I remembered the "Sakura's hug was sign of friendship/sibling/platonic love" argument. Mind you, does friends even hug like that?! Never in my life had ever seen someone pull that to a friend. Not even to my own siblings either.
Embracing the back of one's head is usually a sign of intimacy, at least that's what I've been lead to believe. I remember when some of my Highschool classmates came together over the death of one of our own. I met up with the girl I had a MAD crush on in Highschool, and she hugged me. Though I don't really remember the hug very well, I am almost positive it was nothing like the Sakura hug.\ Keep in mind, she had a boyfriend. Had she done the Sakura hug, I would have been very confused.
Honestly, when Sasuke swatted away those apples, it was so unnecessary. I get that he was angry, but he had to get physical? Another completely unnecessary thing is when he put a genjutsu on her that depicted him killing her. It’s so extra for no reason I can comprehend. The only time when SasuSaku is tolerable is during the Chunin Exam.
It felt like this was intentional on Kishimoto's part to drive home the fact that Sasuke did not like her in the slightest. It had the red flags of an abusive relationship. Nowadays though I think Kishimoto simply goes out of his way to make his characters extra scummy and force the others to love them anyway for his weird forgiveness fetish.
One of the things that i still curious and probably never got the answer is .... what make Sakura so devoted to Sasuke?
I mean at this point surely shes smart enough to realize that Sasuke didn't give a damn about her or Salad ... then WTF , why is she still so loyal and devoted to him?
What does she hold inside her about him that blinded her? Is it the bench scene she thought that no matter how s**t Sasuke is to her she believe that bench Sasuke is still hidden somewhere inside him so basically she thinks no matter how bad Sasuke is deep down he is a good guy? or what ...?
Whoever write this story thinking that it is a brilliant idea is a F-ing fruitcake ....
I assumed it was the forehead comment that did it (when it was Naruto in disguise).
Or the simple explanation that Kishi truly believes once a girl picks someone to fall in love with they're stuck with them. It's like women to him are sky bison from the Avatar universe.
And going by that analogy:
Naruto=Opal
Hinata=Juicy
Kishimoto said a year ago Sakura was really a side character and was really nothing special but you don't waste 15 years of development and parallels to say it didn't matter. It makes the person's credibility suffer. It is just stupid for somebody to troll for 15 years and break all the development to all the characters. Why because he said so that's why.
Either he's really that crazy or he's lying. It's clear that SJ is trying to bring the entire fandom back into the fold for Boruto so they made Kishi say something they thought would make us let go of the sub-par romance (to put it nicely). However, it does his reputation as a writer no favors. If Sakura was meant to be a side character, why did you keep promoting her as the heroine? Why did you even put her on the same team as Naruto. Harry Potter may have married Ginny in the end, but not even Rowling would have dared suggest Hermoine was not the main heroine of the series.
It's just baffles me that he would say after all those years of development and planning just to throw it out. It me it sounded like he was reading from a script from SJ and was told what to say. I know he likes to talk in riddles but he really is not winning anybody over. What aggravates me more is that NH fans are eating it up.
To them Naruto is the greatest series that ever was, and they will latch onto any saying that will help them defend it, even if others can easily pick that statement apart.
See even if The Last was in development, doesn't mean Naruto was going to end up with Hinata. It's entirely plausible that NS was still going to happen and SP had him change it last minute and then they changed The Last.
If that's true, Kishimoto is the only mangaka I'm aware of to do this. Several anime adaptations have veered away from the source material before, often times without the author's permission. Yet those authors never felt obligated to match their manga with the anime. It was always "Well, they can do what they want, but this is the CANON."
Kishimoto could have easily said "I was well aware of the popularity of NH, but I had no interest in that pairing. So SP proposed an alternate universe movie for them, as a way for rewarding them for their support". That could have worked on some level.
Or he just didn't care and the manga was maybe a joke for him by that point. Anyways, it's funny to look back at these things and try to add logic! 
