Saku-chan

While I can't stand hipsterism, I feel like it might be better to disconnect with series once they become popular. I don't want to deal with such a disappointment from something that's supposed to be entertaining.

 

This isn't totally related, but I was thinking about how there's not really much mainstream yet interesting plot type anime anymore and I got sad. I was watching Nana and I couldn't remember the last time something so interesting was released. I know that's apples and pears since it's josei, but oh well. How's BNHA on the moefication front? I want a new shounen manga to read and I don't want it to disappoint me. lol

When Hinata's criticisms include references to her body as some sort of unfair tool which manipulated fans into making a choice over waifus or plot, it's sexist.

Both Sakura and Hinata end up as boring characters by the end despite their potential. Some NS fans will defend Sakura to the death, but do some mental gymnastics to equate being curvy with being temptation for fanservice and the downfall of the series which lays the blame on her and not producers who never wanted to wrap the series up in a satisfying way so they could continue to milk their cash cow.

It does nothing to convince a fan of Hinata or NH that we are not just throwing a tantrum because we didn't get our way.

Obviously I'm here, so I'm not a fan of the end. However, there is some really intense Hinata bashing in here that is unfortunate because it's in the same vein as Sakura bashing that we often decry as unfair.

 

As NS fans, we tended to expect the best in terms of development for Sakura and what we like about her was where she was going and could have gone, not where she ended up. I was SUPER invested in her becoming a badass medic ninja, being a boss leader, coming to terms with her interpersonal relationships, etc. But not everyone reading Naruto cared about her development.

 

If you were not especially invested in Sakura and didn't particularly care about where her character was going, you would not think of all the nice things that she could be. A friend of mine explained to me that her criticisms of Sakura stem from how her character on the whole appears in the canon work. It's difficult to divorce our high opinion of her from our preferences and years of fanon speculation. But, looking at her character at the end, she's AWFUL. BUT THAT'S NOT HER FAULT. It's Kishi's, his staff's, Jump's, and Pierro's. They opted for completely screwing over any sort of meaningful plot in order to prolong an action manga.

 

I find Hinata's bland ending just as sad as Sakura's because she had just as much potential to be a badass leader. But in the end, she's boring as hell and sidelined for a bizarre attempt at het SasuNaru and a continuation of the warlordy bs that plagued the original work. She's a fictional character, but again being boring isn't her fault. It's writers who dropped the ball. I happened to also think a lot about where Hinata was going and could have gone as far as being a mover and shaker of Konoha, but that's not very common in the NS community.

 

From a writing standpoint, NH could have been appealing as a ship if developed, but as it is, it's only appealing to people who are fans of Hinata and use NH as a way to put her in the spotlight more often or for those who don't mind that the development was skipped over because they already have their headcanons about it. I'm not gonna start a riot over it though. Different strokes for different folks.

 

tl;dr Disappointed in the ending, but not surprised that it happened and Hinata also gets the short end of the stick (like every other female TBH), so let's not be too hypocritical here.

I catch up when I can, but I have a feeling I'm going to need a reread of the current arc once it's over so I can keep everything straight. I am still waiting on something to happen regarding Kofuku tying those red strings together~! 

 

(After all these years, still a sucker for shipping...)

I think a big part of why Obito's redemption was unsatisfying is due to the weight of his bad deeds. Yes he was manipulated by Madara, but he still made the decision to take everything so far after seeing Kakashi kill Rin. Have some faith in your teammate will you? One of the themes of Naruto was redemption, but by the end of this series, it felt like Naruto's Talk no jutsu was working just to satisfy the intended theme instead of standing on it's own allowing us to see a theme... if that made sense. It's like Kishi was hamfisting characters into doing what he wanted just to make Naruto look like an inspirational MC instead of things happening organically. And this sucks because I could see that he actually was inspirational before the famous or infamous Talk no Jutsu with Pein.

I also really liked that Kakashi became Hokage because it nicely completed his development from someone who doesn't care about his team (or forces himself not to care) into someone truly capable of caring for the whole village.

What I didn't like was that Tsunade was totally ignored. I wondered if maybe being torn in half did too much of a number on her and she had to retire, but there she is in the freaking epilogue like nothing happened. I love Kakashi, but I am really pissed that his development meant that Tsunade got shafted.

Haha. You’re hardly alone. While I think it’s a bit ridiculous to assume that all of the ladies have given up their kunoichi status just because they were shown in domestic settings, I do think that it’s bull that we don’t get to see the other things that they were involved with.

 

• For Hinata, I really wanted to see her reform the Hyuga clan and develop a better relationship with her sister.
• I wanted to see Hanabi on her own team.
• I wanted to see Sakura doing awesome medical nin stuff.
• I wanted to see Ino being an information specialist and be good friends with Sakura.
• I wanted to see Temari being a cool ambassador who gets things done.
• I wanted to see Tsunade dealing with the effects of her seal.
• I wanted to see how Karin would grow as a person. Maybe she’d become a freelance Special Jonin or something? (Where in the fresh hell did Team Taka even go anyway?)
• Where is Sai?

And now that you mention it, it is pretty crap that Sasuke and Naruto get replacement limbs, but Gai doesn’t. =/

 

I think Kishimoto was trying to put emphasis on The Next Generation, but with all of these still unresolved plot points, I really didn’t care. I will say that I’m a bit biased against kids in fiction because I think the whole “married with kids” thing is an overdone end. (This is why I think it would have been perfect for Sasuke to be single. He seemed completely uninterested in relationships in my opinion.) And if you hamfist “married with kids,” I’ll absolutely despise it.

 

There is probably a mile long list of other things that I’m dissatisfied with, but I’ve already written several essays (read: embarrassingly long rants) about the topic.

Kishimoto is saying these things in order to counter claims that NH is indeed out of nowhere. If he were to admit that NH was decided recently, it would lose value to NH shippers who are the only people defending this piece of garbage. He doesn't want to alienate the only people he's got left. Who knows who actually decided on this ending anyway? Was it Kishi? Was it Shueisha? Was it Studio Pierro? We may never know. Kishi may be under contractual obligation to sell this movie and the ending. Or he might be a huge sellout. All we can do is voice our displeasure, refuse to support Part 3, and wait for an explanation in the same vein of Toriyama when he admitted to breaking up Bulma and Yamcha to piss off fans so he could end DBZ.

I think it was a combination of Kishimoto wanting to end the manga and being pressured to write an end that would be profitable. I completely agree with Miyazaki's post about otaku only making things for other otaku who dislike real life people. Otaku are extremely vocal and spend tons of money on the things that they like, so they often get catered to. This is a shame because more moderate fans are driven away by these niche genres in my opinion. (I know I am most of the time.) When this happens, the story is more often than not, butchered. Look at Sword Art Online for crying out loud.

 

I think there is a lot of truth to what Miyazaki said. One of my mutuals on Tumblr who is a huge Hinata fanboy has admitted that he uses waifus to cope with his experiences of irl women treating him badly. I don't take issue with this method of coping as long as this sort of waifu moe archetype were confined to its own genre. I take issue with it in this case because Naruto is clearly not a story where that sort of thing would be expected. It's an action/drama shounen. Naruto isn't like any of the boring, self-inserty MC's that show up in moe anime. Naruto had an interesting setup, was plot driven, had important moral messages, and excellent character growth (for Sakura as well even though she did get sidelined on more than one occasion). But in order for a good story to be appreciated, it takes time for the audience to digest it and with time, the probability for impulse buying fan goods goes down. With fanservice, it takes two seconds to slap a moeblob together and otaku will empty their wallets. There was no economic incentive to have an ending with integrity that took careful consideration of canon when there was a profitable cop out to be had.

 

I won't generalize and say this is true for all NH fans, but in at least one instance Miyazaki's assertions were proven correct. I believe that done with care, NH could have been a great canon ship. Hinata clearly appreciates Naruto despite nearly the entire village looking down on him/hating him because she recognizes his worth. I think Naruto would be able to come to admire Hinata's ability to persevere. I think they could suit each other had Naruto gotten over Sakura in a way that doesn't retcon his feelings. But, they didn't. The manga has 698 chapters of Naruto still in love with Sakura. He admits to Sai that he still loves her and we get baby steps of development for Sakura's change in feelings. And all of this amounts to nothing? NH was planned a long time ago? Yeah right. I'd say 8 months tops this was decided. And even then, why keep having NS moments? CPR????? Naruto's girlfriend???????? I don't think this is the end Kishi intended. 

 

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think Sakura has always suffered from not having meaningful introspection for her motivations until the chuunin exams. That's over a year of people seeing her as naive at best and a delusional bitch at worst. And when the anime started? Studio Pierro showed this facet again and at times added to it for filler. I had hope for Shippuden to correct this, but Hinata had already become a very popular secondary character especially with her Part 2 design.

 

I think she was created as a character for two reasons. The most important was to show that Konoha has a dark side and that powerful ninja clans pay a price to keep their power. The second reason was to show an example of someone who has watched Naruto and come to admire him and let the reader know that yes, this is a character that is making a good impression on those who bother to observe him. Hinata gives Naruto a break on the romance front which was looking pretty abysmal by the time Hinata was introduced. For the record I really like Hinata's canon characterization. I don't think she's weird or 'obsessed' any more than Sakura, Naruto, or Lee (Jiraiya, Obito, etc.) are for the people they crush on. However, her fanon personality is bordering on ridiculous with how flawless she is made out to be.

 

Another thing to consider which ciardha brought up just after 699-700 came out was that Kishimoto's father passed away earlier this year. Yet, he only took one week of hiatus. I have no idea if he wanted to come back so soon in order to take his mind off of things or if that was imposed upon him by JUMP, but perhaps that made him lose interest in continuing Naruto further. 

 

tl;dr

I completely agree with tricksie's post and Miyazaki's opinions about anime and how the quality suffers because of catering to otaku. But, that's hardly the only reason why I think we got the ending that we got.

I really hope that's true. It would really kill me if everyone ends up praising it.

I think there's some truth to what Aizen-sama said. One of my mutuals on Tumblr quite likes NH, but he admitted that he hasn't read Naruto in a loooooooong time and Hinata is right up his alley as far as waifus go. He's a pretty respectful guy, but yeah not everyone is like us and picks everything apart for analysis. (You don't have to do that to see this movie is a retcon, but it's more in your face from our perspective.)

 

If you're a casual fan who only remembers watching the first bit of Part 1 (where there was hella NH/SS filler), this movie would appeal to you. The more I see about this movie after the forced nostalgia of Naruto and Sasuke's fight at the VotE, the more I think this whole end was meant to appeal to a large mass of casual fans who can now pay their own money for this nostalgia. (These fans are analogous to genwunners of the Pokemon fandom imo.)

I'm not going to vote because this obviously comes down to personal taste.I once read online somewhere that there are no universal perfect 10's. Whether or not someone is considered a 10 to you depends on your personal preferences an life experiences as well as that person's personality.

I am also not going to reduce the reason for this ending to who's prettier. That's just going to end up somewhere nasty and in character bashing territory.

Because of Sasuke and Sakura's status as both Team 7 members who have a bit of development between them, I would say that they feel like the 'main' pairing. We've always joked (or been completely serious) about Sasuke's tendency to hijack the focus. Naruto and Hinata are only 'main' because the series bears Naruto's name.

 

I think that Kishi's goal was always to have a next generation after Naruto's because what would be the point of him going through all of this effort to break the cycles established in that world's history if he isn't shown passing that on? NS would have left Sasuke out. I didn't see him getting together with anyone other than Sakura in canon. (Maybe Karin if they'd been given more development) If NS happened, he'd be left out of being able to contribute to the next generation with his own child. I am totally ok with this. He could still contribute in his own way. A child is hardly the only way to make a difference in the world, but it's a really easy way to draw empathy out of readers. "Oh he has a daughter now! How touching!" It would be an easy way to redeem him in reader's eyes.

 

Hinata would also be left out, or paired with someone random (or Kiba imo) which would make a lot of her fans FURIOUS. 

 

I have a theory that Hinata was born out of Sakura's initial unpopularity. I feel like Kishi was instructed to make other female characters and have one who's cute who likes Naruto to 'give him a break' on the romance front. Let's be real. In the beginning, Sakura was brutal. She was also considered uncute by Kishi's assistants. So, he made Hinata, but he also didn't give up on Sakura as the heroine. He gave her back story focus and fleshed out her friendship with Ino which was pretty nice for a shonen manga.

 

Thankfully, Kishi gave Hinata a really good back story which also served to introduce Neji and some of the darker sides of Konoha.  She's an extremely sympathetic character. From the beginning we see how she is emotionally and physically abused by her family for things that aren't her fault. If you don't feel bad for her, you're inhuman. But, after that she got scant focus. At this point, Hinata is effectively a blank slate who likes Naruto. Readers are free to project a personality onto her. She is inevitably given far fewer flaws than Sakura is given in canon and because her character is largely this nebulous, fandom-created entity, she can be all things to all fans. Hell, I'm guilty of this. I often find myself loving her character for the potential of it rather than what is actually shown on screen. 

 

Furthermore, people conveniently forget that Sakura also suffered bullying and had crap self-esteem. It wasn't nearly as bad as Hinata, but she still had problems. Sakura merely had Ino help her. I think that the difference between how Sakura and Hinata reacted to their low self esteem also contributes to the popularity of their characters. Hinata evokes strong feelings of wanting to protect her because she doesn't defend herself. It's heartbreaking and understanding considering her situation. Sakura, however, learns to own her perceived flaws and turn it into a weapon. If there's anything that pisses readers off, it's a confident female making mistakes and not being taken down a few notches. It stirs all sorts of feelings of dislike for women who haven't reciprocated a 'nice guy's feelings. They don't want to relate to someone who makes mistakes. They don't want to see how human she is. This is the reason why I side eye fans who hate Sakura and love Hinata. There's most likely misogyny going on there.

 

To wrap this all up, Sakura's initial bad reputation and Hinata's blank slate status, went against NS for the large audience of casual fans who really like Hinata and wanted to see her get a good end romantically. On the surface Sakura being patient for her love to redeem himself sounds admirable, but when you get into it you realize how utterly uninterested Sasuke is and how close Sakura is to admitting that she has romantic feelings for Naruto. (Sai and Yamato, you tried so hard and got so far, but in the end we are going to have to make it matter instead of the epilogue.)

 

tl;dr SS feels main because it's Team 7. NH is only billed as main because Naruto is in it.

At work on Thursday I purposely took on a job in the back that wouldn't have me dealing face to face with customers because I was so out of it. I got texts the whole day from people who aren't even fans asking me if I was ok. (lol a bit much, but I appreciated the thought)

 

I just explain it as, "You know fanfiction where people are written terribly OOC and everyone gets paired off with people just because the author wants to hamfist fluff? That was made canon."

 

The lack of resolution between Naruto and Sasuke alone is killing me. The pairings were the icing on the poop cake tbh. 

I think it's a bit of both. I do think that Kishi wanted Sakura to reciprocate, but a post on Tumblr made me think that in the very beginning, he was considering the other pairings. Kakashi asked all of them what their goals were and thought that all of their answers were stupid. Naruto was at the time fairly immature and a terrible ninja according to his Academy days. Sasuke is purposely closing himself off in order to steep in feelings of hatred. Wow, what a great goal. Kakashi sees the issues with this. He narrows his eyes when he thinks 'like I thought.' Sakura glances at Sasuke and implies that she is interested in him. Kakashi remarks to himself that girls are more interested in love than ninjutsu. 

 

There are problems with what all three of them have said. Naruto needs to shape up before he's ever considered, Sasuke's goal is going nowhere pleasant, and Sakura only has eyes for Sasuke. If Sakura had development like Naruto and Sasuke had with their goals, then I would have understood her ending. If she realized that she didn't understand Sasuke instead of just thinking that he's cool and then being able to interact with him and talk with him, then sure. It would have been a good pairing. And having all of them achieve their goals, but not in the way they envisioned them would have been a really cool thing to pull off.

 

Sakura was on the verge of being able to understand Sasuke at the end of Part 1, but he knocked her out and peaced out for a few years. Years that she spent training to help NARUTO because she realized how much Sasuke meant to NARUTO as well and that what she asked him to do for her was selfish because she made a mistake and only thought about her own feelings. Then we got a TON of development with NS because they are friends, they are on the same team, and they are both trying to go after Sasuke. 

 

This is where NS pulls away in my mind. If Naruto had backed off on Sakura for whatever reason or interacted with Hinata before randomly getting thrown on a team with her for a couple chapters and Chapter 615, then NH would have been great. But it makes no sense with this ending.

 

At the end of Part 1, I think NS and SS had a somewhat equal chance. NH was laughable because Hinata had only ever given him ointment which he promptly offered to Sakura. (I felt so bad for her. You idiot Naruto. Read the atmosphere! lol)

 

After looking through what we know about Harry Potter after the fact, JK said that HarryxGinny/RonxHermione was her original plan, but admitted that the story did point a lot towards HarryxHermione. I didn't really ship HarryxHermione and I actually quite liked HermionexRon (I actually like them all as platonic friends tbh), but I was terribly confused when Harry got with Ginny all of the sudden after seeing her as first as Ron's shy little sister for a few years and then dating a few of his friends randomly. I'm not saying that this is bad, but I didn't think that Harry thought of her that way. If they'd had more interaction or worked together on things, then I wouldn't have scratched my head. 

 

So before the beginning of Naruto, Kishi had a rough framework of where the story was going. Maybe he did hash out NH and SS, but when it came to what was needed for the story, NS ended up getting more screen time and therefore more development. I still think that NS was intended because of Chapter 3 (and the entire rest of the manga until chapter 698), but maybe he also had the others in mind as options and in his mind, there is infinitely more info on this world and off screen interactions. Who knows what kind of external forces also acted on the direction of the story?

 

Sakura was not a popular character from the get go because she was pretty much a bitchy teacher’s pet who was mean to our sympathetic main character. Naruto is a trouble maker brat, but from chapter 1, we got backstory on why. It took a long time before we ever got anything like that for Sakura (Chuunin Exam is the first time I think we see her introspect in a meaningful way) and I think her popularity has always suffered because of that.

 

I will say that I really do like relationships that start off as friends first. I don't really care for relationships where someone claims to be head over heels for someone that they don't have a close relationship with. How can someone love that person? (a.k.a. why I didn't originally ship NS before Sasuke told Sakura off about how he always does thing for her and looking back how he DOES understand some of her deeper feelings.) 

 

This sort of slow build isn't popular with everyone because you have to be patient and wait for feelings to grow. When characters declare from the start who they like, it's much more succinct and you can start shipping right away.

 

tl;dr

 

Maybe SS and NH were considered alongside NS as possible in the beginning, but the pacing of Part 2 put NS way ahead and makes this SS/NH ending very bizarre. 

Oh my gosh Rick (Bonta-Kun) in LC. lol Basically all of the shenanigans that went on with kicking people, changing names, and making it look like they'd posted something ridiculous. (OneTrueHerpes!)   Also the H&E RP that happened. (I was a total amateur at RP and still am, but it was fun to be a part of something with the community!

 

 

 

I googled narusaku and was brought here and read the Manifesto and it solidified my love for the ship. Then, I posted a cosplay in the Show Yourself thread and when I gathered up my courage and went into FC, people actually recognize my handle asked me about it. Ahhh. I've always had such a nice time here. uwu Everyone's so open to discuss just about anything and I am so glad that I did that wayward google for all the friends that I have made. :)