Dario

*On Naruto's character

 

Naruto isn't a perfect person. He understands a lot about the pain of loss, loneliness, wanting to be accepted and he can relate to those with these issues butthat doesn't mean he is some master guru who understands everything. Naruto had never experienced real romantic love though, especially towards himself. If Naruto was such an emotional master he would've seen through Hinata years ago. 

Naruto himself stated that he doesn't know much when it comes to girls when he says that when saying goodbye to his father.

 

l like how you talked about context before and now you're completely ignoring it in favor of some vague blanket statements about Naruto not being perfect or an "emotional master", because obviously you've got to be an emotional master to make the difference between romance and love for food. 

Anyway, here's some context for you:

-during the PoAL, he tells Sakura who's in tears after being rejected by Sasuke that he understands how she feels with a sad look on his face. This is blatantly telling the readers he's in love with Sakura like she's in love with Sasuke and knows the pain of romantic rejection.

-he asks his mother how she and his dad fell in love and blushes after being told the story. He knows about romantic couples.

-he blushes when Sai asks him if he likes Sakura and tells him he can't confess because he can't keep his promise. How anybody could think this very serious approach to romance fits with the Last's insultingly flippant "hurr it's not the same as liking ramen??" rationalization is beyond me.

-he gets incredibly pissed at Sakura lying to him about her feelings. Again if he had no idea what romantic love was he wouldn't have acted like that and the way he thinks love confessions are a big deal is completely at odds with him ignoring Hinata's.

So no, there's just no way in hell Naruto could realistically think a girl sacrificing her life for him while telling him she loves him meant that she likes him like her favorite food. It's simply absurd and makes Naruto come off as an alien who simply doesn't function like a human being. It destroys yet another key aspect of his characterization (his empathy) just like his 5 stars lineage destroyed his "don't lose to DNA" early theme or him collapsing in tears after failing half a dozen time during part 2 destroyed his perseverance and toughness. Naruto isn't perfect true and he doesn't need to be, but if you start destroying his original strong points, the things that made him endearing to a lot of people in the beginning, you just get a kitten character. Sadly that's what he became.

l personally interpreted it as Kishimoto kittening all over the good part of his story. Anko was one of the characters l was really interested in when she first appeared and l was really curious to see what Kishimoto would do with her. Turns out he ignored her for hundreds of chapters only to dig her up at the very end and give closure to her character with a fat joke. Says it all really.

In the manga he didn't really pay any attention to her, in the movie he puts her above Sasuke/Sakura. The first few people that reached out to him and became his friends.

l can't believe how much the Naruto-Sakura bond has been destroyed. An entire manga worth of feelings resolved through one line from Sakura implying he never really loved her but just saw her as away to one up Sasuke. What happend to Sakura being one of the persons who saved him from the hell of loneliness? What happend to all these scenes where he admired her strenght and her skills? What happend to the fact she saved his life and supported his dream? Why is this ignored? Are we meant to believe none of that meant anything, that it couldn't explain why he loved Sakura but his complete indifference towards Hinata foreshadowed him falling for her? This makes Naruto's character feel so empty and fake to me in hindsight and this is probably what l hate the most.

This rumor makes no sense. The ending of Naruto was specific to the series and it'd be absurd for other artists to emulate it, especially to "show support" or whatever. The thing with Naruto's ending is it was entirely dominated by pairings/couples and the forced conclusion of the love triangles, but most popular series currently published don't have romance or at least not romance comparable to Naruto's. 

You can't defend Kishi's bad writing. If you NH fans say "I like to see you make a better ending." Well maybe I can. It may suck but at least it's more realistic then this crap.

These idiots don't realize that even their terrible arguments about how NH would happen were better than that trash. Like Naruto moving on and answering Hinata's confession offscreen, them "getting to know eachother better" and going on dates offscreen, all that offscreen development we laughed at, it'd have been bad of course but compared to this it now looks like genius writing. 

l don't think l'll ever get over "she likes me like l like ramen" and Naruto STILL ignoring her for two years. For crying out loud, they live in the same damn city, they're working the same job, don't they go on missions together? If ninjas even go on missions now that it's world peace, but of course let's not think too hard about it or else the awful worldbuilding would become too egregious. How am l suppose to buy people like that could exist? Two freaking years of awkward silences between the two and Naruto as a popular, horny teenager that conveniently stays single and pure for Princess Hinata? This is so ridiculous.

Is that legit conversation between them from the movie  . Please tell me it isn't  is this guy kittening insane is he mocking us and our intelligence    . 

Yes, it's an actual conversation. And then Shikamaru brings him to Sakura who tells him the infamous lines about never loving her seriously and how young girls can't give up on their first love, and Naruto stops being depressed because he knows Hinata loves him and not the pointless filler villain ! What a great friendship, almost like a brother and sister relationship one would say!

Barfing uncontrollably.

LOL, l ain't even mad anymore. No SS, unrecognizable characters, no attempts whatsoever at giving credible reasoning for Naruto moving on and falling for Hinata, sickly sweet "plot" that sounds like a 12 year old brony wrote it... lt's so obviously an asspull and it comforts me at least in one thing: we were right, we were the ones who understood these characters and their relationships correctly. Too bad the author has mental issues.

kittening hell l just saw the spoiler about Naruto thinking that Hinata's confession was like him liking ramen. No. No no nononono no no. l'm done. This isn't funny, this isn't believable, this is just appalling. Naruto not being booksmart is one thing, him not understanding complicated words and concepts is coherent with his characterization, but HE'S NEVER BEEN EMOTIONALLY RETARDED. He's supposed to be the COMPLETE OPPOSITE, he can understand people's feelings and empathize with them. To even imply he didn't understand Hinata's confession makes everything the character stood for pointless.

Oh but at least he has tons of fangirls now! Kill me.

Agree. The big wtf was naruto only loved sakura due to rivalry with sasuke. This is coming from sakura.

This is the biggest bs. Sounds like a bunch basement dwellers who have no social skills came up with this.

This right here is what killed Naruto's character once and for all. lt completely belittles him as a character, just like these idiot SS/NH arguments said: it's just a silly crush, he doesn't know what love is, he's an immature moron unlike Sakura whose love is super sirius, he'll find happiness and learn true love with Hinata, not with his teammate who was by his side all this time, his job is to make SS happen and then he can kitten off making his life with someone else.

Third wheel, disingenuous loser with weak feelings: this is our hero ladies and gentleman. Kishimoto you complete piece of kitten.

None of us do and with the horrendous excuses that he give us I doubt we ever will understand this kitten .

 

This is the first time I see the MC and hero of the story be downgraded like this when he's supposed to be the heart and soul of his own story  his feelings should be the purest  if they are shallow then how can we take any of his goals seriously ? 

This, a thousand times this.

TheNaruto character is completely ruined to me. What a sad, sick joke. How am l supposed to take his bonds and his nindo seriously? He only cared about Sakura as an extension of his kittening insane obsession with Sasuke and IGNORED his future wife for the entire narrative, even two yearrs after she confessed to him and nearly died in his face.

What a pathetic loser, what a failure. What a waste of time... 7 years spent hoping for this guy to grow up into an admirable hero and this is the end result... I want to puke.

 

At the end of the day it's the female characters that get torn down because of shipping, and it's sad to see. I guess it's not too surprising, but it always does make me shake my head at how much a fandom can claim to love female characters/women, yet turn around and do the exact opposite. Sakura's not at fault here, she loved Sasuke from chapter three onward. That was just her being in character. The manga...was not about you getting over bonds. It was about keeping them. And Naruto, it's weird to me that there's this mentality that just because you do the bare minimum of being a decent human being, that you somehow deserve a woman...as if she's a prize? Like, what? If Sakura's feelings weren't swayed, then that's the end. She's not a prize, she's a person. Naruto was a nice guy, not a NiceGuy™

 

I'm glad that Naruto was a decent human being and moved on. If you're only nice to someone to essentially get with another person, then you're not a 'nice guy'. You're a manipulative jerk. I like seeing Naruto not end up that way.

 

In my fanon, Naruto and Sakura are together. I enjoyed the pairing enough not to need canon. And well, canon is kind of over here anyway.

l like how you didn't address any of the very real issues with Sakura's portrayal and complete lack of the semblance of a character arc only to focus on that typical pseudo feminist outrage at the way the fandom perceives her, as if it was our fault, as if we had to find Sakura great just because she was a girl. There's even the little part about Nice Guys, how delightful. l guess you can take solace on the fact you're sharing the same views as the SS fandom. You're in good company.

 

I agree with you that Kishi could have done better. However, I don't agree with you when you say that Sakura is simply pairing fodder, because that's not true. For a NaruSaku fan, this answer surprises the most. Sakura's been by Naruto's side all this time. They may not be a couple, but not being one doesn't erase the past. If Sakura forgave Sasuke, then it's forgiven, and I fail to see how this makes her a worse character than Naruto, who has done worse things for his so called best friend.

 

Sakura wanted to go with Sasuke so he wouldn't be lonely anymore. That's very kind of her and I can't hate it. It's perfectly IC of her too, she has been kind and she has always wanted to help him, and that is consistent with her character. She has forgiven him and if that's genuine, there's no point in going back and forth with it. She likes him and is asking to go with him, of course she's blushing. I understand some will hate it, but it's not OOC or regression.

 

Going with him doesn't mean that she was abandoning her friends and family either. She may go for a time, but she would come back eventually. Jiraiya and Itachi weren't permanent residents, yet they were loyal to the village all along. Tsunade and Shizune eventually came back to the village after leaving it. Naruto left temporarily for three years too. I see no difference.

 

 

I don't think he will, but who knows at this point. Imagine Naruto calling Hinata with -chan suffix though.

Oh for crying out loud. SHUT THE kitten UP WITH THE IDIOTIC SS ARGUMENTS. I'm coming here because l thought it'd be a safe haven from all the nonsense found everywhere else Naruto related on the internet only to find stupid defenses of the end mess.

Sakura is pairing fodder. She hasn't succeeded in any of her stated goals in the narrative outside of getting Sasuke's D and even that wasn't thanks to her own efforts, actions and agency but because she knew a guy who could fix Sauce and deliver him to her on a silver platter. She didn't bring back Sasuke alongside Naruto. She didn't "show them her back" and stop being a hindrance to her teammates as she was completely pointless in everything combat related, being absurdly weaker than both Sasuke and Naruto. Even her medical training ended up amounting to nothing as the last image we see of her, the thing people will ultimately remember is her dusting the shelves of her house in the middle of the day while everyone else is working. She never stopped crying and being useless, she admits it herself before the SN fight.

And yes, Naruto's character was ruined too (for different reasons) and yes, sadly, even if NS happend, the same way SS happend, with Sakura being a housewife and nothing else, she'd still be pairing fodder. The only difference is she wouldn't have had to go through the abject humiliation of instantly forgiving the guy who treated her lower than dog kitten for 80% of the narrative and abandoning all her other loved ones for him. Christ, and there's people defending this kitten.

 

Bingo! This guy gets it.

 

People are just bashing Kishimoto and calling him sexist when in reality, the problem is that Kishimoto sees Sasuke as a poor victim of all the uchiha hatred and blah blah blah.

 

When you look at Sasuke from that angle,  Sakura will appear shallow if she gave up on poor Sasuke and goes after the hero Naruto. 

 

Kishimoto's view on women isn't the issue. It is his view on Sasuke. That is what he has in comon with SasuSaku fans,

l don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Obviously one of the manga's biggest issue is the overbearing focus on Sasuke and what it represents, but it doesn't change the fact Kishimoto has written a sexist and arguably misogynistic conclusion.

For ex, even if SS didn't happen, Hinata would still be pairing fodder. That's sexist. SS is just the rotten cherry on top of the kitten sunday.

I completely agree with you. What hurt me the most was seeing that adult Naruto. It was as if his soul had been ripped off him and he was living an empty life, devoid of happiness. And housewife Sakura..? Words fail me. 

l think the worst part for me is the way he looks and the implied message he wanted to look like Obito. l remember when l tried to picture the ending in my mind, l was seeing hokage Naruto who looked like his father with the same kind of haircut, or maybe the Gutsy Ninja from the pain arc, with Sakura proudly standing at his side... And we get this thing. LOL.

Because obviously your main character should look like the terrible person who ruined his life for idiotic reasons, not like his father, a true hero. Afterall Obito was "the coolest guy". 

I think when they say 'unbiased' they mean 'unbiased translator' cause his translations are accurate most of the times irrespective of how it affects any pairings. Though I can't know for sure. Only other translators like ramenanmitsu and rikudou can confirm. 

He's accurate because he's Japanese, but he always adds his own opinion which makes him the complete opposite of unbiased. A true unbiased translator (which probably doesn't exist as you always have to interpret words according to your own personal values) would just translate things in the most literal way and let people interpret them as they want.