So I was procrastinating today and I ended up browsing Kotaku and I read their review of the Boruto movie and I was surprised at how favorable the comments were about the movie. Sure, there was a good number mocking Naruto and Sasuke's terrible parenting and the destruction of Sakura's character. But on the whole it was positive.
So I got to thinking about the popularity of Naruto. At least in the US, there seems to be a lot of fans still hanging on and talking about how great it was. And indeed, it was widely popular here for an anime. Does that create a cultural pressure to praise the show?
To make a rather bad comparison: the NFL plays games on Thursday nights. Objectively speaking, the games are bad. Players are still hurt from the previous Sunday. They can't take their pain killer shots due to NFL regulations, they have less time to prepare, etc. But we all watch them and we act like they're entertaining. I think a lot of this is because we're expected to enjoy the games to be able to understand the cultural zeitgeist.
Is that happening with Naruto? Will time eventually pass and we'll be able to reflect on the show/manga without the oppressive lens of the shipping wars or all the drama of Kishi's interviews, etc? Will people like Sawyer or Forneverworld be able to look back in 5 years and say "yes, there was a noticeable drop in quality after Pein?" Or, "yes, Kishi did a poor job of selling us the ships."
