@narutouzumakiarchive- “I came across this interesting thread of a translated interview from Kishimoto.
He talks about the contradictory nature of Sasuke’s actions and words in VOTE 1. How Sasuke tried to rationalize not killing Naruto because he didn’t want to follow Itachi’s rules, despite the fact that he followed the exact path that Itachi set for him and never strayed from it unless it involved Naruto (ie. giving Naruto a bento at the expense of his ninja career and rationalizing it by saying Naruto being hungry would slow him down, fighting Orochimaru in the FoD despite being afraid afraid of dying before killing Itachi, etc.)
He then brings up Naruto’s feelings about Sasuke and states that "It’s not romantic love, but…. friendship, familial love, intimate feelings that point to a broader/high level concept.”
I’ve seen antis use this to claim Sasuke’s love for Naruto is unrequited, and while Sasuke loves Naruto romantically, Naruto doesn’t. What do you make of this?
I feel like Naruto throughout the story was going through the motions to throughout the story and trying to identify what his complicated feelings for Sasuke were since he never had a frame of reference for what a familial/brotherly bond were. And this coupled with the fact that Naruto was going through puberty and still didn’t find Sakura attractive whilst getting angry at the implication that Sai was as attractive as Sasuke, spending more time on his sexy jutsu than he did on the rasengan even though he he’d had no female opponents to datewas unnecessarily uncomfortable with Sai/Yamato in the bath house and Kakashi saying he liked him, having his feelings for Sasuke paralleled with Sakura/Hinata, having other characters point out how unbecoming and unnatural said feelings were, and much more all point to the fact that he is closeted.
Sneezemonster15-
Reply - I think it’s this one, that I could find. Link . Honestly, I don’t think it’s written by Kishi. First of all, Kishi doesn’t have the time to write stuff like this when Shippuden has been over and done for years and it doesn’t say explicitly in the content that it’s him, just that it’s official. Second of all, it seems like this is publication’s doing, to give some sort of an explanation for how gay the story is, troubleshooting for what Kishi wrote, a gay love story in shounen. Thirdly, Kishi doesn’t talk like that in his notes in the manga, he speaks in first person. The databooks are compiled by the editors, and no wonder, a lot of stuff in databooks is crap, I don’t consider it canon, because it isn’t. Think about it, why would Kishi write stuff in it that goes blatantly against what he wrote in the manga? Stuff like Sakura had a hard life growing up and all that, I don’t remember the exact wording. But we know it’s all wrong. And lastly, Kishi gets kinda frazzled when he is asked about Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship. For instance, this interview of his:
Kishi is giving vague ass answers to interviewer’s questions about the nature of their relationship. The interviewer is being so insistent but apparently Kishi finds it hard to put in words. More brothers than blood brothers, nice Kish, real smooth. Heh. Strange, for someone who has been writing these characters for such a long time, he certainly is struggling a lot to explain it.
He wouldn’t talk about the nature of their relationship explicitly, for obvious reasons. So he is hedging, being careful about how much information he can relay without sounding suspicious. I wish he was as careful talking about Hinata and Sakura in his interviews, calling Sakura a bad word for ‘addicted’ and openly saying folks like Hinata for her big breasts. Such respect.
They both love each other. Naruto doesn’t return Sasuke’s love? Am I even supposed to take this claim seriously? People who say this shit, have they even seen the anime or read the manga?? The story is about them, Shippuden is about Naruto trying to reach Sasuke, to understand him, to get close to him, to make him trust him, to protect him when the rest of the world has given up, including Kakashi and Sakura, his comrades from team seven. What crap. Naruto is struggling with his own sexuality, that much is clear, there are several instances, I talk about them in my posts all the time. For absolutely no other person does Naruto show this extent of emotion. People in this fandom are like - unless you say it out loud in those exact words with the exact punctuation, we won’t believe Naruto and Sasuke love each other. They must say I Love You. Or we won’t believe it.
Well, they have huge wish fulfilment goggles on, why take them seriously? Kishi’s genius is wasted on them.
Kishimoto never meant for Hinata to be seen as Naruto’s savior in Pein arc. However, he was also smart enough to be creative about it. By this time, he knew Hinata would be paired off with Naruto, he could have written Hinata with a bit of grace. But Kishi doesn’t work like that. To choose to write her confession this way, he showed her to be a silly girl infatuated with the hero, not as a shinobi or someone who cares or thinks of her family or village or anything else. She has been almost invisible prior to this in Shippuden, hardly having any contribution to the narrative or a battle. So this chapter could have served to portray a more well rounded Hinata, but Kishimoto had different plans. Safe plans though. On a surface level, it seems Hinata is doing it out of the force of her love for Naruto, but we get to see how things unravel and it does not show Hinata in a good light.
So while Naruto is battling Pein, it is made clear that Naruto’s message has reached the Konohabitants (people of Konoha), and they know what to do, not interfere.
This message has reached Hinata as well.
She is clearly worried, she is sitting there, under the protection of her branch family bodyguard.
We can see that Katsuyu is there with her and her injured slave.
So while Hinata is on this side, on the other side, Inoichi and team have located Pein and need to send teams with chakra sensing type shinobis to look for the exact location.
Well, Hinata is a chakra sensing type.
Right then, to stress on this, Kishi makes Gai’s team enter Konoha, and Neji is shown to use Byakugan to recognise Jiraiya’s frog, Gamabunta. So we get the impression that a chakra sensing shinobi would have been really able to help.
But then, before anything could happen, we see her doing this.
And then immediately, we see this happening to her.
Hehehe, idc what anyone says, Kishi did it this way for the chuckles, I just know it. You must have seen this happening in cartoons, some foolhardy loser who highly overestimates their abilities would unthinkingly rush in to fight the villian with all the swagger they could muster and get yeeted out in the atmosphere Right Away and then you hear - AAAaaahhhhh… which then slowly fades off into the distance. Always draws chuckles and sniggers, great comic timing. Heh.
Now, just the way Kishi wrote this chapter called ‘Hinata’s confession’, is quite informative of Hinata’s feelings for Naruto and Naruto’s complete obliviousness of Hinata’s existence. We understand that Inoichi has found Pein’s location and needs 'chakra sensing type’ shinobis in as many teams as possible and they are relaying that message through Katsuyu.
So if Hinata had waited two more seconds, she would have probably been able to contribute to the battle rather than falling on her face with strike one.
Hahaha. Kishi, you genius, you.
He established the whole scene where Shikamaru, Ino, Inoichi, Katsuyu, Shiho etc are planning a smart scheme and following up diligently, actually contributing to the battle. We have already seen Sakura doing her job, helping villagers and the injured (one of her good moments, there are so few and so far apart sigh..), we have seen Konohamaru blast one of the paths of Pein, we have seen Tsunade doing her best saving people, we have already seen Kakashi and team fight Pein intelligently and creatively, and then we see Hinata who is literally just sitting there. How exactly do we see her contribute to anything?
So as we see Kishi developing this battle arc, we have seen how various Konohabitants have contributed to the battle, and we have gotten a strong sense of how absolutely devastatingly strong Pein is, and then we see Hinata charging in like a lunatic, while the others are hatching plans and schemes and actually using their training to somehow defeat Pein.
Yes, Hinata is emotionally driven to protect Naruto and can’t think logically but her short sightedness almost got Naruto killed. Some confession. Heh.
If only she had shown some patience and mental acuity, something shinobis are actually trained in. She would have been able to help Naruto and somehow contribute to the battle. But well, that has never been Hinata’s strong suit.
Thing is, she admits she is being selfish. She Knows whatever she is doing won’t help anyone. She knows she can’t hope to defeat or even delay Pein. And she obviously isn’t able to help Naruto. She went there to die, she knew she probably would die, so might as well confess to Naruto before either he died at the hands of Pein or her. If she really wanted to help Naruto, she would have used her abilities to hatch a plan of action. Or devised some creative trick. Or something that she knew would have at least a miniscule chance at succeeding. Not what she did.
But well, that’s not how Kishi wrote her. Never intended to. He always meant to portray her as a wallflower, someone whose everything revolves around Naruto, who stalks him from a distance, who only shows courage and motivation to fight when Naruto is looking, who does nothing to make her presence felt.
What’s even funnier is Kishi establishes this right away. How? With the panel cover of this chapter.
This is Hinata. In a chapter called her Confession.
Sitting there, nervously balled up while not even looking directly at Naruto. Naruto turned away from her, going about his business without even being aware of her existence. How the touch of his distinctly drawn mere passing shadow makes her curl her toes and blush uncontrollably. Like a shy little girl in throes of a high school crush. When Kishimoto said in one of his interviews that Hinata is someone who watches from the shadows, he didn’t mean it only figuratively lol. 'Hinata - the shadow girl’. That man cracks me up, the joker.
The visual language says everything you need to know.
He couldn’t even be bothered noticing her on his own, is it any wonder that Naruto doesn’t respond to her confession?
Yes yes NH and SS stans are funny, but please don’t underestimate the unparalleled wisdom of those highbrow, elite, super intelligent fans who think shipping anyone in the series is baseless. No honestly, when they say (imagine a faux British accent)- Oh dear please do not make Naruto about shipping, NH, SS, SNS, it is all baseless and pointless. Let fans enjoy the show without being subjected to all the shipping non sense.
I wanna say to them, yes sometimes it can get too much, but SNS is not like other ships, the story IS SNS for Pete’s sake, they aren’t the same thing, they cannot be put in the same category as SS and NH, it’s apples and Uranus, you have evidently missed a lot of shit about the story.
But I don’t. I don’t have the energy. It’s really hot out. Summers aren’t good for Naruto arguments.
Naruto is so bored with Hinata. Like this boy who traveled all over, met the most complex and interesting, most influential, magnanimous, top of their game - type people, got inspired by them, overcame obstacles in the quest of gaining better understanding so that he could understand Sasuke’s heart, managed to do it and reconciled with one of the most well developed and truly complex character such as Sasuke, Naruto who now is the leader of a reformed world, who learnt so much about people in his life journey, who literally invented empathy in the lawless system he lives in, who understood what made people tick at the end of the day and used it to forge his dream, this boy who became the person he is by overcoming his disadvantages by playing on their strength…..this boy, This Boy got stuck with the most boring, sidey, bland, colourless, arcless, mentally and skillwise weak, one dimensional, certainly very privileged and painfully simple minded, at times clearly illogical and poorly disciplined, insensitive, spoilt and ‘largely absent from the picture and pretty much inconsequential except in couple of bad ways’ character.
If anyone ever did, Naruto understood a complex character and learnt to appreciate them, and is it any wonder we see him napping next to her watching some soap (and crying) in canon? Tired or Bored? Both probably. Like Kishi had to make sure to portray her as the painfully stereotypical wife.
Like honestly, what common interests do they have? I am sure Hinata knows next to nothing about Sasuke. Or battle strategy, or politics, or administration, or empathy (last time I checked, Neji was still dead as her slave) or high grade jutsus or being able to comfort her son when he needs it most or being able to stay by her daughter’s side during an alien attack or whatever. Honestly, what do they really talk about?
Ah, Naruto’s laundry, of course.
What a cruel joke Kishi. Well, at least you deride NH as well, but I would have preferred to see Naruto happy. Yeah yeah, it wouldn’t have happened, whatever. But Boruto is still cursed.
Sasuke - I get warm and fuzzy looking at Naruto. He is my most precious person, my one and only and no one gets to go near him except for me.
Naruto - Sasuke is so handsome and hot and amazing and I will rip anyone’s tongue out of their throat who as much as utters his name like he belongs to them.
Antis - They are brothers because that’s how brothers talk about each other. Yep, normal as fuck, very very brotherly. Also, the earth is flat and holocaust didn’t happen.
Sasuke - I get warm and fuzzy looking at Naruto. He is my most precious person, my one and only and no one gets to go near him except for me.
Naruto - Sasuke is so handsome and hot and amazing and I will rip anyone’s tongue out of their throat who as much as utters his name like he belongs to them.
Antis - They are brothers because that’s how brothers talk about each other. Yep, normal as fuck, very very brotherly. Also, the earth is flat and holocaust didn’t happen.
We are yet to see a profound, honest and emotionally touching interaction or conversation between Sasuke and Sakura, and Hinata and Naruto. Where Sakura and Hinata have both said tons about how they feel for the boys in elaborate words, we are yet to see it reciprocated from the boys, in canon.
You can have as many theories and headcanons about SS and NH being valid, but canon speaks for itself. Not only Kishi makes the boys not even think of giving such admissions back to the women, since they obviously don’t feel it, but he makes both of them go out of their way to not say it, unless it’s mocking and straight up rejection in Sasuke’s case. But a bunch of years have passed since Shippuden, Boruto has been running for these past few years, and yet, nothing, nada. Still. Like shipping aside, we all know what happy married couples look and feel like, right? Right?
Sasuke avoids Sakura like the plague and Naruto sleeps anywhere that is not his shared bed with Hinata. Kishi could have made the canon couples smile at each other at minimum, or could have deviced a single lined, mutually felt interaction that would have given the audience some indication that they were leading happy married lives, but nope, Kishi is a resolute man.
Instead ALL of those expectations are satisfied in Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship. More than satisfied. From start to end, and still going on.
Antis can be as delusional as they want, canon speaks for itself.
really bold of kishimoto to be like naruto and sasuke’s fates are intertwined and written in the cosmos or something will of fire etc like they’re destined to be reincarnated over and over and over they’re the sun and the moon the sky and the sea wind and fire natural opposers but perfect complements their hands beg to tenderly touch and bridge the gap between them in fact it is paramount to bring about peace and harmony and salvation to the world they kiss and kiss and kiss and yearn and yearn and yearn for e/o lol haha aren’t i so crazy. never before seen in a shounen manga right that’s why i did it :) anyways they love to worship at the shrine of heterosexuality. read all about it in boruto next gen! meanwhile all gay people in the world whose health and sanity started rapidly declining after vote1 ALONE are just left in the ruins of this series like
Okay so I have talked about author’s intent before. I am going to expand on that in this post.
Manga is basically a moving picture without the moving in it. It’s basically a film with all its features including images, dialogues, narration, sound effects, special effects, and editing.
Just like a film, it also sets up a certain narrative and story with a commensurate pace, mood, context, action (or inaction) and characterisation which then informs its style and visual approach. It’s basically a very detailed storyboard of a film. Storyboarding happens at the pre production stage of a film, for ease of the cinematographers, and directors to set up their location and sets accordingly. This is what a storyboard looks like. This is Star Wars btw.
Is Kishi inspired by films? He is a huge fan, it’s his favourite hobby. There’s a reason his work is considered cinematic by critics.
So for a certain scene or panel to make sense, or for it to stand out, the mangaka will set its background up. And when you look at Naruto manga, the author does everything in his power and uses everything in his skillset to tell this love story. Everything that happens in this manga regarding Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship has a certain context behind it, and it’s important to notice this, because the information that the author gives you prior to a significant panel or a certain dialogue, or a certain visual, it can be any little thing. But with Naruto, it’s everything.
Kishi spares no effort to get his point across. Of course, audience that wants to see it will see it. Those who don’t, will prefer their own reading, however lacking, single mindedly ignorant and uninspired.
Anyway.
So this scene here is an important scene. Why? Because it gives us important information about Sasuke’s feelings for Naruto. Trying to protect Naruto here was a really pointless move by Sasuke, given it would have only caused a bruise at most. But Sasuke is so in love with this boy, that he can’t see him get hurt, even a little bit. We do have precedents, of course, where Sasuke protects Naruto several times even at the cost of his ‘life’, he also protects Sakura in the forest of death arc, they are his comrades and Sasuke doesn’t want them to be hurt. Naturally.
But why is this particular scene important and how does this scene differ from the others? Apart from the fact that it is extraneous and unnecessary, tbf, Sasuke is almost completely out of juice due to the curse seal. So for him to go so out of his way to protect Naruto from hardly even a bruise, emphasizes just how much Sasuke treasures Naruto and wants to protect him.
Does Kishimoto set up context for it? You bet your ass he does. Starts here.
Naruto gets knocked into a tree by a transformed Gaara and Sasuke’s watching carefully. He is aware that something is not quite right with Naruto (because Naruto was apprehensive of fighting Gaara given what he had seen of him earlier, which is unlike him). But the point I am making is one has to pay attention to the visuals and context.
Again.
Sasuke’s watching while Naruto gets knocked into trees and bushes.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again. Sigh…
Sasuke’s. Watching. Carefully.
So when this finally happens,
It gives the audience a solid context, and brings their attention closer to this panel, and the action that happens in it. It pulls focus to its importance through constant repetition. What does the repetition signify? Author’s intent. For emphasis.
Kishi builds up to this moment across three chapters, he is making the audience somehow anticipate some action that would make sense of these repetitive visuals. He is doing everything to make sure that on a subliminal level, the audience knows why this moment is significant and special. And he doesn’t stop there. He makes the dog say it out loud.
Pakkun is emphasizing Sasuke’s attempt to protect Naruto despite his obvious handicap, as if a thousand visuals were not enough. Yes Kish, we get it. Sasuke loves Naruto, Naruto is his precious, we know. We have known since land of waves arc, you aren’t that discreet.
It’s really like Kishi doesn’t want the audience to be confused as to what’s happening, this is in no way being discreet. Like take my word for it, anyone who knows how visual language works, can instantly tell you author’s intent here. Even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. Because at an unconscious level, the author has already made you feel that this is an important moment. Whether you consciously realize it or not. That’s how visual language works, and this is where author’s talent lies.
I know that antis don’t see any of it. Or even consider seeing it.
Anyone who ships Sasuke and Naruto, be assured that you caught on the author ’s intent, and you were right to trust your instincts. Don’t get panicked by whatever the antis say, it doesn’t matter, they don’t know what they are talking about, just let them be.
And those who say it’s all a bait are even sillier. Because at least the others have shipping lenses on, so I get they are affected by their emotional urges. But those who think SNS is unintentional and a total bait are just lying to themselves because they think they are smarter than the whole manga industry, tch, embarrassing.
I don’t care about Sakura anymore, but I do care that Kishi doesn’t respect his fans to the point of blatantly lying and contradicting his work, his earlier words and common sense. No matter how much you hate Sakura or NS, you can’t just deny what was put on paper. And yet he does it. I am stunned.
He’s been like this ever since the ending. Every interview, he said something that contradicted with another interview or what he wrote. Tbf, the fandom doesn’t respect his work either, all they care is the ships and Sakura and Hinata both of whom Kishi said “did nothing” in the story.
I think he knows his fans hate him anyway, and he hates his fans too. He also whined about people who criticised the ending and called them “annoying noise”. He watched codeprovider’s videos, codes HATES naruto, Kishimoto got to be aware part of the fanbase loathe him.
I think you guys should enjoy these interviews, cos every things he spews is one more reason to hate hinata and kishimoto. It’s not like you guys respect Kishimoto anyway, the more bullshit he say, the better.
He really is just a fraud who got lucky. The series’s success is built on wish fulfilment. Half of the plot from part 1 was copied from hunter x hunter.
It’s weird for me the justification that some people use for a girl “win” a guy in Naruto. When I think well it's almost never related with the dynamic of the relationship. Insted what I see are arguments like “she was the one who recognized him first” or “She’s the one who loved himthe most” or “She’s the one who understand who he is”, etc.
In the begining we can argue the ship wars are all about the girls’ point of view but if you think it doesn’t actually focus in who this women are as humans(which would make the argument be correct) but in what actions they can have to deserve the man.
The girls are ignored for the guys who they are in love with for years (not just for some months) and the only reason why they recive something back wasn’t because the boys realize how amazing this girls are as a person but because this woman are the ones who know how AMAZING this guys are and showed all their devotion and love for them.
So in the end romance in Naruto is not about the girls, it’s actually about woman satisfying the male ego (I’m not saying Sasuke or Naruto for exemple need or want to be worship by Hinata or Sakura but in the end this is what happened in the relationship).
Of course you can argue for exemple when Sakura talks about Sasuke she always says things about herself and see this as a evidence that the guys doesn’t matter in the relationship but in a outside context the reason why she marry him has nothing to do with who she is (Kishimoto doesn’t show or care what’s better for her) but as we saw in interviews it was because a woman can't leave the man she loves
When Kishimoto shows a relationship dinamic where the men are unable to have a opinion (let’s be real the guys in Naruto don’t care about things involving romance at least related to girls) while most part of the girls thoughts involve men he is saying to me he thinks when a relationship or a family became shit the ones who should be blame for are the women.
The worship for this kind of relationships in media doesn’t help the women to be empowered actually is just the point of the icebergs for create abusive relationships in real life specially for women who need always choose love insted of care for themselves.
It’s ok to suport a ship but in my opinion is important to critize them specially in Naruto where most part of canon relationships are result of a sexist view. Kishimoto’s
So the wife is watching Dragon Ball Super(DBKai) and I remembered seeing that Kishitmoto said Boruto is his Gohan and Sasuke is Piccolo.
Ok let’s then check the differences between Dragon Ball Super and Boruto:
1) Piccolo does NOT have his own child to train, he trains Gohan out of goodwill only. Sasuke on the other hand HAS his own fucking child to train, who he does NOT give a shit about and ABANDONS in order to train Boruto.
2) Gohan actually DOES love his father Goku even if said father spends most of his time training or fighting, because when he’s NOT training or fighting, he’s home with his kids, playing with them, going out, living a normal life with them. Boruto on the other hand doesn’t get to see his shit father even when said father isn’t doing jack shit, Naruto simply does NOT LIKE his own son and AVOIDS THE FUCK out of being near him, and that causes Boruto to HATE his father.
Now let’s take a small twist and compare Vegeta and Bulma to Sasusaku (lol) since SStards like to compare both couples so much:
1) Vegeta actually DOES love Bulma and Trunks, that is EXPLICITED often in Dragon Ball Super, from Vegeta using the ugly uniform Bulma made for him ONLY because she made it for him and his protecting her ALL THE TIME and ACTUALLY INTERACTING WITH HER often without ever treating her badly to the fact that HE trains Trunks and has a HEALTHY father-son dynamic with him, so much so that he ends up training Goten with Trunks because he KNOWS his own kid and appreciates the fact that they fight better together. Oh, and Vegeta LIVES happily with Bulma and Trunks.
Now let’s analyze Sasusaku (lol):
Sasuke does NOT live with Sakura and Sarada, he REFUSES to train Sarada, he has ONLY MET Sarada when she was fucking TWELVE years old (and worse yet, he spent those 12 years away doing a USELESS mission that yielded ZERO results) having NEVER contacted her or Sakura before that, he NEVER even looks at Sakura’s way when she needs to be protected, hell, he won’t even HELP PAY THE FUCKING BILLS and he STILL TREATS SAKURA LIKE SHIT WHENEVER SHE’S AROUND HIM.
Isn’t it ironic that Kishimoto wants to compare his HORRIBLE story to Toryiama’s actually GOOD familial dynamics?
Sasuke/Naruto:100/10 (the magnum opus. Itachi ships it. Gaara ships it. The fox demon ships it. Kishimoto himself ships it, probably. The range and quality of fan works, the sheer intensity and epic ROMANCE, front and center in the literal TEXT/source material, gob-smacking thematic, structural FIT, making other pairings look like crack pairings)
Naruto/Sakura:5/10(I can support this with development or as a side pairing, if u ppl insist on hetero Naruto. They have a great friendship to build on. tho realistically, 99% of their dates and phone calls will be about Sasuke)
Sasuke/Karin:4/10 (I tolerate if done well, because Karin has that mutual respect & partner in crime dynamic on top of her crush, and ultimately likes him for who he is and will stick by him even when he doesn’t return her affections in the same way – and Sasuke can learn to love her over time, aka, if you insist on having hetero Sasuke)
Naruto/Hinata:1/10(*with gritted teeth*Iget where it comes from but they’re so bland, forced, and comes off as a male fantasy)
Sasuke/Sakura:0/10(no.)
Naruto -> Sasuke <- Sakura:10/10(this is how they act in canon, especially Shippuden.)
Sasuke -> Naruto <- Sakura: 5/10(ah, bisexual confusion starring Naruto can be entertaining. Sasuke pines from a distance. Cue the romcom drama, friendzoning, and hilarious misunderstandings)
Naruto -> Sakura <- Sasuke: 0/10 (pffff. the idea that Sasuke would compete with Naruto for a girl he rejected twice is hilarious. Poor Sakura wishes their rivalry was about her. in reality, she’s always the third wheel. Naruto, despite his crush on Sakura as a genin, competes to prove himself. He got competitive with Sasuke because he’s jealous OF Sasuke. It was mainly about himself. and Sasuke. Not Sakura.)
