There's a term for that. It's called "Franchise Killer".
Ironically, Naruto has always been in top 3 until 2013. We are talking about one of the best-selling manga franchise in the history (250million in its 15 years run).
They were a frequent top 2 or 3 in the list for the longest time. They clearly loosing sales after volume 64 came out (the one with NH handholding cover). This was the first time ever, if I recall correctly, they lost 20% sales year-on-year and keep declining until today. I would imagine that at that point, The Last movie was already in production (it takes about 2 years to make animated movie).
After NH handholding scene, the scene where Naruto mentioned Sakura is her girlfriend in front of Minato (and in front of Hinata) was drawn and also the CPR scene (the only kissing scene between opposing gender in the manga) were created to cast doubt, so the fandom financing the series (NS) won't go away.
Now we all know which fandom was actually financing the series and make it afloat in top 3 for the longest time.
Remove NS and it only takes 5 years for Naruto franchise, who used to be in top 3 AND one of the best-selling manga all time, to be completely out of top 50. Wow!
Never in the history of manga industry this happened to an active franchise. Let alone the 4th best-selling manga franchise all time (https://en.m.wikiped...t-selling_manga)
That's NH/SS for you. The smallest dog barks the loudest indeed. I believe no one in the production team would have ever imagined this when they went with NH/SS route. This makes NH/SS the franchise killer for Naruto.
To be honest, I think the reason for the discrepancies between the manga and the movie was The Last was not originally suppose to be canon.
SP Naruto anime staff had always loudly proclaimed that they were huge Hinata fans. Since, it was their last movie they wanted it to be about Hinata, and since it didn't matter as the story was seen as filler they wanted her to get with Naruto; maybe angle it so they can make them end up together in the anime. Kishimoto didn't care because he didn't consider a filler movie canon.
However, Naruto was ending, and the companies wanted to keep making money from it. Which meant they wanted a sequel if Naruto was ending. Also, companies want one product that will get them the most bang for their buck. So they wanted to make sure Naruto ended in a way that would give them the most amount of profits. So either the editors or SP brought up Hinata's popularity with the international fans, the very demographic they wanted. So, they went with it and came up with the Path to Boruto plan -a year long plan to build up to a sequel that they assume will give them the money they wanted-; helped along by the fact that there was already a Hinata movie in development. Of course another movie was then put into development to hype up the sequel as well.
I say it was decided around the time of Naruto and Sasuke near-death experience, and was finalized right before Kaguya was defeated.
I swear that someone once mentioned that it was clear the marketing team realized how bad of an idea it was, which is why they made the Last trailers seem to hint that it was a NS movie.
nH/SS crippled the series. Boruto was the deathblow, due to it being unable to impress and retain its customers.
Edited by Bail o' Lies, 13 December 2021 - 09:17 AM.
