Jo-nov

Over 70 pages....

To be fair, before I say anything more, not all of the 71 pages are about Kakashi's comment. There were other aspects of the chapter that was discussed, we didn't just focused on the pairing related aspects.

 

However, my fascination (and my frustration) stems from the fact that most people here believe that Kakashi's comment was meant to be against SS. I find that absurd, not because we believe it (especially considering the context), but the fact that soo many of us believe it. What Kakashi said was vague, he just said that Sakura's feelings are different for Sasuke, though what it is wasn't clearly put forth. Nothing was said that she doesn't love him anymore, even if he was referring to her love of Sasuke in past tense. The past tense could implicate her old love of Sasuke, not her new love. Her old love of Sasuke would've been told in past tense, while her new feelings would have used present tense. Kakashi could have very well be just mentioning Sakura's love in the past because he was making comparison to who she was in the past to who she is now. 

 

I am not saying this because this how I viewed the scene, but to give another possibility of what Kakashi met. I feel like so many of us are soo focused if it was pro-SS or anti-SS, that we failed to see it any other way. We keep calling other fandoms as bias idiots, who only selectively read the manga to view it the way they want to. Yet we are also very bias, so of course we are going want to view the Kakashi moment as an anti-SS. That is to be expected, but when we start clamoring for raws that probably wouldn't have changed anything, that is when I couldn't stand of what is happening. It isn't because we wanted the raws, I actually wanted to see the raws myself, it is the fact that automatically we had to call anyone who favored another ship as unreliable. I found hypocritical because we are unreliable as well. We want to see the moment as anti-SS, so of course we would support anything that would suggest that. It is that bias that makes weary to trust any translation from any fan that has shown any favoritism to any ship, including NS.

 

Why wouldn't I trust the opinion of fans of my own ship, because I feel like we are being to closed-minded by this. A lot of us saw it as anti-SS, so we rejected anything that may say otherwise, even if it is true. In the see of fake raws and spoilers, every time something is posted online that even seems to support it as pro-SS, we just call the poster a bias SS shipper and ignore it. Remember when we realized that an SS fan did have the real raws and had translated them? We quickly discard his translation as "another bias SS fan mistranslating the manga to match their own opinions". We then had members on our own site translate the raw, which, coincidently, matched what we wanted to hear. How is having our own guys translate a raw more trustworthy that other fans of opposing ships?

 

I just want to make sure everyone knows that I am not trying to discredit any of our members that attempted to translate the raw themselves. Some of our members do have credibility to them, and several even went the extra mile to explain why certain phrases mean something different in Japanese. However that doesn't excuse the fact that they are still bias to NS. so when they translate the raw as something that benefits us, I feel like I need to be skeptical. Not due to the fact that I don't trust them, yet to be fair. If SS fans are known to eskew translations to benefit their ship, than NS fans have that same possibilities. 

 

I know we keep ensuring each other on this site that we should just ignore the outside fandoms, which I agree to a point. There is a lot of stupid fans out there, especially shippers. They will always be there to say something idiotic or mean-spirited. We should ignore most of it, but we all have to remember that not all fans (including shippers) are like that. Not every SS fan would purposely mistranslate the manga, I wouldn't purposely mistranslate the manga to fit with my own views, even if it is against it. It is frustrating how all shipping fandoms (including NS) always seemed to have to be right. When the SS fan did post the real raws and translated them, we called them fake and that he shouldn't be trusted. Even when they proved to be real, we still have to discredit him for being an SS fan. If I have to discredit him for being a bias SS fan, than I have to discredit every NS fan for their translations. 

 

I don't think what Kakashi said did anything to the SS pairing, if anything, (at least in my opinion), it seemed to just reassure us that either Sakura's feelings are completely different, not related to romantic love, or that she loves him on a great level of romanticism. Yet I am utterly shock to find so many of us purely seeing it as "sinking" the SS ship, when it could very easily have just renewed the fans beliefs (which it did). So I am here reading comments of calling the SS fans dumb, and us right, when we ourselves are mocking to very same thing they are supposedly doing to us. I wrote all of this to point out that we are not being fair, and, frankly, are being somewhat mean-spirited ourselves.

First of all, thanks for stating how you feel.  I can understand that pairing debates can get a bit hostile at times, and I even personally like discussions that deal with pro-pairings instead of anti-pairings. 

While I agree that some people may come off as narrow-minded about this particular topic, it should be noted that at least some of us are looking at the previous chapters and the context of the images that went along with the text for clues on how Sakura's feelings for Sasuke have changed.  For example, Kakashi is observing Sakura as she is discussing Madara with Naruto and Sasuke.  If we compare Sakura's image to how Kakashi remembered her, we can see that she is no longer the smitten girl that she used to be.  She stands tall with her teammates and greatly matured from how she used to be. As Kakashi is thinking about Sakura's feelings, she is also not showing any visual signs of attraction to Sasuke as she is talking.  That goes along with the idea that Kakashi is thinking that Sakura doesn't love Sasuke romantically anymore. 

I wouldn't say that SS is dead or anything yet, though.  I believe the true meaning of Kakashi's words will come out soon anyway, so we may just need to be patient.  It will get interesting. 

Did they seriously play the "girl who is a friend" card? Haven't seen that little excuse since Pokémon 2000

Yeah, but that was quickly cleared up.  As far as I know, the major debate for chapter 631 is how serious Naruto was when he answered his dad's question.