It makes me wonder if NaruSaku happened, would the ending have seen the backlash it did? I think so on everything except the couples.
Eh, shippers seem to complain no matter what. Given the fanaticism o the NH fanbase, I'm sure they would have complained and the internet would have blown up on how bad the ending was.
Perhaps the difference would be that all the plot points aside from the shipping we've been criticizing here would be a hot topic elsewhere (assuming Kishimoto did everything else the same, though I doubt we would have gotten a NS version of the Last, at least not so soon after the ending).
While I don't think it would have the extreme shipping backlash, I think the double standard would still have been loud and and active.
Because Naruto's with Hinata, all those fans have happily forgotten the fact that Naruto didn't succeed at ANY of his goals. It feels like a happy ending to them, even though it really isn't for the characters.
But if he were with Sakura, then all Naruto's failures and shortcomings would just be added to the reasons why Sakura is so wrong for him. Basically, she would be getting blamed for Naruto's failure to bring Sasuke home, failure to see any real punishment and failure to become Kage within the space of the manga. And any of the dumb things Naruto did aftwerwards (with Hinata and Boruto), would obviously be all Sakura's fault because she's a terrible wife/mother/human/shinobi/etc. Then NH fans would just hate Sakura more, imagining how perfect life would have been with an NaruHina ending. I just don't see a way that Sakura wins. Which sucks.
And yeah - the fact that they had to retcon a whole series makes it glaringly obvious how the story should have ended.
I agree - I always though it would be Sasuke who would die. Or at the very least become the new 'Jiraiya' traveling monk figure — a powerful, fascinating old friend of theirs whose visits to Konoha always meant bad news. But one who lives so far outside of the realm of Konoha's day-to-day that he's nearly forgotten about for half the series. Literally, like Jiraiya. And which is practically the same as being dead - lol.
And yes, you point out just more reasons why Hinata is a waste of space in the story, at NO POINT does she evolve. Not even the death of her beloved cousin could make her change. She doesn't rise up and fill the space left by him in their clan. Her only ambition is to stand beside Naruto and hold his hand. Which is the same as it was before Neji died.
I know people say she had a character evolution in part one, where she stood up to Neji and fought him, all because Naruto inspired her. And yes, it's true. She did rise up there. But I'm not sure it took. Because in the end, she is still completely focused on Naruto. She can't see or do anything for anyone else. Sakura told her to focus on the enemy...but in the end, we know that Hinata never does. So is it a valid character evolution if the character doesn't change in the end?
Depressingly, I feel sorta the same way about Sakura. Except where Hinata never truly evolved, I feel like Sakura's evolution was taken away from her. She ended up with Sasuke, in spite of everything she said, did or felt for Naruto.
Because of these issues in Boruto, some people said it was good NS didn't become canon BECAUSE it would only make our ship look bad. Which is very ironic when considering they're trying to make Hinata a pseudo Sakura, and it seems vice versa for Sakura.
I remember looking at a Youtube video about "What if Naruto married Sakura?" (Not Kryptonian Sayajin's). In the comments, one claimed that Naruto would be miserable, hate his life and avoid his kids. And one replied:
THAT'S THE CANON ENDING
Sasuke dying would have made sense, sure. At the very least, he should be the most wanted man in the world, Vash the Stampede style. Once you've reached the point where a buncha Kage's are saying "this guy's a major problem, we're going to need to take care of this" you can't really step that back. But I never once thought it would happen.
The writing in Naruto was... I don't necessarily want to say predictable, because if you know enough about stories and how to properly tell them, or if you've even just read enough stories, you can tell where a lot of them are going to go. But it definitely fell into patterns. The manga never really liked to kill anyone, even when it would have made sense, unless the character was unimportant. Even in the case of the latter - someone like Neji - it might pull back, only to do it much later when all the emotional impact it might have had would have been gone. Given how it had been admitted that Sasuke was the favorite character of the author and how the entire manga hinged on "redeeming Sasuke" it was clear even early in Part 2 there was no way he bit the dust. I'd always figured he was going to get a pardon when Naruto became Hokage even if it made no sense for anyone to accept that - I guess it was a curveball that it ended up being Kakashi - though I hadn't guessed the f***ery that would come. I expected about what you'd expect for a happy ending; Naruto becomes Hokage before the end, wins Sakuras heart (probably before the end, but then, Shönen loves to leave pairing stuff for the end), defeats Sasuke and drags him home to answer for what he's done, maybe they make peace, then pardons him or whatever and has him confined to the village under basic house arrest (because even if Konoha pardons him why the hell would the other nations?)
It was a little iffy for me how his redemption was going to play out. In the first half of Part 2, he seemed to be more of an anti-hero than a downright villain, as he was solely focused on Itachi and more often than not took out other villains. It seemed he would only kill any Konoha ninja if they approached him (and it never came to that). That, and it seemed Naruto and Sakura were trying to avoid having to follow the law against nuke-nin.
Attacking Killer Bee...yeah, he caused problems for Konoha politically. Don't think that alone would have justified the story killing him.
Kage Summit, he should been in jail at least. He definitely killed those Samurai, and he attempted to kill the Kage just to get to Danzo.
And when he did get Danzo, he sacrificed Karin to do it (yeah, she lived, but still). After that he had an episode of temporary insanity where he was about to kill Kakashi and Sakura on a whim.
I think that was where Kishimoto wrote himself into a corner. He knew he was going to have Naruto and Sasuke fight again, but how was he going to redeem Sasuke through that? Either Naruto would have to truly treat him as an enemy, or Sasuke would have to team up with him to fight off a greater evil to strengthen "their bond". He went with the later, but whether it was due to the pacing of the War Arc or him just not caring, Sasuke still came off as evil at this point. Near the end when he stated he would kill the kage to turn the world against him, realistically there was no saving him. They were trying to play him off as Trieze Kushrenada or Lelouch Vi Britannia, someone who saves the world by creating a horrible tragedy that unites it and goes down as the monster of history. That would have never worked for Sasuke though, as he lacked the charisma of those two and he didn't suffer because of the ninja system, he suffered because his clan his kittened up.
Adding to that the whole mess with the Uchiha history and blaming their aggression on love. Kishimoto was trying to have come off as "it's not their fault". Instead he painted them as a clan that had absolutely no control over their impulses and that every Uchiha born would snap at some point. That's not a sympathetic backstory, that's a justification to kill Sasuke.
Even now, it feels like he doesn't give a damn about anything. He's just there. And by there I mean out there, not in Konoha. Pro-enders have sometimes argued that he either can't come home to see his family or that he didn't want to drag them into his darkness. On the first point, NO. Naruto wondered why he didn't see his family more often, and Ino waved to him fondly like nothing ever happened. Besides, when he is there he's just walking the streets instead of sulking about. Clearly Konoha has no problem with him being there.
As for the second point...should have thought of that BEFORE he decided to have a family.
Redemption arcs have to be long and hard for characters. They need to realize their mistakes, struggle to make things right and learn to live with the consequences of that which they cannot change. Sasuke did none of them. He just got his arm blown off and called it quits.
Yeah, technically, but it is hard to keep saying "It is a seinen" when the manga is published by Shonen Jump, it advertises other Shonen Jump manga (including Boruto) in the volumes at the back pages, and Shonen Jump makes sure you know they own it.
It is basically a Shonen in everything, but name.
To me, it is them basically saying "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck.....then it must be a goose." The lines have been blurring lately on what constitutes a Shonen in my eyes mostly because Naruto has some pretty graphic and horrible things in the story that I think would push it up to a Seinen level. At times, One Punch Man is more tame than Naruto, I would argue.
I don't know what really distinguishes a Shonen from some Seinen anymore and I could make arguments.
Eh, there's a lot of overlap between the two from what I observe. I'm guessing it's context that matters.
Most shonen aren't THAT violent. When things like limbs get severed it's usually treated as a rare occurrence, and how graphic the damage is can be minimized. Seinen seems to take it to another level on purpose. The violence in shonen might push the boundries at times, but it doesn't normalize it. Seinen seems to do so and use that to show how dark their show is.
If there's fanservice, in shonen it's usually obscured to a degree, with little mention of direct sex. Again, Seinen seems to be more graphic in this regard, often showing as close to full nudity as possible and showing intimate scenes.
Again, this is the general trend I tend to see between the two, but as with anything many authors will push the boundaries when they can. I acknowledge I could be very wrong and there is probably lots of manga that would show otherwise.
In the case of One Punch Man, I think it's because it makes fun of the tropes of shonen and I guess they think it requires a mature audience to get it. Just my opinion.
So honestly no one that supports or pushed for these pairings have any right to talk about how horrible Naruto and Sakura would be together when they switcharoo Sakura and Hinata's personality dynamics to "suit their preference".
