Posted 27 October 2013 - 02:57 PM
The thing is after part 1 ended, Kishi could have played a safe road and just make friendships developments for Naruto and Sakura, but he went far as to romance. Sakura is doing the tossing questions at the audience while Naruto is already been in written in stone. The draw the line was arguably the beginning of part 2 or Sai/Sasuke arc. In many other shounens, he could have just keep it steady at friendships and lots of them do that, but if you have characters doing more than that, then you're in a different zone altogether.
Another way to play the safe route is to have one character being oblivious and the other one showing possible love for the character though it can be done in normal casual way rather than a serious moment. The problem with Naruto is that while he is oblivious, he does in fact loves Sakura, so that's like 50% done. As for Sakura, her moments should not even happen with Naruto but they are. She has gotten normal and serious moments with Naruto, so now, it's far too late to back out from this. Back out and fans would be disappointed. The least damage you can do is to have the love interest to grow fond of the protagonist, but don't go deep with them as in something a movie would tackle on. So pretty much, the damage is done.