18 replies to this topic

[Inferno180]

One thing I have noticed in the Naruto fandom is how when certain events come up, people tend to do one of these 3 things:

1. Take said event and drive it to insane or unrealistic proportions

2. Twist the meaning of the event or think it means something else

3. Interpret it as something incredibly cryptic that can only be deciphered by a select few.

 

The truth is, its not like any of these. One thing a great majority of the fandom does not understand, just who is the target audience? Many would say boys or men, yeah it does cater to the male demographic, but many girls and women also read naruto. Now just what age group does the Naruto series designed for though? Would some say teenagers (13-18), others would say around 16 and older given the content and some moderately bloody scenes (land of waves with Kakashi killing Haku was a very graphic moment). Others may say younger around 10-13 but this is crazy to most people.

 

The shocking thing? This is the age group Naruto is originally intended for. Kishimoto's main target believe it or not is boys in middle school. This means on average grades 5-9 (it was 6-8 where I went here in America but many countries around the world and even schools among states here in America do things differently in that range).

 

Now I know what most of you are thinking, "10-13 years of age? Are you insane? These themes are met for teenagers!" Yeah they are, but content rating and whats determined as appropriate and inappropriate for age groups differs by nation. Here in America, Naruto is intended for at least those age 14 and higher. It may be for a younger audience in one place aside from Japan and be for older audiences in other places. But again In japan this falling back to that main point, its designed for boys in middle school.

 

Now many of you may be asking, just how the heck does this matter? Well this brings us right back to the first point, the way the story is designed is so that its enough for middle schoolers to be able to understand the context and elements of the story. What this means is, any events the fandom brings up no matter what it is be it action, drama, comedy, and the rare romance (which is ultimately the gasoline of this fandom) its designed so simple, a middle school student can figure the stuff out, yet the fandom on any and all ends takes things so crazily, its just downright, embarrising.

 

What do I mean exactly? Okay lets take a good event, many speculated on who Naruto's father was. Many thought it was Minato when we first saw his face in a picture during the chunin exams. Many speculated Naruto's parents were some other people or would never be known, well then we got Jiraya saying he looked like Minato during the return of Itachi arc, then we got the input from Jiraya again with Tsunade before he left for the rain village. It was ultimately confirmed at the 8 tails event when Naruto went berserk. Now the whole deal to this however, it was obvious, this was enough for anyone even a simple 6 or 7th grade student to make out.

 

Another one, who was Tobi? Many said Obito, others thought it was Inzuna Uchiha. Then Obito used the name Madara himself as a cover, all true identity theories were viable but some however became incredibly insane such as Suisui or even the elder son of the sage of the 6 paths. The first 3 were completely understandable. Yet the fandom made a few strange theories and never knew the simplicity behind things.

 

Now lets get into a darker topic, pairings, sadly every fandom has been jumping in rabidness for the tiniest things, There are no shipping wars like Naruto. Being a NS fan, I have been at the lower end of well, lets say fair treatment for my fanbase has been one of mass insults. Now let me say this, I am a NS fan, but all that romance stuff takes a backseat to the Action first, comedy/drama second, and journey element third. Romance is behind all this and maybe a few more. Yet in my experience events like 469 were proclaimed to be the end of NS, all was done, lets ignore the future facts that will be brought up. What happened after 469? We found out Sakura was doing it for Naruto's feelings. This was just recently after Hinata defended Naruto from pain too, yet again, it was left unresolved and there were still things like 457 which showed why Naruto could not confess to Sakura. Yet NS was still proclaimed dead. Fans lept at this stuff to say it was dead without a resolution to 457, there still has not been one. Too many loose elements.

 

Now here comes a bombshell of one, recently chapter 615, it let all NH fans hold their heads high, promclaim canon, guess what? Same issue as 469, how can it just be called without the loose ends tied up? Sakura still has some stuff to take care of, did Naruto ever even start loving hinata at some point either? This is what I mean, fans jumped the gun, again. NS was again proclaimed dead, but we have not seen everything.

 

Then a few weeks later, we got 631, this was like a reversal of fortune. The whole Sakura-Kushina event, yet this one put in a huge bombshell accross the fandoms, NS fans, yeah there were a good amount just shouting CANON when there are still other things that need to be done, like Hinata's end and Sakura's feelings for Sasuke. I enjoyed that parallel moment, but still said other things had to basically be fulfilled. Yet again both sides of the fandom, those for and against NS made some insane claims. NS was calling canon (jumping the gun) but the anti-NS crowd however made some quick claims like "Minato was wrong", "This proves the Kushina-Kushina relation to NS." This just made me think, how freaking hard is it for some people to understand a simple notion? We got this insane twisting of a moment or statement, then in 632, from two panels, we get another mass twisting.

 

Naruto sees Sakura's yin seal power enhancement and says he will never annoy her again, what was this scene ment for? Simple comedy, yet others twisted it to saying, "he realized she would kill him in a relationship." Others claimed or were worried (on both sides) about SS with Sakura saying Sasuke's name and launching an entire debate over her cheeks being covered in dirt or blush after Naruto and Sasuke saved her from the giant Jubbi clone. At this moment, people were ignoring the 2 things of the chapter, Sakura's determination and growth and displaying her power and Jugo's foreshadowing on what Sasuke's real intentions were. Seriously, did people even ever consider if these middle schoolers, who the series is designed for would actually do this? Why is it the majority of the other fandom, the older fandom at that doing this stuff?

 

Lets take another one, flashback to Kushinas last night, the "find a girl like your mother." This statement sent the NS and NH fandoms into overdrive, what info it intended to provide the reader however was very very simple, That Naruto would possibly find a girl and end with one in the end, there simple. The fandoms debated for a few years, yet there was one very simple thing put in, in her flashback on how she met Minato, her background and how she first saw Minato it was eerily similar to the early chapters of Naruto and Sakura, notably chapter 3. What was the purpose of this? Sakura possibly had stuff in common with Kushina.

 

Yet the fandoms twisted these things, made some insane claims (even Minato being like Hinata? Seriously?) Are any of these middle schoolers doing this? I would be willing to bet hardly few actually think like this. Fans debated for 2 years on this stuff, then we get 631, all hell breaks loose.

 

Then we had fanbases fans of pairings and no pairings just acting insane over Minato's compairsion thinking he was wrong, Sakura got lucky, wait til he sees Hinata, its just insane now. All this simple statement did was say this: building on Kushinas foreshadow, Sakura may have been the girl like her as Kushina said to find a girl like her, Minato simply built on that foreshadow by Kushina. Yet many act as if its insane, the end of the world or already canon. NS is not canon, even though I hope it is, there are still things I see that need to be addressed, this parallel moment is simply advocating that they are alike yet fans take it and basically, instead of it being 1+1=2 they try to make it like its dividing by zero. In otherwords, people take many simple story elements and make them into these insane perceptions that just don't make any sense or just sound desperate and delusional. This applies to all fanbases, even i have seen the ugly side of my own fandom NS. As much as I like this pairing, I still remain aware of the other story elements but don't dive into these theories that just go insanely off course, they make no sense.

 

And this is stuff for simple middle schoolers to understand and yet the fandom thinks its something much more.

 

Its not hard to understand somethings yet people try to make federal cases out of these, its simple:

-This is a fictional story in the first place, its not going to make sense, characters are not going to act "realistic."

-It uses Japanese culture, people of other cultures may be lost if they don't understand the themes and elements of the story, I cannot fully blame them if they don't know, but this lack of knowledge does make an impact, I'm a geographer myself, knowing other cultures is kinda a big deal when you want to look for meaning in just about anything.

 

But for the long run, many story elements like who tobi was, how pain worked with the bodies, how Sasuke got his powers, how the ten tails could revive itself, and so many more, these things are made to be easy enough for people aged 10-14 on average can understand, yet I'm betting most of us age 19+ that read this series, take these things too far, and we are supposed to be the mature ones.

 

All I can say is, we need to take a good look at things, remove the pairing goggles for some people, and pay attention to the story. If its easy enough for them to understand, why do we as fans with our baises need to make it harder then it needs to be? All i can say is, with events like Minato being obviously Naruto's father from the start, the sage of the 6 path story involving only the Uchiha and Senju clans, no others, and Sakura being advocated similar to Kushina, if its open to these kids, why as adults must the rest of us take these things so freaking seriously and out of proportion?

 

All I can say is, don't overthink things, if its easy enough for them, it should be for us. Otherwise some of us may be reading the wrong way.

[Anguyen92]

Well put. Maybe sometimes, the things we see are actually what it implies and that there are really no leveling tactics or deep-thinking with Kishi and the way his mind works.

 

However, I wish he would have still made a few things really clearer that does not have a "let's see where this goes" every time there may be an event that may cause a fandom to doubt themselves and their ability to analyze something.

Edited by Anguyen92, 02 June 2013 - 02:04 AM.

[megi]

Inferno, I agree with your post!

 

I think cultural difference is one of the key elements and translation keeping everyone on their toes.

A lot of the discussion focus on things like pairing of characters too deeply. I know that this is forum board for people who like NaruSaku and like to talk about their connection in the chapters and I think that is fine, but sometimes there is a paranoia?

Since 632 is the most recent in discussion I want to use it as an example. It is only outside of Japan that I have seen so many people caught up with a "Sasuke-kun". It surprise me that it was the central discussion.

 

As for translation, sometimes it is hard to make things clearer when changing from Japanese to English. In English language and culture it is okay for something to be said straight forward, but in Japanese everything is said vaguely due to the culture. So in literal translations, it can be taken wrongly.

 

Shonen is of course geared to boys, but Shonen is also most popular type of manga, because it speaks well to all age groups!

 

 

I enjoy the manga, there are imperfections, but which story doesn't have some type of imperfection?

It's very fun to speculate! I like it when people have theories for it.

[Beastbomb]

Great post as always inferno. I believe that we as fans try to interperet things in this manga by relating to our cultures and backgrounds like you have said. I may not understand manga like others and I'm still learning about how it differs from the literature we have in America do to cultural differences. I didn't even know what a tsundere was until a few months ago and now I have a better understanding of Sakuras aggressiveness towards Naruto. I originally liked the pairing because of the comedy and I have always seen Sakuras hitting to be more comparible to flirtatious hitting between couples in reality ( Naruto's crush for her also help with this comparison, he never seemed to be hurt or crushed by Sakura's aggressiveness, so I never thought it was abusive or harmful). But, thanks to being able to understand a least a little bit about there culture, I'm am able see Sakuras growth unlike haters who say she is a regressed character.

[Inferno180]

Great post as always inferno. I believe that we as fans try to interperet things in this manga by relating to our cultures and backgrounds like you have said. I may not understand manga like others and I'm still learning about how it differs from the literature we have in America do to cultural differences. I didn't even know what a tsundere was until a few months ago and now I have a better understanding of Sakuras aggressiveness towards Naruto. I originally liked the pairing because of the comedy and I have always seen Sakuras hitting to be more comparible to flirtatious hitting between couples in reality ( Naruto's crush for her also help with this comparison, he never seemed to be hurt or crushed by Sakura's aggressiveness, so I never thought it was abusive or harmful). But, thanks to being able to understand a least a little bit about there culture, I'm am able see Sakuras growth unlike haters who say she is a regressed character.

 

I honestly did not know what a tsundere was until 2008, I was lost in this stuff, yet for years I had already watched many cartoons and some anime in which there was a girl hitting a guy, part of it was always comedic purposes. Even as early as 98, I was one of the first generation pokemon fans, I watched the show, and saw how Misty would beat up Ash and usually hit Brock with a hammer, it was just comedic. Yet nowadays we see this strange division in stuff kinda like all the argression towards Sakura, yet not in any other series like Nami whacking a good portion of the straw hat crew, Rukia whacking Ichigo, or Lucy whacking Natsu, it even applies in other series, like Avatar the last airbender, how many times has toph whacked sokka or used some physical force on him? Sometimes his own sister katara pulled the same stuff. Its culture in one way and in others story and character design, but none of these series would actually advocate friends actually inflicting harm on others. Its all just for the sake of comedy, plain and simple. If this was such an issue, family guy doing some darker humor versions of these things, it would by right need to be removed from the air and cancelled, I mean these series do comedic harm, but shows like family guy and south park do the same thing taking it to levels where people actually die, sometimes the joke is not as initial or funny as you see with this darker humor. The difference is mainly in demography and age groups, yeah Naruto has some dark content, but it limits it and never uses the comedic harm in actual seriousness.

[Beastbomb]

I've never seen the hitting in Avatar as abusive, mostly because I was busting a gut during most of the moments. Sokka was hilarious. People see even the smallest instances of Sakuras aggressiveness as abuse because of the actual cases that happen here In America. Many think that the hitting is more painful then what the characters let on. We have never seen Naruto act negatively towards her and I would even say that he enjoys the attention. Many probably do not see that Naruto actually seeks this type of attention. He was a troublemaker and a prankster at the beginning of he manga and it would not surprise me if he still seeks attention like this now. I mean, 632 proves this when he says he will not poke fun at Sakura again. I dont think western culture analyzes these themes and messages that this manga is trying to convey very well. Just an opinion, but I think i may be right here.

[SkiesEagle]

Inferno, your post went great. It understandable that fandoms has a twist way against NS. People need to read careful before making a mistake. It like a essay, there are very good reasons and the proof is right there in the story.

 

 

I honestly did not know what a tsundere was until 2008, I was lost in this stuff, yet for years I had already watched many cartoons and some anime in which there was a girl hitting a guy, part of it was always comedic purposes. Even as early as 98, I was one of the first generation pokemon fans, I watched the show, and saw how Misty would beat up Ash and usually hit Brock with a hammer, it was just comedic. Yet nowadays we see this strange division in stuff kinda like all the argression towards Sakura, yet not in any other series like Nami whacking a good portion of the straw hat crew, Rukia whacking Ichigo, or Lucy whacking Natsu, it even applies in other series, like Avatar the last airbender, how many times has toph whacked sokka or used some physical force on him? Sometimes his own sister katara pulled the same stuff. Its culture in one way and in others story and character design, but none of these series would actually advocate friends actually inflicting harm on others. Its all just for the sake of comedy, plain and simple. If this was such an issue, family guy doing some darker humor versions of these things, it would by right need to be removed from the air and cancelled, I mean these series do comedic harm, but shows like family guy and south park do the same thing taking it to levels where people actually die, sometimes the joke is not as initial or funny as you see with this darker humor. The difference is mainly in demography and age groups, yeah Naruto has some dark content, but it limits it and never uses the comedic harm in actual seriousness.

 

Like you, I didn't understand about tsundere from what animator make the stage for. I found some characters funny in a way. Normally some people just don't understand what is tsundere is about and the characters.

[shadow_Uzumaki]

You know, it really is kinda funny that you mention that this is indeed an anime for middle-school.  When this manga/anime came out and I discovered it, I really was in the target demographic.  I was in middle school, 7th grade, I think and I also over-analyzed everything as well.  However, as I grew older, it got really tiresome trying to figure things out.  It used to be a fairly big deal, but now I've kinda gotten aloof about the series.  

 

I guess I realized that it's not really worth it to invest so much time thinking about a fictional story about ninjas who can shoot fire out of their mouths.  

 

I find it more hilarious to observe the reactions of other people in the fandom including the people in this forum.  I remember someone mentioned they were crying during that supposedly big Hinata moment (what chapter was that...615?) and the big uproar in the forums.  It was funny for the day the chapter was released, then it just turned sad when it went on for the entire week....  Now it's hilarious again.

 

The main point is that everyone, at some point or another, forget that this is just a fictional story. A fictional story whose main demography are middle-school to high school aged children. Then again, if something we like feels threatened, we sometimes react emotionally, not logically.  

 

I still feel sad when watching reruns of Doctor Who with the Pond-Williams in it after Angels in Manhattan, despite knowing none of it is real.

[Darth Krypt]

^

Its like you said. Pairing fans will look at the story with pairing goggles on. If you have such a strong passion for a pairing, then its inevitable that you will analyze every single detail of the manga to turn it into evidence to support your OTP. Since this is a NS forum, we have NS fans of all levels from casual like me and you, to the hardcore ones.

 

The hardcore ones invested a lot of emotion into this pairing so of course if the story seems to go against them, they will be affected a lot more than casual ones. We have to be more understanding to this kinds of people.

 

About the target age group, yes it was initially for young boys around the age 12. But guess what? This manga started more than a decade ago. Those who followed Naruto since the start would be in their mid-20s so it make sense to adjust the theme of the story so that it caters to both old and new readers.

[Tsuki Hoshino]

One thing I have noticed in the Naruto fandom is how when certain events come up, people tend to do one of these 3 things:

1. Take said event and drive it to insane or unrealistic proportions

2. Twist the meaning of the event or think it means something else

3. Interpret it as something incredibly cryptic that can only be deciphered by a select few.

 

The truth is, its not like any of these. One thing a great majority of the fandom does not understand, just who is the target audience? Many would say boys or men, yeah it does cater to the male demographic, but many girls and women also read naruto. Now just what age group does the Naruto series designed for though? Would some say teenagers (13-18), others would say around 16 and older given the content and some moderately bloody scenes (land of waves with Kakashi killing Haku was a very graphic moment). Others may say younger around 10-13 but this is crazy to most people.

 

The shocking thing? This is the age group Naruto is originally intended for. Kishimoto's main target believe it or not is boys in middle school. This means on average grades 5-9 (it was 6-8 where I went here in America but many countries around the world and even schools among states here in America do things differently in that range).

 

Now I know what most of you are thinking, "10-13 years of age? Are you insane? These themes are met for teenagers!" Yeah they are, but content rating and whats determined as appropriate and inappropriate for age groups differs by nation. Here in America, Naruto is intended for at least those age 14 and higher. It may be for a younger audience in one place aside from Japan and be for older audiences in other places. But again In japan this falling back to that main point, its designed for boys in middle school.

 

Now many of you may be asking, just how the heck does this matter? Well this brings us right back to the first point, the way the story is designed is so that its enough for middle schoolers to be able to understand the context and elements of the story. What this means is, any events the fandom brings up no matter what it is be it action, drama, comedy, and the rare romance (which is ultimately the gasoline of this fandom) its designed so simple, a middle school student can figure the stuff out, yet the fandom on any and all ends takes things so crazily, its just downright, embarrising.

 

What do I mean exactly? Okay lets take a good event, many speculated on who Naruto's father was. Many thought it was Minato when we first saw his face in a picture during the chunin exams. Many speculated Naruto's parents were some other people or would never be known, well then we got Jiraya saying he looked like Minato during the return of Itachi arc, then we got the input from Jiraya again with Tsunade before he left for the rain village. It was ultimately confirmed at the 8 tails event when Naruto went berserk. Now the whole deal to this however, it was obvious, this was enough for anyone even a simple 6 or 7th grade student to make out.

 

Another one, who was Tobi? Many said Obito, others thought it was Inzuna Uchiha. Then Obito used the name Madara himself as a cover, all true identity theories were viable but some however became incredibly insane such as Suisui or even the elder son of the sage of the 6 paths. The first 3 were completely understandable. Yet the fandom made a few strange theories and never knew the simplicity behind things.

 

Now lets get into a darker topic, pairings, sadly every fandom has been jumping in rabidness for the tiniest things, There are no shipping wars like Naruto. Being a NS fan, I have been at the lower end of well, lets say fair treatment for my fanbase has been one of mass insults. Now let me say this, I am a NS fan, but all that romance stuff takes a backseat to the Action first, comedy/drama second, and journey element third. Romance is behind all this and maybe a few more. Yet in my experience events like 469 were proclaimed to be the end of NS, all was done, lets ignore the future facts that will be brought up. What happened after 469? We found out Sakura was doing it for Naruto's feelings. This was just recently after Hinata defended Naruto from pain too, yet again, it was left unresolved and there were still things like 457 which showed why Naruto could not confess to Sakura. Yet NS was still proclaimed dead. Fans lept at this stuff to say it was dead without a resolution to 457, there still has not been one. Too many loose elements.

 

Now here comes a bombshell of one, recently chapter 615, it let all NH fans hold their heads high, promclaim canon, guess what? Same issue as 469, how can it just be called without the loose ends tied up? Sakura still has some stuff to take care of, did Naruto ever even start loving hinata at some point either? This is what I mean, fans jumped the gun, again. NS was again proclaimed dead, but we have not seen everything.

 

Then a few weeks later, we got 631, this was like a reversal of fortune. The whole Sakura-Kushina event, yet this one put in a huge bombshell accross the fandoms, NS fans, yeah there were a good amount just shouting CANON when there are still other things that need to be done, like Hinata's end and Sakura's feelings for Sasuke. I enjoyed that parallel moment, but still said other things had to basically be fulfilled. Yet again both sides of the fandom, those for and against NS made some insane claims. NS was calling canon (jumping the gun) but the anti-NS crowd however made some quick claims like "Minato was wrong", "This proves the Kushina-Kushina relation to NS." This just made me think, how freaking hard is it for some people to understand a simple notion? We got this insane twisting of a moment or statement, then in 632, from two panels, we get another mass twisting.

 

Naruto sees Sakura's yin seal power enhancement and says he will never annoy her again, what was this scene ment for? Simple comedy, yet others twisted it to saying, "he realized she would kill him in a relationship." Others claimed or were worried (on both sides) about SS with Sakura saying Sasuke's name and launching an entire debate over her cheeks being covered in dirt or blush after Naruto and Sasuke saved her from the giant Jubbi clone. At this moment, people were ignoring the 2 things of the chapter, Sakura's determination and growth and displaying her power and Jugo's foreshadowing on what Sasuke's real intentions were. Seriously, did people even ever consider if these middle schoolers, who the series is designed for would actually do this? Why is it the majority of the other fandom, the older fandom at that doing this stuff?

 

Lets take another one, flashback to Kushinas last night, the "find a girl like your mother." This statement sent the NS and NH fandoms into overdrive, what info it intended to provide the reader however was very very simple, That Naruto would possibly find a girl and end with one in the end, there simple. The fandoms debated for a few years, yet there was one very simple thing put in, in her flashback on how she met Minato, her background and how she first saw Minato it was eerily similar to the early chapters of Naruto and Sakura, notably chapter 3. What was the purpose of this? Sakura possibly had stuff in common with Kushina.

 

Yet the fandoms twisted these things, made some insane claims (even Minato being like Hinata? Seriously?) Are any of these middle schoolers doing this? I would be willing to bet hardly few actually think like this. Fans debated for 2 years on this stuff, then we get 631, all hell breaks loose.

 

Then we had fanbases fans of pairings and no pairings just acting insane over Minato's compairsion thinking he was wrong, Sakura got lucky, wait til he sees Hinata, its just insane now. All this simple statement did was say this: building on Kushinas foreshadow, Sakura may have been the girl like her as Kushina said to find a girl like her, Minato simply built on that foreshadow by Kushina. Yet many act as if its insane, the end of the world or already canon. NS is not canon, even though I hope it is, there are still things I see that need to be addressed, this parallel moment is simply advocating that they are alike yet fans take it and basically, instead of it being 1+1=2 they try to make it like its dividing by zero. In otherwords, people take many simple story elements and make them into these insane perceptions that just don't make any sense or just sound desperate and delusional. This applies to all fanbases, even i have seen the ugly side of my own fandom NS. As much as I like this pairing, I still remain aware of the other story elements but don't dive into these theories that just go insanely off course, they make no sense.

 

And this is stuff for simple middle schoolers to understand and yet the fandom thinks its something much more.

 

Its not hard to understand somethings yet people try to make federal cases out of these, its simple:

-This is a fictional story in the first place, its not going to make sense, characters are not going to act "realistic."

-It uses Japanese culture, people of other cultures may be lost if they don't understand the themes and elements of the story, I cannot fully blame them if they don't know, but this lack of knowledge does make an impact, I'm a geographer myself, knowing other cultures is kinda a big deal when you want to look for meaning in just about anything.

 

But for the long run, many story elements like who tobi was, how pain worked with the bodies, how Sasuke got his powers, how the ten tails could revive itself, and so many more, these things are made to be easy enough for people aged 10-14 on average can understand, yet I'm betting most of us age 19+ that read this series, take these things too far, and we are supposed to be the mature ones.

 

All I can say is, we need to take a good look at things, remove the pairing goggles for some people, and pay attention to the story. If its easy enough for them to understand, why do we as fans with our baises need to make it harder then it needs to be? All i can say is, with events like Minato being obviously Naruto's father from the start, the sage of the 6 path story involving only the Uchiha and Senju clans, no others, and Sakura being advocated similar to Kushina, if its open to these kids, why as adults must the rest of us take these things so freaking seriously and out of proportion?

 

All I can say is, don't overthink things, if its easy enough for them, it should be for us. Otherwise some of us may be reading the wrong way.

No shipping wars like the ones in Naruto? o___o have you ever heard  of FF7? The old Cloti/Clerith battle? It came out in 1998, the war is STILL going on despite a movie, and an official booklet basically declaring one couple canon. 

Two people living together, raising two kids together and basically having a happy home life after admitting to having mutual feelings for one another and people still denied it was canon. 

Thats how bad it was. Compared to that, this "War" Does not seem all that bad...yet.

When Narusaku becomes canon and people still say otherwise THEN It's bad. 

[Zatheko]

No shipping wars like the ones in Naruto? o___o have you ever heard  of FF7? The old Cloti/Clerith battle? It came out in 1998, the war is STILL going on despite a movie, and an official booklet basically declaring one couple canon. 

Two people living together, raising two kids together and basically having a happy home life after admitting to having mutual feelings for one another and people still denied it was canon. 

Thats how bad it was. Compared to that, this "War" Does not seem all that bad...yet.

When Narusaku becomes canon and people still say otherwise THEN It's bad.

It'll happen, be ready for the fanfics of Naruto's marriage slowly turning to ruin and he finds out Hinata was his "true" love all along. 

[Tsuki Hoshino]

I'm actually pretty sure it will happen because to be honest this whole Narusaku/Naruhina debacle is EXACTLY Like the whole Clerith/Cloti thing. and I do mean EXACTLY.

You had one pairing which was immensely popular --> Cloud/Aerith (NaruHina) and then the underdog Cloud/Tifa ( Narusaku) 
the bigger one tended to bully the other one to the point that it just got ridiculous and Cloti's pretty much had to hide themselves so they didn't get bombarded with hate mail and junk. 

It actually become something of a cult-type thing. Still kinda is. There were essays, forums, fan pages , every scene, every piece of dialogue was picked apart and dissected (more often that not twisted and warped to suit the arguments needs.)

It's one thing to enjoy non-canon couplings, it's another to insist that they are in fact the Tru-wuv canon couple despite blatant evidence otherwise. I mean when you get posted on a page that says "For the one I love." and people go "No wait, he loves the OTHER one!" Than there must be some heavy delusions going on. 

I can  certainly see the Naruto pairing wars heading down that route. They already are. 

[Atheck]

It's true that we may examine aspects of the manga which don't necessarily have any underlying intricacy to itself but we choose to dissect it regardless because it's part of our nature as humans to want to satiate our curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Occasionally our observations can be fruitful as we are able to infer details about this or that particular aspect of the manga, it can even be used to develop a theory as to how future events will play out, but we may take things a tad too far. We could slacken our posts just a tad and enjoy the manga for what it is, a shonen, where romance is only a supplement to the story and action is the main focus. Of course considering how dysfunctional and overly erratic this place is there is no guarantee that it will happen, especially with these weekly manga chapters intensifying the pairing/character controversy, but we can definitely try.

 

Like everyone else has already stated, you created an amazing post with a very prudent tone to itself.

[Soul]

Wow, I actually read it all, well said Inferno  , I completely agree with you.

[HauntedCake]

GJ inferno

[Gravenimage]

It'll happen, be ready for the fanfics of Naruto's marriage slowly turning to ruin and he finds out Hinata was his "true" love all along. 

 

VJ will be one of those fans for sure.

[redragon88]

Inferno, I agree with your post!

 

I think cultural difference is one of the key elements and translation keeping everyone on their toes.

A lot of the discussion focus on things like pairing of characters too deeply. I know that this is forum board for people who like NaruSaku and like to talk about their connection in the chapters and I think that is fine, but sometimes there is a paranoia?

Since 632 is the most recent in discussion I want to use it as an example. It is only outside of Japan that I have seen so many people caught up with a "Sasuke-kun". It surprise me that it was the central discussion.

 

As for translation, sometimes it is hard to make things clearer when changing from Japanese to English. In English language and culture it is okay for something to be said straight forward, but in Japanese everything is said vaguely due to the culture. So in literal translations, it can be taken wrongly.

 

Shonen is of course geared to boys, but Shonen is also most popular type of manga, because it speaks well to all age groups!

 

 

I enjoy the manga, there are imperfections, but which story doesn't have some type of imperfection?

It's very fun to speculate! I like it when people have theories for it.

 

You can blame the western pairing culture for that.

 

The reason people are now so sensitive about any possible interaction with character is because certain fans of opposite fandoms make it a point over to make us believe that it's important.

 

Take NaruHina for example, 615 wasn't meant to be the big deal that it was. We weren't supposed to believe that Naruto for some random reason was falling in love with Hinata, but because some of the NH fandom were so loud and consistent about it happening that eventually can cause some to believe there might be true to what they say even though it's completely illogical and unrealistic.

 

It's because of such things that people couldn't properly enjoy 615 for what it was, the pinnacle of Hinata's development, and instead went crazy with thoughts of Naruto suddenly wanting to be with her. It's the loud and persistent opinion of certain fans that have slowly worked it's way to the mind of some to inadvertently modify their own opinion in order to match that of the loud fans.

 

It's a like a mental cancer of sorts. And the only cure is to ignore what those people say and formulate you own opinion as to how you think the story will go on.

 

Even obvious things like the Sakura/Kushina parallel were eventually casted doubt upon thanks to the same group of people repeating over and over again that it was just stupid or that it didn't even matter. But regardless of their excuses Kishi blatantly made it a reality in 631, therefore proving once again that people truly overhink things that are meant to be extremely obvious.

 

Now we also have the SS fandom, the loud part of it at least, making claims that Sakura will start being overjoyed by Sasuke once again and that Sasuke is starting to fall in love with Sakura. As unrealistic as it might sound because those fans have been repeating the same argument over and over again some others are bound to take their words seriously when they should not.

 

My guess is that in Japan people are pretty casual about shipping, or even know that NS is the obvious ending, so naturally the "Sasuke-kun" wouldn't even matter. In order places though there are certain people that take shipping way to seriously and try to push their ideas to the fandom they belong to, therefore creating that mental cancer that I talked about earlier.

[shadow_Uzumaki]

^

Its like you said. Pairing fans will look at the story with pairing goggles on. If you have such a strong passion for a pairing, then its inevitable that you will analyze every single detail of the manga to turn it into evidence to support your OTP. Since this is a NS forum, we have NS fans of all levels from casual like me and you, to the hardcore ones.

 

The hardcore ones invested a lot of emotion into this pairing so of course if the story seems to go against them, they will be affected a lot more than casual ones. We have to be more understanding to this kinds of people.

 

About the target age group, yes it was initially for young boys around the age 12. But guess what? This manga started more than a decade ago. Those who followed Naruto since the start would be in their mid-20s so it make sense to adjust the theme of the story so that it caters to both old and new readers.

 

 

Just like Toy Story. XD

[Inferno180]

Its true that the difference of when people are first introduced to this series and how old they are at the time does make a difference. I mean the series began in 1999 but did not really take off here in the U.S. until 2003 about, then the anime came in 2004 or 2005. It was at this time, already 6 years running in japan, that part 1 was just about wrapped up, basically Naruto vs Sasuke at the valley of the end was occurring when the anime began here.

 

Almost any series basically has this, I mean some fit this problem well like the zelda series, there is some chronology between games but its not fully consistent so you can enter any game at any age. Moreso like the final fantasy series, no direct connections between most games, each is its own world, pick one you see a story and they vary from game to game.

 

However the deal with age is more or less who its targeted too and the period of time the story is running, years later after the first generation audience has seen things, can be vastly different to another. So those now 10 years older since 1999 if they were in middle school at that time, those seeing the series now, they may have different preceptions of it since the part 1 stuff may have occured before some of the newer readers were even born.

 

A good example of this is pokemon, in 98 boy, that had to be the biggest fad I remember, I was in elementary and was caught in the pokemaina disease when it first came to U.S. shores. Its been a long time for this series too and a lot of people around my generation, about 20 or so years old now, some still like the series despite its initial targeting to a young crowd. They have made 6 generations of this franchise. I still have my old fossil of a gameboy with the older versions! These things just ran for so long, it was able to pull in many others.

 

But for the purpose of this thread, I'm basically saying how its the fans that overreact and over analyze everything. I mean any entrainment series has a target audience right? The purpose is to attract and have an audience that can understand what you are trying to say. If the target audience cannot understand the story, well its presented to the wrong audience then right? Thats the idea, the Naruto series is more or less around a middle school level so kids in this grade range can understand it and its plot, its a fairly average read, nothing very hard or much needing to decipher. Even as a graphic novel, lots of pictures helps with the visualization of what goes on. Yet we get fans who do and say these outrageous things and some who go treating it like a romance series. Basically this can all come down to a combination of biases, lack of information, and ultimately misinterpretation at points. It really just all comes down to the reader and their individual perception.