Sakura is still considered the official franchise Heroine and Sarada the next gen heroine...Hinata is still insignificant for Jump/Manga.
If you consider being Naruto's HouseWife with few panels and being trapped in another dimension being more important. Yeah Hinata is more important
I still remember this OVA. SS fans become super angry because this NS scene is basically a copy/paste of the SasuSaku scene and Sasuke's death in the land of waves arc. NH and other people just called this filler.
Pierrot shipped NS as hard as NH. While SS was negligeted as soon Sasuke left the village.
SS/Sakura fans simply hates Pierrot.
But this didn't helped NaruSaku too much and you can consider Sakura punching Naruto a tsundere thing. But this makes Sakura being really hated because Pierrot overfocused on that.
NS have a tons of fillers and fanservices. Part of Pierrot wanted NaruSaku.
I believe Pierrot have nothing to do with SS/NH. This was a solo decision between Kishimoto and his Editors.
Pierrot has no power for this.
About the CPR people (SS,NH and NS) tends to forget this moment since shortly after SS gained the "eyesmex", Sakura true confession 2.0, Forehad Poke and Sarada Gaiden and NH gained The Last. The scene still was super bad in anime.
Kishimoto just treated this as a normal day in Sakura medical work and made everybody forget that.
So why he bother to show that? Just to cause more pairing wars and troll fans a little more?
Sakura/Kushina parallel were much more efetive than that.
Do you read my posts?
Kubo's wife hates Sakura because she was in the way of SasuNaru "love", proved Sasuke isn't gay for Naruto or because she is the main girl?
So i don't think she is a incel...
Well during the last they tried to make hinata the heroine and replace sakura and we know the results we have and its a mess.I'm not surprised they would try to dismiss the scene in the ova they always do be it canon or filler, but always highlight their own be it canon or filler.
Only the female staff at the time shipped Narusaku at the time, thats why you got narusaku scenes at times. Unfortunately, the majority of the male staff were hinata and NH fans, to say they didn't have a part in the ending I consider being naive. Because, their protrayal of hinata in scenes like in filler or 166 made her very popular with anime only watchers in the west, while sakura hated with the more flanderization of sakura's tsundere tropes in the anime like episode 3. Plus they were heavily involved in the last's production so I doubt they didn't try to influence kishimoto. Also I find it double standard how people make a big deal about sakura punching naruto yet completely ignore other tsundere couples who do it and even ship them.
No one forgot about the CPR scene, heck NH and SS made more of a big deal of it than we did trying to make all kinds of excuses for or try to say narusaku shippers were disgiusting for supporting it. Also we pretty much complained how badly Pierrot animated it, while they put much detail into hinata tripping over a rock. Also I wouldn't call this a minor scene as it paralleled kairn's attempt to save sasuke's like, with sakura's attemp to keep naruto alive while thinking how close they are to seeing his dream as hokage come life. Also given how 663 was called the real ends kinda gives hints that this is what kishimoto wanted to do.
Boruto lost sales because Ikemoto who are contantly kittening on Sasuke/Naruto,the ugly draws and poor story pacing. This has nothing to do with NaruHina. Kishimoto biggest mistake was to choose his incompetent and unknown assistent to driver the sequel. Thats why i prefer Sakura's death than NS in Ikemoto's universe. Haters would blame Sakura/NaruSaku for Boruto failure.
But Naruto is still a huge franchise who never will truly die or disappear like Stars Wars or Dragon Ball and still atracts tons of views and attention. They will use this polls datas to some future project outside Boruto.
The extremely agressive and useless Sakura in fillers was bad. But Pierrot shiped NS.
How you can explain the massive ammount of NaruSaku fillers and fanservices in openings and Endings? The NaruSaku scene in the promotional Ova? For god's sake, Pierrot put a naked Sakura drawing Naruto in a ending. This is appelative as that filler with Hinata in the waterfall. NaruSaku and NaruHina are Naruto's pairings and Pierrot wanted to make fanservices for both pairings relating to the protagonist. NS was the Plan A and NH the Plan B. Pierrot didn't influenced in Kishimoto's decision.
Kishimoto was the one who wanted to fuel NaruHina/SasuSaku when he made Hinata declare her love, Neji's death or insisted in Sakura's love to Sasuke.. Pierrot only made the Last when Kishimoto gave the green light relating to his final plans. About the VAs. Chie Nakamura/noriaki sugiyama are SS shippers and always questioned Kishimoto about SS in interviews. Sakura's english VA is a SS fangirl. I don't consider VA importants, considering the own Junko said recently Naruto loved Sakura like a potato.
Kishimoto was clear when he said some staff in pierrot wanted NaruSaku.
This isn't a fake interview like the one with Kishi saying the readers could decide who is Sarada's mother. Kishi has no reasons to lie about Pierrot.NaruSaku even received a Movie focused in Sakura and Naruto, who still wasn't enough to save Sakura's popularity. Maybe because the very own movie trashed on Sakura and fans becomed furious with the SS/Sasuke/Team 7 fake publicity..
Kishimoto wife wasn't the fandom and doesn't have more power than his editors or the public opinion.
SS always crushed any other hetero Naruto pairing in asia and their fans are very vocal always poor rating NS scenes, Sakura's confession to Naruto, threatening the own Kishi when he tried to troll SS fans with Karin as Sarada's mother in Gaiden and flooding anime sites like aO3 and Pixiv with SS.. I doubt Hinata/NH were popular in japan during the original series serialization. Kishimoto himself brought hate to Sakura and destroyed NS in Kage Summit arc than pierrot ever dreammed.
I believe Kishimoto was lying too. Probably Kishimoto planned NS at the beggining of part 2.
But you have the factidic fake confession who greatly boosted Sakura/NaruSaku hate and forced Kishimoto to change his plans. Sakura tied with the non existent Sai out of the TOP 10 at the time and still gained a massive ammount of haters in the West. This was ridiculous for a main girl. This was a cleary advice for Kishimoto didn't try NaruSaku and ignore SasuSaku/NaruHina.
So most probably Kishimoto changed his plans at the "halfway".
NH helped SS for sure. Naruto was still the protagonist and his feelings were a huge obstacle to SasuSaku.
Kishimoto failed to show Naruto reciprocating Hinata's feelings before SS. So Hinata still looks like a Silver Medal. Hinatards and Naruto Fanboys wanted to see Naruto rejecting Sakura and show how Hinata was better than her. This never happened. Sasuke come first and stole Sakura with the sacred forehead poke,Sakura wanted to leave the village with him and Naruto had to fall in love to Hinata in a movie inside a Genjutsu because Kishimoto didn't bother to show NH in manga.
At least half of the SS fandom were opportunists and supported NH only to remove Naruto out of the equation.
They were so emotionally invested with SS and absolutely couldn't accept NS after part 1. It's a matter of pride for SS fans. They didn't care to support Sakura after 469 because supportting Sakura at that moment means helping NaruSaku and showing to Kishimoto he was right to try the NaruSaku route. Basically only NS fans liked Sakura at the time. As soon SasuSaku become canon these fans simply throwed NH into the trash to support 100% SS and Sakura.
Kishimoto made NH to turn Hinata even more popular and boost Hinata/Naruto popularity for the sequel and SasuSaku to save some Sakura popularity between SS fans and produce a new Uchiha. NH/Hinata had a loud Fanbase in the west and the Last was their plan to make NH gain popularity in Japan for the sequel.
But Kishimoto certainly didn't planned of how Sakura/SS would massively increase their popularity at the point to become the franchise main Couple and Sakura the most popular living Character both in Japan and West, while the byakugan princess/NH basically died after canon with Ikemoto's/The last incompetence. Hinata only had a illusiory and fleeting popularity thanks to the Sakura's bad writting at the time and some vocal fans who wanted NaruHina. They got what they wanted and nobody wants to know about Hinata anymore.
A absolute ironic and hilarious twist of events considering SS was the throw away ship...
While yes Ikemoto writing and drawing is mostly what's responsible for the boruto's series losses and overall franchises decline, NH is still played into it given how that ship was made canon they way it did to help make a potential spin off like boruto. The series was based on the foundations on what came before. It's like how many of the bad story telling for spider-man in the comics came from the foundations on what the infamous one more story line did to try and reset the character to marvel's editorials liking.
While naruto might never really die as a franchise doesn't mean it isn't in decline, heck the naruto world wide poll 4.6 million votes is only a third of the One Piece Piece's 12 million. It was a self inflicted wound it's still paying the price for. Like I said above only the female staff shipped narusaku, the male staff shipped nh that's why there was so much filler with her when they really shouldn't have been doing so. Also pretty sure kishimoto thought the hinata confession was no big deal, given how there was never a follow-up and he had no idea why she was popular.
Yeah I don't find any interviews with va's about the ships being planned as reliable, I doubt any them would say otherwise and just doing damage control like many of kishimoto's interviews post ending. It's like when Mark Hamill used to say how he fundamentally disagree with what Rian Johnson did with his character but doesn't say anything now, because studios don't want their actors trashing ongoing projects and works as it's bad pr which can be used against them, Also from what I heard from Lukcyhi while sakura's english voice actor originally shipped ss, she grew to like ns over time and put more passion into her role when doing scenes involving them and didn't put much effort into the last, though ask him if you want more details. Also Junko was very much a big narusaku supporter and that recent interview is more likely to be damage control as I doubt she can trash talk the current pairings that are canon.
The Road to ninja idea came from kishimoto, as he said he got to do stuff that he didn't get to do in the manga which was sakura's parents. That movie didn't trash on sakura, the only ones that got saulty were ss and nh fans and frankly the marketing made it pretty obvious that sasuke was a playboy in the film, heck mema the evil naruto twist was shown in the promo's. People were much more angry at the false advertising of the last being a team 7 movie when kakashi and sasuke appeared very little in the film.
His wife is who sakura is based off, same with kushina. Heck he went to her for advice when writing naruto's family in the last aerc before the war. She may not be the fandom or editors, but her reaction says a lot about the ending and canon couples. Like I said before many in japan excepted ns to be canon, even some ss fans. Just because and fanbase acts vocal and threatening doesn't mean you should listen to what they say, episodically if they are a shipping fandom with a ship that is written as problematic as ss was. I don't care how bad they reacted to the confession, what sasuke did was way worse to sakura.
I'm convinced he had it planned from the beginning not just part 2, he shouldn't just change just based on some fan reaction because the reaction to ss becoming canon was alot more negative. That was just one fricking poll he should judge every decision on that, this is why I find the popularity polls being being problematic in influencing how a story goes. AT best it was around before when neji died that kishimoto changed his mind.
Most NH fans didn't care how NH became canon as long as it did, same with ss fans. They don't care if it took a movie to make them canonm and I doubt ss fans would if it was the case with them. They were as bad as eachother ignored the problematic aspects of their ships development and how they both got together. When that was done they turned on eachother, which frankly shows how unstable becoming these two pairing canon when the only thing uniting their fandoms was hating narusaku.
I don't care how emotionally invest ss fans were in the ship, they should have the self respect to realize that after the kage summit arc they ship had become very toxic to become canon after sasuke trying to kill her the way he did wouldn't be good for her character. If they want to enjoy it do it in fanon or hope for a multiverse where sasuke isn't a jerk to sakura. As a result of not supporting sakura at the expense of making sure ns didn't become canon had her role in the story reduced and damge the reputation of her character and fandom.
Yeah we knew that they made NH canon because they thought that since they were apparently popular in the west, though they didn't realize that most of them didn't actually fiance the series that well due to being able to read and watch stuff online and just alienated their domestic base in Japan. While yes Sakura has shown to be a lot more popular in recent than kishimoto realized, the damage has been done to her character by many outside the ss fandom. Yes they have gotten bigger than nh in recent years, but that is mostly due to the overall fanbase of naruto in decline and that new sakura fans just ship ss because its canon. If Narusaku was canon they would probably have shipped them, that what happens with long term series new fans tend to ship or accept what came before without much question. Plus frankly the Naruto franchise would probably be more stable in the long term if NH and SS canon because their shipping drama help cause quite alot of damage for the franchise.
Edited by BlueStarSaber, 14 May 2023 - 02:16 AM.
(I don't blame him.) Oddly, Burrito is really more of a Narusasu love child than he is NH. He's got Naruto's "looks" a chunk of his attitude for no conceivable reason since he's not really a "neglected" child and he's got Sasuke's easy achievements due to natural "Talent" ego and perceived popularity. Hell, he's apparently got Sasuke's snake summons. 
) those were the people SHE emotionally impacted, not Zabuza and Haku. Which brings me back to Kishimoto being a liar since it was around this time that he said "I want to Focus on Sakura and Kakashi" and he didn't 
