I remember a couple of months ago I wrote in this forum that we will finally be able to get the true size of SS fandom with this series. Here we are, and its not surprising we found out that its actually very small.
A manga that was produced based on a novel that sold poorly to appeal to a fandom that was supposed to be big based on rumours, but its true size has never been validated. Who wouldve guessed it will sold poorly? /s
Not sure if the decision makers were in denial, desperate or simply cannot make smart decisions. It could be three combined. lol.
Anyways, I will hold my judgement until the hard figures come out (if at all). We know for sure by now, SS is very small. The sales figure for this specific product validates that. Whether it is smaller than NH, we dont know and frankly it doesnt matter.
Ive said this before and Ill say it again: Naruto franchise is dead the moment they killed NS, one of the major fandom financing this series.
Will reviving NS bring back sales to the rate before volume 64 came out? Absolutely not. Readers have moved on.
Anything NS at the moment will just kill the already very small NH/SS fandom. NS folks are generally logical and reasonable, we go by manga contents and whats written. While NH/SS fandom will try their hard to justify and get validation that they are very big without any basis except some unofficial polls about pairings, some rumours, etc. It is their insecurities since the original manga that was written for 15 years hardly made any positive content for NH/SS.
With this manga released, we can finally put that debate into co nclusion: both SS and NH are very small. They are the freeloaders and it is very unfortunate the executive made decisions that appeals to these very small audience, which end up causing the franchises death.
It's funny really, how we heard so much that SS fanbase was big in terms of popularity (which is probably was and still is) but when seeing the sale numbers of a light novel that is targetted for them, you see the total opposite. While the ending was bad (and many things that came after), the overall sales were good, last time I remember but it was harder to tell if it was because of the fanbase of the pairings the executives chose.
Sure for NH, they got the last movie and SS got Gaiden (even if it was still pictured in a more or less negative light by Kishimoto) but even that, it still couldn't really show really how much important these 2 fanbases were in terms of being big enough to support the overall sales of the franchise.
People could still hate the ending for many reasons yet still buy the mangas to complete the set and even what came after, for example. Same could be said in a way with Boruto, while at first it kinda did good in sales (not as good as Naruto but enough to continue with the project), it was mostly because it was new, fans could still hate Naruto ending for many reasons yet still be curious about it. But again, the variation of the numbers couldn't be explained just because of the support of the pairings fanbase, not really at least. But with Sasuke Retsuden, whose sole purpose is pretty much targetted for SS, you can get a better picture on how big this fanbase is still is which isn't as big as everyone thought it was at least, not in terms to support the sales. If Sasuke Retsuden came out closer to let's say, Gaiden, maybe things would be different (or not) but while it could have boosted the sales for a while, it would have been just that, for a while and not enough to completely support the franchise overall sales that were better around the ending of Naruto and start of Boruto.
With the Last for NH and now Sasuke Retsuden for SS, we get a better picture of the importance these 2 fanbases has in sales and overall, while it might still be popular, I guess it's not popular enough to really support the numbers of sales.
Not gonna lie, I'm somehow surprised with SS because SS popularity was based more on the japanese market (unless I misread information before) and unlike the westerns fans, the japanese fans buy the product, to show their support, they don't watch/read illegally. I guess even if SS was made canon, the SS japanese fanbase didn't really wanted to show their support and with good reasons as they didn't really have a good representation in how it was handle.
Not sure if the decision makers were in denial, desperate or simply cannot make smart decisions. It could be three combined. At this point, I would say the three combined hahah
Ive said this before and Ill say it again: Naruto franchise is dead the moment they killed NS, one of the major fandom financing this series. While I can say that it wasn't the only factor, I agree with you that killing NS was one of the major factor that killed the franchise. Not only killing it but doing it in such dirty way too. Even with just friendship moments, it was still one of the core relashionship of the manga that also affected greatly the main plot of the serie. Even if fans didn't support it as a pairing, they understood that it was part of the story and they expected that this would be the logical endgame pairing (at least, the japanese fanbase and people that can actually read outside the shipping googles). While the decision to switch for NH/SS were done months, probably a couple of years before the ending, the executives might have been aware at that time that people, at least the japanese fans, expected NS at the end, which is the only big reason why they pulled the misleading tricks with The last movie. They didn't want to lose the japanese fandom support (at least not for the sales of the last movie) while trying to support the international market. Again, while NS isn't the only reason why the franchise is dead, it's still a big reason why, the executives knew they would lose the supports of the NS fanbase they probably just wouldn't know just how much this would cost them because they only saw the popularity factor, they never considered that the overall fans, shipping fans or not, cares a lot more about the integrality of the story and the characters and NS was part of the package deal.
Reviving NS could be an option but to do that they would have to admit they kittened big time with their dirty tactics to destroy it by following what was popular instead, to maybe have a rise of curiousity from the NS fanbase but they will never admit their mistakes and even if they did, it won't work. If they don't, they could still do it but like you said, the NS fanbase are generally the logical and reasonnable fanbase that goes with what's written and after all the kitten up the executives did to make everyone believe that NS never really existed, It's a given that the NS fanbase wouldn't be tricked by them again. You said it, The NS fanbase moved on (at least to what is canon) and while some might be curious, it wouldn't be enough to support the franchise that antagonised it, even if they did admit that they kittened up, this fanbase know better and certainly won't fall into their trap.
I still see this as the executives tired of Naruto-Boruto not making them money like it used to and trying to figure out what does.
They are probably not happy it got supposedly high online views but poor financial purchases. Which is the same thing that happened with nH.
It will probably come down to what do they do with the poll winner's manga and how it does. if it does poorly, they will probably be just done with Naruto-Boruto all together. If it does well, we will see if that even happens. if they just ghost it, they have already given up.
But even if they realize they MUST go back to NS they are probably reluctant to pull that trigger. One, because they already made the decision to support nH/SS. Two, Kishimoto would need to come out to show his support for it and that would require stabbing Ikemoto in the back.
Honestly, I just hope they keep breathing down Ikemoto's neck. So he keep rushing his story. So, it will finally reach the time skip and I can finally stop doing those summaries.
I still see this as the executives tired of Naruto-Boruto not making them money like it used to and trying to figure out what does. That the only logical explanation as to why they would do that now. Relying on what's popular (like they always did) is the worst decision to make, like I said previously, just because something is popular doesn't mean that the sales will be good. If the products they are trying to sale is bad, nothing will save it, regardless of what's popular or not. Not only that but they probably don't even know what made Naruto so popular in the first place because if they did, they probably would have make light novels about it or add these elements into the Boruto story. So the ''best strategy'' for them, at this point is to pull the volting poll on fans. Only this is still something that could backfire on them because they don't take into consideration what could happen using this strategy and did happen, which is fans, ex-fans, other people knowing about the vote and voting for any reasons, some to support but many to troll the Naruto toxic fanbase.
Maybe I'm wrong and maybe it will help but frankly, from what I see, my guess would be that it will fail or at best for them, boost the sale for a little while and that's it.
Assistant. He was in charge of backgrounds, background characters, and anything else Kishimoto didn't feel like doing. He took over Boruto for Kishimoto.
He was apparently one of the people that convince Kishi to go with SS. Saying the Sakura was hated because she wasn't with Sasuke.
I also suspect he was the assistant who said you read the manga wrong and weren't a true fan if you didn't support nH. If nothing else for the irony.
I always assume that Ikemoto pushed more the NH agenda and not really the SS. The only rumour that I've heard about SS was that he hated Sakura but I never heard about him convincing Kishi that Sakura was hated because of her not being with Sasuke, I heard more that he tried to push Hinata's popularity factor on Kishi. then again, if him pushing the whole Hinata popularity on Kishi, one would assume that he might have pushed SS also for this very same reason and again, because he apparently hated Sakura.
Pretty sure 663 is implied as the real ending
To me, that was the hidden message from Kishi saying that's the realy ending he envisioned.
Edited by Serenity Namikaze, 10 February 2023 - 07:37 PM.
