Ignoring the boruto fiasco. Sakura is finally active in a new manga.
Surprisingly this side story is doing much better than Boruto in both US and Japan.
What's your thought folks? It's worth for Sakura's fans or the SasuSaku material ruins everything?
Nobody cares about Boruto, neither fans of the canon couples nor other fandoms, because of its trash art and story.
Even if NaruSaku had become canon 11 years ago, you would still have a forced, trash sequel from Shueisha, written by a poor assistant who didn't have enough talent to release his own manga.
Kishimoto wanted to end Naruto with Naruto Gaiden and Boruto: Naruto the Movie as the final chapter after chapter 700. However, after the movie's success in 2015, Shueisha and all the sponsors forced him to accept a manga about Boruto. Kishimoto rejected the idea, so Shueisha hired Ikemoto, who they believed had the talent to take over the sequel since he was Kishimoto's former assistant.
Kishimoto gave an interview last year and made it clear that he has absolutely nothing to do with the Boruto manga. He doesn't regret the canon pairings, so he isn't going to change his manga's ending. As Kishimoto said, he was totally responsible for Naruto, just as Ikemoto is for Boruto.
I mean, 11 years later, and this place and the coping never change.
No, dude. NaruSaku isn't the only paying customer. SasuSaku, NaruHina, SasuNaru, and every single character fandom are all part of Naruto's paying customer base. Don't try to give more importance to the almost dead NaruSaku fandom.
A 15-year story was ruined just because your preferred pairing didn't become canon and Naruto lost his "trophy girl"? Really? First of all, I don't give a damn about NaruSaku anymore, and I'm not even a fan of the Naruto characters.
But Naruto's goal and the manga's main point wasn't about him getting into Sakura's pants and making babies. His main objective was to become Hokage and to save and be recognized by Sasuke. Naruto got exactly what he wanted in the end. Families and children were just a bonus to complete the characters' life cycles.
Nobody likes Kaguya, and Kishimoto still made her the final villain instead of Madara. So, what's your point? A couple doesn't change anything about the manga. When Kishimoto wants to make a retcon or a bad decision, no editor can stop him. The thing is, all the NaruSaku arguments, especially the one blaming editors and popularity, don't make sense to begin with.
No editor forced Kishimoto to make Sakura's feelings for Sasuke a central part of her character. No editor forced Kishimoto to have Hinata confess in what was, at that point, Naruto's most important fight when she could have easily been forgotten. Even Neji was killed to bring them together.
Even when Naruto was just beginning and needed sales to survive, Kishimoto and Yahagi took their sweet time building everything, including SasuSaku and NaruHina, despite demanding circumstances. When Naruto was selling millions just by sneezing, are NaruSaku shippers truly assuming that some supposedly biased editor or Pierrot "forced" the creator, the owner of the franchise, to do what they wanted? This is especially unbelievable at the end of the manga when Kishimoto was doing whatever he wanted. Or did some editor force Kishimoto to create Kaguya?
The idea that Kishimoto was forced to do anything is ridiculous. He is the creator and owner of the franchise. He had the final say on everything, including secondary plots like pairings. If he wanted to do NaruSaku, he could have. But he didn't. He chose to do SasuSaku and NaruHina because it was his plan. That was solely his decision. There are much worse things I can list besides Kaguya:
Naruto being a weak main character without a proper objective and being obsessed with Sasuke.
Gaara being redeemed and becoming a Kage of the same village where he tried to murder people on a daily basis.
Itachi being retconned into a hero. This ruined Sasuke's story and the manga in general.
The entire Uchiha clan massacre and the innocents being swept under the rug to glorify Itachi.
Nagato reviving everyone at the end of the Pain arc, just like a Disney ending.
Naruto becoming a fake messiah without any proper answers for his peace quest.
Obito being redeemed despite his horrible crimes, and Naruto still praising his parents' murderer.
A random alien being introduced as the final villain instead of Madara.
Do you care about Kaguya and other poorly written plots by Kishimoto, or is the problem just NaruSaku sinking?
Sorry, I can't take a shipper seriously who thinks a Non Canon Couple destroyed a shonen manga while ignoring much more serious plots and problems that truly affect the manga as a whole.
If you stepped out of your NaruSaku bubble, you would recognize that the other pairings also have a lot more development and didn't just become canon out of nowhere. So no, your NaruSaku pairing isn't a universal truth, and both the manga and the author have debunked you.
Let me guess... 11 years later, you still think Kishimoto will magically come back and admit he only made a mistake regarding the canon pairings? NaruSaku will get another ending, keeping everything exactly the same—like Kaguya, Sasuke vs. Naruto, Naruto still being Hokage, and (New) New Era, with the same couples and themes—but only with Sakura as Naruto's wife and Shinachiku as his son isntead of Boruto and Himawari and Sasuke alone? It's laughable at this point.
The canon couples are heavily promoted as part of the merchandise, anime, and other products precisely because they are canon. It's time to recognize this, as these couples will remain canon for the next 10, 20, and 100 years. Kishimoto isn't going to magically retcon his own manga's ending to please a few shippers who haven't moved on and are still mad about the ending.
If Kishimoto decides to erase Boruto and write his own Sequel after chapter 700 or Sarada Gaiden (Chapter 701 - 710)
You will still have to accept and see the SasuSaku and NaruHina families in any sequel that continues after Naruto ending.
Nobody is promoting or remembering a dead pairing anymore. At this point, you don't even have this old "NaruSaku"" merch.
There should be a lot of merchandise for NaruHina, but I don't care about them.
This is the reality since 2015:
Edited by Therece, 27 August 2025 - 06:25 AM.
