Kundalini_Master

Still trying to get that bad taste out of my mouth... or eyes. Ya' know the horrible ending we were left with. Was wondering if there have been any good fics that sprung up that retell the ending better than the canon. Hell, even fics that retell the last 100 or so chapters better than what we had to endure...

Title says it all. Many of us aren't happy with the ending. Which will probably skew how we rank the series as a whole, but out of 10. 1 being the worst manga you've ever read, and 10 being the best. What would you ran Naruto part 1 and 2 together.

Me, I'd have to give it a 7. There were too many loose threads, out of character moments on several occasions, the war arc the went on for way too long, and not enough development between characters. In the end a lot of the interactions just don't seem believable to me in the grand scheme of things. Don't get me wrong there were some epic battles, funny and heart warming moments, and a bunch of anticipation, but it wasn't consistent or balanced I feel. I really wish I could give it a higher rating since I spent so much time reading the series.

Feel free to use the decimal/point system too.

So I'm not a regular around here, I would mainly hide among the shadows and read peoples opinions on whatever the most recent chapter brought us as far as plot development. That being said the end has come and passed, and to many of us (if not all) it has brought much disappointment, shock, confusion, anger, sadness, etc. I felt and continue to feel this way about the ending my self, after investing so much time and attention to this series only to get burned.

I've accepted it for what it is though, but I couldn't help but wonder 'why?'. What factors could there have been that lead to it ending the way it did. So I decided to bring up the discussion to you guys and see what you think. So there are two primary questions that I'm going to raise with a few of my theories as to what could lead Kishimoto to take his story down this route.

For those who haven't read the last two chapters. Spoiler central.

First question: What factors could have lead Kishimoto to end the manga the way he did?

Now I have a few ideas as to why...

• Perhaps the editors at Jump sat down together with him and discussed the different potential avenues to go down. Let's face it, based on the pairings alone there was bound to be backlash. Regardless of who ended up with who. Do ya' think that maybe the heads at jump had statistics or some sort of information to show which of these pairings were the more popular, both regionally and globally? If that's the case maybe that swayed Kishi to go with the safer couples to save him self the even BIGGER backlash he would have gotten if he went against the majority of the fans.
• Convenience maybe? Not that I think it would have been hard to write for NaruSaku since they've had development for the entire series, but more so for Sasuke and Hinata. Where exactly would their characters be if they didn't end up with Sakura or Naruto? It seems to me that he wanted to end it in a similar fashion to Harry Potter where everyone ends up with someone, with kids, living happily ever after. Just pairing Sasuke with Hinata wouldn't have made much sense, though he could have paired Sasuke with Karin or Hinata with Kiba(maybe...)
• Could it be that since he was (or at least it seems so to me) rushing to resolve everything by 700 that he had no other alternative? I mean, I personally believe he should have had another 10 chapters at least to weave some threads together. If he did take that option he could have worked on how Naruto developed towards becoming Hokage, as well as each characters feelings for whoever they may have had an interest towards. Also giving us an idea as to what may have happened to some of the other characters that didn't even make an appearance in the finale. That's just a few things among many others that he could have touched upon. 
• Or just maybe this was the way he had envisioned the ending to go, I mean you can't blame a person for writing the story that they want to write. He had stated a few years back also that he had already had the ending planned in his head (or something like that..)

That last point brings me to my second question, which probably has no real answer to it. This one has more to do with NaruSaku than the ending as a whole in general. Basically...

Second Question: Why all the development? Why lead us on for YEARS? if he had know it was going to end this way.

Think of all the reasons why we collectively supported this pairing from a canon stand point. From Naruto's initial feelings for her from the beginning of the series, the promise of a lifetime, Yamatos chit chat with her on Naruto after the bridge incident, Sai's confrontation to both of them and their feelings for one another, Kushina's dying wish for him, all the parallels, the hug, the kiss, the chemistry, the list goes on.... and on.

So why go through all the trouble? I feel this ending would have been embraced a bit more (not much though) if he had never even alluded to Naruto having feelings for Sakura. That way we would have just accepted the outcome in the finale, because there would have been no development for the two. Now he's having to deal with a disgruntled faction of his fanbase. He either should have answered all the questions to the pairings a looooong time ago, or not have touched it at all. Regardless of who ended up with who. Honestly even though Sasuke and Hinata didn't get as much development with their respective couples as NaruSaku did with one another, it still would have raised the same question only towards another pairing.

Why sprinkle this stuff in if you're bound to upset your loyal fans? 

The way he did it was unfair to us as well, because if he did take another 10 to 50 chapters to flesh out the relationships then at least we could have seen why it ended up the way it did. We could have seen Narutos confession to Sakura and her response, we could have see his response to Hinatas confession from the pain arc, we could have seen where Sasuke and Karin stood with one another. There could have been a wealth of options for him to allow us to accept his vision a bit more easily. Instead he didn't, and just shoved this conclusion and epilogue down our throats.

Say what you will about Kishimoto, but I'm sure he's an intelligent man. He had to know this was going to upset many people. Do you think he just kept teasing the pairing on us to keep up his sales? While it not being a primary reason for a person to read the series, it still kept many of us to come back to have some sort of resolution. We're talking about almost (what is it?) TWO YEARS of a war arc, and you're telling me you couldn't have found some time before, during, or after to resolve the feelings these characters have for one another?

I think the real reason over any other as to why he did it though, was because he didn't want to upset his fans earlier than he should have. I think he was afraid of the backlash (though I obviously don't know the man, nor do I have anything to substantiate my theory) because maybe he didn't know right away what he was doing with the pairings, and didn't know that it would have snowballed the way it did with having these different factions of fans supporting these couples. So perhaps he forced him self into a corner and just wanted to please all the fans by giving snippets here and there until he needed to make a decision.

Because I think he was the first to admit way back during part 1 that he didn't even know how to write romance all to well to begin with. Well, it shows Kishimoto. It shows.

Well that's some of the ideas that I think could have lead to this debacle, let me know some of yours.