RulesofNature

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird people try to push Hinata as uber-powerful when Boruto is already at her level before leaving the academy?

I think 9's the best. Good story, pacing doesn't drag, likable characters, love how characters learn skills like in FFTA but still have their own designated role in combat. Haven't played it in years though so maybe I should get it off the PSN sometime.

 

Oh they ARE burning with it  the anime means nothing if fans aren't buying their stuff and they obliterated the trust of their very own money maker; their home country. 90% of their income came from fans in Japan after all since that is where their genuine merchansdise and everything is so yeah. And I recall noone wanted anything to do with Naruto after the last, not only because it wwas a horrible movie that false advertised what the movie was a bout there was a no refund policy during the premiere screening so all viewers left VERY PISSED off and so vowed to never financially support Naruto again

It's kinda amazing how much they keep messing this up. They make it NaruHina in order to appeal to the Western market, but in doing so ended up alienating much of the domestic fanbase. Kishi makes Sarada in an attempt to counter claims of sexism but they turn around and oversexualize a 12 year old in the manga. They're trying to compare BS to NS, but that's only triggering the NH/SS fans. And let's not forget how Naruto was labeled a bad father by a country that emphasizes parents spending time with their kids.

I wouldn't be surprised if they thought Naruto was still the behemoth it used to be in the West, rather than it becoming the standard example of what people don't like in a lot of anime.

Prt one Naruto wasn't afraid to be gritty and dark. Part one showed that reality is messy and complicated and being a Ninja isn't a joke. Part 2 showed that being a ninja IS A joke and the stakes really are never that high if you've got the right friends. 

This is one of those areas where the execution of the story fails. Naruto enters the ninja world with bright eyes and big aspirations. He's pretty innocent to the truth of the occupation and the nature of his world is repeatedly shoved into his face. It's a cruel world full of injustices, revenge, grudges and hatred. It's not a nice place.

Part of Naruto's character is he's supposed to challenge such a world. He's supposed to see the atrocities and reject them. Forget revenge, screw tradition, let bygones be bygones. This is why he is able to connect to enemies like Haku and Gaara. If you really wanted to get into it  his end game should have been about dismantling the ninja world and even rejecting the idea of becoming Hokage, maybe while Sasuke ends up amassing his followers as he becomes another cog in the system of this world.

In the end Naruto does commit to making the world a better place, but it's really a half-assed ending. It's not bad to have idealism, but one must also temper that with maturity. The series lost the latter though as time went on. There's a difference between emphasizing with a guy and saying Obito is the coolest. There's forgiveness and there's letting Orochimaru walk around as a free man. Have they ever cleared up the whole branch family thing with the Hyuuga family? In the end, the series just wants to make being a ninja something any kid would want to do. It's a world trying to sugarcoat itself, and Naruto's son ends up entering the same line of work as his father.  All it wants to say is Naruto's time was better than Kakashi's, Kakashi's childhood was still better than the days before the hidden villages, and Boruto is growing up in a happier time than his father.

Plus, SP wanted to continue milking the franchise.

I wanted to post this with the context of a recent image posted somewhere on these forums, with pro-enders getting upset with a depiction of the Uzumaki family breakfast and replacing it with one showing Hinata in a Kushina-like manner. Couldn't find the picture, so I'll just post anyway.

Hinata got screwed over by the series as well. Like, really hard and I think on a subconscious level pro-enders realize this. Let's start from the beginning with her introduction. She's presented as this shy girl with a lady boner for Naruto, someone who admires him. Her self-esteem has been crushed due to her lack of ability, he father thinks of her as a failure, and she's lost her title as clan head. She sees another person deemed a failure, Naruto, but unlike her he never lets it get him down. He is still determined to be Hokage, and she admires him for this reason.

A lot of people were expecting her to look at Naruto as a source of inspiration, the person she herself wanted to be. They wanted her growth to mirror his so she would earn the respect of those around her, prove she is not a failure and take back her position of clan head. It seems like a reasonable for this setup, which leads to people saying "Hinata is the best kunoichi in her age bracket" because they're cheering for her to become that. And part of this is the expectation that she will earn Naruto's love at the end.

Then there's the people who like her because she has big kittens, but that's beside the point.

But that's not what we got, is it? Instead of looking towards Naruto as an inspiration, she fawns over him like the fangirl she is. She doesn't want to be like Naruto, she just wants him for herself. She never kicks ass (I know the Pein fight in the anime made her last longer, but we're going by the source material here), she's the only one who doesn't make it to jonin iirc. She never regains her position as clan head and Naruto doesn't even acknowledge her dramatic confession. Kishi even went so far as to say she got Naruto out of pity. And post-Naruto she's Naruto's submissive housewife, telling Boruto his problems pale in comparison to what Naruto went through.

Hinata won, but not in the way they wanted. She didn't become the character they wanted her to be and worse, she is shown to be a selfish woman-child obsessed with a husband doesn't have time to spend with her family. In the end, she became everything her critics accused her of being and they freaking know it. They're resorting to fanfiction as well to get the ending they wanted.

 

The main argument for NH is Hinata being loyal to Naruto and liking him before everyone else, trying to sacrifice herself blabla. But- what about Naruto? If I counter with: Doesn't he "deserve" to be also with the one he always loved? It's like Naah. Naruto's feelings don't count. Sakura showing her affection? Doesn't count. Hinata deserves him because she was the first that liked him. Like, Naruto needs someone who "deserves" him. It sounds a bit like arranged marriage.

[Sakura? No, Sakura isn't the right one for him. She didn't like him from the start, having prejudices.Did she change? Well, yes, but a bit too late! Look at Hinata! He never noticed her? Well, but she's perfect for him! Always admired him...She will be a great wife. No one will complain. What does the husband think? I DON'T CARE WHAT THE HUSBAND THINKS! This is about what other people will think about them! Obviously, they like Hinata. We don't need that...new - age relationship stuff!]

Tbh, I don't think she deserves him just because she always liked him. She wasn't "there" for him. (Also one of the main arguments) She didn't stand up for him whenever he was bullied. She was just in the background, and the only time she actually did something was in the Pain arc, but wasn't really helpful. (Remember the times Sakura risked her life for him? Don't count!)

Just my opinion.

 

But another example: Just imagine a series in which the main hero is doomed to marry his fangirl and forget about his long - term crush which slowly warmed up for him just because that fangirl was his first fan ever. That's how I feel about NH.

NH really though is the franchise undermining it's roots, namely Naruto's development as a person.

In the beginning, Naruto wasn't meant to be an ideal person. He was whiny, self-centered, jealous of what others had, causing trouble because it was the only means he had to get the attention he craved. Sure, he had a good heart under it but there is no denying he needed to grow up all the same. His lonliness itself was a driving factor in all this, he was someone without family or friends. He had no bonds with anyone prior to Iruka taking a mortal blow for him, and during the first part of the series he went about making bonds with those around him. He emphasized with others and began putting their own good ahead of his own.

But this also lead to his devotion towards saving Sasuke. Naruto finally had connections to other people and Sasuke, the best member of his class, actually respected Naruto's abilities as a ninja. In this instance, Naruto had tasted the acceptance he had always wanted and when Sasuke left the village he wanted to bring Sasuke back in order to prevent Sasuke from severing that bond. At this point, Naruto is on the edge for doing something for a selfless reason (bringing Sasuke back for Sakura despite Naruto having a crush on her) and doing it for a selfish reason (bringing Sasuke back because he continues to want Sasuke's respect). In latter parts, this changes because Naruto wants to save Sasuke from himself.

The Last tries to say Naruto already had a bond despite all of this, a bond with the girl he thought was weird back in the academy. What's more, this bond is supposed to be the most important one of his life. Never mind that Hinata never helped Naruto through his troubled childhood, she is obsessed with being with him to the point she's more worried about a scarf than her sister, or that she fell in love with Naruto way before his development kicked in. Oh wait, The Last made Naruto appear to be selfish too in order to be with the selfish Hinata. This is the bond Naruto is supposed to spend the rest of his life with despite the fact the discovery of bonds is a major driving force of his character.

It's a case of the story not realizing what it's saying, invalidating earlier beliefs it exposed. Remember when we got the lore dump that only Uzumaki's could contain the Kyubi because of their unique chakra? Naruto's abilties end up being defined by his heritage in contrast to how he was presented with his fight with Neji. As the story went on it worked against itself, deteriorating until it didn't realize what it was saying anymore.

A big problem is the anime industry is over-saturated. In the old days, anime was more focused on selling toys or promoting the source material. OVAs were a thing because either there wasn't enough interest in the thing justify a full TV series, or there was content that couldn't be shown on TV. This is before anime began airing late at night to niche otaku markets. I've seen Sunrise staff say that the shift began when Evangelion showed the industry that the show itself could be a major product. Forget the toys or the manga, they could make major bank just selling the show itself. This leads to a rise of animated programming and importance being placed on video sales.

Now, there's too much anime being made. This has lead to more focus-tested releases, if these shows aren't going to appeal to normal people then they have to make sure to catch otaku's attention. If someone sells well it sets a trend that everyone and their uncle follows. Like Hollywood and AAA gaming, they are less likely to take risks now because there's less to fall back on if the show itself doesn't work out.

The sad part is the more they tried to set up the Hinata romance, the more I hated her. I didn't beforehand, just though she was a heavily hamfisted love interest  (doesn't help that I only ever read the manga). I was willing to accept that she would end up with Naruto because it felt like that was obvious what the series was going with. Naruto and Sakura had chemistry and I could believe they would take fatal blows for each other, but Hinata's moments were shoved in with all the grace of a drunken elephant.

When the series ended, because of how it had deteriorated over the course of the last few years i just stopped thinking about it. Only thing that really, really bugged me was Naruto telling his son to endure his loneliness. This just felt really OOC to me, as I would have figured Naruto would be very involved with his family considering his background not to mention how, if all those talk no jutsu meant anything, he himself could have become a villain due to his own loneliness as a child.

Then I heard about him becoming a bad father in the Boruto movie. Then there was the whole revelation that his feelings for Sakura were only to compete with Sasuke, as well as they were trying to make his bond with Hinata the most important one of his life over the likes of Team 7, and this had been so since way before the series began in a meeting Naruto didn't even remember (you'd think he would have latched onto Hinata all things considered). I didn't watch the anime, but the later revelations over what they did with his character just really, really left a bad taste in my mouth. It really felt like they didn't understand the character, and in order to continue milking the franchise they have defaced him. And a big part of this was freaking Hinata who has constantly shown herself to be just as obsessed with Naruto as Sakura is to Sasuke.

Kishi uses the word addiction to describe Sakura's feelings towards Sasuke. This word has negative connotations, highly suggesting that even he doesn't understand how they could get together. He has thrown out that line about how awful Sakura would have been to have given up on Sasuke, never mind the body of evidence as to why it would be alright to do so, while saying he would have felt bad if Hinata didn't win Naruto. That really seems so very, very wrong to me. Sakura has to end up in a toxic relationship with someone she has an unhealthy obsession with otherwise she is bad, while Hinata's obsession with Naruto at the cost of Neiji, her sister and even her kids is something to be rewarded. Sakura had growth that should have had her doing otherwise, growth Hinata didn't have.

Have to agree with NaruIno. There's just something about that pairing that clicks when done right. Maybe it's just that Ino feels like some weird cross between Naruto and Sakura, so some aspects of her personality would mesh with Naruto's while having some of the same points as NaruSaku.

Though really, I like NarukoxSasuke when they're handled well. Love NarutoxFemSasuke but those are rarer.

The Chunin exams is often where I point to. Not to say that this is where the writing went bad, but this is where the problems first took root. This is where the cast started to rapidly balloon out, taking the focus away from Team 7 in order to give side characters a time to shine (with appropriate flashbacks to flesh them out as well as the world). This is where Naruto is given not one but two opponents who act as dark reflections of himself and he befriends them through his words. This is where some serious jumps in power start to happen, as Naruto eventually learns to summon the Frog Boss to fight another Tailed Beast, Sasuke is given a deadly assassination technique, and Gaara can crush people to death in Sand. This is where Sasuke starts going down the path of darkness. And you can't really help but feel it's happening too soon for them to be at this stage like this should have been later on as Team 7 learned more techniques, completely more missions and held firmer bonds than they had at this stage.

As time went on, these elements became more problematic. It was like the series kept trying to repeat what it did to get popular in the first place, which caused the story to deteriorate over time. It reminds me a lot of Gundam SEED and it's sequel for this reason. The over-use of flashbacks became a running joke among fans, talk no jutsu became reviled as most adversaries ended up boiling down to "what if Naruto went bad?" as well as expecting the audience to just forget whatever atrocities they did afterwards, during the war they begin adding new characters and expanding the worldbuilding to pad out the time, and fights became more DBZ-like making early opponents like Zabuza look weak in retrospect.

The state Naruto ended in was something a long-time coming.

I think part of the reason why Sakura gets hate is based around how some people want to see Naruto. It's like, how should I say this, I kinda get the feeling that there are fans who don't see Naruto as he is in canon, instead they see the character how they want to see him. He becomes more of a self-insert as these fans twist his personality as they see fit. He goes from being a bad student to secretly hiding his real skills because he "knows" people would be scared of him if he went all out. He'll start actively bashing characters the fans dislike, while getting chummy with the ones they do. You'll get the infamous civilian council from fanfiction actively making his life a living hell, making him more of a victim even when it's not backed up by canon.

Naruto's journey is supposed to be one of gaining recognition, not through his power but through his growing maturity. He's supposed to go from a loud-mouthed idiot going on about how strong he really is to an adult who strives to work for the good of those around him. He's very self-centered in the beginning, a trait he's meant to grow out of (though the success of this is debatable).

Enter Sakura. She is someone who, like the rest of the village, didn't like Naruto. Over the course of the series, Naruto did manage to establish a bond with her as he grew up. If he had remained as he did at the start then she would have continued to hate him, and really I wouldn't blame her. In essence, his growing relationship with Sakura also reflects Naruto's own growth as a character.

But there's people who don't want to see it that way. They don't want to see the negative aspects of Naruto's early incarnation, and again want to make him the victim. So Sakura, Sasuke and occasionally Kakashi are all demonized in order to make Naruto look better. And as a result of this, characters who treat Naruto in a positive manner are elevated with people making Hinata their OTP or Iruka having a big brother relationship with Naruto far earlier than canon dictates.