

gotta laugh every time someone tries to justify sasuke attempting to murder sakura by saying "it was self-defense!" as if sakura somehow had it coming. first of all (and im not even gonna mention the time at orochimaru's lair), when sasuke decided to fry sakura's brain, HER BACK WAS TURNED. she had made no move against him before he tried to kill her. there is no precedent for self-defense here at all.

second, he used lethal force against a low-level opponent that he is infinitely stronger than. think about it. it's like konohamaru going after prime hiruzen. she posed no legitimate threat to his life, and lbr, she didn't possess any abilities or skills that could endanger his life. besides, he'd previously shown the restraint and ability to take down weaker opponents non-fatally, in accordance to his own personal standard.

bottom line is: sasuke tried to kill her because he wanted to and he could. and you know what? he said that he planned to kill every last konoha citizen. why wouldn't he kill one that was right in front of him? he would have struck her down later anyways.

i could have sworn it was something different, like sakura-san?

Hinata used 'san' with her in the manga, but I guess in The Last and afterwards the two of them are best friends. lol. Just more retconning and OOCness, among other things.

 

I can disregard the reason Naruto didn't confess because both Hinata/Sakura had a reason to why they didn't "work harder", Sasuke was evil and Hinata was shy, besides that would hold any round if Naruto stopped displaying obvious romantic advances to Sakura but he didn't.  Sakura hasn't tried to pursue a relationship with Sasuke in Part 2 until 699 when he is good. I like Naruto and think he's a selfless character so I don't think i'm being unfair....

So did they or didn't they "work harder" than Naruto? Naruto's got a reason too, the reason why he didn't confess. Sure he made some romantic advances toward her which was indication that he still held feelings toward her, but they weren't very serious.

You're being unfair by saying Naruto didn't work hard for Sakura's love whilst disregarding the reasoning behind his actions (or lack thereof).

 
I was talking about before because the person I was responding to said that SS had implications to be because Sakura wanted to beat Ino, I said that Sakura didn't know Ino liked Sasuke when she started liking him.
Sakura was fairy surprised when she admitted to liking Sasuke and finding out other people liked Sasuke so no she didn't like him for being popular and when I stated Kishi ruined the chance I was talking about giving Sakura's love a reason.
 
The original comment I was responding to said that the "rivalry thing could be applied to Sasuke/Sakura/Ino triangle, and I said it wouldn't be possible as Sakura didn't know Ino liked Sasuke when she started liking Sasuke.
I stated those arcs as examples of Sakura caring for Sasuke. 
Yeah Sakura did it for Naruto's sake too, I know, I was just stating a reason for why Sakura did it. Sakura posses this "I know whats good for you better then yourself" mentality, she thinks that killing Sasuke would "save" him from Darkness and she did because she felt that Naruto would be better off with the burden gone, in both theses cases she disregards Naruto/Sasuke feelings.
 
Sakura couldn't kill Sasuke because she remembered the old Sasuke that she and Naruto loved
 
Naruto does what he does to any other person, one of his traits is his selflessness (Though he isn't always), Naruto didn't "work hard" to get Sakura's love (I'm excluding the reason why) which was my main point, Sakura/Hinata confessed to their love interests which is more than what Naruto did.

Well you have to take into account why Sakura and Hinata confessed: desperation. Sakura wanted Sasuke to stay in the village/just wanted to be with him, and Hinata thought she was going to die. And you can't exclude why Naruto didn't "work hard" to get Sakura's love, you're ignoring the context which is always important, plus you're just being unfair to him.

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.

Don't know if this has been posted yet or anything, so sorry if it has, but I thought this was cute:

 

better times...

Honestly, what in that Finale makes any sense? 

Sasuke doing his best to stay as far away from Sakura as possible.