I know what it is. It's because, mostly she was a threat to their precious NH ship. Naruto loved her through the entire manga and Sakura was showing some interest in Naruto. They weren't even on the map until Hinata's stupid confession. At that time, you could even argue that Hinata didn't have romantic feelings for Naruto; just that she idolized him so much and her being shy is why it was so extreme.
It's an extension of Sakura being a threat to their crap ship, but many never grew up. They could never get past the fact that Sakura used to be an immature brat that picked on Naruto. Even well into part 2, they would cling onto that for dear life. Alongside the fact that you know, she smacked him around. (Which was VERY rare in the canon manga compared to the filler anime) That doesn't help either. The fact that most of them were anime only fans. They didn't care for the manga or bother with it and thought the anime's filler (which obviously favored Hinata over Sakura most of the time) was as canon as the manga.
They refused to accept that Sakura had developed beautifully (until the ending of course) and cared about Naruto a ton. That she was no longer an immature brat. But they wanted her to still be one so they had an excuse as to why Hinata was better and why Naruto should move on to Hinata.
They clung so desperately to Sakura smacking him around as a reason why he should move on.
"BECAUSE HINATATA IS SO MUCH NICER AND WOULD NEVER HIT NARUDO SUCKRA TREATS NARUDO SO BADLY OMFG"
I have heard this argument a million times. They didn't care if Naruto never minded Sakura doing that. It didn't change his feelings for her one bit. If anything, at the beginning of part 2, he hinted that he purposefully brought it upon himself. After Sakura punched the ground and it basically exploded, both scaring Kakashi and Naruto, Naruto thought to himself that he should "stop messing with her so much or she'd end up killing him with that strength."
And no, messing around =/= his feelings for her. They were still there, obviously as we were shown throughout part 2.
^ Very much this. And as I've stated many times, that stems from the fact that Sakura DIDN'T love Naruto from the beginning like Hinata did. That is where all the double standards root from. Really, their prime de facto argument for the entire NH ship is, "Hinata loved Naruto from the beginning". Which begs the question, that if Sakura also did, would she get nearly as much hate and Hinata nearly as much love as they do now? I can't help but think that because of again the double standards here. Think about it. Usually, tsunderes similar to Sakura (and do note there are MANY with more over the top traits than her) are far more tolerated, and shy side characters like Hinata aren't so dogmatically worshiped the way she is. I'm not gonna go on another rant on this subject since I've beaten to it death over and over again but I'm just saying, that if Sakura and Hinata fell into more traditional and stereotypical portrayals of their character archetypes (ironic, I know) they would probably have less hate and love respectively. That's what I think at least
Then you got such fans like SP making entire extra omake endings of episodes around her saying, "Naruto-kun!".
Edited by Phantom_999, 13 June 2020 - 12:15 PM.