Skarrow

Remember guys, this Sakura novel has Sakura and Ino opening a clinic for children's healthy mental development.

Pray tell, why weren't Boruto and Sarada helped with their family issues? Why is Chouchou so worried about her weight? Why hasn't anyone in that clinic tried to make an intervention when they discovered Mitsuki's previous living conditions? Why is Kawaki going to destroy Konoha and (maybe) kill Naruto? Why is Sakura never shown actually working??

It's useless, it's all useless. Sakura has been living in self denial for so long, who's to say that this entire Sakura novel isn't a fabrication of her mind?

And don't even get me started on the villain of her novel.

Plus, this is supposed to be a novel about Sakura's "hidden feelings". This is pure baloney. A waste of time and money, because there is nothing in this novel that contributes to the main story and influences it in a meaningful way. ...I suppose they got that part of Sakura consistent.

I guess what's considered "odd" as a combination depends on where you come from, where you are now, what you grew up with, etc

Still, it's nice to find out what others think. Like say: Liu Bie thinks scrambled eggs+ketchup is weird, but I eat that for breakfast at least twice a week. On the other hand, I can't wrap my head around Lid's French toast+ketchup combo simply because... ... ...just because. LOL.


Has anyone tried mixing ketchup and mayonnaise before?

Statement: Kaguya is the main problem to War Arc or even in general. While the series has other flaws, the reason to say she made it worse, if not solidly destroyed it, was because not only she was the starting point of all mayhem but it also made everything in life manufactured, everything was in controlled, and barely anything was genuine to their problems or characters.

Agree or disagree?

Disagree. The main problem of the war arc is the numerous plot holes and tumors and retcons it gave birth to. And said war arc dragged on for years and years. Kaguya was just another cool idea in the "cool idea" pile with horrible execution. Like all the other cool ideas.

His brother would have gone with a heartwarming Team 7 ending, and kept the love triangle between Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke unresolved so everyone could make up headcanons about how X paired up with Y and gave birth to Z.

And left the story at that.

To me at least, he seems smarter at ending stories properly.

People were blinded by the Team 7 nostalgia. This is why they hated even poor, gentle Juugo, whose backstory was just like Naruto's and Gaara's (except he dealt with his situation in a surprisingly mature way).

I know this is usually 4life's little style, but I'm gonna borrow it just this once...  

 

 

If Naruto: The Last was a story about the sisterly bond between Hinata and Hanabi  kinda like Frozen and it focused on that as it's primary plot,  and the NaruHina  romance was a subplot to the film instead, then it would make the film better. 

 

 

Agree or Disagree? 

 

Definitely agree. The Last was what made me stop supporting canon NH in the first place.

 

They shouldn't just make the romance a subplot. They should fix a lot more things about the movie's actual plot. If I was at home right now, I would list these things down, but instead I'll talk about one thing they shouldn't have done:

 

Hinata's bullying scene existed not only to create that stupid red scarf metaphor, but also to highlight the Byakugan. If they wanted to give attention to the Byakugan they should scrap the scene entirely (seriously, trash that scarf metaphor) and replace it with an in-depth look at Kumo's attempted kidnapping of Hinata, which will not only give the audience an idea of how prized the doujutsu is, but will FINALLY explain how an ambassador from Kumo managed to infiltrate a clan compound full of ninjas who can see through walls. Then they should follow this flashback with an explanation of the different levels of Byakugan, contrasting it with the Uchiha's Sharingan. And finally they should talk about the Hyuuga clan in general, and their relationship to Hamura.

Statement: In the very early stage of the series (before chapter 100), Kishi didn't have any set pairing in mind. Instead, he only has standby and see who works. For example, he only tested waters to see if NaruHina would be ideal, but maybe due to reasons, he didn't continue on; thus, start testing with NaruSaku.

In other words, he only testing these potentials and had no intention to make anyone canon.

Agree or disagree?

 

Disagree. Kishimoto just wanted to write about a boy who ate at a ramen stand and solved other customers' problems by talking to them. Other people told him to add in more stuff, and thus we got a cool elite rival, and the token love interest in chapter 3. Sakura literally exists just so Naruto would focus on Sasuke and introduce him to the readers, because he dislikes Sasuke so much that if it weren't for Sakura prompting him, he'd never look at Sasuke, period. Proof? Well, I could probably let it slide if chapter 3 was titled "Sasuke and Sakura!" but it's titled "Uchiha Sasuke!", making it clear who's of real importance here. Heck, the reason why Naruto likes Sakura? It's because she wants acknowledgement from Sasuke!

 

And Hinata was just one of many characters who got created on the fly just to fill in the numbers for the Chuunin Exams arc. Her role was the same as Sakura's: to put the spotlight on Neji.

 

If he was testing out a pairing, there's no question that it's SNS

What ultimately disappointed me about Sakura was the fact that she was one of the four main characters of Naruto (that's Team 7, basically).

 

People would claim in the past that "Hinata makes a better heroine than Sakura" but these are the shippers talking. Anyone who seriously compared the two of them before The Last had their shipper goggles on full power, fighting over whether Naruto should father Hinata's babies or Sakura's babies. Other than Uzumaki Naruto, they had nothing relevant to compare with each other.

 

Because Sakura was a main character, and Hinata was a side character. That's all there is to it.

 

Hinata was a side character, so expectations for her were relatively low.

 

Sakura on the other hand was a MAIN character, and her character development and relevancy to the plot was supposed to be keeping up with Naruto's, Sasuke's, and Kakashi's. Or at least keeping up with Kakashi's development/relevancy because one of the major focuses of the manga was the Naruto/Sasuke rivalry.

 

Her development in part 1 was... okay. She started out as a noisy brat who didn't understand orphans. Then she had the scene where she was unable to keep from crying when Sasuke was presumed dead in the Waves arc. She then protected Naruto and Sasuke from Sound ninja in the Chuunin Exams. Her fight with her rival Ino in the prelims was a moment of strength for her. POAL happened. And then she goes up to Tsunade and asks for training.

 

At the beginning of part 2 her development/relevance skyrocketed so much, fans were going crazy. She singlehandedly saved Kankuro from death by poison, a poison that no one knew how to treat, with the skills she'd picked up during the timeskip. She teamed up with Chiyo to fight with Sasori and beat him, when in the past all she could do was just act as a meat shield with a kunai.

 

Expectations of Sakura were hyped up like crazy... and Sakura herself just stopped. She was just there. Or used as a device, like a side character. She failed to live up to the weighty expectations that had been placed on her. In comparison, Sasuke and Naruto's characters got loads and loads of attention and relevancy. Kakashi faded from the spotlight for a while, but bounced back when Obito's identity was revealed. But Sakura's development/relevance just came to a halt after the Gaara Rescue arc. Worse, her development/relevancy took a nosedive during the Kage Summit arc.

 

The Kage Summit arc was arguably one of the worst arcs of part 2 and the entire series, because while the War arc created plot hole after plot hole, the Kage Summit arc gave all four main characters negative character development. Sakura got hit by it the worst, because up until then her relevancy/development had been completely static. I'm not talking about her confession to Naruto. I'm talking about when she had the chance to kill/seriously injure Sasuke, and didn't take it.

 

We already know about how her spine had been ripped away from her and all she began to focus on was Sasuke, resetting any development she had left, so I won't talk about it here. I think everyone would agree that Sakura was beyond saving when Sasuke told her "sorry" and she replied with "for what?".

 

Sakura had the potential. Kakashi had pointed out in part 1 that Sakura was intelligent, had a talent for chakra control and genjutsu, and was "the same as Naruto" in the sense that she hated giving up and refused to go down easily. In part 2 Kakashi also noted that at the rate of her development, Sakura would soon surpass Tsunade herself. Chiyo commented that Sakura had a noble heart, which was rare (among kunoichi). Ignoring the slight sexist undertones, Chiyo was referring to Sakura's strength of character as a person and as a shinobi. Sakura had the potential... and she failed to live up to everyone's expectations.

 

So.

 

Sakura got replaced by Hinata as a main character in The Last.

 

Now that the focus was on Hinata and not on Sakura (who was officially a side character at this point), we see the exact same problems.

 

Hinata actually has a workable backstory: her father issues, her self-esteem issues, and the Hyuuga Branch enslavement issues. Mysteriously, they are never brought up, and her shyness isn't acknowledged by the narrative as a character flaw. Instead, it gets heavily romanticized.

 

Hinata is shown to not have changed at all since her part 1 self. She is unable to give Naruto a scarf without some serious prodding from Sakura. Actually, it's even worse because in part 1, Hinata mustered up the courage to give Naruto the medicine herself (and succeeded), but in The Last she was literally unable to talk to Naruto for two whole years, and was unable to give the scarf to Naruto until they were in the middle of dangerous enemy territory, with her own sister suffering from missing eyeballs close by.

 

When she learns about Toneri's plans to destroy the world and what he did to Hanabi's eyes, she keeps the information to herself instead of informing her teammates about it, then proceeds to romantically frolic with Naruto through a destroyed city and fix the red scarf. When she finds out that she is the Byakugan Princess in that very same city, destined to save the world, from Hamura Otsutsuki himself, she again keeps that vital information to herself instead of coming up with a plan together with her teammates and continues to knit the red scarf, then goes off by herself with Toneri without a word. She isn't even shown worrying about Hanabi, her own sister, at all.

 

Despite her newly acquired powers she'd gained from Hamura as the Byakugan Princess, which supposedly makes her stronger than both Naruto and Sasuke, she is unable to follow through and destroy the Tenseigan. Even if her success was dictated by destiny itself. Toneri, who doesn't trust Hinata at all, for some inexplicable reason covers his entire face right in full view of her because the pain of his developing doujutsu is too great, and Hinata doesn't capitalize on it. It's Sakura failing to capitalize on her chance to kill Sasuke all over again, except now it's Hinata's turn to fail.

 

The only important things Hinata got to do in her own movie were: 1) Infiltrate Toneri's castle 2) pluck out Hanabi's eyeballs from Toneri's eyesockets 3) Do a combination attack with Naruto.

 

And then when everything ended, Hinata invites Toneri, the same guy who nearly ended all life as we know it, the same guy who tried to force marriage on her (and most likely rape her later on), the same guy who stole Hanabi's eyeballs, the same guy who destroyed Naruto-kun's red scarf that she worked so hard on since the beginning of this movie, to live with them on earth. Toneri refuses the offer and decides to live alone on the moon to repent. Basically, Hinata did the same thing as Sakura and instantly forgave Toneri for all the atrocities he'd committed, and Toneri pulled a Sasuke by staying away to "repent" but instead of becoming a wanderer, he's on the moon. And thus he got away with everything. Sasuke had the excuse of being one of those who saved the world, what's Toneri's excuse?

 

When the Bolt movie came out, she was made irrelevant again.

 

The conclusion is thus: Sakura failed as a main character, and her relevancy/story arc/character development just went full circle, all the way back to her chapter 3 self. And Hinata also failed as a main character, because she also went full circle by going from being irrelevant, to being a relevant main character and failing to meet the standards placed on her, and then falling quickly back to her irrelevant status. If the title "heroine" means "which girl successfully banged Naruto" and nothing else, then I don't give a damn anymore.

I NEED Minato Gaiden. Or a Warring Clans Gaiden. Or hell, a Gaiden about Kaguya. The strongest woman in the Naruto world needs more backstory that isn't vague and doesn't rely on the audience to logic something up based on what little they have to go on.

 

Not this.

Hey guys.

 

Sooo.

 

Do we know if Orochimaru is the mom or the dad yet?

 

 

 

Then again it's shocking that they are even drawing Sakura in the first place even if she and ino look awful.

 

NH and SS are sister endgame ships. Even if they hate Sakura, they need to do both ships for the fans by featuring one (or both) of the characters of each ship.

 

 

 

Joking aside, does anybody have a real clue what Boruto is going to be about?

 

Boruto himself is supposed to be a kid genius, so the "underdog" plotline is out. Naruto still has the Kyuubi, so Boruto doesn't get the jinchuuriki drama either. I already know that Boruto felt lonely without his father at home spending time with the family, but Boruto already got TnJed by Sasuke in his movie. According to Shikamaru's Hiden novel, every single ninja village in existence are allied with each other, ruled by the 5 Kage so I don't think there are any wars in the near future. The chuunin exam plot already happened in the movie too. Seriously, what's Boruto going to be about?

Not only that but in chapter 8 you had both Sakura and Naruto give speeches about "blood doesn't make you a child's parent the bond you have with that child does." Clearly setting up. Yes, Sakura isn't the birth mom and karin is, but she is Salad's mother because she raised her. But then Pro-ending Naruto fans do what they always do sent threatening letter and suddenly that message was abandon and she is SS's child. So the manga actually had to abandon the moral message it was setting up for the first 8 chapters. That's not a good thing.

 

I didn't know that was the case! I thought it was all Kishimoto's idea, the message he'd wanted to send to his children (no matter how messed up the message was).

 

 

 

Pretty much still I don't get why they are using Sakura's offspring instead of Hinata's daughter as the heroine. They (the creators) hated Sakura. Stupid logic.

 

And you know what's worse? Sarada herself isn't that bad a character (although Naruto Gaiden's "plot" sucked, she was the only one acting with any real intelligence until chapter 9-10) but she will get the same damsel-in-distress treatment as Sakura and every other girl in the series. She's going to get sidelined just to show how cool/powerful/awesome Boruto and Mitsuki (and Sasuke and Naruto) are.

 

 

 

In other news, Sakura can’t even get real merchandise with Sasuke but a character that doesn’t even actually exist gets a display case with him. Like, they just straight up don’t give a damn. My 2016 is now complete.

...I swear. To God.

 

Reading the TvTropes article is making me rage all over again.

 

So they turned Gaara into an emotionally inept person just like Naruto? Gaara, the same person who was able to understand Kimimaru's feelings of love and devotion towards Orochimaru when Lee couldn't? The same Gaara that tried to reach out to Sasuke and empathized with the dude at the Kage Summit on Naruto's behalf? The same Gaara who finally realized that his mother loved him, and was supported by his siblings' love and loyalty?

 

Also, LOL Shijima (the girl that Gaara supposedly falls in love with, the one that resembles Yashamaru) has the Sharingan. I don't even-

 

...

 

Man, my curiosity for the Boruto manga is turning into dread...

 

 

EDIT:

 

I just realized something about that shiny new scan. At least they didn't forget Himawhatshername again

I'm not good at framing my arguments like other members of this forum, so I can't tackle your entire theory head on. Instead, I'll talk about two things you mentioned.

 

 

As I said earlier, I don't really have any complaints with it, and I never understood the senseless hate that it got from certain groups of fans (which still continues up to this day).

 

 

The "hate" is far, far from being senseless. The hate began years ago, in fact, long before the ending came along. It simply exploded when chapter 699-700 and everything else happened, because many fans who had been rooting for this series to the bitter end had finally opened their eyes to the truth. It's true that the shipping wars fed the fire and turned it into an inferno, but ever since then it evolved into something more than just shipping hate.

 

A lot of us who really cared about the Naruto series cannot look at what is happening to it without some trace of sadness and pain. We are all seeing something important to us being destroyed and dragged through the mud. I repeat, this has been going on for years. And pairings are the last things on my mind, and I'm sure the same goes for others who are anti-ending at this point.

 

Your post focuses on pairings, which unfairly generalizes the multitude of problems with the series that the other fans have found. But alright, I'll answer you in the context of pairings.

 

 

It's also nice how he's able to write complex characters who don't necessarily stick to one motive, or have one-track minds. This speaks volumes about his skill as a mangaka imo, and explains why Naruto has become one of the greatest generational works of art in our time.

In fact, I think the only chance NS has of happening at this point would be Sasuke and Hinata somehow dying at the same time

 

 

If Kishimoto was such a masterful storyteller, he wouldn't have to kill off any of his characters just to get two teenagers to hook up. Case in point: Neji died for NH, and then in The Last we are told that Hinata hadn't been able to TALK to Naruto, much less ask him out for two whole years since the war ended. So not only did Neji's death fail to bring them together, he also died for no reason.

 

 

If Kishimoto was such a masterful storyteller, he wouldn't have pigeon-holed the girls' characters into "love interest" roles.

 

 

That is all. And I agree with everything that ThroughWithLove said in his post.

in the context of the story Neji could beat Lee becausefor all lees speed and power at the time he ran into the same issue he ran into with gaara an impenetrable defense with the kaiten that would turn that energy back on him as it did with naruto who won when he out thought neji in the end.

this is late, but...

also in the context of the story, Neji didn't have the Kaiten yet during the preliminaries, right? Which means all he has going for him is shutting down people's chakra networks... something that Lee would easily overcome if they did fight each other during those preliminaries.

 

 

EDIT:

 

NH Fans I have the ultimate Question for you. WHAT. Did. Naruto. Like about Hinata? And NO the fact that she never gave up and is a proud loser don't count, those was traits that she picked up from him. Anime only scenes don't count either, so don't even bring up that crap about her cooking for him and he (Naruto) saying she'd make a good wife WHAT did Naruto like about Hinata, be it her looks or her personality?

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. ...........................................

As a former NH fan, I feel obligated to answer.

The things Naruto liked about Hinata were entirely my headcanon. Specifically: wish fulfillment, headcanon, and overhype of part 1 Hinata.

It’s just like the Team 7 moment in the war arc. Excitement was at an all time high at first but when I took a minute to look beyond this delusional effect, NH (and the ending in general) made me feel... used.

My "winning couple" didn't have proper positive development, and there are still unresolved problems such as Naruto's other important bonds and Hyuuga Branch enslavement. We were told (more like bashed in the head over and over in the Hiden novels) that Naruto and Hinata had "amazing chemistry and were perfect for each other!" but I couldn't accept that anymore. Because by this point headcanons just didn't cut it for me anymore regarding plot or pairings or anything. I wanted actual content.

 

When Naruto The Last and the novels came out, I couldn't even defend my ship because Kishimoto couldn't even give me anything worth defending. To this day I still roll my eyes whenever someone calls Hinata (or any character) derogatory names because harassment of a fictional character is still harassment, but when faced with people who have legit arguments, all I can say in response (quite pathetically) is that "at least NH doesn't seem as bad as SS, in-universe".

 

Rather like a placebo effect, at the end of it all I only felt emptiness. And then anger. ...And then disappointment. Nowadays I look back on my old Naruto stuff (including my NH headcanons) with nostalgia. In those days I was young and naive, and had no idea how badly Kishimito was going to FUBAR his series.

 

 

 

TL;DR - Everything that Naruto supposedly liked about Hinata was my own imagination. It was never real. Just like the red scarf that connected the couple together; no matter how many times it was alluded to in N:TL, one look at the original manga would reveal that it was all a fantasy, and the connection never existed.

Sup. I'm Skarrow, a long-time lurker of the H&E forums who finally grew a pair and registered an account, lol.

 

I started lurking around the time Naruto The Last movie was leaked, and I followed the glorious reaction thread like a druggie because I don't know how to tumblr properly and I'm too wimpy to try and figure it out. Afterwards I began reading other threads, too, and I thought that you guys were a little crazy but pretty chill folks to hang around.

 

I'm afraid of pain. I can't stand papercuts, or accidentally stepping on lego pieces. I'm... kinda pathetic, really.