You may see frequent comparisons and an obvious connection with MinaKushi, but I wouldn't be so sure that this was the mangaka's intention. The more time passes that Kishimoto doesn't bring up Kushina's girlfriend advice, the more I think it was just added for a more emotional impact. Naruto didn't think of Sakura after Kushina said that to him, and I think if Kishi wanted to show Sakura = Kushina than he would have made Naruto, or someone else, comment or think of that.
To be honest, I've never cared for the "expiration" argument. It seems to operate under the assumption that Kishi only has a certain time limit to introduce a plot point. For someone who loves flashbacks as much as he does, the argument seems sort of irrelevant. Especially when you consider that the manga has sort of been saturated with fights lately. I mean, there was, what, one or two pairing scenes over the course of the past year? None of which lasted more than a couple panels.
To me, trying to claim the expiration of any chance of Kishi implying something with Kushina's last words is sort of asinine. It's either implying that a.) Kishi is changing his mind on a dime, or b.) Kishi never had a reason for said line to begin with. I think most of us understand the possibility of the first, but there's really nothing to argue about. I understand that Kishi can just randomly turn Naruto into a toad and have him hook up with one of the female toads of Myoboku (are there any?), but I'm not going to actually acknowledge that in a pairing debate. I see the second possibility in the same vein. It's possible that Kishi never had a reason for doing so-and-so, but I have absolutely no reason to assume that. For the sake of argument, I'm going to assume that the author has a reason for doing what he's doing. Otherwise, the argument can be expanded, and essentially cancel out any ship's arguments.
I do agree with you though, that nothing good comes of claiming canon already. That's a gripe I tend to share. However, Kushina's last words to Naruto seemed to be one of Kishi's more obvious pairing hints, at least IMO.
Now, if I had to think up a reason why Kishi hasn't addressed Kushina's advice on women, I'd say it's most likely due to the pairing implications. It wouldn't really make N/S or N/H canon in the story, but it'd make Kishi's chosen OTP pretty obvious to the reader. I think it's pretty obvious that he's trying to milk the pairing subplot for as long as he can, given how large the Naruto shipping fandom is. But I think scenes like that one, with or without direct proof from the author, give a pretty clear indication of where he's headed.
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Frankly, I don't care for parallels at all. I think a pairing should be seen for its own merits, and not depend on something else to make it look better. Unless its shown blantantly in the manga that Sakura is similar to Kushina, I'm not going to hang onto that. At this point, the only thing Kishi confirmed is that Kushina is like Naruto, not any of his love interests.
That's understandable, but I guess I've always seen the generational parallels as one of Kishi's more obvious pairing hints. He obviously loves to show how characters tend to be repeated over the generations. And not only parents. I mean, how many times have the Sannin been compared to Team 7?
I agree it's not canon proof of a pairing, but I think it's more important than simply supplementary evidence.
Edited by Boom...Winning, 28 January 2012 - 06:55 PM.
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