Crimson Fox, the assistant is Ikemoto that "volunteered" to work on the Boruto manga, which is a massive failure. However he has been dealing with a burden that should have been Kishi's for the past ten years. To openly stab him in the back would pretty much blacklist him from the industry as no one would be able to trust working for him. If there is to be a rewrite of the ending it has to be handled carefully. Granted I get the increasing feeling that the various companies are tired of Boruto's poor performance.
For stories it always best to go for a simple answer only going more elaborate when the simple doesn't fit.
No matter what it quite clear that Kishimoto didn't really look into his fanbase, more than he was told by others, till after the ending.
Just so everyone understands Slam Dunk is considered THE SHOUNEN SPORTS MANGA. The one that set the standard that all sports manga follow after. It also still one of the most profitable manga ever and I think still in the top ten. It was huge in the 90s.
Phantom/Kagomaru, people don't like the rug pull out from under them. If they get invested in a story they want a satisfying pay off. Part of that for romance if a manga spend years building up a couple they expect them to get together. That not happening greatly annoys the sexually frustrated Japanese.
Well, I going to admit I do not like pull out from underneath when the ending doesn't go my way. But it does not impact me as much as before 10 years ago.
Anyways...
I have mixed feelings, because I never expected that Ikemoto that I see people talk (very bad impression) about on social media and some old anime forums I visited from time to time talked about him was "the NH assistant" that has been with Kishi. This comes to me as a shock because I thought Ikemoto was just some random artists/author SJ pulled out of nowhere for Boruto. Besides from you, I heard of shading things he's done on Twitter now X. Is it true that he has a Sarada fetish or its just peoples assumption
Reason why I have mixed feelings because on one hand, I blamed/hated him from preventing a NS ending, which made stopped shipping character together from numerous stories I stumbled upon this past decade in general. On the other hand, I thanked him because during the final 2 years of Naruto manga, I started getting tired of manga and anime. I did mentioned during my debates serval time in 2013-2014. Not only here, but when I was still in involved in the shipping wars on OneManga and Mangafox. The ending forced me to move. Made me read more manga. Also opened a new door for me that introduced me to Manwa... my first being The Breaker series I read back in 2015 (I still got to read the third season).
If Naruto ended NS. There's at least a 90% chance that my last post on this forum will be somewhere in 2015. Happy (sort of) that theory will never happen because I love being here
But that's besides the point. As you told me 2 years ago that Ikemoto was replaced, I assumed that this will impact his resume as a potential major mangaka in the future because of his involvement of the endgame pairings and him being kicked out from Boruto him if I'm correct. I think that I did not fully addressed your last post about NH being part of popularity. Now I really see the complications.
Theoretically, there to talks between SJ and Kishi's entire studio about how about the conclusion and future sequel that's to follow after Naruto's conclusion. I'm not sure if many of you remember, I've seen SJ's magazine promote NS on the cover page of their magazine part of a Valentine special at least once. The higher brass of SJ had to know that NH and SS could have a negative outcome on the ending. Someone has to take the blame and heat if things goes south. So I wondered if its possible Ikemoto was exiled from Boruto because of this too?
NS spinoff/reboot will be very trick to pull off without adding more salt to Ikemoto's wounds. To tack on more on this theory, there is a possibility that if Boruto ever gets axed or remains in the red for a long period of time, a spinoff or reboot might be needed to least attempt to fix the previous ending. It's not like it has never been done before in the world of manga and anime. It seems to be the trend these days in Japan, especially, the gaming industry. Companies like Capcom and Square Enix are rebooting/recreating their popular old games. Granted, a lot of it has to do with upgraded art and graphics to meet modern standards.
So it's still in the realm of possibility. That's just me saying. Well that puts a wrap to it.
Bail, I do trust information on the franchise comes from you so I might PM you in the future if I need and info if that's alright?