31585 replies to this topic

[totherpage95]

I see that crunchyroll is posting naruto openings and endings on YouTube. I guess they are planning some kind of event which is suprising to me since naruto ended 4 years ago. Perhaps boruto doesnt rake in enough money by itself?

[James S Cassidy]

It still baffles me how much this is still going on. The American fan base is so obsessed with Naruto now that I can't go into a single anime sight without seeing Naruto plastered like it was the greatest anime of all time. I still, on my future grave, believe some truly sold their soul to the devil for it to be this popular.

So many other good anime never gets this kind of exposure. JoJo Bizarre Adventure? Nope. Fist of the North Star? Nope. Ruroni Kenshin? Nope. Heck, the only anime competing is Dragonball Z and that is slowly being overtaken by Naruto/Boruto.

How? How is this series so popular that it is overshadowing every other anime regardless of how great or popular that one is? It makes me lose faith in what "anime fans" are. God, people picked apart better series for lesser reasons, but then ignores all faults of Naruto/Boruto. How? How can they easily ignore it all? It can't just be because of pairings because no other series gets this kind of treatment. Not even Harems that focus on pairings get this kind of treatment. Heck, harem series has LESS romance than Naruto/Boruto at this point.

[FireFox]

It still baffles me how much this is still going on. The American fan base is so obsessed with Naruto now that I can't go into a single anime sight without seeing Naruto plastered like it was the greatest anime of all time. I still, on my future grave, believe some truly sold their soul to the devil for it to be this popular.

So many other good anime never gets this kind of exposure. JoJo Bizarre Adventure? Nope. Fist of the North Star? Nope. Ruroni Kenshin? Nope. Heck, the only anime competing is Dragonball Z and that is slowly being overtaken by Naruto/Boruto.

How? How is this series so popular that it is overshadowing every other anime regardless of how great or popular that one is? It makes me lose faith in what "anime fans" are. God, people picked apart better series for lesser reasons, but then ignores all faults of Naruto/Boruto. How? How can they easily ignore it all? It can't just be because of pairings because no other series gets this kind of treatment. Not even Harems that focus on pairings get this kind of treatment. Heck, harem series has LESS romance than Naruto/Boruto at this point.

1. Lots of marketing 2.To many stupid people in this world that's the only thing I can think of right now. Naruto is the Justin Bieber of anime/manga  .

 

Heck a few days ago a colleague of mine told me that Twilight was his favorite movie, now that was a culture shock!!! . 

[RulesofNature]

I think it's just that Naruto has all the ingredients for mass appeal to young kids. My cousin's daughter was into it for a while. It continues to serve as an intro to anime, much like DBZ did back in the day, to people who don't know better. They won't see the horrible writing because to them, it's the coolest crap they've ever seen. So, plastering Naruto around can serve as a means to say "HEY GUYS! THIS PLACE IS FOR ANIME!" Not to mention how heavily it was pushed by it's distributors in America.

 

I see a lot of MHA stuff around now, in more places I've seen Naruto. It could be this generation's DBZ.

[Moon_Girl]

It still baffles me how much this is still going on. The American fan base is so obsessed with Naruto now that I can't go into a single anime sight without seeing Naruto plastered like it was the greatest anime of all time. I still, on my future grave, believe some truly sold their soul to the devil for it to be this popular.

So many other good anime never gets this kind of exposure. JoJo Bizarre Adventure? Nope. Fist of the North Star? Nope. Ruroni Kenshin? Nope. Heck, the only anime competing is Dragonball Z and that is slowly being overtaken by Naruto/Boruto.

How? How is this series so popular that it is overshadowing every other anime regardless of how great or popular that one is? It makes me lose faith in what "anime fans" are. God, people picked apart better series for lesser reasons, but then ignores all faults of Naruto/Boruto. How? How can they easily ignore it all? It can't just be because of pairings because no other series gets this kind of treatment. Not even Harems that focus on pairings get this kind of treatment. Heck, harem series has LESS romance than Naruto/Boruto at this point.

 

I try not to associate with most anime fans because of this. A lot of anime fans these days are immature, cringy and couldn't care less about storytelling/good writing. Most of the popular anime right now, I find boring as all get out. But there are so many good ones that get ignored. (Jojo has a cult following at least) 
What matters the most to them is a few key things.
>Action
>Yuri
>Lolis
>Hypersexualized girls/women
>Big boobs or even flat boobs
>Moe/Cute
>Pairings/Ships
>Waifus
>How EDGY and/or DARK it is
>Yanderes, Kuuderes, and all other dere types. (Minus Tsunderes. They still have their fans, but they've been pushed aside as of late. Or overshadowed by the 'cute girl with a crush')

That's a very common thing I've seen among a lot of anime fans these days. So I've stayed out of the anime circle ever since Naruto.
I recently witnessed a fandom for Darling in the Franxx or whatever it's called, being absolutely crazy. Just as bad as the Naruto fandom. I guess I'll tag for spoilers?

Spoilers for Darling in the Franxx

There's a love triangle, the main girl and the childhood friend with a crush. Everyone shipped the main pair, which ended up being canon. But they HATED the childhood friend with a burning passion. A BURNING passion. To the point they'd send harassment to the VA of the character. Like...from the 'horrible' things I've seen her do, she didn't deserve it at all????

Aside from not being interested in anime, I refuse to watch it because of how toxic the fandom is. When Miyazaki said anime was a mistake, I can't help to agree. There are some series that I just love and always will. But the anime industry is turning into the worst cesspool of crap I've ever seen. How immature and psychotic people are over their ships just screams that they need legit psychiatric help. When it turns into abusing people involved with the show, you need help.

That and a lot of the same old tired formula of "THEY HAVE A CRUSH ON X SO THEY OBVIOUSLY HAVE TO BE CANON NOW OR I WILL REEEEE" 
Which is what happened with NaruHina. 
Person has crush on someone. (99.99% of the time, it's a girl. Usually cute and makes you go "AWW")
Fandom acts like it's against the law they don't get with their crush.

Regardless of who the characters are supposed to be paired with and how much development they have, people are going to go with the cute girl with a crush. We of all people know how that is. That alone nuked our beloved characters and series.    

Recently, Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale released a game related to Undertale, but basically AU. It's a chapter series and only the first chapter came out. Someone has a crush on a character to which they haven't interacted with at all, so the fandom for this ship was born and it will not go away. By jove it will not go away and if you nay-say that ship, you're EVIL.
I'm sure some of you know what game I'm speaking of, Deltarune. I avoid the fandom, but sometimes it gets shoved in your face when you aren't even looking. I don't even care about ships in Undertale or Deltarune. It's just a great example of fandoms and one of the reasons why I avoid them like the plague. 
There are very few fandoms that aren't cringe or toxic that I agree with. They are small and rare. 

[KClaws_2]

 

So many other good anime never gets this kind of exposure. JoJo Bizarre Adventure? Nope. Fist of the North Star? Nope. Ruroni Kenshin? Nope. Heck, the only anime competing is Dragonball Z and that is slowly being overtaken by Naruto/Boruto.

 

I have to disagree on this one. From what I'm seeing, DragonBall is still King. Ressurection of F made 4 times what the Last did when released in the US, and SSB Goku got a balloon on Thanksgiving.

 

Much like Sonic the Hedgehog, Naruto/Boruto is well known and the former treated as iconic, but the general feeling I'm getting is that it's not what it once was. I've seen a lot of comments stating how Naruto hasn't been good for years.

 

 

I think it's just that Naruto has all the ingredients for mass appeal to young kids. My cousin's daughter was into it for a while. It continues to serve as an intro to anime, much like DBZ did back in the day, to people who don't know better. They won't see the horrible writing because to them, it's the coolest crap they've ever seen. So, plastering Naruto around can serve as a means to say "HEY GUYS! THIS PLACE IS FOR ANIME!" Not to mention how heavily it was pushed by it's distributors in America.

 

I see a lot of MHA stuff around now, in more places I've seen Naruto. It could be this generation's DBZ.

Pretty much this. Naruto has always been marketed towards kids, both in Japan and the US. As I said before, kids don't have the best eye for quality stories. This isn't unique to the current generation; I've had bad taste, you've had bad taste, it's a part of growing up. Naruto/Boruto, regardless of story quality, was mainly concerned with action and showing cool moves, and in that sense it succeeds.

Still, other anime ARE getting noticed; the mediocre run of the mill action series' are often a bridge to higher quality anime for many viewers.

 

 

I try not to associate with most anime fans because of this. A lot of anime fans these days are immature, cringy and couldn't care less about storytelling/good writing. Most of the popular anime right now, I find boring as all get out. But there are so many good ones that get ignored. (Jojo has a cult following at least) 
What matters the most to them is a few key things.
>Action
>Yuri
>Lolis
>Hypersexualized girls/women
>Big boobs or even flat boobs
>Moe/Cute
>Pairings/Ships
>Waifus
>How EDGY and/or DARK it is
>Yanderes, Kuuderes, and all other dere types. (Minus Tsunderes. They still have their fans, but they've been pushed aside as of late. Or overshadowed by the 'cute girl with a crush')

That's a very common thing I've seen among a lot of anime fans these days. So I've stayed out of the anime circle ever since Naruto.
I recently witnessed a fandom for Darling in the Franxx or whatever it's called, being absolutely crazy. Just as bad as the Naruto fandom. I guess I'll tag for spoilers?

Spoilers for Darling in the Franxx

There's a love triangle, the main girl and the childhood friend with a crush. Everyone shipped the main pair, which ended up being canon. But they HATED the childhood friend with a burning passion. A BURNING passion. To the point they'd send harassment to the VA of the character. Like...from the 'horrible' things I've seen her do, she didn't deserve it at all????

Aside from not being interested in anime, I refuse to watch it because of how toxic the fandom is. When Miyazaki said anime was a mistake, I can't help to agree. There are some series that I just love and always will. But the anime industry is turning into the worst cesspool of crap I've ever seen. How immature and psychotic people are over their ships just screams that they need legit psychiatric help. When it turns into abusing people involved with the show, you need help.

That and a lot of the same old tired formula of "THEY HAVE A CRUSH ON X SO THEY OBVIOUSLY HAVE TO BE CANON NOW OR I WILL REEEEE" 
Which is what happened with NaruHina. 
Person has crush on someone. (99.99% of the time, it's a girl. Usually cute and makes you go "AWW")
Fandom acts like it's against the law they don't get with their crush.

Regardless of who the characters are supposed to be paired with and how much development they have, people are going to go with the cute girl with a crush. We of all people know how that is. That alone nuked our beloved characters and series.    

Recently, Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale released a game related to Undertale, but basically AU. It's a chapter series and only the first chapter came out. Someone has a crush on a character to which they haven't interacted with at all, so the fandom for this ship was born and it will not go away. By jove it will not go away and if you nay-say that ship, you're EVIL.
I'm sure some of you know what game I'm speaking of, Deltarune. I avoid the fandom, but sometimes it gets shoved in your face when you aren't even looking. I don't even care about ships in Undertale or Deltarune. It's just a great example of fandoms and one of the reasons why I avoid them like the plague. 
There are very few fandoms that aren't cringe or toxic that I agree with. They are small and rare. 

So wait. For DOF, they shipped the couple, but hated the girl? Well, I guess NH fans have some competition in the crazy department; at least they like both characters of their ship.

The fandom behavior you're describing is not unique to anime, it's everywhere. I heard Stephen Amell on Arrow got death threats for not actually being with the actress who plays Felicity.

I think the problem is that many consumers of media are having problems separating fiction from reality. I know that's an argument used for various things, but people seem to be getting into things more as a self-insert rather than looking at a story (or fun ride if the story itself is bad).They usually seem to want a story to go THEIR way instead of waiting and the end of the ride and then judge it for themselves.

In addition, there's something about the internet that brings out the worst in people. I find the most trendy things are often the most negative. Add to that most (vocal) media consumers are young and you're going to have some major problems. 

 

I think most people in entertainment are starting to learn that shippers are not a big part of their consumer base (unless their products DO center around romance), and more or less allow the creators to do what they want most of the time.

[Bail o' Lies]

James, your seeing a lot of ads for Boruto and Naruto is because Boruto started being dubbed & both anime were moved up to near the front of adult swim two months ago, but more importantly Tv Tokyo is paying for it. Remember they get money for licensing out both anime. So they get money if people are watching both, and since Black Clover didn't start out so well overseas; they have no reason not to put a lot of money into advertising.

[Moon_Girl]

So wait. For DOF, they shipped the couple, but hated the girl? Well, I guess NH fans have some competition in the crazy department; at least they like both characters of their ship.

The fandom behavior you're describing is not unique to anime, it's everywhere. I heard Stephen Amell on Arrow got death threats for not actually being with the actress who plays Felicity.

I think the problem is that many consumers of media are having problems separating fiction from reality. I know that's an argument used for various things, but people seem to be getting into things more as a self-insert rather than looking at a story (or fun ride if the story itself is bad).They usually seem to want a story to go THEIR way instead of waiting and the end of the ride and then judge it for themselves.

In addition, there's something about the internet that brings out the worst in people. I find the most trendy things are often the most negative. Add to that most (vocal) media consumers are young and you're going to have some major problems. 

 

I think most people in entertainment are starting to learn that shippers are not a big part of their consumer base (unless their products DO center around romance), and more or less allow the creators to do what they want most of the time.

Oh, no. Not all popular anime is bad. I like the Dragon Ball series as well. The majority of the popular anime seems bad to me or just uninteresting.

I'm not sure if I wrote it in a confusing way or not, but no they didn't hate the girl in the ship. They love her.
Main girl they loved along with her ship with main guy.
Side character was a childhood friend with a crush and they wanted her to burn. Their hate for her even reached to the VA of the character.

[KClaws_2]

Oh, no. Not all popular anime is bad. I like the Dragon Ball series as well. The majority of the popular anime seems bad to me or just uninteresting.

I'm not sure if I wrote it in a confusing way or not, but no they didn't hate the girl in the ship. They love her.
Main girl they loved along with her ship with main guy.
Side character was a childhood friend with a crush and they wanted her to burn. Their hate for her even reached to the VA of the character.

Ah, now that makes sense.

 

If there's anything worse than a sore loser, it's definitely a sore winner. I mean, what's the point? They won, so why get into a rage about a fictional character? Why attack a VA who's only doing her job?

 

I really think people who consume media are having a problem. They like something, they attack anyone who dares go against the grain and defend their precious property beyond reason. They hate something, they'll blame someone else for ruining it. 

[Phantom_999]

Oh, no. Not all popular anime is bad. I like the Dragon Ball series as well. The majority of the popular anime seems bad to me or just uninteresting.

I'm not sure if I wrote it in a confusing way or not, but no they didn't hate the girl in the ship. They love her.
Main girl they loved along with her ship with main guy.
Side character was a childhood friend with a crush and they wanted her to burn. Their hate for her even reached to the VA of the character.

 

Exactly there is no real bad anime, there is only "bad anime fans" Therefore I just like what I like and don't interact with anyone does not have a a civil love for the anime or is not willing to have a civil discussion about the anime. 

 

Anime is not really a mistake if you ask me, it is that anime in its current form is being made for the wrong reasons, and fans are liking it FOR THE WRONG REASONS. fan service and sex appeal, etc. are not what anime should be about but why do companies do it? to make money, because the industry is a cut throat competition where employees are under paid and if a series does not SELL then the company is in the financial red because of how much they invest in that particular series and trust me anime is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination to make. And we have to be honest here; sex appeal DOES SELL, as unfortunate as it is to say. But anyway the fact of the matter is anime is the way it is as I theorize because the Japanese entertainment industry (or East Asian entertainment industries in general) is structured in such a way that creative liberties is either not allowed or not encouraged, which is a shame because I feel hat Anime and manga can be so much more if given the freedom. In fact I want to open a discussion of my full thoughts on the anime industry at a later date

Edited by Phantom_999, 26 November 2018 - 05:36 PM.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

 

Exactly there is no real bad anime, there is only "bad anime fans" Therefore I just like what I like and don't interact with anyone does not have a a civil love for the anime or is not willing to have a civil discussion about the anime. 

 

Anime is not really a mistake if you ask me, it is that anime in its current form is being made for the wrong reasons, and fans are liking it FOR THE WRONG REASONS. fan service and sex appeal, etc. are not what anime should be about but why do companies do it? to make money, because the industry is a cut throat competition where employees are under paid and if a series does not SELL then the company is in the financial red because of how much they invest in that particular series and trust me anime is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination to make. And we have to be honest here; sex appeal DOES SELL, as unfortunate as it is to say. But anyway the fact of the matter is anime is the way it is as I theorize because the Japanese entertainment industry (or East Asian entertainment industries in general) is structured in such a way that creative liberties is either not allowed or not encouraged, which is a shame because I feel hat Anime and manga can be so much more if given the freedom. In fact I want to open a discussion of my full thoughts on the anime industry at a later date

Nobody hates (insert title / franchise) more than its fans.

[DrK]

Recently, Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale released a game related to Undertale, but basically AU. It's a chapter series and only the first chapter came out. Someone has a crush on a character to which they haven't interacted with at all, so the fandom for this ship was born and it will not go away. By jove it will not go away and if you nay-say that ship, you're EVIL.

I'm sure some of you know what game I'm speaking of, Deltarune. I avoid the fandom, but sometimes it gets shoved in your face when you aren't even looking. 

If I'm right about what you're referencing, isn't it even kinda pointless because he already did pretty much the same thing with Alphys and Undyne? Does he really need to do another lesbian anthropomorphic animals couple with the exact same character archetypes?

 

I realize talking about it like that makes Undertale seem way more kittened up than it is, but I don't care. Its fandom has been doing that for the past 3 years already.

[Moon_Girl]

If I'm right about what you're referencing, isn't it even kinda pointless because he already did pretty much the same thing with Alphys and Undyne? Does he really need to do another lesbian anthropomorphic animals couple with the exact same character archetypes?

 

I realize talking about it like that makes Undertale seem way more kittened up than it is, but I don't care. Its fandom has been doing that for the past 3 years already.

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. It would be Undyne and Alphys 2.0, but I wouldn't put it past the chance of it happening. 
It would be much better if it didn't happen. Like, if the girl was rejected. There's been a lot of lesbian representation in media these days. (Adventure Time, Legend of Korra, Steven Universe (Maybe?), obviously Undertale) It's a little interesting they haven't focused on guys. 
But it would be a good thing to also focus on the fact that not everyone in the world is bi or gay. Or even if the character is, they aren't going to always fall for the person who likes them. 


@Phantom_999
Ehh, I'd debate otherwise. After all, Boku no Pico, as meme worthy as it is, is pretty terrible. Plus there's too many anime where it's only focused on the sex, harem and fanservice to even consider plot and character development. Let's not forget Boruto. It's the deformed child of something that lost it's purpose and greatness. 

There's this other anime, I can't think of the title off the top of my head, but the basic concept is;
>Military fighting something
>99.9% teenage girls
>Skimpy mecha suit fighter girls
>Have to orgasm to power up
Which, obviously, falls onto the main hero. He gets together with one of the girls only to continue banging the other harem girls (I'm not kidding, literally continues to have sex with them) including his own sister. And his sister isn't even a fighter, if I remember correctly.
Aside from whatever ambiguous plot it has, the smut is the focus. Miyazaki said anime was a mistake because of how tainted and twisted it's become. It focuses on the sex appeal, mostly on women and little girls. Miyazaki loves little girls and thinks their innocence and very being should be nothing but pure and protected. He absolutely despises the lolicon culture, the sexualization of little girls.
I mean, I can't disagree with him. 

 

If you have to include trashy fanservice constantly, then we all know the plot isn't what's keeping the fans around. And if the plot doesn't interest fans, then what's good about the show aside from the trashiness? That's why Hinata is so popular with otakus. It's like she came from one of those series. Plop her into one and she fits right in. 

I just can't help but feel like you have to dig through a lot of trash to find gems when it comes to anime. Manga is a bit easier to explore since I find myself running into less trashy fanservice and more interesting characters/plots. A lot of great manga don't get an anime adaption. 

Edited by Moon_Girl, 26 November 2018 - 11:02 PM.

[DrK]

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. It would be Undyne and Alphys 2.0, but I wouldn't put it past the chance of it happening. 
It would be much better if it didn't happen. Like, if the girl was rejected. 

I feel like that's the kind of thing Fox is going for, anyway, with the whole your choices don't matter. Like in the first game you were able to get Undyne and Alphys together by doing the sidequest with the letter, yadda yadda, you did a good job. But for this game, I feel like he would just have Susie reject whatever her name is and you are forced to just watch it happen. Given that the player would possibly be rooting for that pairing due to the repeated themes from the first game.

 

Though the real reason he is doing that is because giving the player such drastic options has a severe cost in terms of development time, but I digress.

Edited by DrK, 26 November 2018 - 11:23 PM.

[totherpage95]

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. It would be Undyne and Alphys 2.0, but I wouldn't put it past the chance of it happening. 
It would be much better if it didn't happen. Like, if the girl was rejected. There's been a lot of lesbian representation in media these days. (Adventure Time, Legend of Korra, Steven Universe (Maybe?), obviously Undertale) It's a little interesting they haven't focused on guys. 
But it would be a good thing to also focus on the fact that not everyone in the world is bi or gay. Or even if the character is, they aren't going to always fall for the person who likes them. 


@Phantom_999
Ehh, I'd debate otherwise. After all, Boku no Pico, as meme worthy as it is, is pretty terrible. Plus there's too many anime where it's only focused on the sex, harem and fanservice to even consider plot and character development. Let's not forget Boruto. It's the deformed child of something that lost it's purpose and greatness. 

There's this other anime, I can't think of the title off the top of my head, but the basic concept is;
>Military fighting something
>99.9% teenage girls
>Skimpy mecha suit fighter girls
>Have to orgasm to power up
Which, obviously, falls onto the main hero. He gets together with one of the girls only to continue banging the other harem girls (I'm not kidding, literally continues to have sex with them) including his own sister. And his sister isn't even a fighter, if I remember correctly.
Aside from whatever ambiguous plot it has, the smut is the focus. Miyazaki said anime was a mistake because of how tainted and twisted it's become. It focuses on the sex appeal, mostly on women and little girls. Miyazaki loves little girls and thinks their innocence and very being should be nothing but pure and protected. He absolutely despises the lolicon culture, the sexualization of little girls.
I mean, I can't disagree with him. 

 

If you have to include trashy fanservice constantly, then we all know the plot isn't what's keeping the fans around. And if the plot doesn't interest fans, then what's good about the show aside from the trashiness? That's why Hinata is so popular with otakus. It's like she came from one of those series. Plop her into one and she fits right in. 

I just can't help but feel like you have to dig through a lot of trash to find gems when it comes to anime. Manga is a bit easier to explore since I find myself running into less trashy fanservice and more interesting characters/plots. A lot of great manga don't get an anime adaption. 

 

 

If you're talking about darling in the franxx i'm still traumatized by that show... actually what you describe sounds worse. The saddest thing is talking to a anime fan and learning that he thinks anime is the best thing ever just because it has fanservice. I was talking to someone who was turned on by elastigirl from incredibles

Edited by totherpage95, 27 November 2018 - 01:48 AM.

[totherpage95]

Asking naruto fans to explain why they hate sakura is another source of entertainment to me. One guy said "she fed naruto in the beginning why wasn't she always there for him" . All that tells me is you have a low amount of self esteem if the requirement of being a good female main character is worshiping the main character every second of the hour

[tricksie]

I view all of these post-mortem as nothing but casualties caused by business decision errors.

 

Kishimoto can say whatever he wants after the fact. That won't change what has been written in his manga. The more he speak, the more we know there's hardly any planning, and there's nothing philosophically deeper in the content than what was drawn. The readers thought too much about it, lol... For me personally, the more I realized that I gave too much credits to him and how much I overrated him. I'm not sure if he's being humble, but again, I should've realized long time ago that Kishi is no Arakawa. When he said he cannot write romance, that was to be taken as it is, literally.

 

God knows what is his actual motive with the interviews, though I reckon these interviews as nothing but attempts to seek attention. We all know that the latest volume of Boruto sold under 100k in its first week, albeit heavy advertising and all. As a benchmark, Naruto manga sold in the scale of ~2 million in its first week during its heyday. In 15 years of its original run, it has sold 220 million. That's quite a feat. You'll notice that a lot of Naruto apologists keep saying that it's in top 10 blabla, it's still profitable, blabla.... yeah right.... the one reason it's falling behind other series is the arrogance of the current producer that think about it as big.

 

Looking at the trends, it's steadily declining --which is not surprising. We predicted this since November 2014 (judging how the last volume and the gaiden's reception on the market). It won't get cancelled for sure, but based on the trends, I'm quite sure it won't be as successful as it was before the ending. Kishi knows this. Hence, I'd think that's the reason he opt not to continue authoring Naruto. No point beating the dead horse.

 

Whether the decision to end Naruto as per current plot was triggered by greed or by favorability (i.e. false assumption NH/SS contributes more financially), Kishi/SP/WSJ cannot undo what has been done: NS fans and the fans that read the manga based on a good story telling quality have moved on.

 

Will putting back Kishimoto as the author fix the situation? Who knows, but I doubt so. His new manga hasn't launched yet right? I guess there's contractual obligation that he cannot just wash his hands off Boruto manga... People who read Naruto more or less knows what his authoring skills like, which is revealed largely at the end of the series.

 

Another problem is the plot itself: there's nothing to look forward to and the characters are hardly relatable.

 

Have a look at Charlie Brown in Peanuts (yup, I'm talking about the comic strip --I'm that old. haha...). Quoting from a recent article that I read "Part of the appeal of Peanuts is its nuanced view of the human psyche. Although the series is ostensibly for children, the concerns it addresses, from loneliness to fear of failure, apply to people of all ages. Although it can be demoralising to read about Charlie’s repeated lack of success, in his love life and on the playing field, it made the strip relatable to a wide audience. “Charlie must be the one who suffers”, said Schulz “because he is a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning.”

 

You can relate to Charlie easily. The author knows and designs him as such. We are much more acquainted with losing.

 

Same as Naruto in its early days. Naruto was a loser and we can relate to him and to his struggle. He had a one sided crush to Sakura chan; --that too, we can relate to him. What made Naruto interesting was his effort to keep up-skilling and training, to keep doing his best to win his crush's heart. We yearn for his success because we know, deep down, we are also familiar with such situation. In one way or another... Missing that chance, losing that match, failing that test, having a crush to that person that we're afraid of approaching. We are familiar with this, hence we can relate to it, although on the surface it's primarily action manga in ninja world with a lot of Japanese Edo period (Tokugawa) references and Japanese folklore. The emotional bits of it --the struggle, the one sided love, the friendship; has made this manga took off to where it was.

 

With Boruto, you have a kid that's "talented", born into a wealthy family, his mother is a princess, his father is the #1 person in your village, he has a lot of fans at school. A main character whose acting up just because daddy isn't around and busy at work. What a boring setup for a character in a manga that emphasizes about struggle. The setup is the exact opposite of Naruto, yet, the storyline is copying the older generation. That, my dear NS friends, is a recipe for a disaster. How many people can relate to his character? Not much I suppose... and NH/SS fandom that was supposed to be 'big' turns out only support it in a scale of a fraction of NS.

 

Such a waste of potential.

 

I love that about the characters being relatable (Peanuts) and unrelatable (Boruto). The whole premise of Boruto is an absolute bust. Naruto has to be a failure, so his spoiled kid can have a reason to hate him and act out. There's barely a story there. Young Naruto, the orphaned troublemaker who has a hidden power and a good heart, is relatable and empathetic. You want to root for him. From the very first chapter. Boruto? Nope. There has never been anything sympathetic about him, nothing for a reader to connect with. He just seems like a carbon copy of Naruto with the exception that Boruto's got no reason to be such a brat, but there's nothing to love about him or root for in him like there was in Naruto. Yes, waste of potential is right.

[James S Cassidy]

I view all of these post-mortem as nothing but casualties caused by business decision errors.

 

Kishimoto can say whatever he wants after the fact. That won't change what has been written in his manga. The more he speak, the more we know there's hardly any planning, and there's nothing philosophically deeper in the content than what was drawn. The readers thought too much about it, lol... For me personally, the more I realized that I gave too much credits to him and how much I overrated him. I'm not sure if he's being humble, but again, I should've realized long time ago that Kishi is no Arakawa. When he said he cannot write romance, that was to be taken as it is, literally.

 

God knows what is his actual motive with the interviews, though I reckon these interviews as nothing but attempts to seek attention. We all know that the latest volume of Boruto sold under 100k in its first week, albeit heavy advertising and all. As a benchmark, Naruto manga sold in the scale of ~2 million in its first week during its heyday. In 15 years of its original run, it has sold 220 million. That's quite a feat. You'll notice that a lot of Naruto apologists keep saying that it's in top 10 blabla, it's still profitable, blabla.... yeah right.... the one reason it's falling behind other series is the arrogance of the current producer that think about it as big.

 

Looking at the trends, it's steadily declining --which is not surprising. We predicted this since November 2014 (judging how the last volume and the gaiden's reception on the market). It won't get cancelled for sure, but based on the trends, I'm quite sure it won't be as successful as it was before the ending. Kishi knows this. Hence, I'd think that's the reason he opt not to continue authoring Naruto. No point beating the dead horse.

 

Whether the decision to end Naruto as per current plot was triggered by greed or by favorability (i.e. false assumption NH/SS contributes more financially), Kishi/SP/WSJ cannot undo what has been done: NS fans and the fans that read the manga based on a good story telling quality have moved on.

 

Will putting back Kishimoto as the author fix the situation? Who knows, but I doubt so. His new manga hasn't launched yet right? I guess there's contractual obligation that he cannot just wash his hands off Boruto manga... People who read Naruto more or less knows what his authoring skills like, which is revealed largely at the end of the series.

 

Another problem is the plot itself: there's nothing to look forward to and the characters are hardly relatable.

 

Have a look at Charlie Brown in Peanuts (yup, I'm talking about the comic strip --I'm that old. haha...). Quoting from a recent article that I read "Part of the appeal of Peanuts is its nuanced view of the human psyche. Although the series is ostensibly for children, the concerns it addresses, from loneliness to fear of failure, apply to people of all ages. Although it can be demoralising to read about Charlie’s repeated lack of success, in his love life and on the playing field, it made the strip relatable to a wide audience. “Charlie must be the one who suffers”, said Schulz “because he is a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning.”

 

You can relate to Charlie easily. The author knows and designs him as such. We are much more acquainted with losing.

 

Same as Naruto in its early days. Naruto was a loser and we can relate to him and to his struggle. He had a one sided crush to Sakura chan; --that too, we can relate to him. What made Naruto interesting was his effort to keep up-skilling and training, to keep doing his best to win his crush's heart. We yearn for his success because we know, deep down, we are also familiar with such situation. In one way or another... Missing that chance, losing that match, failing that test, having a crush to that person that we're afraid of approaching. We are familiar with this, hence we can relate to it, although on the surface it's primarily action manga in ninja world with a lot of Japanese Edo period (Tokugawa) references and Japanese folklore. The emotional bits of it --the struggle, the one sided love, the friendship; has made this manga took off to where it was.

 

With Boruto, you have a kid that's "talented", born into a wealthy family, his mother is a princess, his father is the #1 person in your village, he has a lot of fans at school. A main character whose acting up just because daddy isn't around and busy at work. What a boring setup for a character in a manga that emphasizes about struggle. The setup is the exact opposite of Naruto, yet, the storyline is copying the older generation. That, my dear NS friends, is a recipe for a disaster. How many people can relate to his character? Not much I suppose... and NH/SS fandom that was supposed to be 'big' turns out only support it in a scale of a fraction of NS.

 

Such a waste of potential.

I know I have already commented on this post before, but after rereading it I have more i'd like to add. What is truly the greatest realization is the fact that it seems like Kishimoto didn't seem to care enough.

I am wanting to be an author as well. I want to write books and make money where people can read and be inspired. That means I put my heart and even soul into it. Not that I don't make mistakes, but rather if I do, i want to fix them or even try to improve upon them. This is where to me Kishimoto has failed. Yes, maybe we did give him too much credit, but did he not care at all about this series? If he was bad at writing romance, why not try to learn and improve? If he was bad at writing females, why continue to make female characters prevalent in the series? He could have asked his wife, his family, anyone he was close to to do research and make the writing better. Why didn't he do that? This is where I question a lot about Kishimoto as a person.

To go even farther, why was his editors and such seem so adamant that the story had to be written the way they wanted it to be written rather than to improve what Kishimoto wanted to do? Why were these people so selfish to push their own agenda of Hinata and not say improve on the real bad aspect of the story? Instead, they made it all worse and then look all surprised when people abandoned it in droves.

I think this is what really gets me. Why were they so blind to the real issues and didn't focus on improving them and instead pushing their own agenda of pairings?

The worst of it these same people who push for aspects such as SS and NH being canon, Hinata having more screen time, and other such trivial and stupid things that have nothing to do with the overall plot also complain when other characters get left in the dust or get regressed back into their former selves despite the development they went through. Mainly, Sakura. She gets so much hate for the stuff she is or does, but never realize that all the things they hate about her are the thing that were caused by them in the first place. The reason why she is so obsessed with Sasuke? Because they wouldn't let her be with anyone else, but him. "SS HAD to be canon" they screamed while also say "We hate Sakura because she is too selfish." Well, if they only let her move on and be with Naruto then that would not be a problem now would it? They wanted her to have more powers or more to do, but then complain when she takes up panel time. The double standard is so strong.

What is with this new social mentality where even if you give people exactly what they want they are not happy? They want Sakura to be with Sasuke, but they also want her to not be obsessed with him all the while saying that Hinata needs to be more obsessed with Naruto and that Naruto needs to get over Sakura because he needs to accept that she doesn't love him even though Naruto doesn't love Hinata? Do they not even realize the huge conundrum they are saying? It is mind boggling and I can't get my head around it.

They still have never answered my question totally. "What was wrong with Sakura and Naruto being a couple?" I can give an entire list on why NH and SS are bad pairings and they have nothing to do with my personal feelings, but they can't give me any reason beyond "I don't like them together" or "Hinata deserves Naruto cause she was loyal to him since the beginning."

[RulesofNature]

Pretty much this. Naruto has always been marketed towards kids, both in Japan and the US. As I said before, kids don't have the best eye for quality stories. This isn't unique to the current generation; I've had bad taste, you've had bad taste, it's a part of growing up. Naruto/Boruto, regardless of story quality, was mainly concerned with action and showing cool moves, and in that sense it succeeds.

Still, other anime ARE getting noticed; the mediocre run of the mill action series' are often a bridge to higher quality anime for many viewers.

 

 

Not to mention, shows such as this usually tend to create the most vocal critics out of their former fans. From my experiences, the guys who hate the Cosmic Era of Gundam the most are former SEED-fans upset over what Destiny did. Star Wars fans are the most upset about The Last Jedi. It's like that for any show that goes bad. When I was younger I was into House and Dexter, now I'd be unable to watch reruns and ditched my DVDs. Naruto itself has a bucket load of problems, and who cares more about those problems: the guys who never watched/read it since it was "shonen garbage" or the people who took the time to invest in the series?

 

People know it's not a high quality series, and disgrunted fans are the ones who can most accurately explain why. The fact that the show's popularity has declined over various major issues (over-reliance on filler, talk no jutsu, characters pulling crap out of their asses, shipping wars within the community, the ending.) only serves to highlight why it's mid-tier anime at best. And when you consider how stuff like older shows like Death Note, Cowboy Bebop, Gundam and Fullmetal Alchemist continue to attract new viewers and inspire debate other than "what went wrong?", it represents how much of a fad ninja boy actually was.

[Yyubie]

@James

What they (those rabid fanatics) says to me is that Sakura is abusive to Naruto , shes always hitting him , she is violent toward Naruto. This is their main generic excuses , except that well you know , shes flat chest , useless , etc.

 

Talking or having a debate with these rabid fanatic is stupid. It's like having a debate with an uneducated person , at the end of the debate they gonna use parental insult and bring and insult your parent because they know they losing and they running out of idea. When they say that Hinata deserve Naruto more , it's not their brain that speaking , it's their pe**s that speaking. They self insert them self into Naruto , and then it become what they want not what Naruto want. The evidence is , just take a look at boruto now , many of their fans hate Naruto for what hes done to his son. They said that we need to respect kishimoto and his work and let him do what he want (when the ending chapter 700 roll) , well they should say that word in front of a mirror to themselves!! They are the one that making the rules that we should respect and let Kishi do the work but now they hate borutos dad for ignoring his brat! They are the one that broke their own rule! . To me that's proof that these fanatic never even ONCE care about Naruto as character and his will or desire. And at the end of the day it's just like you said everyone not just the fanatic staff inside SP , it's rabid fan also somehow able to alter the ending (congratz to sawyer and forneverworld).

Edited by Yyubie, 01 December 2018 - 01:49 PM.