Rakshas

Yeah, like others said, I'm not sure it can even qualify as a red herring even if that's what he intended it to be.  Kishimoto admits he is bad at romance.  So he pretty much leaves it out for the main character and his true love interest, then develops a budding love between Naruto and Sakura as a red herring?  That is completely asinine.  Maybe Kishimoto was able to write NaruSaku because he was intending it to be fake, the problem is it ended up being far to substantial for NaruHina to have a legit leg to stand on.  Regardless of what his original intentions were, Naruto and Sakura had chemistry.  If a couple has chemistry, development, and makes sense, you don't just throw it away for a terrible and  undeveloped side character pair EVEN IF that's what you planned on in the first place.  Why?  Because it's bad writing.  It really leaves a bad taste in my mouth either way.  The shallow nature of NaruHina kind of makes me want to vomit.

But I will say this.  I have disliked Naruto intensely since the hyperventilating scene in LOI.  I began to dislike it since the nature training arc.  I have a feeling Naruto started going downhill since part II where Kishimoto may have started having more free reign in his work.  Part I may have been good because of influence from the editors.  Here is the deal, from my point of view  Kishimoto had a decent concept to start with, and his editors helped him immensely in his creation of what would be a pretty good part I.  Kishimoto is not a good writer, the editors are.  The less influence they have, the worse his work becomes.  I only continued reading the series because I thought NaruSaku was an interesting pair and I wanted to see how it would be resolved.  Anyway, that's my take on it.

On a side note, I hope this same thing doesn't happen in Bleach, where the main pairing that's basically written as soul mates (with a bond far stronger than NaruSaku IMO) also gets thrown in the trash.  (Sorry if you like IchiHime XD).

You know what? The problem isn't that NaruHina wasn't well written.  It's that NaruHina wasn't written at all in the first place.

I'm just a bit down that I liked Sakura's character, but only when it was void of Sasuke.  Right now it feels like Sakura is dead and gone, or was never there to begin with.  Character deconstruction to the maximum :(.  It's weird, because now that she has been relegated to Sasuke's housewife, I'm feeling myself forgetting her relevenance and being altogether.  Makes it somewhat easier to come to terms with NaruHina in a sick sort of way.

I posted this as a reply in another thread, but I'm curious as to what others thoughts are on this.  Anyway, the question...was Kishimito forced into this ending.

I think the whole reason we saw no interaction between Naruto and Sakura was because Kishimoto literally couldn't pull it off and make it seem believable.  Any in character scene between the two would have made the other two pairings look far worse than they are now, which is saying something. The whole thing is suspect to me.  We don't even have a word spoken between Hinata and Naruto.  Sakura has the Uzumaki female hairsyle, her kid looks like Karin, and she is relegated to being a housewife.  Sakura's character was dismantled and recreated into some sort of abomination this chapter, but it almost looks like Kishimoto is saying something with the Kushina parralels, like NS was meant to be, but he wasn't allowed to pursue that path.  I find it really sad that he is putting all of Naruto's romantic development in the movie when he had so much development for NaruSaku.   It's almost as if he couldn't stand writing any meaningful NH in his own manga and thus dumped it on SP.   I truly think he washed his hands of the matter, and I find it hard to believe he is happy right now with that ending he just delivered.

Maybe I'm wrong, but for me this points to Kishi not really having a choice in the matter.  The editor's or SP or whomever, guided his hand for these final chapters. If he really wanted Naruto and Hinata as the final pairing, wouldn't he have shown it more love in the manga?  Wouldn't he have given them at least ONE word with each other in the final chapter and epilogue of his life's work?  I'll refrain from too heavy criticism of the man until I get an interview regarding or including this conclusion.  I think he, at the very least, owes our portion of the fan-base an explanation.

You wanna the really pathetic thing about this chapter? Utterly no mention of Naruto's promise of a life time. Not even so much as a thank you from Sakura. That kitten right there? That's how you know this ending is forced. A major moment in Naruto and Sakura's development as characters (not just a pairing) plays no relevance whatsoever. Not even so much as a platonic acknowledgement. Sakura is simply portrayed as an inconsiderate fangirl buffoon. Which is a real shame. Sakura had potential. Could've stood out as a phenomenal female heroine and a good role model for girls everywhere. Instead, she ends up succumbing to the same pitfalls and idiocy many other series let their female characters waste away in.

I think the whole reason we saw no interaction between Naruto and Sakura was because Kishimoto literally couldn't pull it off and make it seem believable.  Any in character scene between the two would have made the other two pairings look far worse than they are now, which is saying something. The whole thing is suspect to me.  We don't even have a word spoken between Hinata and Naruto.  Sakura has the Uzumaki female hairsyle, her kid looks like Karin, and she is relegated to being a housewife.  Sakura's character was dismantled and recreated into some sort of abomination this chapter, but it almost looks like Kishimoto is saying something with the Kushina parralels, like NS was meant to be, but he wasn't allowed to pursue that path.  I find it really sad that he is putting all of Naruto's romantic development in the movie when he had so much development for NaruSaku.   It's almost as if he couldn't stand writing any meaningful NH in his own manga and thus dumped it on SP.   I truly think he washed his hands of the matter, and I find it hard to believe he is happy right now with that ending he just delivered.

Maybe I'm wrong, but for me this points to Kishi not really having a choice in the matter.  The editor's or SP or whomever, guided his hand for these final chapters. If he really wanted Naruto and Hinata as the final pairing, wouldn't he have shown it more love in the manga?  Wouldn't he have given them at least ONE word with each other in the final chapter and epilogue of his life's work?  I'll refrain from too heavy criticism of the man until I get an interview regarding or including this conclusion.  I think he, at the very least, owes our portion of the fan-base an explanation.

I think a lot of these people enjoy looking for things to make themselves worry.  A sick sort of enjoyment.

"What are you going to do today NaruSaku depressed fan #3?"

"Well I'm going to browse the internet for things that look pro NaruHina to get myself depressed."

 

Its post like these that make me doubt NH happening at all, and if it does, also makes me remember how absurd the romantic subplot of Naruto is. If NH happens in this movie, that is dumb. It could still happening, but it would be dumb (No offense any NH shippers lurkers who reading this).

In general I am skeptical of this whole movie being canon, mostly because of the plot and the sudden focus of Hinata. It is probably canon, yet it just doesn't... seem important enough to be consider canon... You know what I mean?

  Yep, the movie being canon and having NH would basically be telling me that Kishimito didn't care about his main character's romantic subplot.  Oh, but he cares about other characters' romantic subplots, just not the title main character's, at least not enough to put it in his 700 chapter manga.  It's like it would be two different authors writing the same manga.  Going to say this though, if his editors have a hand in a potential NH canonization and Kishimoto was forced to do it despite his original designs, that would be very sad indeed.  I think his manga is successful enough that he would be able ignore something like that though.

So after thinking about this trailer and it's implications there are several issues that I've noticed if NH becomes canon in this movie.  We know that at the very least in the beginning NH is not a thing/still at the base friendship stage, and this is the most glaring problem I have.  What this means is that there are going to be no panels of Naruto pursuing Hinata in 699 when IT is released.  It also means that all events in the manga where Naruto's actions could be construed as supposedly changing his feelings to those of a more romantic light in regards to Hinata are essentially confirmed to be purely platonic.  So where does this leave us?  Well that means the entirety of the romantic subplot in Naruto isn't even present in the manga itself, and instead 100% is completed in the movie (that is, if NH becomes canon).

This wouldn't really be all that bad if Kishimoto didn't care at all who Naruto's love interest is and thus didn't bother with romance in the first place.  The problem is he did bother with the romance, and despite being a shonen, romance in Naruto has had quite an impact on the plot.  We all know of the various unrequited love scenarios, but the most significant imo is ObiRin.  Obito went completely insane after and because of Rin's death, thereby causing all the horrific events that have led up to where we are now.  You could even argue that the main ongoing conflict in Naruto is simply because Rin, Obito's love interest, died.  Now consider Kishimoto that has been building up the Sakura/Naruto relationship for a while now and it only keeps getting stronger.  There are panels all throughout the manga displaying Sakura's change in feelings for Naruto, and argueable Sasuke.  On the otherhand we have Naruto, who has stagnated with his relationship with Hinata as merely a good friend  (and that's actually being very generous).  I say this relationship has stagnated because as I said earlier, the instances where people have argued that he is starting to look at her in a romantic light are debunked due to no development between the two from 699 to The Last.  Kishimoto doesn't ignore romantic sublots, they are a core part of the manga.

Romance IS important in Naruto, and Kishimoto does take it seriously.  I can't seriously believe that he would develop other pairings, especially something like ObiRin, then have his main character's romance be completely non existent for the entirety of his manga.  That is essentially what it means if NH is canonized in the movie.  It's a direct statement that Naruto and his potential love interests had no meaningful development.  No one is going to tell me and have me believe that Naruto was too shy to confess to Hinata in 699, not the loudmouth, heart worn on his sleeve Naruto.  No, Naruto feels only comradeship with Hinata through and to the end of 699, or else canonization of NH in the movie doesn't make sense/is in an alternate universe. 

As for NaruSaku, we still don't know how their relationship stands in The Last.  I hope that they are already a thing in the movie, but I'm somewhat doubtful of that.  That presents similar problems with NaruHina becoming canon in the movie, but not quite as bad imo.  I honestly don't see a good excuse for a Naruto pairing to not already be canon by that time unless it's neither Hinata or Sakura, or an open ending.  Leaving such an important plot point unresolved or spending all of its serious development in the movie is nonsensical when the author obviously does care about the romance (and especially since he already put in the development for the NaruSaku bond).  Despite all this I'm somewhat on the fence with the whole thing.  I'll certainly be dissapointed if NaruSaku doesn't become canon, but at the same time if NaruHina does become canon, the absurdity for the romantic development to only occur in a movie post manga will be enough to make me laugh and feel a bit of pity for those who actually ship the two together.  Who could actually be pleased that their otp's develpment and canonization were in a movie and not present in the manga at all?  At least a NaruSaku movie canonization has 699 chapters of development to back them up.