Yeah, SP pretty much made her popular, they made her more important than she really was. I mean you can see Kishimoto at first (again, I say at first.) doesn't give a crap about her. For one, she looked more like a boy than Sakura does when Sakura first appears. Even in later chapters Hinata still isn't that well drawn, she actually looks pretty dang creepy. For two, Kishimoto doesn't have her appear in the manga till closer to the chunin exams (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong), and finally, he barely develops her character at all. Heck, she's barely even in the manga! Kiba's dog appears more times then she does.
On the other hand SP made her "cuter" and more feminine like, they over sexualized her, (starting at 12 flippin years old with the naked waterfall dance in a filler episode) and make her small scenes from the manga, bigger and longer. They go as far as to add scenes into these moments that never even happened in the manga. They even make her animation look better than everyone else's, including Naruto's, who is the main character.... They even allowed her to appear in early stages of the Naruto anime, (pretty sure) the third episode, to have her say one line, "I guess I won't be on the same team as Naruto."
So, yeah, all SP's doing and fans just fell for her.
Even when she freaking fails hard, SP animates her like she's the main character. Just look at her rock-tripping moment compared to the CPR moment and others with Naruto and/or Sakura. They look so flat and plain by comparison. SP even had to animate Kurama chakra around Sakura in the anime when, IIRC, in the manga, she had none left, which is why she had to resort to using such old, hands-on medical methods like using a small chakra scalpel to cut a way to Naruto's heart and manually pump it while performing CPR. SP knew that this showed just how much more determined and strong Sakura was in regards to Naruto, that even when she had no Kurama chakra left, she would still do her absolute best to reach him on her own strength alone, help him, and stand by him, as opposed to their precious "princess" who, even with Kurama chakra left, trips on a rock and immediately gives up on trying to reach Naruto right there. That's right, she trips once and she gives up, even when it comes to the one she supposedly "loves" dying right before her eyes.
From what i understand this has also backfired for nana. Because of her popularity they made a character for her in the toriko anime (not the manga) and at one point she was given a filler arc that caused a backlash so bad that the anime was cancelled (the fans have not forgiven her for that and brought it up when Naruto ending happened). For those who don't remember at one point it was a rising star in SJ and had taken bleach's place in the top three and was bound to pass Naruto at some points. Now? I felt i had to bring up it pass success and popularity just to remind people how popular it once was.
I don't really blame Nana or the VAs, much like I don't blame actors/actresses (all the time anyway) for movies that may end up bad. Much of the time, just like here with Naruto, it's the fault of the writers and other higher-ups for things getting messed up, cheesy, etc. for one reason or another, and the actors/actresses simply have to try to make due with what they are given.
Like when Ben Affleck was announced to being Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman v. Superman, there was TONS of hate and bashing with people thinking that he'd "ruin the movie like he ruined Daredevil" when, if one thinks about it, all things considered, he actually did a decent job in Daredevil, but rather it was other things that made it so great.
Or the Star Wars prequels - many of the actors/actresses in of themselves were great for their roles. It was just some parts of the story and other in-universe characters that were off (like a certain Gungan).
Correct. They took their personalities and qualities and turned them to 11 and beyond. Truth is SP overly exaggerated these characters.
They took Naruto being not so bright, and made him into a true moron.
They took Sakura's tsundere, and made her into someone who just punches Naruto because.
They took all the characters and made caricatures out of them.
The whole "If they like them now, then they'll like them even MORE if we increase <whatever>!" without realizing that there is such a thing as "too much".
I think this is a really good point. But I also think it's worth noting that Hinata DID have potential at the end of Part I to turn into an interesting character. I've posted this before, but I think there was a lot of material Kishi could have exploited to make her an interesting character and a strong kunoichi worthy of Naruto's affections.
As I mentioned elsewhere, it wasn't really so much "Hinata's" potential as "Neji's" with Hinata as a catalyst. Of course, not to say she didn't have potential at all, but that the Chunin Exams weren't really her moment at all as much as Naruto's and Neji's.
It really is interesting how popular Hinata has become especially here in America, at least from what I've seen/read. I don't know if I'm just an outlier but I'm a guy who wants a girl who is going to speak up for herself, stick to her convictions and be my equal, not a doormat. And from what we got in the manga and the films, Hinata is nothing like that, she is quiet, doesn't speak her mind and gives up pretty easily (though she does get Naruto) on her dreams. My favorite female character is most certainly Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, she optimizes what a real female lead should be; brave, outspoken and not willing to back down from adversity. Even though I didn't like how JKR put Hermione with Ron, she certainly did things right when creating a true female hero and 2nd tier character (since Harry is 1st tier). Is Hinata's personality and characterization just a result of Japanese culture or something else?
Yeah, I definitely find myself more attracted to the more confident, fun, outgoing, outspoken, etc. type (but not to the point of total airhead and such, or something lol) than the shy type. Probably because, off the computer, I'm a bit quiet myself, so it would be great to have that balance. It's probably why I wish there was a lot more Anko (as she was introduced anyway) in the series.
(Other examples of such anime females like that I like being Madoka from Rinne no Lagrange, Uzume/Matsu/Kazehana from Sekirei, Erza from Fairy Tail, etc.)
Here is a question for you. Do you think that if Sakura was given big boobs just like Hinata and SP would've given her lots of filler moments and fanservice, would people still prefer Hinata over Sakura?
Edit. Sakura's personality wouldn't change she would still remain the same except bigger boobs.
As long as otakus got to see a lot of jiggling whenever Sakura acted out, I think they'd be willing to overlook it, lol. After all, how many of them even remember that Tsunade's young appearance is merely a genjutsu, that she's in her 50s, and according Jiraiya when he sees her without the genjutsu shortly before she becomes the Hokage, has not aged well (we never once see her face without the genjutsu).
I can't really say I ever liked Hinata, but I didn't dislike her until the ending of the manga and The Last film. To me, she wasn't a big enough part of the manga to waste time liking or disliking, and I think that's my biggest issue with Naruto. We know so little about Hinata, outside of her world pretty much revolving around Naruto, that we are geared toward disliking her. All that we know about Hinata is that she's extremely shy, thought weak by her family and that she has a overwhelming crush on Naruto. With Neji, we found out why he hated Hinata (due to his father's death stemming from Hinata being kidnapped) but we still never found out why her father thought her weak, or why her sister thought herself stronger than Hinata. Hinata's potential and characterization is so poorly done that we can't help but dislike her because it seems that all she cares about is Naruto (though this is on Kishimoto more than Hinata herself). Heck, her dream of uniting the Hyuga clan apparently is never achieved because she is just a housewife.
Yeah, the execution was the biggest problem for much of the story rather than the ideas themselves. A number of the ideas wouldn't have seemed so bad if they weren't just thrown in our faces out of nowhere or at least developed a lot better. Like, the idea of Kaguya and Hamura actually aren't necessarily bad ideas in of themselves, but the way they were literally just pulled out the rear for forced convenience, as well as, by doing so, killing previously established points, is what killed them (to have someone to kill Madara in Kaguya's case, and to force Hinata further down people's throats with Hamura).
It seems to be a running theme that all of the Naruto characters are hypocrites now.
Heck, when one looks back on things now, Konoha as a whole was a hypocrisy right from the start of the story. They claimed to be the "peaceful village", yet behind the scenes, still were doing top secret missions to undermine the other major villages, including assassinations and such. And while the main Konoha Kages as a whole, may have been peaceful people overall, it didn't change the fact that, just like the other major powers, it was still a dictatorship where people within the village itself could be seen as just as, if not more dangerous than those outside. It's where you can draw the various US Cold War comparisons like the Uchiha Massacre could be the equivalent of if the Red Scare got out of hand (cause we know there were many people itching to just off those they believed were Communists/Communist sympathizers, etc.), the top secret black ops missions being like the various CIA and other such missions throughout the world to establish US dominance while, in the US itself, we would claim to be the "peaceful" nation trying to "save" the world from the "evil Communists", and so on.
Persona 5 hype 
