Onionhead Attacks

Arguably the biggest thing Kishimoto could have done for Sakura's character was decide exactly what he wanted for her.

He wanted to add a girl to the mix to balance out two boys, done.

 

He wanted to create conflict in the team dynamic, done.

 

He wanted to create romantic tension, done.

 

But what else is there? He has a female teammate balancing out two hot headed boys in a love triangle. What else does he want to do with her character? He started showing that Sakura started from being a snooty fan-girl and child who has no real experience with ninjas due to her civilian background is slowly learning to grow up and mature as both a ninja and a person.

 

She is being exposed to the reality of what a ninja will face, will encounter, and what is expected of them. Being a ninja is a dangerous occupation and it's not a game or an occupation where you can clock in and out at the end of a day. She is slowly discovering this in their adventures, such as in the Wave arc and then in the Chuunin exams where they have to sign a waiver to even compete! There is where her self-discovery of her lack of skill comes to light and she makes a goal of improving herself so that she won't hold her team back anymore.

 

Unfortunately, we get the drive to better herself, but we don't get the execution of her actually improving. Like many have mentioned previously, Part I would have been the perfect place for her to strive for a goal of some sort. If having her eyes opened to being an amazing medic was her goal, it would have made perfect sense for her to approach Tsunade and especially if she were to witness Tsunade in action and be inspired. Otherwise it just looked like she went to find the strongest ninja she knew of to plead to become her teacher to help her improve, but did said teacher's skills and abilities align with her goals? Hm...

 

It was also in Part I where Sakura had declared that she loved Sasuke enough to the point where she was willing to leave the village, her home of thirteen years, to be with him. Granted you could write that off as being blinded by love because love makes you do stupid things, but what was her reason for loving Sasuke to that degree? Sakura started off being shown as liking Sasuke because he's good looking, he's smart, and he's a skilled ninja. It's a crush before they are formed as Team 7, but what about after they've been a team for a year? What about Sasuke transformed those feelings from crush to love? She started understanding Sasuke's reasons and feelings for why he must avenge his family, but her character wasn't written or shown well doing that and that her feelings started developing into something deeper, whether it was friendship or love.

 

Then there's the issue with how Sakura treated Naruto. This is probably something harder to overcome since first impressions are everything and she wasn't necessarily given the best first impression. For one, she is shown fawning over Sasuke and then immediately being annoyed by Naruto's presence the next. Even though she started learning to treat Naruto better because she started to understand how it feels to be treated as annoying and then later developing a friendship, her growth was slow in Part I. We can see that she still treated Sasuke better than Naruto even though they grew closer. It's not unrealistic, but since Naruto is the underdog, fans would want for Naruto to be treated better and this change in treatment was probably too slow to curb the Sakura hate.

 

As many have mentioned before, Sakura is always being overshadowed by Sasuke and Naruto. There is no information regarding her background, her dreams (not counting Sasuke), goals and ambitions, her skill set, and what she will grow to be. In Part I she didn't really participate in any fights outside of the Chuunin exams and the Wave arc. Meanwhile Sasuke is being taught more techniques with private training, Naruto is left alone but somehow bumps into Jiraiya and is taught how to better control his chakra, while Sakura... does what? There were many instances where Sakura could have some relevance to the story or even small moments showing support for Naruto (since Sasuke went into isolation for training) but Kishimoto didn't even allow her that. I thought they were friends at this point and isn't that what friends and teammates would do?

 

Sakura's character wasn't that bad to begin with. It's always better to start with a slightly annoying and flawed character and watch them grow to be a better person. In Part I there were many missed opportunities and threads that he could have used to prepare and further Sakura's character growth for Part II. Sakura's character was still growing and evolving during Part I but it was too slow and underdeveloped compared to other characters and story lines to garner fan interest.

 

Then came Part II and we see a new and improved Sakura. She's a skilled medic, powerful fighter, and a great friend to Naruto. She always puts his well being first and after finding out the burden of housing the Kyuubi she even despairs about how she is unable to help relieve Naruto's suffering. But then soon after the story became more plot driven and less character driven. In Part I the writing was heavily character driven for a lot of the characters and not just the main characters whereas in Part II it was more focused on plot. As a result, we see power up after power up, focus of the story being shifted, and plot turns after plot turns. Many emotional beats were either lacking (compared to Part I) or fell flat and the focus was rooted solely in the Uchiha clan. Let's not forget lesser and lesser screen time and character regressions as the manga ended either.

 

 

 

All together, Kishimoto didn't have a bad character to start off with. He just needed to develop Sakura more in Part I to strike a chord with readers because Part I was when he was best with characterizations and would have been a good set up leading into Part II. Despite his portrayal of Sakura's growth into being a very caring person and great friend in Part II, all her growth and maturity went out the window when Sasuke was involved because Kishimoto decided not to make it clear what lingering feelings Sakura has for him. Is it longing for a lost love? Longing for a lost teammate or friend? Is it none of the above and she just wants him back around friends and not around a creepy snake? Which is it? And what happens after Sasuke returns? What does she expect? He introduced conflict when Sasuke was officially declared a threat but her reaction feels confusing to the readers when we don't even know what she wants to do or what she feels.

And why did he decide that he couldn't include more of her skills? What exactly did she learn other than what we expected? Kishimoto could have showed us what her end goal was too. Was it to be a medic? The best medic in Konoha? The world? Or was it because that just happened because she trained under Tsunade? He basically had Sakura's character started at A--> B --X--> C but didn't end successfully at point C (end) because she's still stuck in point B throughout all of Part II.

 

If Kishimoto really wanted to improve Sakura's popularity he should have at the start of Part II started developing her the best he could to make up for lost time by providing an arc for what inspired her to become a ninja, why she wanted to be a medic, show audience how she grew and how she got to that point so that we're rooting for her journey too. And since he established the strong connection between Naruto and Sakura already, he should have just kept it going strong instead of letting it fade under all the other events going on.

 

Oh and Kishimoto should have asked for advice from people who have experience in writing strong female characters or doing some sort of research to get an idea. Or he could maybe host a fan meeting and throw out questions like what fans want to see next in the manga? How do they want X Y Z characters to evolve in the manga, etc to get an understanding of fans likes and dislikes to determine how he could overcome those barriers.

This is a very good analysis of Naruto's character! Most of the admirable traits and emotional growth of Naruto didn't really carry on to Part II like you've mentioned. In a sense it felt like his character was pushed aside for plot progression since we barely touch upon Naruto's past and his growth during the time skip that much.

 

The thing I notice about kishimoto years back is; that he best with first impression of his characters, but very poor on the follow through. In fact most of the problems of Naruto could be best summed up as, "kishimoto introduces an idea and then barely if at all follow through on it." Even Itachi and the Uchiha clan which he constantly brought up every-time Sasuke involved with the plot once we learned the truth. Yet we barely learned anything more then we did during Obito's talk with Sasuke. Their was a coup being plotted by the Uchiha, Itachi choose the village over the clan, in order to save his baby brother he made a deal with Danzo, and then found Obito -who was the real murderer of the clan- to help him with the act. Other then more details to make Itachi into a saint we really don't learn anything any other time they were brought up.

 

Kishimoto as we've noticed didn't even have a solid idea of where he wanted his story to go. He had a loose idea and wrote as ideas came to him. He probably had so many bouncing around in his head that he started incorporating them left and right and didn't get the chance to touch on it later on. Makes sense since there are so many inconsistencies and questions floating throughout the manga. Riverkid pointed out Jiraiya and Kakashi not caring or knowing about Naruto's parentage. I believe in one of Kishimoto's interview that he started having the idea later on and tried to incorporate that in, but at that time the damage had already been done and these characters pretty much looked like massive jerks.

 

There's also the fact that Naruto's constant tunnel vision towards Sasuke also played heavily into the idea that Sasuke was now the main character rather than Naruto, leading to the constant "development" of Sasuke, the Uchiha Clan, the Sharingan, etc. and yet what do we even know about the Uzumaki Clan? Half of Naruto's own family?

- Masters of Fuinjutsu (nearly a lost art outside of more basic things from the looks of things given Jiraiya seems to be the only known Fuinjutsu master at present)

- They all had red hair.

- They had "special chakra" (never explained; but is what made them the best Jinchuriki for the Biju and also what allowed Nagato to survive as long as he did with Madara's Rinnegan and connection to the Gedo Mazo).

- They were attacked and largely destroyed because other villages feared their power, and they ended up scattered around the land.

- Could literally make a mask that can instantly summon the Shinigami (though used only as a plot device) and most likely what was used to help Minato create the Shiki Fuin.


....that's it. No real detail into anything.

What do we know about Minato's background and family? Nothing.

What do we know about the Senju Clan? The literal rivals and "other half" to the Rikudo Sennin's legacy and whom the Uzumaki are distantly related to? Outside of Hashirama and Tobirama (to a lesser degree) specifically, nothing. Why did they seem to just disappear while the Uchiha Clan prospered? Heck, we never even learn how exactly Hashirama died (supposedly in battle).

Because all of that time was dedicated towards Sasuke and the Uchiha Clan which itself can't even seem to remain consistent..

 

This is pretty much a prime example of Kishimoto having too many ideas, starting a little and never touching on it again, focusing on something that really interests him and somehow that becomes 1/3 of the whole manga...

 

A good read, but at the end of the day, the real problem (and more or less every point you raise) can be attributed to the fact that the author did not do any serious storyboarding or advanced planning when he began the series. At best, he may have had a loose idea that Naruto and Sasuke were gonna fight one day, but that was about it. He never really sat down and summarized the character development roadmap for each character (i.e. Character A starts at point X, goes to point Y and ends at point Z) or how the plot would progress through the story arcs. As a result, the characters are incomplete and the story arcs are ALL disjointed. Granted, I understand Kishimoto had some issues with his editors, but even still, deep advanced storyboarding is feasible in this industry as we've seen from the greats like Eichiro Oda.

 

This is my main complaint too. Kishimoto only has a vague idea of where he wants his story to go. He knows what he wants to end the story with but he isn't sure how to get to that point. In the end he doesn't have a clearly thought out story and is just throwing it together as he goes. It's one of the faults of weekly publications. If it were different he'd probably have time to write out a more consistent story and probably have a better time writing his characters. His biggest issue is his characters that either made them either murderous and mentally unstable (Sasuke), underdeveloped with wasted potential and gives no clear indication what's on her mind (Sakura), or no real growth in skill and suddenly has tunnel vision at the expense of everyone (Naruto).

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

 

• This is a very controversial section and it can differ among cultures. This is based off of what I have personally observed so DO NOT take this as absolute.
   
• Japan and asia has an obsession with first love/past love story lines. It's in almost every romance related story. Western audiences are not as hung up on this and move past this more easily since they are always searching for "the one." This is why Sakura seen as moving on is considered to be "a bad woman" but of course there are double standards for males. Double standards will never die in asian cultures, sadly. Also, traditionally divorce is frowned upon and despite how dysfunctional a family is, they will either try to work it out or stew together in misery. Newer generations are becoming increasingly westernized, but traditionally this is what they believe in.
   
• As mentioned before by previous posters, Japanese beauty standards of the ideal woman is a beautiful, soft spoken housewife who caters to husband and family. Their purpose in life is to serve their husband and the family. In lots of asian cultures, especially those that are very traditional, women are not on equal footing as men and must always defer to them. Always respect elders first and foremost, but men is supreme. I will not expand on this since it is controversial and can start a debate. DO NOT debate this point.
   
• In asian media, there are always alpha males with less emphasis in beta males (especially if you look at Shounen and Shoujo mangas). If you consume these media then you would have recognized that the majority of these media consist of most females attracted to alpha males.
   
• Since this is a Shounen manga, the main audience is male. Most of them will imagine or put themselves in the viewpoint of the protagonist, which these mangas tend to do. With a typical asian mindset, males prefer the Yamato nadeshiko type of woman so they will naturally gravitate toward them (realistically) and just like tsundere types only fictionally.
   
• The insane levels of Hinata love actually makes sense. I will quote this other popular manga, Nisekoi, once again (quality is questionable since it became a harem and slap-stick comedy in the middle). There was a character called Kosaki Onodera who is the personification of the perfect Japanese woman. In real life she was insanely popular everywhere, with even her anime face plastered over an aircraft (This is real, look it up). The main character liked her because she was cute. He liked her all the way until the end until he was forced to realize that he had someone fallen in love with the heroine, Chitoge Kirisaki (the tsundere). The pairing war for this not pretty either and many were upset when the hero chose the tsundere. At this point it's kind of a hit or miss with the audience. Sometimes they like the tsundere more while other times they like the non-tsundere more. For me it's character portrayal and how the story was written. 
   
• Western audiences don't understand tsundere at all. They will think there's something wrong with the girl and that she is crazy violent rather than find it funny. Ironically it does exist in America culture, but oh so rarely depicted, such as in "Hey Arnold" with Helga Pataki. Other times the females are quoted as saying "hiding your true feelings" but it's still uncommon. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong and list any show/movie/book that you can think of please! Generally, females in western culture are more straight forward and blunt about their feelings whereas in asian cultures both men and women are more vague and require lots of interpretation about their meaning, but they understand the meaning regardless.

WRITING DIFFICULTIES

 

• No clear direction
  • Kishimoto had no clear mapped out plan for the story. Many book writers have plans/outlines written out and an idea of where the story is going with constant revision with each volume (for series). For series, each volume already has a majority of the story written and reviewed and changed before it is published and then gets new material added in subsequent volumes. This is obviously not the case with a weekly publication.
     
  • The writing schedule is weekly, so there is lots of pressure and it does not allow time to sit down and plan/revise/rewrite the story for something that works. For example, movie scripts go through many iterations, is trashed, rewritten, revised, etc. Same for books. In the end it does not allow the writer to see the big picture and he is just writing it arc by arc unless he already had the story mapped out.
     
  • Kishimoto has no clear idea for what he wants in the story. He wanted a story about two lonely boys developing a friendship/brotherhood bond from their shared orphan status with some drama tearing them apart but ultimately reconciling at the end. Details are sparse and fuzzy, being added in based on others input and random ideas being added in on the fly that is made more complicated the more he adds later. For example, Naruto being the Yondaime's son and Kakashi didn't know, making him look like a jerk. The same goes for Jiraiya for abandoning Naruto for his entire childhood. Who took care of young Naruto? Wouldn't friends of Yondaime know based on Naruto's name? Kishimoto also added in too many characters and story arcs which he should not have to expand on that extensively (too much on all the villians' backstory and the Uchiha backstory). Sometimes simpler is better because if it's too complicated, it's too complicated. It only works well with 1 or 2 main villains not every single villain and some of these end up being antiheroes.
     
  • This is reminiscent of amateur fanfiction writers who have great ideas and just write as they go without planning everything out (I certainly did and I can see it in many others). Very few completed fanfics had been planned well while others just end when the author decides that they want to and end it either well or awkwardly or horribly.
• Relying too heavily on others' input not conducive to good storytelling
  • There is too much input from staff and company heads to increase sales at expense of story quality and integrity. A good example would be the Justice League and Batman v Superman movies. Another example for manga includes an author called Komi Naoshi who had a couple of promising mangas started but it got cut because it didn't appeal to the audience, so he pushed for lower quality stories that seemed to sell. His popular manga dragged forever with no real plot but finally ended with his intended pairing despite lots of fan protests. I speculate this push for sales also happened in background during the serialization of Naruto.
     
  • Kishimoto has no skill in writing strong female characters and it shows. He should have gotten advice from someone who does or do some research by reading some sources instead of not trying it or promising but not delivering with teases. As a result, many of the females' characterizations suffered.
• Romance
  • Kishimoto and Shueisha was too focused on pairings/romantic feelings and teasing it to the very end. If it was established at some point it would work better for the story. For example, Harry/Ginny in the Harry Potter Universe. I personally disliked it because of story and character progression, but was more willing to accept because it wasn't shoehorned in at the 11th hour, but more like the 9th hour. If Kishimoto started off the story as the girl having no feelings then the route he was taking would have looked very natural and like a slow-build romance rather than one girl obsessing over a toxic first love, falling in love with best friend, going back and declaring that she never stopped loving her first love and that she felt absolutely nothing for her best friend. It's just cruel. He make Sakura a sad lonely, wife waiting for her emotionally stunted and mentally unstable, absent (I'm being brutally honest and not bashing Sasuke) husband to return. Hinata was also made to look super obsessive and just popped out of nowhere from friend zone with minimal interactions to instant reciprocation of feelings. 
     
  • Kishimoto is indecisive about which direction he wants to go once everyone started obsessing over the romance more than the action and the main plot. He ends up emphasizing and teasing pairings more, which just dug him into a deeper hole all for the sake of increasing sales, though it was probably at advice of editors and higher ups.
     
  • I'm speculating this, but please confirm. Kishimoto started writing too much romance drama leading toward SasuSaku that he decided to go with it and even directed the anime in the direction. He told the voice actors of Sasuke and Sakura this, according to Wikipedia. But as he developed his story in Part II and Sakura and Naruto grew closer he started teasing NaruSaku and considered that as the end pairing due to the natural progression of their relationship. Fan and staff pressure led him to return the pendulum back to SasuSaku and incorporate NaruHina once Hinata became super popular more than Sakura despite his best efforts to increase her likeability. It was his inability to write Sakura well and how he portrayed her that made it difficult. He took the easy way out and decided to put the more popular pairings together thinking it would appease the majority of the fanbase and secure sales for Shueisha to continue onto a spin-off and sequel. As stated previously, he should have just left pairings open ended after all that character growth. Kishimoto just wanted to write a shonen frenemies story but somehow bit off more than he could chew.
• Audience
  • Kishimoto was trying to cater to a Western audience but incorporated way too much asian cultural influence that would not be understood. He needs to do more research into Western thinking if he was actually aiming to appease to Western audiences.
     
  • Main goal of ending Naruto was attracting new audiences for future development in franchise. The target audience is young boys to teenage boys (Shounen), who don't care as much about pairings, so he ends the story that appeases the greatest number of fans and focuses on continuing story with new ideas. New and young audiences will not look as deeply into the characters as much as older fans since we are more invested and basically tore apart every detail of the story for our enjoyment. Also, all fans inherently have bias based on what they like so there is bound to be upset no matter which direction he chooses so it's a lose-lose situation for him. He just chose the easy way out and let others continue the franchise while he supervises because he was sick of all the drama that put strain on his family life.
     
• My main qualms with the manga and ending of Naruto that left a bitter taste in my mouth to this very day has less to do with the pairing war (that's only a small reason), but it has more to do with how he wrote his story. There are so many loose threads, teased story lines, underdeveloped characters, over explained villain backstories to gain reader sympathy that takes away from the story, retroactive character growth, inconsistent character portrayals and extremely flawed characters that showed either no remorse or corrective action for their wrong doings. For example, Jiraiya or Kakashi upon "finding out" Naruto is the Yondaime's son did nothing to make up for their absence nor did they train him with the necessary skills to be a skilled ninja and not just a mini powerhouse with only a small handful of attacks. Sasuke is bent on world destruction, changes his mind to take out the Big Bad, fights Naruto, is reformed, is forgiven immediately without question, and leaves the village again to look for the next threat. I don't care how many reasons they shoehorn in to explain away his absence and how much he loves Sakura and Sarada, but it's so unrealistic to me that all I can see him as is a psychotic mental patient who could snap at any moment. He's the type of person you want any and all weapons taken away from him for fear of him harming more than just himself after all that mental torture he was put through. I think I mentioned this point several times by now, but Kishimoto should have just written the story with an open ending and allow the fans to decide what they would like to believe instead of having the characters act all over the place just to place pieces on a chess board for the new franchise. And like I mentioned, it probably would have been more enjoyable with all new characters with some tie-ins with our favorites without them being direct descendants (i.e. Legend of Korra). This would probably work if done well, but there are some cases where it would work better to continue with the current generation a la Dragon Ball Super. However, Dragon Ball Super wasn't plagued by pairing wars there so it was in a good place. 

BELIEVABILITY

 

• This is manga so realism isn't technically the most important aspect of a story, but Naruto has sprinkles of fantasy and realism in the strangest places. He followed the typical Shounen formula (see above) for the majority of the manga and then took a sharp turn and introduced dysfunctional family dynamics from the real world into the story. There were so many retroactive additions that it's hard to believe that it was the intention since the very start. Some additions even contradict previously stated facts that it's a headscratcher.
   
• Kishimoto brought in realism in the ending to introduce conflict with unhappy, dysfunctional families for plot storylines. Had it been done with new characters it would have been great, but with current characters the trajectory felt like he was changing character personalities just to introduce drama and continuing storylines to start a new franchise.
   
• Sasuke being pardoned was mentioned previously. Realistically speaking, he shouldn’t even be free or have his powers if they are lenient on him. See above. Also, other dangerous criminals like Orochimaru are still not captured or dealt with? 
   
• With how the story was written, an open ending with no pairing would be more believable. When I looked at the story overall in an objective fashion without any pairing bias and focused solely on character studies and plot points, I was dissatisfied with how it was written and how it ended.
   
• Characters are constantly being told/described as being super powerful, but how are they shown other than a select few characters with DBZ level powers? It became ridiculous that all other characters became pretty much pathetic when comparing the power level differences. There are no real ninja skills depicted either as the story progressed that was part of the universe and lore. It became eye technique after eye technique and leveling up one technique to a bigger stronger form. For example, Naruto has no skills and has not improved since he was a genin but has ridiculously strong Rasengan techniques that will win all his battles, Sakura is shown with limited skills but is praised as super strong and powerful, Sasuke is constantly being leveled up with more and more eye techniques as more and more eye techniques are introduced into the storyline. It was more interesting when the Sharingan was limited to visual prowess and copying. It was supposed to be just as powerful as the Byakugan, but as we can see the Byakugan became a joke next to the Mangekyou Sharingan and its multiple other iterations and the Rinnegan.
   
• In essence, just what did these characters learn and accomplish from their training? They are just a new generation of characters that are copies of the previous characters with some ridiculous overpowered techniques. Even the sequel in Boruto showed characters that are like mini versions of their previous generation with mild changes and physical changes. It would have been preferable to have a brand new cast to see new clans and new powers and techniques.

UNREALISTIC LOVE/FEELINGS

 

• In a Shounen manga romance is a small part of the overall picture. But somehow due to how the characters are portrayed and all the teasing, it has become a monster in and of its own that it even overshadows the main plot at times in the fans' eyes.
   
• Sakura
  • Sakura is depicted as a shallow girl with a crush on a boy (typical Shoujo theme) but she is also shown to be developing deeper feelings for Naruto that bordered on more than friendship. At that point the romance could have gone either way, but realistically and more healthily if she ended up with Naruto. It was due to the lack of clarity of Sakura's feelings toward Sasuke that the way the story was written it appeared as if she was moving on and growing up, not still being burdened and keeping her first love alive. There was no mention of her love other than her freezing at seeing Sasuke face to face again. If anything it's more shock and confusion of how to feel than her extreme love for him causing her to freeze up.
     
  • Also after Sasuke is reformed at the very end of the manga she supposedly still feels as strongly or even more strongly for someone who has essentially become a stranger to her. If SasuSaku is the end game, wouldn't it make more sense to show that she still have feelings for young Sasuke and her learning to know and love adults Sasuke? Again, we are told and not shown what are feelings are. It is also unrealistic that Sasuke is not shown trying to earn everyone's trust again and he is just given it without question. It would have been a great character arc for Sasuke to show his difficulty in adjusting to a post-war world in a home that treats him as a criminal or someone they don't trust and how he copes to become a better person and falls in love with Sakura. Let's be honest, he showed zero interest in Sakura other than as a teammate who needed protection and whom he deemed annoying early on. At least show how he changed his view of her and learned to appreciate or know who post-time skip Sakura is.
     
• Hinata
  • Hinata is portrayed as shy girl having crush on strong willed ambitious main character. During the time skip it was shown that she was trying to overcome her weaknesses by working hard and becoming a chuunin, which are traits that she admired in Naruto. She is free to continue liking Naruto but without interaction (anime, movies, light novels do not count since they were added in retroactively) Naruto reciprocating her feelings seem unlikely. It seemed more likely for Hinata to either stay doomed with unrequited love, moving on and maturing past first love, or doing something, anything, to initiate interest or interaction to start a deeper friendship/relationship with her crush. Instead, their character interactions are minimal and any poignant moments they have are only a small handful. It makes her seem as if she doesn't know Naruto on a personal level and is stuck on friend/acquaintance level.
     
  • Strangely enough, Hinata is shown to confess her love in the oddest circumstance. She jumps out to protect Naruto and confesses her love even though she knows she stands no chance. It looks strange for several reasons. One, she knows that she stands no chance of saving Naruto but is willing to go out and be killed, leaving her death on his conscience. Two, she knows that she may never have a chance to confess her feelings to Naruto if she'll never see him again, so she does. Three, it's a do or die situation in which she confessed and was then defeated promptly. She's been ridiculed by some fans for it. Four, she's had several opportunities to talk to Naruto since part II started but she never took any of them.
     
• Sasuke
  • Sasuke was shown as having no interest in anyone at all and even a bit asexual at times. He only started showing concern when his character started going through a lot of emotional turmoil when he formed Team Taka, such as when he showed concern for Karin. His character progression and relationship with Karin was stronger than with Sakura, which is strange if SasuSaku was supposed to be the endgame. Instead, he is shown stabbing Karin, apologizing to her, apologizing to Sakura and playfully tapping her forehead. For someone who isn't Itachi and Sasuke, would they understand the meaning of a forehead tap? Confusion is the most likely emotion since the meaning was not explained nor was it done for anyone else aside from these two brothers. Also, how did he go from wanting nothing to do with Sakura and not caring for her well-being to deciding to reciprocate her feelings? Wouldn't it make more sense for him to either like Karin, which Sasuke/Karin was staring to develop into, or stay single for a while longer until he realized that he liked Sakura or decided to give her a chance? Unfortunately, the end of the manga and the demand for pairing everyone up left and right demanded a pairing, so realism/logic is thrown out the window for a pairing to continue the franchise.
     
• Naruto
  • Naruto from the very start showed a one track mind of liking Sakura since even before chapter 1. In the beginning of the story Naruto was showed as having a shallow crush on Sakura but the bench showed that he is attracted to her more than her "cute looks" because she was willing to be open about her feelings and confess her feelings and work for her dreams (granted it was for love), something he didn't really start to actually voice until after that scene. He showed unwavering devotion but respectfully kept his distance in Part II thinking that Sakura still had feelings for Sasuke but still snuck in hopeful moments like asking for dates jokingly or answering to the affirmative that he liked her/is in relationship even if she didn't really deny or confirm it. In Part II after they reunited, feelings should have cooled or minimized from not seeing each other, but Naruto still shows his interest towards Sakura, though less frequently since he was weighed down by his promise to bring Sasuke back. He also learned who Sakura has grown into and is utterly amazed and smitten by who she has become if their interactions are anything to go by. He even admitted his feelings to Sai and how he would go to the ends of the earth to bring Sasuke back to make Sakura happy again. Even to the very end when there is any inference of being romantically linked with Sakura he is extremely happy and even answers in the affirmative when asked. This is usually used for comedic relief but Sakura has suspiciously not confirmed nor denied any questions.
     
  • It is inconsistent and strange how he could go from head over heels, Sakura at the top of his mind, to having Hinata (whom he only saw as a friend) be recognized as someone he knew was always by his side. Ever since Naruto and Sakura reunited she has seen him at his highest and the lowest of his lows and were together for 70-80% of the time when they aren't whisked away for training.
     
  • On another note, his obsession with bringing Sasuke back had too much emphasis and was written in a way that it started to become believable that SasuNaru would happen more than either NaruSaku or NaruHina. Their friendship wasn't as deep as we were supposed to be believe and even less after Sasuke kept rebuffing Naruto.
     
• The typical Shounen formula is Protagonist + Rival + Protagonist's love interest + adventure/goal = Protagonist/love interest + goal accomplished + Rival becoming great support or friend. Instead, we got a mess of pairing wars, retconned feelings, and Naruto achieved his goal of becoming Hokage but he doesn't seem happy or seem to be the same person he was portrayed as for the majority of the manga. It's not even portrayed as matured Naruto, it's a different Naruto all together.
   
• Some of my favorite stories are based on progression of friendships such as in best friend --> lovers because of the believability in how they are portrayed if they are done right. My other favorite is stories of characters maturing and one person realizes he/she has developed feelings for someone else, is conflicted, self-reflects, and comes to a decision. [i.e. Gohan/Videl, Harry/Hermione, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanoff (MCU), Raku/Chitoge (Nisekoi), Edward/Winry (Full Metal Alchemist)] However, this perfect example of friendship between Naruto/Sakura is wasted because it has so much potential.

 

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I've last been on this site. How's everyone been? I decided to see what happened to the Naruto franchise out of morbid curiosity one random day and I sort of regret dredging up some bitter feelings of the past. But, I decided to look into it a little more objectively and not as a biased shipper.

 

I was inspired by this other thread, which analyzed NS scenes after the end of the manga and agreed with all of the posters. This here is my analysis of the series and why it upset a lot of fans. All of these points are debatable and just my opinion since I only went by the manga and stopped watching the anime after Part I (excludes all the fillers), but these are the points that I felt caused a lot of distress in fans. I must warn you that it is quite lengthy and will span several posts.

 

It is broken down into 5 main points as listed below:

1. Character Growth
2. Unrealistic Love/Feelings
3. Believability
4. Writing Difficulties
5. Cultural Differences

 

CHARACTER GROWTH

 

• Character growth was linear from childish (beginning character) to mature adult character (ending character)
  • Idealistic Naruto doesn't mature in his thinking process, which is typical of coming of age stories which I assumed this was. Instead, Naruto continues his childish idealistic thinking process as if he were not exposed to the real ninja world outside of the safety of Konoha's walls. His personality is only less hyper but he is just as loud and vocal as he was in his youth.
     
  • Naruto also lacks the pathos that another idealistic character has. For instance, MCU Captain America is known as idealistic for his beliefs but throughout the films you can see that he is becoming more aware of the world he now lives in and is more jaded compared to before. He still fights for what he believes in such as in Civil War even though it tore apart his team but he isn't as naïve to the real world as he once was. He stays true to his character to fight for what he believes in, but you can see his character progression. With Naruto, it feels as if he is constantly shocked with new revelations by the real world and just foolishly and naively promises to change it but in the end of the story haven't made any changes at all.
     
  • Naruto is too obsessed with bringing Sasuke back that he doesn’t learn to respect Sasuke's decision despite multiple attempts to get through to him. I understand trying once or twice, but multiple times with the same result and with world destruction on the table? Naruto is too naïve to believe that a few words would get through to "best friend" who he's spent maybe only half a year to one year with at most with the most antagonistic and not evenly remotely brotherly interaction that I've ever seen. I've seen frenemy bromance written better than this because it moved on from early tentative stages of bromance in part I to plain suicidal in part II.
     
  • The story is all about Naruto working hard to achieve his goal of becoming Hokage. I would have loved to see his journey from eternal genin to rising through the ranks to becoming Hokage rather than skipping the ranks.
     
  • At the end of the manga it appears that Naruto is this super serious and jaded Hokage that spends all his time working. I understand that Kishimoto was introducing family conflict (to be touched upon later), but it feels out of left field and untrue to Naruto's character who was written as a stubborn mule who would die to protect his loved ones first rather than to abandon or forget about them and with a personality that was relatively unchanged despite how many hardships he had faced. It feels as if he not only does not know his family as well as he should (with how little time he spends with them) but he also is not that close to his closest friends and their respective children. He knows of them but he doesn't really know them as personally as he should if he were consistent with his character.
     
• Wasted character growth
  • Sakura as one of the main characters had a lot of character growth throughout the course of the manga. She was initially portrayed as a young childish girl who only cared about her crush. This is typical in Shoujo manga and would work in that instance, but this is a Shounen manga. She is depicted as intelligent but is weak to average in everything else. She is shown to realize her weakness and to grow to overcome them so that she can stand on equal footing as her two teammates. This determination was not based on impressing her crush, which was what chapter 3 Sakura wanted to do, but on self-reflection and self-improvement to be the best kunoichi that she could be as depicted in end of Part I. She wanted to feel useful and to be the one that could protect her loved ones rather than the damsel in distress. Kishimoto showed this growth in Part II where Sakura not only trained to become a respected medic-nin but also a fearsome combatant. However, he barely touched upon her combat abilities other than her chakra enhanced strength, which was one of the points she was trying to overcome.
     
  • On the other hand, Kishimoto did a fantastic job showing Sakura growing up from a young girl to a very caring and mature young woman. She initially did not like Naruto, had a childish rivalry between her ex-best friend and other girls crushing on Sasuke, and only cared about getting her crush's attention. She grew to become a skilled and confident doctor, someone who was more in tune with her feelings (unlike before where she had to act like demure, which is opposite of how she really thinks or acts), and supposedly a fearsome combatant. She is no longer the damsel in distress character that he started her off as.
     
  • However, as a main character she is also underdeveloped compared to Naruto and Sasuke. The two boys had a ton of background on their heritage while Sakura had none because she is from a civilian family. There is also no depiction of what other skills she picked up that showed her growth other than being a copy of her Master as a skilled medic with monstrous strength. I wanted to see skills that is more specific to Sakura and how she differed from the previous generation, not how she is able to only be a copy of them. I wanted to see elemental ninjutsu, genjutsu (since she supposedly had an affinity for it), more taijutsu, tactical and stealth skills, new creative skills that even Tsudane wasn't able to perform or she had just developed. I'm not seeing her use her vast intelligence as much as Shikamaru is shown using his. I also wanted to see her mature from childish crush to first love to mature love in a realistic sense because I felt like she was clinging to an unhealthy obsession to the very end for someone who abandoned her, tried to kill her and her best friend (Naruto now) several times and was on the verge of destroying the world.
     
  • At the end of the manga and what little I glimpsed of Naruto Gaiden (not the anime or light novels), I see limited interaction of Sakura with some of her closest friends. What happened to that compassionate and caring person who opened up and strived to maintain her bonds? Why is it only for certain people and not all? Also, what is her background now? Is she still a doctor? Is she a respected head of the hospital? Is she a housewife? It is not clear what she is or what she is doing since she was only drawn together with Sarada so we do not know. Naruto and Sasuke on the other hand was stated as Hokage and out on an extended mission respectively, but not for Sakura who was only stated as being the head of the hospital via light novels (added way later and not written by Kishimoto).
     
• Lack of redemption arc for Sasuke, who seemed more mentally unstable if end goal was for a redeemed character
  • Sasuke was depicted early on in the manga as a character who only had one goal in his life, to kill his psychotic murderous older brother he essentially broke his mind as a child. He was then shown to grudgingly develop friendship and bonds with his team, but was ultimately overcome with jealousy as someone he had seen as inferior to him started to surpass him. He acknowledged Naruto's growth and strength, but he was developing so much jealousy and resentment that he started lashing out and then ultimately left the village to someone who promised him more power. It was a cowardly move and it was the easy way out since he was always depicted as a skilled genius who didn't need to work as hard as average individuals like Naruto and the others.
     
  • He was next depicted as someone who had come to terms with his decision to leave all his loved ones behind and he cut all ties with them. He was not going to linger on them nor was he ever planning on returning to his previous life so long as he accomplishes his life-long goal and that he would kill anyone who stood in his way, whether it be friend or foe as evidenced when he attacked his old teammates with lethal force. He has no idea what he will do after he does it, but he made it clear when confronted with Team 7 that he has no wishes to return.
     
  • Subsequently after finding out the truth bomb of what happened to his brother and having him die tragically, Sasuke set out on avenging his family for being wronged. At this point he was conflicted about his feelings for his brother and what became of his life, but he settled on vengeance and set out to destroy Konoha. At this point his character progression made sense. He is and was consumed by hatred for so long that it has become a part of who he is. He was also so determined to destroy Konoha, then the whole ninja system for how much conflict the world is in. At this point he is an anti-hero with good intentions to rid the world of its current dysfunctional system but through extreme means. He loses in his fight against Naruto and has an epiphany that he was loved by his new family but feels ashamed and wants to end his life but Naruto refuses. He is then reformed and travels the world on the lookout for a dangerous threat on an extended mission.
     
  • With how he was portrayed early on, he pretty much had no bonds with anyone in Konoha at all and only tentative bonds with Team 7 that was on shaky ground. It is hard to believe with how emotionally unstable that he was that he would feel strongly about it enough to the point that he would want to return to Konoha, which he barely felt was his home at the time. His relationships with his new family were very underdeveloped for the magnitude of feelings and drama that the story evoked. The relationship he had with Team Taka felt stronger than with Team 7.
     
  • Honestly, the way Sasuke was written, it doesn't feel like a natural progression. He went from hell bent on revenge to world destruction to realizing his mistakes at the 11th hour and is forgiven. It is also unbelievable that even if he is reformed that he be allowed freedom after all that he has done. Realistically he should have had the death sentence demanded from other villages. If he were to get leniency he should have only had life imprisonment and sealed chakra for all his crimes.

 

• Inconsistent character portrayal
  • Naruto was shown time and time again to put the happiness of his friends and especially Sakura, before his own. You can see the heartbreak in his smile when he promises to bring Sasuke back for her. For Naruto, it was to bring back a lost teammate who he considers his brother. For Sakura, it is her first love. It was like that all the way until the Kage Summit where Naruto straight out contradicts his reason for bringing back Sasuke. He tells her that he's not doing it for her, but for himself. It essentially turned Naruto's selfless and promise and huge burden to a selfish desire to beat sense into his brother and bring him back against his will.
     
  • Naruto was also shown early on to talk to his enemies and be empathetic to them since he has a big heart and cannot bear to kill those he didn't have to. He became more selective with who deserved that treatment as the series progressed.
     
  • Sakura was shown as a strong individual who cared so much about Naruto's well-being that she threw herself headlong into danger for his sake. As evidenced in the scene in during the Heaven and Earth Bridge, she rushed to try to talk sense or try anything she could to stop Naruto from hurting himself due to the Kyuubi's powers and to talk him out of carrying such a burden by himself. She wanted to relieve him of the promise and to take it onto herself since now she doesn't want to rely on others for her shortcomings and have them suffer as a result. She wanted to be the one to protect him now instead of the other way around. It was her deep feelings and protectiveness for Naruto that it showed her growth in feelings for him. She is always shown to think about what is best for Naruto and even giving up opportunities for herself for his sake (i.e. Chuunin written exam). With how deeply she cares about him and how much she puts him first before everyone it's hard to believe that she would put Sasuke above Naruto at the end.
     
  • Sakura volunteered to kill Sasuke for the greater good but couldn't because of her "love" for Sasuke. Rather than love, it seems more realistic that it's her compassion and her humanness being her downfall. Because she cares so much for everyone she cannot kill anyone whom she deems her precious people. She is also a doctor who's oath states that she will do no harm. It's kind of contradictory considering how ninjas operate, but her hesitation is due to a multitude of reasons and not only "love". She pretty much decided to let go of her feelings of Sasuke for Naruto and the world's sake for this mission, but she goes on in the end of the manga to claim that she never once stopped loving Sasuke. It's whiplash with how fast her feelings change. She does not truly know who Sasuke is a person since her memories only consist of young Sasuke, Team 7 Sasuke, and murderous Sasuke. What about emotionally conflicted Sasuke during the years they spent apart?
     
  • Sasuke's character was all over the board. The only consistencies that I could see is that he is deeply filled with hatred, has difficulties forming bonds with people after his family massacre, and is only intent on fulfilling his lifelong goal. He is lost after discovering the truth of Konoha but he is back to being filled with hatred and revenge. What's confusing is how he can go from extreme hatred to becoming a reformed character so close to the end of the story? This redemption arc would make more sense about two-thirds way into the manga not at the very end so that we can see his though process and character progression. It feels more like we're told rather than shown his journey for where he is at the end.

 

• Self-reflection
  • Kishimoto added in ideas as he wrote, but characters are written in very flawed ways without any changes after their self-reflection. Kakashi and Jiraiya are prime examples. After they realized Naruto's connection with the Yondaime, which in reality they should have known from the very beginning due to the massively obvious clues, they didn't apologize nor change the way they treated him. If story facts were already inconsistent at this point, he should have written reasons for why Naruto was pretty much neglected throughout his childhood from people who should've theoretically taken him in. Perhaps Kakashi was grieving too much that he pretty much lives as an ANBU 24/7 for years to numb the pain? Jiraiya was on long term dangerous intel gathering missions that he couldn't care for a young child? Responsibly, they should have found someone to take care of Naruto if they couldn't.

 

• Underdeveloped and unnecessarily developed characters
  • As pointed out by many others, Kishimoto likes to develop some of his side characters, which in some cases is great but in other cases feels distracting to the story. It feels like he wants to explain everyone's backstories and then once he is done he just relegates the character to the background and never touches on them again. If that is the case, was there a need for the development? Couldn't he have kept it minimal instead of giving us a full glimpse of them? From the media that I've consumed, usually that type of development is reserved for a bigger character that is ready to leave the show (either killed off or written off), a redemption arc for said character, or serve as the purpose of creating an anti-hero. But the main point is, this development is usually seen for bigger characters not side-characters (i.e. a character making an appearance in 1-2 episodes versus a recurring character appearing in 6 or more episodes of a show).

 

I didn't switch bandwagons like the two in front of me, so probably not.
 
 
I actually soured on the whole thing a long time ago, not unlike Nate River, I had lost interest in the manga far before the ending. So this has less to do with ships, as it does with the manga as a whole feeling incompetent.

I kinda feel the same as you and Nate. Perhaps this is due to a manga going on far too long with no clear plot points to propel it for this many years other than a general premise of the hero obtains his goal, the end. I'm not going to bash this manga, but I felt as if, if kishimoto actually planned his whole entire story out from the start like how book authors have to do when writing a series, he could've constructed it better and written a better ending. It doesn't have to be ending we want, though that'd be nice, but something better than what was published. After all a book is published in bulk with all the chapters at once rather than weekly chapter by chapter like how we read mangas. Because toward the later half of part 2 it just felt like the conflict was over but he had to find some new conflict to continue the story even though it was unnecessary and became more of a detriment to the story.

It is because of this that I don't really have as much faith in kishimoto's writing ability as I wished I did. I'm not sure if currently he's writing to end his story haphazardly just because he wanted it over (I did that once with a fanfic of mine and ended up getting lots of negative criticism. In the end I deleted my story because even I wasn't satisfied with it when looking back on it) or because he's being pressured to write to appeal to certain audiences whether it be for monetary reasons or pressure from his editor.

Who's to say that he isn't going to troll us in the spin off or end up upsetting us more? The most I'll do is check out spoilers or summaries, but I don't think I could actually read the spin off. I'm just too disappointed (not upset) with how he handled the ending.

Sigh... I'm disappointed more than upset with the final chapters. Lately I can tell the chapters weren't as good nor as engaging as previous ones in the past. I was just expecting the story to finish up in a logical way from all the development from the last 698 chapters. To see the ending become what it is, as if someone had requested kishimoto to write it a certain way or to appeal to a certain fanbase rather than what the author wanted or intended is truly sad and disheartening.

Although we may be unhappy, it doesn't change the fact that that is the official published ending and therefore canon. The most we can do is hold on to happier memories and hope to make the best with our own fanworks if we were to stick with this fandom and anime/manga. That's what I'm planning to do and hopefully, one day when I actually have time I'll write my own ending that stays true to the story and spirit of Naruto. Especially since I'm annoyed at the ooc and/or reversion of character growth.

Nonetheless, I will not be leaving this fandom nor this site, but I'll definitely stop by a lot less. I wish everyone the best and I hope that the ending of Naruto won't get to you guys too much since there's still so much other good stuff out there to see.

Wow... I haven't been back here for a while, but I can definitely see the hype of this recent chapter.

There are a few things that I want to address:

1. The CPR-kiss. I also didn't pick up any romantic tones from the lip lock. Instead, we were shown just how determined Sakura was to help and to save Naruto's life and how desperately she wanted to save his life so that he could fulfill his dream. If anything, this just shows how dedicated Sakura is to Naruto that she would go through such great lengths and do everything in her power to save him.

Like Atheck mentioned previously, the reason for the CPR was because Naruto's heart stopped beating and he most likely also stopped breathing as well. She did chest compressions in a more direct fashion to get his circulation flowing and artificial respiration to provide his organs with oxygen to prevent him from becoming brain dead since the brain has at most 2 minutes without oxygen before everything goes downhill (please correct me if I'm wrong).

2. Karin's miraculous survival. It's possible that the reason Kushina couldn't survive her injuries and the extraction of the Kyuubi was due to a combination of the bijuu extraction and the process of child birth. Again like someone mentioned, both activities are extremely draining and if I remember correctly, at that point Kushina was almost completely out of chakra. Based on what I saw, it seemed like Karin bit herself to use that chakra for healing her injuries (why she had to bite herself to use her own chakra escapes me) and it didn't appear as if she was as chakra depleted as Kushina was.

3. Karin's chains. Perhaps the reason why Orohimaru even took notice of Karin was because he had an inkling of her true capabilities, despite her not showing or being unable to use them at the time. Perhaps he was studying her and the Uzumaki abilities and whether or not she carried the special chakra abilities that Kushina had.

4. Team Taka attack on spiral zetsu. You know what, I actually have no comment for the since I can't remember or understand how they got so strong.

5. Spiral Zetsu. I think it's completely possible that Yamato is being controlled since the mokuton is such a rare ability.

6. Madara's power up. You know, words can't describe how flabbergasted I am that Madara was still able to power up some more while our heroes' situations become worse and more dire. Then again, where would the drama be if that wasn't the case.

I'm looking forward to future chapters to see if Kishimoto will actually save Naruto with the other Kyuubi half since I don't think putting an unwilling and hostile bijuu back in a dying jinchuuriki will work as well as a willing one.