Fanwoman

lol i cant believe this kind of debate on HnE of all place. i have to repeat (again) that sakura's role as the heroine has been accepted by almost all the readers. even by hardcore hinata fans. only few of sakura haters tried to deny this fact.

and from kishi's interviews, especially the recent one. he even said he was afraid of sakura might look ugly. and he has been trying to increase her popularity

im not saying im satisfied with his way of treating sakura. and i have a bunch of scene in my head to make sakura a better character. but at least i do know the author himself tried, even if he failed to a certain degree. he did never neglet her and thats enough for me

Well, my argument wasn't whether or not Sakura is the heroine--clearly her growth, no matter how retconed in the end, and participation were the most vital of all the gals--but whether or not the growing preference for moe heroines in shonen manga and Hinata's popularity played a role in NaruHina happening.

As to the Kishimoto quote you mention, the version I have access to says:

"Kishi is troubled by Sakura’s popularity among the readers. While he was drawing covers, it was easy drawing Naruto and Sasuke, but for Sakura Kishi have to spend more time re-drawing and adjusting, worrying that he might draw her ugly. Sakura’s family is not revealed because of popularity reasons, but Hinata with low number of appearances were consistently popular with the readers, Kishi once had the idea to change Hinata to the heroine."

This supports my theory that Hinata's popularity was a reason NaruHina happened. It also, sadly, suggests Kishimoto's only interest in developing Sakura was superficial--to keep her from being ugly. If he cared about her character growth, he would have included her parents, but he didn't, because he didn't want to improve her overall character appeal. It seems an intentional oversight that, with two teammates (three, if you count Sai) who are orphans, her parents are never involved. We meet at least one parent of nearly every other Rookie. Why not Sakura's, the heroine's? To keep her from being too popular.

Since no one else seems to want to discuss externals influences and larger trends, like the diminished popularity of characters like Sakura, I'll drop it, but I still think it is a factor worth considering.

 

Here you go :3 http://bleach.wikia....opularity_polls  The most recent character poll is the 4th.

 

 

Out of those I'm only familiar with Blue Exorcist and Magi. Magi doesn't have a moe lead, just a serious-type girl lead. Morgiana displays both cute and tsuntsun qualities (like when she got ticked off over Alibaba going to a brothel and created an earthquake).

 

 

He does seem pretty easy to influence. I'd hope most mangaka wouldn't behave like he did and be willing to give up on a character due to popularity. It's pretty disappointing Kishimoto turned out to be this flaky. As shown with Rukai's popularity, a competent writer can make a character lovable, regardless of the trope they may or may not fall in. This is why I can't simply blame it on the 'tsundere'. I blame it on Kishimoto.

 

Sakura and Hinata basically tied, each winning 5/10 of the popularity polls. I don't really think that shows she was a complete failure as a character, just Kishi's handling of her fell. From the pairing polls that I'd see before the Pain Arc, Sakura always showed up as being more popular to ship than Hinata. That's why I got the impression it was more the aftermath of the Pain Arc that hurt Sakura the most. But that could just be it hurt my opinion...since I definitely fell out of enjoying the manga during the beginning of the war arc.

 

 

From what members on this site have said, the movie has been in the works for 2 years. Which means everything in the past 2 years was done with Kishi knowing the end pairings. His new excuse is that NS was a red herring all along...though I'm not sure I buy that. If it is true the movie was being worked on for that amount of time, it's likely that the CPR scene and even moments before were done with Kishimoto already knowing NH was going to happen.

 

Not to mention Neji died for NH, and even that took place before the CPR scene.

Thanks for the link! Although you were holding out--the most popular was Hitsugaya! LOL Either way, how cool for Rukia.

It's true, Morgiana has the ability to express her anger, but her subdued emotions of all kinds make her more moe than not. The same can be said of Akatsuki in "Log Horizon." Maybe they're hybrids?

Anyway, I hadn't realized the movie had been in the works for two years. Then again, just because it started so long ago doesn't mean they knew what would happen from start to finish so long ago. Still, how disappointing. I'm having trouble finding when the "Is she your girlfriend?" scene was written, but Neji's death would have been about two years ago in the manga. In the recent interview, Kishimoto actually says he let Neji die so Hinata could be closer to Naruto. If I were a big Neji fan, I would be seriously peeved. Sigh.

But this thread is supposed to question who's the heroine and why.

I absolutely think NaruHina happening has everything to do with Kishimoto and his being influenced by external pressures, pressures which other writers would disregard in preference of staying true to their characters instead of bending to the will of trends. It's becoming more and more difficult to believe Kishimoto ever had a cohesive, determined vision for any of the characters other than Naruto and Sasuke.

After all, in the same interview as mentioned above, Kishimoto apparently said:

"Kakashi got more popular than Naruto so he had to decrease his appearance."

Yeah, popularity having a hand in Kishimoto's decisions is difficult to deny.

Of course, NaruHina happening does not make Hinata the heroine--the end would have panned out the same with or without her in the story, since any number of other characters could have said to Naruto what she did when Neji died.

Welcome to Heaven and Earth~ And your meme is spot on. The destruction of all these capable and developed characters is truly tragic...   I honestly don't care if NH is canon or not, just the way it went about was absolutely horrible. I actually shipped NaruHina up until Part 2 when Sakura became more intriguing. Her development I mean. It just showed so much potential of her falling for Naruto, and I just thought that would be perfect. For Naruto to get his happy ending. For Sakura to get her happy ending, after so much heartbreak. For Hinata to become a better kunoichi, and still look up to Naruto. For Sasuke to finally be left alone, yet in peace with his friends and family.

 

I think we're all pretty upset with how it ended up. Naruto was one of my most favorite shows. NaruHina romance wasn't the reason why I watch it. It never was for anyone. So why does Kishi expect us all to just, accept it, and love it... He should've expected a lot of people to dislike it. More than half the fans Japan. The rational fans from other places in the world. Just why NaruHina? As a person who formerly shipped this, I think anyone can see the major flaws that go with that pairing. A shame Kishi of all people didn't see it in his own manga...

 

Anyways I hope you enjoy it here! It's a very nice forum :)

Thanks! One of my NaruHina fan friends said she didn't like the ending either, since there was no explanation. She had always assumed it would be NaruSaku, since that was what made sense.

Love your sig gif and what you say after it!

Oh, and thanks for checking out my meme!

 

But can you explain how Rukia remains the most popular in Bleach if that's truly the trend? She was even more popular than Ichigo in the last character poll. Do you have examples of this happening in other manga where an editor shifted the heroine for that reason? It seems to me that Sakura never had a problem with popularity until recently when Kishimoto started writing her making a false confession to the hero and then being shamed for it.

I wasn't aware Rukia was more popular than Inoue, let alone Ichigo. That's awesome--Please link me to that!

Naturally, I have a higher opinion of Tite compared to Kishimoto, since he writes such interesting females along with males, so I can't help but suppose he'd be more resistant to other people telling him to sidetrack main characters.

That said, the trend toward more prominent moe characters is evidenced in other shonen series, like "Blue Exorcist," "Pet Girl," "Log Horizon," "Magi," "Ald Noah Zero," "World Trigger," etc. Heck, in the series "Valvrave," the tsundere character was killed off in the first episode! This makes it a trend.

As to whether or not other writers have changed their leading lady to accommodate this trend, there aren't may other series that have lasted as long as "Naruto" through the transition from tsundere to moe. "Bleach," "One Piece" and "Detective Conan" would probably be the only ones, and, of those, only "Conan" includes a romantic preference for the leading character. Also, Kishimoto has repeatedly expressed a lack of interest in romantic themes, despite having multiple characters infatuated with other characters, so it's believable he could be persuaded to change his mind on the issue due to something as trivial as popularity.

Also, I have to disagree with your assumption that Sakura's popularity was fine until the confession. Yes, the confession may have reduced her popularity some, but I don't see how you can say she was particularly popular before that when she has been behind Hinata more often than not since the second poll.

http://naruto.wikia....opularity_Polls

Given all of the NaruSaku moments we had after the confession--especially the, "Is she your girlfriend?" line from Minato--my thinking is Kishimoto made his decision later. After all, if he had decided by confession, he wouldn't have made Mr. I Can Make Clones Like Nobody's Business not talk to Hinata about her almost dying for him/confession for months/over 100 chapters!

I think the decision to go with NaruHina came just before or during the CPR. Plot-wise, there was no getting around the CPR. Naruto getting the other half of Kurama was a plot point that had probably been planned out for ages. The end of that part of the story was the perfect for place for a sweet, poignant or funny NaruSaku moment, yet it was completely lacking--Ino patting Shikamaru and Choji on the back after confronting deadAsuma had more emotional impact than Naruto being revived while Sakura held his heart in her hand! Why? Because the decision had finally been made to go with NaruHina, so anything remotely NaruSaku had to be downplayed.

Now that the manga is over, I was looking forward to the end of the TV, too. Yes, I'm one of those people who has to see the whole thing, so I wish I could be done with it! That said, I had always wanted to see a few things that I thought were obvious filler material, like how everyone became chunin. I am a Team 8 fan, so I'm glad we'll get to see Kiba become chunin, but there's no Shino? WTH? He's only the heir of one of the most powerful clans in Konoha, but his becoming a chunin doesn't matter? Same goes for Choji. Grr!

I don't hate Hinata and always though covering her relationship with her sister would be a way to give her some depth beyond her teaspoon-like obsession with Naruto. Of course, given what has been said of Hanabi in the Last film, I can't imagine anything good might come out of it. I swear, half the fic out there is better than some of the bunk we've been getting lately. That they'll be using this as an opportunity to bolster Hinata's credibility and probably do more major retcon makes me shudder. It's an opportunity to develop the cast, but I just don't see them doing anything decent with it.

Anyway, I've seen some mention they've given up on the show, and I've wanted to ask:

How many people have quit watching since the manga ended?

I still watch, but grudgingly, not with the anticipation I used to have. Indeed, I'm weeks behind at the moment. How many others feel the same? Should I start a separate thread about it?

 

Not gonna argue that moe girls aren't popular. But I'm not sure the examples you are using fit. Hinata type of moe girl is one that is basically absent and not useful when it comes to the plot. You give the example of Shiemi from Blue Exorcist as a Hinata type of girl. Except, Shiemi is not hidden in the background with only 'cute' to her name. She actively supports the hero. I'd compare Shiemi to Orihime from bleach, both bubbly types. I don't find either girl like Hinata as far as their importance in the manga nor their nature.

 

I'd also add the Rukia is by far the most popular female in bleach, yet she isn't a moe type either. I think Sakura became less popular not because she is tsundere, but because Kishi was all over the place with handling her in the final stretch of the manga. It's not a shifting in popularity type, its just bad portrayal of a character. He dropped her development after the Pain Arc to make her look bad. Or that's what it looks like to me.

Oh, I never said Shiemi is the same as Hinata--heaven forbid--I said she's the same character type as Hinata. So is Orihime. They are all of them moe. Of course, the other two are much better characters because they are written by people who can write female characters/aren't misogynists.

My point is, Shiemi is moe, and she is the leading female character in "Blue Exorcist." Why? Because when the series started, moe had ousted tsundere in popularity.

Fifteen years ago, when "Naruto" began, the leading ladies of shonen were usually tsundere, like Sakura.

"Bleach" began before moe became as popular as it is now, which is why Rukia was once the leading gal and is tsundere.

Hinata is not useful to the plot because she was never supposed to be the heroine (and Kishimoto can't/won't write female characters well), not because she is moe.

Of course, Kishimoto's poor handling of Sakura is a factor, but the rise in popularity of moe is the sort of reasoning an editor would use to influence a writer to shift the focus from a tsundere leading lady to a moe one. If tsundere characters were still at the height of popularity, even Sakura's uneven portrayal probably wouldn't have kept her from being the leading lady.