#anti kishimotos bad writing

[weepingnightmarenaruto]

One of the most disrespectful things Kishimoto ever did was kill Neji and then have the main villain of the whole fucking show have the byakugan.

#naruto #naruto critical #neji #neji hyuga #kaguya otsutsuki #when Naruto and Sasuke almost died their alien ancestor revived them #AND gave them a powerup #when neji dies #NOTHING #fuck hamura #the main character privilege of it all #like it makes no sense that Hamura didn’t have any representatives during the kaguya fight #like the last time Hagoromo AND Hamuras powers were required #and this time two people who combined maybe equals Hagoromos powers #kishimoto really wants me to believe Sakura and Kakashi have the combined powers of a demigod? #like it just doesn’t ad up #anti kishimoto #anti kishimotos bad writing #mine

[irontragedyreview]

Looking at the panels and certain specific moments of Minato's one shot it feels like a big middle finger from Kishimoto to part of the fandom that tells him that he doesn't know how to write romance. First of all, I respect that even though it's supposedly Minato's manga, Kushina is the real star, but I think this manga only seems to show something that was already in Naruto, Kishimoto knows how to write romance, he has done it with couples like Dan and Tsunade on a smaller scale and even with the crumbs he gave about Kushina and Minato in the original series, which means that NH and SS are bad not because of a lack of talent but because of a simple lack of interest.

#anti sasusaku #anti naruhina #I use the correct tags if this shows in your tags block me or ignore me #I talk about straight couples because shippers always talk about Kishimoto being bad writing romance and that why sns exists #But nop Kishimoto knows write romantic straight couples he just doesn't care for nh or ss

[leportraitducadavre]

You know there’s a weird connection between the fandom’s perceived idea of “good writing” and their personal feelings about specific characters. “I like this character, therefore, they’re well written” and viceversa, “I dislike this character, therefore, they’re badly written” –I’ve seen this in many fandoms and with different characters, but there’s no fandom where this is more noticeable than in the “anti Sakura” portion of the audience.

Before we start, let me be clear on something: I don’t personally like Sakura, I don’t consider myself a fan of hers (or her stans, which are just as annoying as Hinata’s), nor I believe she’s the “heroine” of a story that has no room for a character with such status (I’ve said this before, Naruto is the hero and Sasuke is the antagonist -there’s no necessity nor space for anyone else as Sakura is merely the female character with most panel time, yet she doesn’t move the plot forward and she isn’t relevant to the development of other key characters, as most of them completely ignore her existence).

“Likeability” isn’t a determining factor when it comes to labelling a character “well” or “badly” written, such notion relies on subjective factors which makes it impossible to objectively determine the overall value of a character inside a story.

The most important factor to label a character “goodly written” has more to do with how well they represent their theological narrative. For instance, Danzo -who I genuinely despise, is amazingly written, as he spot on tackles the subject of extreme-nationalistic world view, while Itachi -on the other hand, is sort-of all over the place as he subscribes to Danzo’s ideology and defends it with the same actions, yet Kishimoto desperately wanted to keep him inside the “good guys” group, which ultimately failed and took down anything Itachi might have had going for him (besides other inconsistencies as he’s presented as a genius who made nothing but mistake after mistake). There’s a reason why the antagonists are often the ones with the best characterizations, as they aren’t tied to been “morally correct” or “likeable” in order to reflect their thematic plot, which is why the better characters in Naruto happen to be Uchiha (Sasuke, Obito, Madara).

Sakura has no weight inside the plot, as she is mostly used for support of either Naruto and (to a lesser extent) Sasuke, she stands narratively in the same spectrum as most “good” characters of the show, so she’s thematically not much more relevant than the rest of K-11; yet she’s given more depth than many other characters, as she’s a layered character of whom we see both her strengths and flaws, something we can’t say for other characters, such as Hinata.

In the Hyüga princess™’s case, her personality is mostly one dimensional as she is a thematic piece used to deepen Neji’s character. In case you haven’t noticed, she was constructed in opposition to him: She needs to be shy in order for Naruto to take pity on her when Neji insults her (as Neji is mostly arrogant and outspoken), she’s comically bad because Neji is a prodigy, she’s “a freak” (said by Naruto himself) because Neji isn't, she’s a slave owner because Neji is her slave, and so on –the only thing she has that wasn’t built in order to oppose her cousin was her infatuation with Naruto, something she makes a priority.

Everything we “know” about Hinata was mostly fandom-made, Hinata is shy and soft spoken, why is she considered “nice”? We never saw her worrying about anyone but Naruto: She was glad Kiba lost his match and offered Naruto the ointment to treat his wounds, she diminished her cousin’s trauma and endorsed the oppressive system of her clan, we never see her visiting Kiba after he returned from his mission to bring Sasuke back to Konoha (something we see Ino and Sakura do with their respective teammates, and while Hinata was recovering from Neji’s attack, she had enough strength to train and go see the Chünin Exams final stage, at no point is mentioned she was bed-ridden, as Sasuke had enough time to recover from Gaara’s attack before escaping the village), she thought about Naruto’s warm hand seconds after her cousin died and she was the only character not shown to be glad about Shikamaru being alive as we saw her pouting and thinking about how much she wanted to be beside Naruto. Furthermore, is there any scene in which she appears where she’s not thinking or talking about Naruto or where he is not the main focus?

How come a character designed to be nothing more than support (for Neji and Naruto, as her infatuation with him was built in order to have some oppositional force to the idea of “nobody likes him”, as Naruto has an unrequited love for Sakura during the whole duration of the manga) is “better written” than Sakura, who despite herself being also support she has far more thematically ground to move around (Kishimoto explores through her different themes, even if they aren’t relevant to the plot itself, such as romantical obsession, low self-esteem and the decisions/characteristics that are driven by it, female friendship, and few others).

Honest question: It’s her sad background reason enough to like Hinata? Do you truly need a “compelling” backstory in order to claim a character is “better written” than others? Sakura was bullied because she was shy, Hinata -being the Hyüga heir, wasn’t shown to suffer the same fate at the hands of her classmates. Think about it this way, while Sakura was being bullied and had to be helped by Ino, Hinata was being trained by her father and witnessing Hiashi torture her uncle while Neji cried, helpless! –and just a few years later, she used that exact knowledge to insult him! So she’s not really that nice after all!

What is it with the obsession of both fandoms with the idea of “potential” and how, apparently, they were “robbed of it” (what “potential”? When did Hinata even hint at improving her fighting techniques? She was defeated every single time! When did Sakura, who canonically has a smaller chakra pool than both Sasuke and Naruto, have the possibility of surpass literally Ashura and Indra’s reincarnations? Them having more panel time will mean absolutely nothing as we’ll see them doing the exact same thing we already see them do only twice as much. “Potential” is about exploring a latent ability of them, Hinata has none and Sakura’s chakra flux control was properly exploited!).

There’s more to say about this, but I’m honestly tired at this point…

#anti hinata #anti hinata hyuga #anti hinata hyuuga #anti hinata fandom #anti hinata stans #anti nh #anti naruhina #anti naruhina fandom #anti sakura #anti sakura haruno #anti sakura fandom #anti sakura stans

[maoam]

DISSECTING SAKURA - WHY IS SHE SO TERRIBLE?

INTRO

I promised to write a post about Sakura’s character long time ago so here’s that now. If you want to read my Hinata post it’s here.

Sakura is a character that is very hated in the Naruto fandom. Many people acknowledge she’s one of the worst female characters in anime. And yet, she also has many dedicated stans that defend her character and insist she is simply misunderstood, that she’s actually a good shinobi and a person, or not as bad as people think. While there are many videos and essays about Sakura, my issue with them is that they often either praise Hinata who isn’t any better than Sakura or they do not acknowledge Sakura is supposed to be the way she is. She is intentionally written as an unlikeable person and she was never supposed to be inspiring or a positive character. I will try to explain this to you the best I can by dissecting her character. As usual, if you’re a fan of her character you might not want to see what’s next. This will be tagged under the anti tags so if you see it in the character tag that is not intentional.

SAKURA AS A SHINOBI

I will first focus on Sakura as a shinobi and her skills in fights since Naruto is a battle manga. Sakura is, as it's often acknowledged to the point of memes, pretty useless. A lot of her stans don’t understand why. She might get to punch once every 200 chapters or heal fodders but in the end she is featless. She is placed in many important situations where she does nothing to contribute or even gets in the way. This is not acceptable for a main character that has a lot of screentime. Naturally, this is something that annoys many people but it’s made even more annoying by the fact Sakura is constantly talking about how much stronger she has gotten and how she wants to be on par with Naruto and Sasuke.

In the beginning, during the bell test, Sakura doesn't even attempt to get the bells from Kakashi and only ends up fainting. In the Land of Waves, because Sakura was able to climb the tree due to her chakra control, she became smug and overconfident and thought she doesn't need to train. Which is funny considering she does nothing except stand around during an actual fight while Naruto and Sasuke actually contribute to the fight with the main antagonists. She's tasked to protect Tazuna, yet she can't do that either, but Kakashi has to intervene and get injured. It’s also worth mentioning Kakashi pointed out that during the tree climbing Sakura was able to control her chakra better because she had little chakra to begin with. Thus Kishimoto establishes very early on Sakura as someone who brags and overrestimates her own skills.

In the Chunin exams, Sakura hopes that Naruto and Sasuke aren’t foolish enough to cheat during the written exam, and she’s sure that she can answer the questions based on her knowledge. But what she doesn’t realize is that the real intention of the test is for the takers to use their observation and deductive skills to gather information and cheat. We find this out in the same chapter through Sasuke. Sasuke, unlike Sakura, realizes that the test makers want them to act like a shinobi. Sakura is book smart and a rote learner, but as we have seen in the Land of Waves and what we will see in the rest of the Chunin exams, being book smart won’t help her on the battlefield. Kishimoto wanted to show us that Sakura is just someone who brags and thinks she’s got everything under control, despite the fact she’s not the right kind of smart to be a shinobi, she doesn’t think like one.

In the Forest of Death, we then see she isn’t able to actually put anything into practice and Naruto and Sasuke again do all the work, while Sakura does nothing except stand around, scream and cry. Sasuke even has to yell at her to stop merely standing around. Eventually though, when Naruto and Sasuke are knocked out after the encounter with Orochimaru, Sakura has no choice but to protect them from Orochimaru’s henchmen. But she of course fails. She sets traps that fail, and gets mocked for her amateuristic skills by her opponents. We see characters like Kiba are able to put up traps that actually work, but Sakura who is supposedly smart isn’t. Then Rock Lee arrives to her rescue. After he gets beaten up, Kin grabs Sakura by her hair and calls her out on her vanity and tells her she should have trained more, which is basically what Sasuke did at the beginning of the arc, when he told Sakura if she has time to flirt maybe she should use that time to learn a jutsu or two. In the chapter cover she is also seen brushing her hair in front of a mirror in the forest, so Kishimoto makes it pretty clear Sakura is someone who cares a lot about her looks even during a mission. Kishimoto uses the villains to point out Sakura’s flaws, since the main characters can’t do that considering she is one of the main characters. So we see Dosu point out Sakura’s lack of observation skills and talent, and Kin point out her vanity and boy chasing personality. Sakura then dramatically cuts her hair and gives a speech on how she wants to walk in front of Naruto and Sasuke and wants them to look at her back. Despite the little fight she puts up, she is easily beaten down and is saved by Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji, before Sasuke wakes up and beats up Orochimaru's henchmen, driving them away. Sakura acted like this was going to be her moment, yet it wasn't at all. She had five other characters, 4 of them supporting characters, all of whom showed much better ninja skills than her, come to her rescue.

During Sakura and Ino's match, Sakura starts boasting how Ino is nowhere near her level. What happens is despite her bragging, she falls right into Ino's trap. Unlike Sakura, Ino actually used her wits and shinobi like strategy during the fight, using Sakura’s ego against her to successfully trap her. But because Naruto yelled Sakura's name, her inner Sakura somehow interrupted the fight and it ended in a tie. I think Ino should have won this fight but regardless it didn't make Sakura look good, just an overconfident brat who got lucky.

The rest of Part 1 Sakura spends moping over Sasuke and getting one-paneled by Gaara in the Konoha crush arc where she again becomes a damsel in distress to no one’s surprise. Her uselessly holding a kunai has become a meme because she does it many times during the series. Despite being a liability to her team she never thinks about how to better her skills nor tries to train. After Sasuke leaves and Sakura fails to stop him, she goes to Naruto and begs him with tears in her eyes to bring Sasuke back. Considering how many support characters have contributed massively in Part 1, a main character like Sakura achieving nothing just puts it into perspective how useless she really is. She has been a damsel in every single arc. When Naruto fails to bring Sasuke back, Sakura decides to ask Tsunade to train her, and tells Naruto next time she will go with him to get Sasuke back. The thing is, she should have had the resolve to train and change herself already before Sasuke left. She should have realized she put her team constantly in jeopardy by being weak. She read all about what life of a shinobi entails yet she seemed to treat it as some playground where she can play damsel while everyone around her protects her. It’s only when her crush left and Naruto failed to bring him back that she bothers to make an effort.

At the start of Part 2, Kakashi gives Naruto and Sakura yet another bell test, and Sakura shows some potential by showing off her chakra punch. But in the end, they manage to finally get the bells due to Naruto's plan. Some people act like Sakura is the smart one in team 7 yet she constantly fails to showcase this smartness of hers. Next, team 7 is assigned by Tsunade to rescue Kazekage Gaara. Sakura swears that this time, she will save both Naruto and Sasuke. Again, she sets up a high goal for herself, only to never achieve it. Sakura does however, mix up an antidote to heal Kankuro after he got attacked by Sasori. Next Chiyo and Sakura get ready for a fight with Sasori. Notice how this is the only fight where Sakura actually manages to not fail? It's because Chiyo is literally directing her moves, both verbally and physically. But I will give her credit for using the antidote to survive Sasori's poison, and taking the hit for Chiyo. Sasori was also apparently suicidal and didn’t avoid the last hit but I don’t dwell on that too much.

Now I need to mention something that is very important to note when it comes to Sakura’s character writing. Whenever Sakura does anything she’s complimented countless times by Kakashi, Chiyo, Sasori, and basically everyone she comes across. Kakashi starts to talk about how she might be able to surpass Tsunade, just because she punches the ground once in front of him. Chiyo hails her as a girl who can surpass Tsunade as well, before even seeing her fighting abilities. Hashirama thinks her power might be greater than Tsunade’s despite not even seeing what his granddaughter can do. And this goes on and on. This is Kishimoto intentionally raising up the audience's expectations, only to later intentionally bring them down. Superficial readers think she is smart and could possibly surpass Tsunade because other characters say so, but people who actually read the manga and pay attention can see that Sakura never lives up to the expectations placed on her.

Right after this arc, Sakura goes back to being useless and not contributing much especially considering the screentime she gets. Despite being able to avoid Sasori’s attacks with the help of Chiyo, in the Tenchi Bridge arc she gets first knocked out by Kabuto's flying butt because she's not watching where she's going, and needs to be saved by Yamato. Then she doesn’t let Yamato do his job and gets knocked out by Naruto's 4-tailed form, and needs to be saved by Yamato and healed by Kabuto. When they finally meet Sasuke she charges at him with no apparent strategy and needs to be saved by Yamato again, who gets injured in the process.

So after the entire part 1 of being useless, and 15 chapters of not being useless, Sakura needs to be saved multiple times by Yamato while contributing nothing. To people who paid more attention when reading the manga, this arc made them realize Sakura was never gonna change and this is how her character would always going to be. But others were still starstruck by the previous arc, and would only realize it later.

In the Akatsuki Suppression arc she pretty much does nothing worth mentioning. She is tasked to go help Shikamaru but the latter has already taken care of Hidan by himself. In the Itachi Pursuit arc she doesn’t do anything either, but only follows the dogs tracking Sasuke’s scent. In the Pain arc a lot of characters contribute in the fight against Pain, even Konohamaru who is just a kid manages to defeat one of the paths of Pain, while Sakura is again shown crying and screaming for Naruto. What was that about saving Naruto and Sasuke? If she’s so strong as she acts like she is she could have at least tried to buy some time for Naruto instead of crying like a total whimp.

There’s also a constant pattern of Sakura trying to demonstrate her "powers" or "strategy" and failing. This happened again in the start of the Five kage Summit arc when she tried to fight with the Kumo warriors, got immediately facekicked to the ground and had to be rescued by Naruto yet again. And this is not even the worst. In the same arc she attempts to take down Sasuke by herself, drugging her teammates so they can’t help her, and ends up failing when Sasuke figures out what she’s trying to do and she needs to be saved first by Kakashi and then by Naruto. As always, she aims too high and falls flat on her face. She ends the arc moping how she can’t do anything except to trust Naruto. Of course, Kishimoto doesn’t forgot to mention that Sasuke is resistant to poison, so Sakura’s attempt of killing him whether she succeeded stabbing him or not would have been futile either way. Again, she is failing to come even close to her own goals she set for herself. She is once again a liability that needs saving. And so the audience is frustrated and annoyed with her character. They are thinking, why is this girl who is constantly bragging about her skills constantly making a fool out of herself, crying pathetically and needing to be rescued? Well, that would be because she is supposed to be a person who is completely misguided about her own skills.

In the war arc, Sakura isn’t any better. The war arc only amplifies what we already have seen and know. That Kishimoto uses subversion to show Sakura’s character as overall irrelevant, and to show she’s all talk. In part 1, Sakura is said to be smart and she boasts about her skills yet she can’t do anything in an actual fight, but has to be saved by multiple characters, including Naruto, whom she considered inferior to herself. This of course made people annoyed with her character. When part 2 started, other characters were again commenting on her potential and how she had supposedly grown. So many people got hopeful that she had actually grown a lot and changed. And yet, as I have pointed out, she tried to show off many times and failed miserably. Which made people even more frustrated with her. Because they had gotten their hopes up. The Five Kage Summit arc was definitely the ultimate breaking point. After Sakura’s ridiculous attempt to manipulate Naruto, her drugging her teammates while leaving them defenseless on the ground and her trying to take down Sasuke and failing, she was certified as the fandom’s laughing stock. But some of her stans still remained, and thought she would redeem herself. Somehow.

Then comes the 4th shinobi war. Sakura has mostly been in the background healing people, but when Sasuke shows up, she is suddenly motivated to show off for real. She even gets pissed when Naruto is about to go with Sasuke and suggests to her that she could take a break. Sakura insists she is also part of team 7 and that she surely can keep up with the two of them. We have a panel hyping up Team 7. Then Sakura gets a moment to make a big punch after which she boasts and thinks she’s better than Tsunade, insulting the latter in the process. But she’s not paying attention to her surroundings and needs to be saved by the boys, after which she starts to boast how she will steal the Hokage seat from Naruto and how now they will all fight together with their backs to each other. She then reaffirms herself that she has finally caught up to Naruto and Sasuke. This level of arrogance needs to be backed up, otherwise the audience will get annoyed. And it did annoy a big portion of the fandom, considering they had seen for the past 600 chapters or so Sakura talking about how she wants to be on par with Naruto and Sasuke, how she won’t be a liability anymore and it all leading to nothing except disappointment after disappointment. Sakura’s confidence and ego are greatly disproportionate for someone of her capabilities, which a big part of the audience notices, whether consciously or subconsciously. And this is of course intentional.

She is left on the sidelines again when Naruto and Sasuke are too busy being ”the main act” and fighting perfectly in sync. Sakura has to ask Hinata what is even happening with the two of them. Sakura keeps healing people, but eventually Naruto’s chakra starts to help her with the healing.

Then we get to one of the most infamous moments with Sakura, that resembles another infamous moment in the Five kage summit arc, when she tried to take down Sasuke with a poisoned kunai. In this moment Obito is asking Sakura to stab his rinnegan eye with a kunai. In both moments, she can’t come up with a resolve to use her kunai but just trembles centimeters away from her target. Taking her time shaking she then gets attacked by her opponent, and ends up being saved. In both cases, she wastes her chance because she’s a total whimp who has no resolve to do what she pretends she can do. And thus, the audience is annoyed once again. And the people who always knew what she was like make fun of her.

But Kishimoto won’t stop there. In the very same chapter, when Sakura is trying to heal Kakashi, Naruto takes over and not only heals him but also gives him a brand new eye, something Sakura of course isn’t able to do. Healing was the only thing she could do and even that was taken from her! So much for her being a relevant member of Team 7 who is on par with Naruto and Sasuke.

Kakashi then starts reminiscing about Team 7, and it ends with him reminding the three about his first lesson, which was team work being the key to success. So what happens?

Sakura begans to once again nurse her own insecurities and tries to show off to satisfy her own ego by charging at Madara and telling the boys to follow her. She has no idea of Madara’s strengths and weaknesses and what would you know, her punch is stopped and she gets stabbed in the chest and is once again rescued by Naruto. And what does she do? Mopes that Sasuke doesn’t pay attention to her nor seems to care. She cares more about showing off to Sasuke than defeating Madara, even when this is about a threat to the whole world. What a great shinobi. It’s a callback to part 1 when she moped over the fact Sasuke didn’t care about her climbing the tree. Just like with her shaking with the kunai, it’s just another moment that shows she never truly changes. Not in ways that matter.

And then we see Naruto and Sasuke actually fight Madara, and Sakura literally just stands there in awe of them. She’s shook by Madara’s power which she obviously had no clue about. Of course Sakura still tries to go after the boys but Kakashi stops her and says it’s pointless to do so unless she has a plan. And she stops, and stares at Naruto and Sasuke’s backs as they disappear. Hah. She once again, has failed to achieve the goal she sets for herself. Kishimoto hyped up team 7 yet constantly showed Sakura failing and being left behind, despite how much she claimed she could keep up with the two of them. The way Kishimoto writes her, by making Sakura herself or others hype her, and then showing she’s actually lame is very consistent and relentless.

Taking into consideration that she’s a main character, and all the times that she’s promised major improvement, what we received was just pathetic. When you add it to the fact that she’s a member of such an over-achieving team, it makes her look pitiful in comparison. But it’s supposed to be. Don’t even think this is unintentional from Kishimoto. Sakura was supposed to be someone who never changes.

SAKURA’S PERSONALITY AND HER RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS

Now a little more on Sakura’s personality and the way she interacts with others which is definitely one of the reasons why many people hate her.

In the beginning, she is introduced as a shallow girl who is focused on her looks and getting the attention of the popular boy in the class, rather than being a good shinobi. She gets called out on her vanity by not only Sasuke but also by her enemies. She is pretty quick to give up on the bell test which annoys Sasuke. One wonders why is she even a shinobi when her resolve is so weak. She beats and berates Naruto and is only able to treat him better by mimicking Sasuke. Despite Kakashi’s comments on all of them maturing Sakura hasn’t changed at all at the start of the Chunin exam arc but she keeps asking Sasuke on dates instead of training and also squeals for him like a fangirl. She mopes that she’s not good enough for the Chunin exam and only gets motivated when Sasuke compliments her. This type of shallow and weak characterization made many people instantly dislike her.

In the chunin exams we also find out she broke her friendship with Ino after she found out Ino liked Sasuke as well. This is something that gave more background to her character but at the same time made people dislike her even more, since Ino is someone who reached out to Sakura and helped her build her self-esteem yet Sakura simply dumped her and started a catty rivalry over Sasuke. In Part 2, they only interact once, and during that moment Sakura wants Sai to call Ino ugly. You can’t really call it a beautiful friendship when Sakura is constantly shown as catty and the only person who does anything for the other is Ino. It’s Ino who reaches out to Sakura. It’s Ino who comes to her rescue in the Forest of Death. It’s Ino who compliments her after their match. What has Sakura done for Ino other than wanting her to be called ugly and teaching her kid to keep Ino away from Sasuke?

During Sakura and Ino’s match, Kakashi says Sakura isn’t the type to brag and bully others, even when we have seen her do both constantly. Already in the Land of Waves she bragged how she doesn’t need to train despite not being able to do anything in a fight. She also constantly berates Naruto and acts superior to him, aside from punching him all the time over nothing. Sakura having a bloated sense of superiority and tendency to brag about her skills is a consistent character trait of hers. But she never manages to truly back up her arrogant attitude but comes off as weak and overall irrelevant, which is yet another thing that makes her an unlikeable character in the eyes of the audience. In the war she also insults Tsunade, the one who taught her, while boasting how she is better than her like she’s some badass when she is far from it. When has she created her own jutsu or made anything revolutionary? During the same chapter she also brags how she’s gonna steal the Hokage seat from Naruto. Yes Naruto, the guy who keeps saving her useless ass all the time.

Speaking of Kakashi, he is a character that Kishimoto used in his writing as someone who treats Sakura with kid gloves and coddles her. This is one reason why some people defend her character, and why some people ship the two of them. If you’re a Sakura stan, it must feel validating when some character constantly defends your fave’s stupid behavior. But Kakashi is someone who not only admits to not understand Sasuke, but also someone who clearly doesn’t understand Sakura, as we see from the earlier image how Sakura’s behavior contradicts with Kakashi’s claims since the beginning. Basically, if you need to know how Sakura really is like, just flip what Kakashi says about her and you’ll know. Since Sakura is part of the main team, Kishimoto needed some character to defend her behavior so she wouldn’t be confronted about it too much. But smart readers aren’t fooled. It’s also worth noting that Kakashi tells Sasuke Sakura still loves him despite the fact Sasuke tried to kill her, while conveniently omitting the fact Sakura went there to kill Sasuke herself. This makes Kakashi look hypocritical but Kishimoto needed some character to do this because of Boruto, and it’s not like he was gonna use Naruto, the one he himself called Sasuke’s ally.

Then we have Sakura’s hypocritical behavior, that Kishimoto also consistently portrayed. During Sakura and Ino’s match, Sakura says Ino is a girl who is focused only on her looks and that she wouldn’t want to be on the same level with her, despite the fact Sakura herself was shown brushing her hair in the Forest of Death and getting dragged for her vanity. She also got upset and hit Naruto when he tried to pee in front of her, saying she’s a lady, yet thought to herself how she would like to see Sasuke pee in front of her. When trying to plead to Sasuke to not go, Sakura says revenge won’t bring anyone happiness, but when it doesn’t work she flips completely on what she said and asks Sasuke to take her with him so she can help him. Even if she acts like she cares about Sasuke’s well-being, what she really cares about are her own feelings. Sasuke unsurprisingly finds this annoying as do many readers. Sakura makes fun of Naruto and insults him, yet gets enraged when Sai calls her names and she proceeds to hit both him and Naruto. She also gets mad at Konohamaru and Naruto for their sexy no jutsus, yet when Konohamaru showed her hot boys naked, one of them being Sasuke, she went all gaga over it.

Sakura is also introduced as a bully who beats Naruto up and mocks him in front of Sasuke who then proceeds to call her out on her terrible behavior. In this chapter, Kishimoto made Sakura call Naruto ”annoying” and then made Sasuke throw her own insult back at her when Sakura mocked Naruto, by calling her annoying. Something that is worth noting is that while Sakura also reacted to Lee badly at first, after he saved her she didn’t do anything bad to him anymore. Yet while she later realizes she was wrong about Naruto’s resolve, and that he cheers for her when she needs it, and that he saved her countless times, she keeps beating him up over nothing and berating him. She still keeps calling him stupid and acting like she knows better. This is why whenever she cries for him, it’s hard to feel any liking to her, because she comes off as more like a poser who will surely soon bash his head in if he dares to behave like himself, or drop him for the sake of Sasuke. Her treatment of Naruto is unreasonably bad at times, but it’s easily explained. In the beginning we find out Sakura dislikes Naruto because she thinks he comes between her and Sasuke. And we see many instances where this notion is amplified by the text. But Sakura is too delusional to understand the reason there is distance between her and Sasuke is simply because Sasuke isn’t interested in her, she’s too shallow and juvenile for him to pay attention to.

Her fake confessing to Naruto and trying to manipulate him made a lot of people lose all respect for her. She also showed she knew so little of Naruto she accidentally managed to tap into all of his insecurities in her confession. She also somehow believed Naruto was really chasing Sasuke for her sake and that he would give up if she offered herself to him.

Her second confession to Sasuke is also very telling of her jealousy of Naruto and Sasuke’s bond. She yells how she can’t exchange blows with Sasuke, how she can’t get close to him, how the only thing she can do is cry and beg. Considering how Naruto is the one who is about to exhange blows with Sasuke yet again, and how Sasuke after their fight talks about how Naruto kept coming closer to him, Sakura is clearly thinking of Naruto when she is having this meltdown. Sakura was shown to be jealous of Naruto’s improvement and skills in Part 1, but she is also jealous of Sasuke’s care and love for Naruto, which she wants for herself and thinks she is entitled to. Even at the start, Kishimoto said Sakura thinks Naruto stole Sasuke’s first kiss which she thought belonged to her. It’s no different at the end of the series. Her outburst is her fighting for what she thinks is rightfully hers, Sasuke, despite the fact he has given no indication that he loves her. But this makes sense. Afterall, we see Sarada come between Ino and Sasuke while Sakura laughs nervously in the background. Despite everything Ino has done for Sakura’s sake, she still sees her as a threat, to the point her own kid is doing the dirty work for her.

Let’s talk more about Sakura’s relationship, or lack there of, with Sasuke. We know Sakura was portrayed like any other fangirl of Sasuke in the beginning, who liked his looks and how cool he was. She never tried to approach Sasuke as a friend but only kept asking him on dates despite his blatant rejections. She never says why she loves him, or even likes him. According to herself Sasuke never says anything to her. Her first confession showed how little she understood Sasuke. She was the girl with everything, with family, while Sasuke and Naruto had nothing. Yet she had the nerve to say if Sasuke left she would be just as lonely as he was. She’s comparing the massacre of Sasuke’s family to a boy she never talks to leaving her, while disrespecting her own parents in the process. How juvenile that must have sounded like to someone like Sasuke. In Part 1 Sasuke occassionally protects Sakura because she’s too weak to protect herself, and in part 2 Sakura probably wanted to entertain the thought Sasuke would still have this consideration for her. But in Part 2 Sasuke treats Sakura like a fodder ninja. She doesn’t manage to get a proper reaction out of Sasuke who focuses on Naruto everytime he meets up with his former team. Sasuke also leaves Sakura to die couple times while choosing to save Naruto instead. Despite all this, Sakura still thought she’s entitled to Sasuke, and in her second confession she started to yet again scream how much she loves Sasuke and how much she hurts due to it. In both of her confessions she is guilt tripping Sasuke and trying to make him pity her. In both of her confessions she makes everything about herself. She admits to herself she can’t do anything for Sasuke, yet she tries to win him over by pity. But she annoys Sasuke once again, and he puts her in a murder genjutsu. Sasuke then says they have no reason to love each other. And he’s right. What does Sakura know about Sasuke? Clearly nothing, considering she said the worst things she could have said during both of her confessions. She heard Sasuke talk about wanting change, yet she started to scream how if Sasuke stays with her, things can go back to how they were. It’s like the most basic things she doesn’t understand. She’s just an overemotional child who has nothing of worth to say. Kakashi who coddles her tries to talk to Sasuke on her behalf as well, insisting Sakura suffers for loving him. Sasuke then thinks of his family and says perhaps those are ties to a failed past. As in Sakura literally lives in the past. And she does. Despite the fact everything has changed, she thinks about the moment when Sasuke thanked her, and ignores him calling her annoying for her ignorant comments, or the fact someone who wants change obviously doesn’t want to go back to the way things were. This brutal rejection though still won’t slow Sakura down, but after Sasuke is leaving to his atonement trip Sakura blushes like a school girl and asks to come with him. After him mocking her and putting her in a genjutsu, this is what she does.

And Kishimoto still won’t stop there. After all of Sakura’s boasting that ended in failure, after the brutal genjutsu and her being made mostly irrelevant, we see her destroy her own house because her kid asked about her marriage with Sasuke and she got insecure. I have to ask how do some people not realize Kishimoto despises Sakura and writes her as a terrible person? She is a bad daughter who doesn’t understand how lucky she is but is ready to ditch her parents for an indifferent boy’s sake. She is a bad student who disrespects Tsunade for no reason. She is a bad friend who treats Ino and Naruto badly out of insecurity. She is a bad person who treats the target of her crush like an object instead of a person. She is a bad shinobi as well who is most of the time a liability. And she is a bad mother as well. When she’s insisting to Sarada that Sasuke cares about them, she’s sweating and looking nervous, she’s clearly not confident in what she says. Kishimoto also drops two implications that Sasuke never kissed Sakura. Because that is apparently important for us to know. Sakura then tries to insist a forehead poke is better than a kiss. Yet when Sasuke is leaving, she is waiting for a kiss and not a poke. And she is rejected, and looks like a wet rag just like everytime Sasuke rejected her before ever since she was a kid. It’s hard to think of a female character that is more pathetic than her.

And yet, we have SS insisting Sasuke surely knew Sakura could take care of herself, that’s why he left her to die and saved Naruto instead, who didn’t need saving. Surely Sasuke thinks about Sakura as an individual and not just a member of team 7. Despite the fact we have never seen Sasuke think about Sakura outside of team 7 context nor say anything about what he likes and admires about Sakura. Surely Sakura is the most important person to Sasuke, that’s why Kishi wrote Sasuke say to Hagoromo, to Naruto and to himself that Naruto is the only one he still cares about. That’s why Kishimoto wrote Sasuke say Naruto is the only one who never gave up on him. That’s why he wrote Sasuke say Naruto alone saved him. Despite the fact Sakura wanted to be part of saving Sasuke with Naruto, Kishimoto would never let her. Because he doesn’t like her, or SS.

As a final note, a lot of the manga revolved around the importance of family and bonds, yet Sakura, the girl who had parents unlike the rest of her team, is shown to disrespect them everytime she brings them up. And she’s never redeemed on this. This is also intentional from Kishimoto, of course. Sakura is too selfish, too ungrateful and shallow to understand what she has. She’d rather chase a guy who keeps rejecting her like he’s some trophy she owns, all the while trivializing his pain over the loss of his family, by acting like she understands. And she’s ready to throw away her parents, her friends, and her dignity for the sake of this guy who was never interested in her. What’s worst is she had many opportunities to change and mature, yet she choose not to. And thus she remained the same self centred, superficial person she always was.

Actually this is the final note: @sneezemonster15 is a co-creator of this post. She has also talked about Sakura on her blog, for example that war arc part here. Another example is here (but you can just generally go through her anti-sakura tag). But I wanted all this on one big text since certain people are very stubborn about us “picking” supposedly minor things to bash Sakura for when this is throughout the whole manga. And since tumblr doesn’t let her add more than 10 images to a post for some reason I decided to write this down.

#anti sakura

[sneezemonster15]

Hey, thank you so much for answering my previous ask. I love reading your blog and what you have to say. Also I forgot to mention the person who thinks Sasuke fucked Karin also talked about what you said on your blog with someone else, https://dushman-e-jaan.tumblr.com/post/663748673413464064/i-saw-a-post-where-anyone-who-says-that-sasuke-and I'm pretty sure that's your post bc I read it. They're basically making fun of the whole thing and again slapping the "brothers" label onto practically everything you said 😭 What are your thoughts on this?

Hello.

Woah, yeah, that is my post. I wrote it a long time ago, I had no clue that they got this triggered by it, that they went through it line by line, as a response to me, replying to every statement I made in second person and didn’t even tag me. If it weren’t for your ask, I would never have found out about it. Well, I am going to take it as a compliment, whether they like it or not. Lol. 

I don’t generally write my content to defend my takes, I give all the reasoning and cite evidence within my posts, and if someone has a problem with it, I generally reply to them in the comment box. But since this aforementioned post seems like it has gone some way into the anti SNS fandom, and because I wasn’t even aware of it, I will address some of these issues. 

Okay. Gear up, this is going to be long.

First things first. They are offended because they don’t agree with my statement :

“Well, at least you are being consistent. Because people who think Sasuke and Naruto are brothers are the same people who think Sakura and Hinata are feminist role models.”  

And they want to make it clear that there are other fans who don’t think highly of Sakura and Hinata, but still consider Sasuke and Naruto brothers. Well, I will give them that. I am aware there are additional fans who consider them brothers, CASE IN POINT. My bad. 

Honestly, there’s a lot of stuff here, that just doesn’t require my response. Like my mention of Tarkovsky. It was used as a figure of speech by which I wanted to say that decoding Sasuke and Naruto’s romance wasn’t rocket science, it’s a straight statement, I don’t know why they gotta twist it. I think the mention of Tarkovsky threw them off, because they feel that only they have the authority to talk about more brainy things. Lol. So I am going to sidestep all the fountains of their insecurities and come to the point. 

Okay so, they insist that Sasuke and Naruto are spiritual brothers, mainly because their chakras are reincarnation of Indra and Ashura’s chakras who happen to be biological brothers. And they take great offence to my statement that people who think of them as brothers are heteronormative and homophobic. I will come to that part later, I will address the reincarnation part first. 

I honestly thought we were past this non-sensical and juvenile non-argument of them being brothers for the aforementioned reason. These antis use such big words and cite academic papers and articles and then, flip right over to say something so counterintuitive and irrational, without even considering any alternative understanding, it hardly seems like an argument and more like intellectual masturbation. Which it is. 

Okay. This is their argument to support their stance. 

“However, this story includes chakra, Indra, Ashura and is very much tied to spirituality. Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism deal with that. Kishimoto took his inspiration from there.Hindu scriptures exhort spiritual people to lead exemplary lives, control their sexual desires and abstain from sex, just as they are expected to control all desires and practice renunciation and detachment with their minds absorbed in the contemplation of God or the Self.” 

And it doesn’t stop there, this rambling goes on and on and on…phew. I appreciate the amount of effort they have seemed to put in their arguments. Sadly, it's all as misguided as it can be, lol. 

While I agree that one can see the myriad influences of various philosophical schools of thought and spiritual belief systems in Kishimoto’s work, NONE of it proves their brother argument. Why? Because it’s all out of context. I see this a lot, the pitfalls and trappings of sticking to one’s projection in one’s favourite piece of art/literature and bending text and context to their will, with citations, whether it’s relevant or not. 

Such mental gymnastics, lol. I have seen this kind of response by student film theorists when they analyse Ozu's films. Oh why did he put that vase in the centre of the frame, what did he want to say by showing that vase? Did he mean to depict loneliness or does it indicate the effects of capitalism and consumerism in an insular, collectivist, traditional Japanese society of the times, or is it about the soul that is trapped in the material prison of flesh etc etc etc. Over analyzation. Which they apparently have accused me of, hahaha. 

Unfortunately, that’s not how storytelling works. And it definitely doesn’t work in Naruto’s case. They would do well to remember that writers are not out to con you. Any writer worth his salt uses a combination of narrative tools to tell his story. Sad thing is most fans in this fandom just don’t understand how stories are written, the specific tools that a writer uses and the narrative devices that guide and lend a certain flow and approach to the story. Kishi is just like any other writer, in that context. So when he wants to give a certain narrative or visual information to the audience, he will use these common tools to drive his point home. For example, foreshadowing. What is foreshadowing? 

Sourced from Wikipedia : 

“Foreshadowing is a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story, or a chapter, and it helps the reader develop expectations about the upcoming events. A writer may implement foreshadowing in many different ways.”

And do we see this foreshadowing in Kishi’s plot? You bet, :).

And this is Chapter 3. Lol.

If Kishi wanted to depict Naruto and Sasuke as brothers, he would not have made them kiss. Even if accidentally. This scene, right at the start of the manga, indicates the very romantic nature of their relationship. I wonder why these stans don’t find it suspicious that even though this kiss is supposed to be accidental, both Naruto and Sasuke think of this kiss as a precious memory, not as a joke, but something significant, something that contributed to develop their dynamic in the manga. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of films in my life, but I have never seen anywhere where two likely brothers were made to kiss like this, for the sake of developing their dynamic. Only in romantic relationships. 

Let me state it out in as clear words as possible. - In a macro sense, the overarching narrative of this manga includes a clear intention by the author to push the characters of Naruto and Sasuke to give an appropriate name to their relationship, continuously harping on defining and redefining their relationship with plot points strategically appointed to affect their dynamic that further propels the central narrative of the story.

Simply put, Kishi forcefully insists on weaving this story in a way that forces the protagonist to think and rethink the meaning of what he feels for Sasuke, as instigated by Sasuke himself, who every time they meet, insists Naruto answer his question as to why Narutio is so hell bent upon following him, why does he care so much so that he is ready to leave his training and the people he loves behind, just to bring Sasuke back. And everytime Naruto even breathes the word ‘friends’ or ‘brothers’, Sasuke’s either annoyed or surprised or displeased, never satisfied, never convinced. The satisfaction comes at the end of the manga, in chapter 698, when Naruto finally gives some explanation as to what he means by it. Shippuden didn’t end with the war arc, it ended with Sasuke and Naruto’s reconciliation. It didn’t end on the note of an ideological conflict and its eventual resolution, it ended on the note where Sasuke asked Naruto :  But what does being friends mean to you?

And Naruto said with a clear sense that he understands what Sasuke is asking of him and so after thinking for a very pregnant pause, says : Even if you were to ask me that, I don’t think I would have an answer. But when I see you carrying your burden, it hurts me, so much so that I just can’t take it. 

You really don’t need a PhD to see the nuanced significance of this text.

Point is, this going back and forth trying to define their relationship is not an isolated incident, it basically makes the backbone of the story. Which is why the aforementioned dialogues make sense, as they form the conclusion of this story.  If they were brothers, why would this element exist?

Everything in the story serves to contribute to the central narrative and for the sake of character development of its main players. 

That Kishi saw a need to even discuss why they were not friends, and that they were not brothers, but that Naruto feels immense hurt at seeing Sasuke hurt, is indicative enough that Kishi was definitely not trying to portray them as brothers. That these stans consider them brothers, when this art made by Kishimoto himself exists, is proof enough that they are highly indulgent of their self projections.

They are so motivated, for their own projections, to ignore the nuanced characterization of Naruto’s closeted gay self, or Sasuke’s oft pointed disinterest in women, that their understanding comes off as extremely lacking.

Ask yourself, why would Kishi even write these nuances in the way of visual imagery and strategic scenes where Naruto is made to react so strongly to even mild and unintentioned homoerotic moments? Why would Naruto be written to overcompensate to cover these moments up with something distinctly heterosexual? Why would Kishi even put so much effort in writing these characters this way if Kishi only wanted to portray them as brothers? What would even be the point of it?

Every single chapter goes through multilayered scrutiny by editors after it’s written, which means anything that is unnecessary or extraneous to the narrative is taken out. It’s supposed to be concise, and yet have the desired effect on the readers. Why keep those texts or panels that don’t serve the story? Instead, why do these elements serve to develop the characters? They obviously mean something, don't they? They are there for a reason, and anyone who has seen the portrayal of homosexuality in media will instantly recognise it. Those who haven’t can at least wonder why and venture to find out instead of giving their relationship names that are incongruent with their actual dynamic. 

No other brotherly dynamic in the manga itself is even close to Naruto and Sasuke’s. Honestly, I have seen so much Japanese media outside of manga and anime in the last year, and I didn't see two men or boys depicted as brothers who make kissy faces at each other, or stand side by side looking like they are giving each other hand jobs and orgasming, or where one man’s mouth is deliberately drawn over another man’s crotch. To say that this indicates they were depicted as brothers, is not only counterintuitive, but downright ridiculous and plain stupid. It’s some real heavy duty denial. 

If Kishimoto meant for them to be brothers because their chakras were reincarnation of Ashura and Indra, he would have made some character say it out loud in some context. Like I said, writers are not out there to con you. They will make sure that their intent is clearly shown to the audience, through text, subtext and visual language. And everything about Naruto and Sasuke, everything that contributes to their dynamic, whether it be dialogues, orchestrated situations, plot points, visual imagery, some of which exudes sexual tension, in no way indicates a platonic relationship. Those who have the presence of mind to pick it, will pick it, those who don’t would spout non-sense like our antis here. Lol.

Kishimoto knows how to use foreshadowing. Case in point.

He gives us an advance hint of what’s to come, and the narrative takes its twists and turns, being developed with this thread in mind, and then the arc ends with a conclusion of the underlying idea foreshadowed earlier with the hint. NONE of this is accidental. It’s all part of writing, it’s a literary tool, a narrative device. Hell, it isn’t a coincidence that Kishimoto keeps repeating this element over and over and over again, where Naruto goes through a whole range of situations and emotional upheavals in order to understand his feelings for Sasuke. First, he wonders if Sasuke is like a brother, or a friend, or more. Kishi can’t say it explicitly, but honestly, he doesn’t need to. These antis look for all sorts of reasoning and proof OUTSIDE the manga. If they were a little more honest with themselves, they would see that one really doesn’t need to do that, all the pertinent information that one needs to decode the nature of their relationship is inside the manga, in panels, visual imagery, dialogues, narrative development and notes.

Like I always say : First rule of deduction : Work with what you have. Facts, use what’s is available to you in the source material. 

It is absolutely valid to look for outside source if you see a solid and legitimate reason to, which is congruent with the source material, like in the case of Chikamatsu. It’s already established clearly that Kishimoto is his fan, he has put a lot of effort to pay tribute to him in his own manga, he makes sure that this element is clearly present in the context and text, and the editors have talked about it in the notes. And ALL of that makes it a legit link, for one to connect it with Shinjuu. 

The antis talk of irrelevant sources such as Jainism and Hinduism and whatnot, lol, it honestly looks like a super desperate attempt to twist and deform and bend the narrative to their interpretation where they conveniently ignore all the relevant panels where Naruto clearly says that him and Sasuke aren’t really brothers to Hagoromo, where Sasuke makes it a point to say to Sai that he only has one brother, clearly implying that he doesn’t consider Naruto a brother. All these extra interpretations that antis force upon the narrative is a result of their own projection. It's as simple as that.

If Sasuke was satisfied with the explanation that they were brothers, why would he keep asking Naruto the same question again and again? Doesn’t that indicate that he isn’t satisfied with Naruto’s understanding of it? And he is only convinced of it at the very end, when Naruto is bleeding out, about to die, when he finally, with much visible reticence, admits that he doesn’t know how to explain it?

Think about it, if they were just brothers, why would there be this hesitation? Being brothers is not a controversial thing, it’s not a taboo thing, it’s not abnormal, opposite in fact, given how much the characters of this story are shaped by their familial bonds. Instead of thinking of the most obvious things, these antis round up obscure and entirely irrelevant articles to sound smart and intellectual, as if that’s gonna make a difference. How is this extraneous intellectual regurgitation gonna help your case if your basic premise is wrong? That’s not how dialectics work. Lol. 

Then they said this.:  “(Considering Ino to be a closeted queer who only went for Sasuke to gain Sakura’s affections would be another one of these hilarious mishaps.)”

I honestly don’t know who they are referring to, because I have never said or implied anything even close to it. Maybe they are just assuming things. It’s not the only time they assume things. They also think I am some Western Man with my capitalistic and consumerist takes on Naruto. hahahaha. 

Damn, I can't help but notice that whenever someone disagrees with them, they instantly label them as Western. Well, they are wrong on both counts, because neither am I western, nor a man. In fact, my socio-cultural understanding of the world is pretty close to Japan’s. I would also like to mention that my community practises the same religion that happens to be the official religion of Japan. But of course, I have never needed to flex on that, because it’s just not needed. The information that I got from the manga itself, plus my own experience of media is enough for me to make my points. I am able to qualify my content with the evidence found INSIDE the manga, and if I see clearly delineated references to outside material in it, I point them out. Like I have done here. 

Honestly, it’s as simple as that. No need to twist your head at a 180 degrees to prove your point, if you are trying that hard, it becomes clear you have no legit leg to stand on and you are making shit up, just to validate your headcanon.

Don’t act against intuition, don’t act against text and visual language, don’t act against what is both explicitly and implicitly given in the manga because that is the opposite of examining something objectively. But well, people do worse to keep sticking to their denial.

Anyway, this foreshadowing can be seen in the first arc, where the central theme is ‘protecting one’s precious person’ and how one can unlock special hidden strengths when one is motivated to protect the person most dear to them. This element is foreshadowed in the relationship between Zabuza and Haku and through twists and turns, is finally concluded at the end of the arc, where Sasuke almost dies to protect Naruto and both unlock special powers for each other. Not rocket science. Kishi is a generous author that way, he wants this reader to know what he is saying and what he means by it, and so he will supply enough textual and visual information to make sense of the overarching story and themes. To simply ignore that for one’s head canons is a gross injustice to the story and the artist. If you have to ignore what he is saying explicitly or drawing explicitly, why even bother to engage with this manga? lol. What a waste.

It is not a complicated thing at all, in fact, it would have become a lot easier for Kishimoto to write this story if he could just have explicitly written them as brothers, a lot of effort would have been spared, no? And it would have all been believable, because it makes total sense that Naruto would want to save and protect his brother. The story would not change at all. Then why the hammer like insistence on having this whole brother or friend or comrade dialectic? Why? You know why? 

Because they are NOT brothers. 

Next, they said this : The problem with a lot of western readers is that they discard any and all relationships, familial and platonic, in favor of their romantic obsessions and delusions of “freedom” in a capitalistic society,................... ... the widespread consumption of amorous rituals constitutes the core of contemporary romantic love, reinvigorating capitalism and lovers alike.” 

And this goes on and on….I am not going to put the entire thing here, it’s basically unnecessary blathering and intellectual masturbation. 

Snickers, Delusions of freedom in a capitalistic society. Bwahaha. Where is this even coming from? Entirely irrelevant. Reminds me of my younger self when I would deliberately attach esoteric sounding citations to my papers to impress the professor and would still get a B. Lol.

I have written enough on the subject of the importance of familial bonds which shape the characters in this manga, so they are definitely wrong on that count. But well, they think they are the authority on Japanese media, what can I say? Sidestepping what’s actually in the manga and supplementing your argument with entirely disproportionate and irrelevant pointers only indicates that they are floundering. When you have no legit foundation for your argument, this happens. Lmao. I am no stranger to it, thankfully I got over it in my teens.

Then they claimed this : (Remember, Kishimoto comes from a very small village and is from a different generation altogether; so the odds of him penning anything even close to the “sexual categorizations” of the post-modern western sexual-domains are less than the second coming of Christ.)

Hahahahahaaha, I know you can’t tell, but I am literally wheezing here. 

These stans literally talk like Kishimoto is a hundred year old man. Like…the lack of reason and logic in this statement is so apparent, I am surprised that they thought it would be worthwhile to make this comment. Lol. Sexual categorizations of the post-modern western sexual-domains??? What crap!!! Hahahah. Just say you are a straight homophobic woman who wants Sasuke’s dick and go! 

So what if Kishi comes from a small village and a different generation? Does that mean he doesn’t know what homosexuality means? He doesn’t know sexual categorizations of the post-modern western sexual domains? What a bunch of hooey, lol. These stans talk of homosexuality like it’s some kind of western propaganda. Go ahead, tell me it’s not homophobic, heh. PoSt mODerN WEsteRn SexUal DomaiNs. Lololol.

Truth is, pre Meiji era, Japan was perhaps the most progressive of all cultures when it came to sexual categorizations. Here, this post is educational. Funny how these stans call SNS western and then do the same thing that most western fans do, who know absolutely nothing about history of sexuality in Japan. Here, they should maybe learn about it before sounding this ignorant, the video is pretty self-explanatory. 

Edo period Japanese culture accepted homosexuality as the purest form of love that could exist between two samurais. Young men were allowed and even encouraged to have young male lovers, and after a certain age, they were expected to get married to women. A lot of men chose not to. And even though it was frowned upon,  it wasn't a punishable offence.

Hell, one doesn’t even have to go there, check out Edo and Meiji period art, you will find lots of peculiar, very creative art with homosexuality as its subject. I would put those pictures here, but it would make this post x-rated, lol. The sexual imagery is off the charts, like Japan’s imagination is mind-boggling, like woah. They might be a small country but the scope of their imagination is huge. With the advent of Meiji era, that changed, as homosexuality became illegal, but this art was still produced underground.  

Hell, a lot of the most celebrated artists in Modern Japan have created art about homosexuality. Film makers such as Nagisa Oshima, Takashi Miike (Shinjuku Triad’s Society, Big Bang Love, Juvenile A), Toshio Matsumoto (A funeral Parade of Roses), Akira Ogata (Boy’s Choir, a film about two orphaned boys who study at the same institution, and eventually fall in love with each other), have made excellent cinema on the subject matter. And these aren’t your run of the mill commercial yaoi creators, these are serious film makers whose films have done their rounds in national and international film festivals, earning awards and accolades from critics and audience alike. 

The film, ‘Funeral Parade of Roses’ is a story about a young, gay, cross dressing boy who is in love with his father, a modern day adaptation of Oedipus Rex, only flipped. And this film was released in the 60’s. A product of the Japanese new wave cinema, it is considered to have influenced Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’. It was considered quite a controversial film for its time in the west. It took over forty years for ‘Hereditary’ fame film maker Ari Aster to make a film on the subject, ‘The strange thing about the Johnsons’ in 2011, and the audience was shocked to their core with it. Japan was doing this shit in the 60’s. Lol. Oshima belonged to a small region in the southern Okayama prefecture called Tamano, founded in the 40’s. So? Kishi also belongs from the Okayama prefecture. What, people from small villages remain ignorant throughout their lives? They can't learn? They can’t be exposed to stuff? 

Oshima was a pioneer of Japanese New Wave cinema, going forward to become one of the most celebrated film makers in the world, with a beautifully distinct voice. He made films on themes of homosexuality, and his stories were inspired by real life events in Japan. He made Gohatto, a Jidaigeki film (which basically translates to Japanese period drama, usually set in the Edo period) which is about Samurais lusting after a bishonen boy, training at the Shinsengumi, organization of Samurais. People of Japan are more than familiar with the tales of Shinsengumi, they grew up with it. He made ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’, which also features homosexual themes, starring David Bowie btw.

Kishimoto wasn’t even born or was of legal age when some of these films were released. Japan was experimenting in the fields of cinema and various subject matters, including unsimulated sex in a legit film.

They think he wouldn’t be aware of these films, Kishimoto who happens to be a film buff himself? Honestly, how insular do these stans think the Japanese are? 

These people talk like the Japanese are some dumb, ignorant group of people, who don’t know shit about what’s going on in the world. Honey, that’s you, not them. Kishi is a well read, well exposed, well rounded writer. 

Like yes, Japan was quite insular at some point of time, but after the second world war, they were forced by the allied nations to open up their borders. And the influence of western elements and themes can be seen in their art. In fact, western influence had already taken roots since Meiji era. The men even had to cut their hair for it. Even kabuki wasn't left alone. And it's not like this is some well kept secret. Kishimoto’s manga is definitely very much Japanese, but it has a cross cultural appeal as well. I don’t think one is doing their due diligence when one simply ignores that factor.

Okay. Let’s talk of Kishimoto’s influences. 

These are a few excerpts from Kishimoto’s interviews, the Western influence is pretty clear. Does this look like some dude who doesn’t know what he is talking about? Does this look like someone who is inert and insular and ignorant?

Look how inspired Kishimoto is by Akira and its mangaka, Katsuhiro Otomo.

For those who don’t know, Akira was the anime that opened up the western markets for Japanese animation and manga. The film was made for the express purpose for Japan to open the western markets for her products, show off their goods to the world, that this is what they can do, and as it turned out, it was better than anything western audiences had ever experienced in terms of animation and storytelling at that point of time.

Cartoons were earlier considered to be for kids, the common perception was that animated media was supposed to be infantile, catering to a certain target audience. Akira changed that perception. The legacy of Akira is humongous. It opened up doors for other animes and mangas such as Dragonball Z, Ghost in the shell, Naruto even. This was the time in late 80’s when Japan was experiencing an overall good economy for the first time in 20th century, their financial shares were soaring. This was the time when corporations had opened up in Japan, and anyone who was ready to become a salary man could take advantage of the financial benefits resulting in significant disposable incomes. So people had more to spend on entertainment, and so production companies were chasing talented mangakas left and right to adapt their work into anime. Japan was so committed to this great enterprise of Akira, they formed a committee to finance the very high budget that a commensurate and successful rendering of the manga’s adaptation would require. The committee consisted of Kodansha, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Bandai, Hakuhodo, Toho, LaserDisc Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation (if you can’t tell, these are big, huge corporations) who all forwarded money and promotion towards the film, and appointed the mangaka himself to direct the film, because who else would be able to tell this story better when so much was at stake?

Otomo worked his ass off, drawing hundreds of storyboards to condense the 120 chapter long manga into one film. And he did it, and what a film it is. Like wow, I was blown away. Akira, being a cyberpunk manga, also has that cross cultural appeal, even though its major themes are still very much Japanese, but if you look closely, this film tells a story the entire world can benefit from.

Kishimoto is inspired by American film makers such as Michael Bay, Quentin Tarantino. He talks of Takeshi Kitano, lovingly known in Japan as Beat Takeshi, a very popular figure in the west, who also was a regular in Oshima’s films, having played major roles in his gay films. These stans think Kishimoto, a cinephile himself, isn’t aware of these films? Bullshit. Lol. A lot of mangakas want their work to be recognized by the entire world, especially in the west. It speaks of their global success, why would they want to just keep to their native audience? 

Truth is, otaku culture evolved in a very specific way. The second world war, especially after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, drastically affected the ethical and emotional landscape of the collective Japanese psyche. While the reverberations could be seen in their media, unfortunately, it wasn’t in the mainstream media where these effects were manifested, rather it was in alternative media, in the subcultural genres. You don’t have to take my word for it.

Takashi Murakami, a product of Otaku culture himself, talks about this, someone that Kishimoto himself has paid a significant tribute to in his manga (Deidara’s aesthetic is super flat, which is basically a socio-politico-cultural art movement pioneered by Murakami). And I saw for myself what he was talking about. Japan is a collectivist society, there isn’t much freedom for individual expression. Japanese emperor Hirohito, who is directly held to be responsible for the Japanese contribution to second Sino-Japanese war and the second world war by many historians, was considered to be a God by the Japanese, literally. Like Kim Jong Un style. No one questioned him. But after Japan’s role in the war as the predator and subsequently a victim, it broke the Japanese in a major way. Turned them humble, repentant. This collective grief and shock and widespread devastation brought the people together, they forgot their differences for the moment, to somehow pick up the pieces and go on living their lives, with gratitude for what they had. But yes, it’s not as explicit in their mainstream media as others. I mean the amount and variety of films based on the second world war that I have seen in European and American cinema, like damn. Japanese cinema on the other hand? Pretty tame in that regard.

Takahata made ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ on this subject, a heart rending and deeply disturbing story about two orphaned siblings living during the war, is considered as one of the most effective anti war films ever made in the history of cinema, as said by Roger Ebert, the man himself. Anyone who has seen the film will know it is an anti war film. But when Takahata was interviewed about it, he denied it. He said he didn’t make an anti war film, he wouldn’t even talk about it and later, stopped giving interviews about it altogether. Never underestimate the censorship of the Japanese administration. Oshima, a staunch modernist himself, a huge critic of Akira Kurosawa’s old world values and humanism, equally critical of the right wing and extreme left wing politics of Japan, made heavily political films, broke up with the studio system that launched his career, because of how left leaning, political and individualistic his voice was. His films were often banned or taken off screens, he was subjected to numerous court cases. But he persevered and even a stroke couldn’t stop him. But that’s Oshima. Oshimas are a rare breed. 

So what couldn’t be seen in the mainstream media, you saw them in alternate or subaltern media. Akira is a direct testimonial to this. Akira is a story about a bunch of orphaned kids living in a dystopian world, that has been devastated by a bomb blast, past which Tokyo, now Neo Tokyo, is submerged in corruption and civil wars. The administration uses children as weapons to protect their own borders, but is eventually destroyed by these same children, when they couldn’t handle their powers. The reverberations of the post war atrocities can be viscerally felt in the themes of this manga, prompting a myriad of ethical implications and queries, questioning one’s understanding of a nation, of responsibility towards one’s people, love, hate, revenge borne of that hate, power, megalomania, philosophical implications of technology and the destruction borne of it, conflicts between different ideologies and so on and so forth but it’s resolve is quite familiar.

The resolve is about love, redemption, atonement and peace. That wars happen because there is love and hence there is hate, it's the people that make wars happen and it’s the people that pick up the pieces and go on living. That one can be hopeful even in adversities. No one is singularly condemned, no one is singularly held to blame even though it’s not difficult to see that things could have been handled better. But it’s not as black and white as that. It’s complex. World is complex.

But what we do see is that Tetsuo, an orphan who lives on the streets, who loses himself in the quest for power, fuelled by his need to be acknowledged, finally gives up on destroying everything when his lover Kaori dies protecting him, and at the urges of his best friend Kaneda, Tetsuo finally sees light, for the sake of his love for Kaori and Kaneda, and so he repents before dying. That all his passions come to nought when he loses the one thing he held dear to him, love for his friend and girlfriend, the only people that made him feel like he mattered. 

Similar themes can be seen in another manga Kishi is influenced by. Ruruoni Kenshin, basically a romance manga in shounen, written by Nobuhiro Watsuki. Battosai, the political assassin, falls in love with Tomoe, a spy, basically two people from opposing ideologies. Tomoe sacrifices herself for Battosai, even after Battosai has discovered her true identity. The manga  is structured with themes of ideological conflicts of love, revenge, love for one’s nation and adherence to one’s philosophy/belief systems, as it's set in the time period of transition between the Edo and Meiji era, but the resolution is similar. That love trumps all, that true love is greater than all the constructs made by humans. 

Is there any wonder we see similar themes in Naruto? Kishi uses similar effects and themes for his world building in Naruto and Shippuden. A dystopian society where children are barbarically used as weapons, where gross injustices happen, but people go on living. This world imagined by Kishimoto is a reflection of the real world, richly dramatised with similar themes of love and conflicts and ideological differences and war and devastation and revenge and human ethos and peace and atonement. Similar resolve? I would say so.

And I won’t even dismiss that Sasuke’s character is definitely left leaning. Sasuke is partially based on Sasuke by Sanpei Shirato, a popularly known leftist voice in the manga industry. It’s pretty clear for anyone with half a brain to see that Sasuke is anti-establishment, and for good reasons too. The collectivist, utilitarian, highly corrupt system of the shinobi world leads to utter devastation and genocide of his entire clan overnight directly under the noses of the citizens and leaders of Konoha, and whose body parts are then commodified in the name of protection of the same nation that was built around the philosophy of ‘Will of Fire’, which was supposed to protect them but instead who slaughtered them in their sleep.

Sasuke’s interests and need for justice stands in sharp contrast with the ways of the shinobi world, and where no one could understand him, Naruto finally does. He is the only one who tries. He is the only one who is capable, who is made to be capable by the way of the narrative where Kishimoto develops his character accordingly. Naruto is naive and simple minded to start with, but he is written to learn and evolve and understand different points of view. To learn from people’s tragedies and losses and grief and motivations. He is exposed to the way of this world through anti hero archetypes such as Nagato and Obito and Zabuza, where after Naruto, through his own inherent moral and humanistic code, begins to understand a world that is founded on love turned hate, which further paves the way for revenge, but is determined to put a stop to it. By proving his love for Sasuke, and Sasuke accepts his love. Sure, had it not been for Sasuke, he would have let it continue or have simply died with Sasuke before he could witness a better world.  But my point is, similar resolve : Love trumps all, peace, redemption and atonement. 

This is not to say that I approve of the ending, I do not. I hate it. Firstly, if the theme of Naruto and Shippuden was already established and concluded as 'love trumps all else including the socio politico cultural structures and institutions made by humans ', then why the hell were they made to marry women when they are clearly gay? And secondly but equally importantly, Sasuke should have gotten his dues, he deserved it, so did Neji and Naruto. The truth of the Uchiha massacre should have been revealed, and Konoha should have taken accountability and repented, these are after all, some major themes in the manga. Kishi broke all sorts of storytelling rules at the end and I am mad as hell at him for that. But unfortunately, I didn’t write this story and couldn’t have had if I tried. Doesn’t mean I will look for things in it that aren’t there. Kishimoto is not a communist or a right winger. He is Japanese. Both extremist interpretations of manga are misguided. Tobirama was a bigot that plotted against the Uchihas, Hiruzen was a complacent failure of a leader who let things happen in his regime that by no means indicates good leadership, Uchiha clan was discriminated against. But Kishi could not have made Sasuke reach his goals, not if Naruto, the protagonist, was supposed to be of any consequence, which essentially makes Naruto hold a moderate position. I also don’t like the fact that the ending and consequently Boruto, diluted Sasuke’s belief systems and very justified goals, I wish they could have modified it to a conclusive ending where him and Naruto could have worked towards changing the status quo, but I don’t think it would have materialised, Shonen Jump is strict about these things, namely pedagogic values appropriate for a certain target group. 

The conflicting ideologies definitely serve to make this manga drama and intrigue rich, but let’s not go overboard and look for things that aren’t there, which is what these stans seem to do. There’s no use in chasing shadows. 

Then they said this : “He (Miura) actually does talk a little about the sexual tensions between Guts and Griffith! Must’ve been one of the parts I was having a hard time putting into decent English. Basically Miura says that he doesn’t really agree with how people read sexual tensions into the Guts-Griffith relation, because men can have passionate feelings about each other without it being like that……..Yet none of this is meant to be “romantic love”. There’s passion here, intensity, obsession, but it isn’t sexual. ”

Truth is whether it be western or Asian media, the concept of misinterpreting homosexuality as brotherhood is quite well explored in global media. Don’t believe me? Here. All facts, no frills. 

One doesn’t even have to go very far, just look at Clamp, and you would be lucky if you were able to find more than five heterosexual characters in their entire range of mangas, lol. And honestly, their example of Berserk actually works in my favor and not theirs? GriffGuts is a valid gay ship. But of course, if they can reject SNS, it’s likely they would reject GriffGuts. Kishimoto and Miura, no matter what they say in their interviews, why is that more important than the story itself? Not like Kishimoto sounds all that confident in his interviews either, when he talks of them being more brothers than blood brothers.

I have not looked very deeply into Berserk, so I would like to invite veteran blogger @maoam to shed some light, one of the very few bloggers that I find with one of the most balanced and informed takes on Naruto and other relevant mangas.

Going ahead, let’s see what Miura says of boys.

Really Miura? Now what is this 'tingling' feeling?

What does this remind me of?

Lol. Now this isn’t the most accurate translation. This is the accurate translation, I am not sure of the source, I got this screengrab a long time ago, but I know for a fact it is legit.

Btw, the 'kyun' sound effect used here is used in Hentai to denote sexual arousal, lol.

Tell me what kind of brothers feel these feelings for each other? I have seen numerous Japanese films whether it be family dramas, Jidaigeki films, Japanese LGBTQ+ films, and I have never seen brothers behaving with each other like this once. Not once. What spiritual brothers? Lol. Why go against reason, intuition, narrative, visual imagery and cultural context to prove something using irrelevant sources? 

Like I thought we were past this Brother argument, it’s the 21st century, there are more discussions on homosexuality, the subject of homosexuality has gained more exposure and a lot of talented and individualistic creators have explored this subject. So why is Naruto fandom this backward and narrow minded??

I find it hard to believe that despite Kishi’s subtle but not really, and repetitious ministrations on the issues surrounding a stigmatized subject such as homosexuality, is that invisible. All you need is an open minded approach, that is all. You do that and the manga will unfurl itself so you will be able to see things that you so conveniently ignored before to satisfy your headcanons. Is it that unfair of a request?

Do these fans think they know everything about everything? They couldn’t have missed something? Something as glaring and apparent as SNS? Before they claim that they are some omniscient, all-knowing being, maybe watch some LGBTQ+ media, and compare notes? Analyse tropes? Give themselves some credit, that they have done their due diligence before spouting things they obviously do not understand? Or is that too much to ask for?

Maybe they have learnt everything in the world that is to be learnt and there’s just no free space in that highly evolved noggin of theirs. 

Maybe we are all just stupid fans who don’t know what we are talking of, even if we give the most objectively valid reasoning and evidence found inside the manga. Maybe they know best, maybe that’s why they think Sasuke slept with Karin, even when he shows no interest in her apart from maybe once or twice protecting her as his teammate, something he also does with ALL his other teammates? And generally, gets really annoyed and uncomfortable with Karin’s over the top sexual proposals, and then doesn’t think twice about getting rid of her when she is used as a bait to have him captured. Hmmm, I see their logic. They must really be the all knowing omniscient being, the Arahat, the wise one, the one who finally achieved Nirvana, proper enlightenment and all huh? Damn I feel so small. (A tear rolls down my downy cheek as my bosom trembles in humiliation). LOL.

Interestingly, the way Miura talks of boys, that they give them a ‘tingling’ feeling, makes me think. Keep in mind, Miura never married, there is no evidence of him having had a girlfriend. But let’s not speculate, even if it sounds fishy. 

Understanding homosexuality in a conservative society is crucial in order to understand the SNS dynamic. There’s no doubt that Kishi wrote Naruto as a closeted homosexual and Sasuke as a homosexual boy. If one denies this, I can’t even take them seriously. 

But it reminds me of an anecdote my gay friend told me. He is a national award winning filmmaker, an intellectual in his own right, and works a lot with the trans community in my country. A conservative, ultra religious, non-western country. As a young man in his twenties, when he had just come out, he would date men who would simply not identify as gay. He would sleep with them, and do what do people sexually attracted to each other do. But sleeping willingly with a man and accepting the gay identity are two different things. Where my friend understood these nuances even then, as having come from a conservative society himself, he would not force them to come out. These men would never even acknowledge that being attracted to men and not women makes them gay, it was not even a part of their understanding. Rather, they would think of it as something that ‘certain’ men do. Doesn’t mean it’s weird or uncommon, even though they knew straight men did not do this. But they would simply not go there. They would just chalk it up to something temporary, something that they needed to do before they got married to women they didn’t feel anything for, because that’s how it’s done. It’s not like they weren’t aware of the gay dialectic, my friend would talk to them about it, but they would simply not acquiesce, the denial was so strong. Till date, these men don’t admit to it, now they are married and have children. But still look for sexual relationships with men outside of it. 

Which brings me to my next anecdote, told to me by another friend of mine. He is a stylist, absolutely flamboyant and openly, proudly gay. Very adventurous and experiment loving. He told me that in his experience, the best carnal fun he had was with Muslim men. And that most men who approached him for sex were Muslim men. (This is not an attack or criticism of the religion or community, it’s just something my friend told me). He would be approached by these men who would have the most voracious of appetites and tastes, and my friend went with it because he preferred to suck circumcised dicks, lol. Quite a lot of them were married, but my friend didn’t discriminate. He told me the same thing, these men would never identify as gay, not even during intimate moments, nope. Accepting your sexual identity is a more than a matter of sex. People in conservative societies face a lot of challenges and obstructions before even coming to certain realizations about themselves, it’s not that easy. In many ways, my country is even more conservative than Japan. Homosexuality is quite a taboo, hell, I didn’t even know the concept myself till I was well into my teens, and even then, I was only told the most stereotypical of things. I also grew up in a small town. It was later, when I went to the city to study, when I came into contact with people from all walks of life, nationalities, tastes, and sexual orientations, that was when I understood them as people, and not categories and labels. And now I have a friend who works as a dominatrix for a living and I still learn a lot. 

I refuse to judge people on the most basic and stereotypical of preconceived notions. 

The reason why I consider these fans to be homophobic…. Honestly, what gives them so much confidence to consider Sasuke and Naruto as brothers despite everything that is in the manga? Everything, from characterisation to plotting to the overarching themes to visual imagery to cultural context to text indicates their very romantic relationship, not platonic. Naruto admires the way Sasuke looks physically more than once and effectively calls him hot in Gaiden, what kind of guy thinks of his brother in those terms? 

These stans are so pressed to label them brothers without even looking at gay media, or gay narratives, without even paying attention to nuances in the manga, or Japanese historical context or their own gay media, appropriating everything for the sake of their projection, dismissing or ignoring loads and loads of text and panels and characterisation, why? Why can’t they at least entertain the idea for once and reread the manga with that approach? You can’t be so sure of your projection, c’mon, you know it’s counterintuitive, it just simply doesn’t gel with what’s in the manga. So why this extended stubborn denial? Give me proof that reincarnated chakras make two people brothers. Where does it say in the manga? Show me. I can show you everything that I claim, it’s all inside the manga. Where’s yours? So just because it satisfies your ego, it’s a valid take? Why are you this sure of your takes? Given you have gotten multiple things wrong? Like objectively wrong. 

Look, I understand denial is a strong factor, when we don’t want to see things we don’t like, our minds act like blinders. It would restrict your vision and make you see only what you want to see. And what a sad way that is to live, what a waste of time. I don’t believe in living that way, not in my media and not in my real life. But this obstinate refusal to accept SNS as romantic, is nothing but one’s desire to not accept Naruto or Sasuke as homosexual because you think it’s icky? Undesirable? Unattractive? Different from shounen norms? And because you want them to be straight so you can self insert? Whatever the reason, as long as you ignore real evidence and real proof, I will see you not only as heteronormative but also homophobic, you don’t gotta be overt, your underlying beliefs reek of prejudice and bias, especially when you haven’t done your due diligence, something that you mandatorily should have done in order to analyse this story. Doesn’t take a PhD degree to see that. 

Like Denis Diderot said - We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us. But we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. 

My advice to them? Give yourself a break. Give yourself enough credit that you are open minded enough to entertain an alternative understanding, even if just for the moment if nothing else, and see where that takes you. Watch more media, watch gay media, talk to people, listen to their stories, try and understand their point of views, read more, compare notes, learn more. And ask if you don’t know. There’s no shame in admitting you might not know something. Because you obviously don’t. 

I am always of the mind of learning more and more, and I know I have strong opinions, but give me reason and logic and evidence, and you can bet I will listen, and even acquiesce to you, if I find it satisfactory. Because that’s how things should be, if we can’t grow and learn from what life teaches us, what’s the point? We all have a lot to learn, don’t we? 

Anyway, there’s some more shit that they claim which is essentially written in a similar vein, more or less, albeit in the same condescending tone. Lol. 

But I am done for the day, I am tired. So imma stop, this is me. 

#ask #naruto #sasuke #sns #sasunaru #narusasu #naruto analysis #naruto meta #uzumaki naruto #uchiha sasuke

[sherylhooper]

JJK SPOILERS!!!

The new chapter reminded me again why I can no longer be satisfied with Shounen.

Gojo's dead and people think Itadori has a chance to kill both Sukuna and Kenjaku....

"We can now see who's the main character" (ნიშნისმოგებით, თან) cuz Gojo was "in the way of the story" and "story couldn't progress with him in it."

Yeah, if Itadori randomly gets an upgrate out of thin fucking air, when he doesn't even have a innate technique - "but he is gonna develop Sukuna's CT". — How the fuck is he developing anything if Sukuna is no longer in his body but in Megumi's?? You are BORN with innate technique!! Unless Sukuna goes back inhabiting Itadori's body, Yuji isn't developing anything (unless Gege pulls out some residual cursed energy leftover bullshit — i.e. powerup out of blue sky).

As a writer myself, I don't really understand why some people (especially Sukuna's die hard fans) don't get it how killing of Gojo Satoru OFF SCREEN is bad writing so I'm gonna explain (and rant) here.

Okay, pals, sit down, we are having a lecture in basics!

"How to become good at Writing 101" states that the writer can write story in TWO main ways: 1) is called "tell" and 2) is called "show".

Every single writer and critic from centuries ago to today can confidently say that writer using "tell" is one of the weaker writing choice. Let's compare simple examples.

1) "He died." — this here is "tell". Nothing happened, it's boring.

2) "He felt fatigued, he eyes could no longer focuse on the scene in front of him. The sound of blood rushing in his ears was defeating.. To draw air in his lungs was becoming harder and harder as time went on..." etc — this is "show".

Of course death can come instantly but as a doctor (by profession) I can assure you that human brain even after being decapitated can remine "alive" for few seconds/minutes, can understand commans, can open eyes, can look at someone who is talking to them, etc..

Even Gojo looking down at himself, while he was being cut in two, would have been enough "showing".

But to have another character, in this case, Sukuna, explain i.e. "tell" how Gojo died is exactly how it sounds — "tell".

In every literature: classic books, modern books, manga, etc, "tell" is considered weak writing style and it seems even Gege is bound to it for now.

Also, what was the point of unsealing Gojo if he had to still die in the end? Him remining sealed would make no difference in the story - Sukuna vs Kashimo would still happen and now that Sukuna has "adapted" to Infinity means absulutely nothing, cuz nobody is using Infinity in the manga anymore for him to cut "space".

In fact Gege just replaced Gojo with Sukuna as overpowered character and we can see that he hated Gojo solely based on how "strongest" he was (and on his attitude) and how he couldn't kill him.

And how he handled his overpowered character? Killed him off screen. So how's Sukuna dying now? Also getting off screened??

And Gojo died with no regrets, apparently. His pseudo-son has fried brain, his sister and his speudo-dad are dead (at his own hands (even if Sukuna is using them)), most of his shikigami are gone, and Sukuna is parading around using him as "meat suit" — that should, at the very least, still be Gojo's regret (not saving Megumi) but, no, apparently Gojo is selfish bastard who doesn't care about anything and he is glad that he died (even after not acomplishing anything at all), but just mad that Sukuna didn't go all out???

Talk about anti climatic.

Gojo dying like this is kinda giving Madara and Kishimoto and I do not like that (I don't think anybody does)...

This is why I can't deal with Shounen anymore, because no matter what, at some point story telling gets inconstintent and I better stick with Seinen, cuz story there makes more sense.

Thank you for reading this rant and Sukuna-stans don't interact, cuz I'm blocking you all, if I see one word about "coping" or whatever.

(თქვენი თავი ნაღდად არ მაქვს და დიდი ალბათობით, შემდეგი თავის მერე ამ მანგასაც მივაგდებ).

#jjk spoilers #jkk 236 #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #itadori yuji #gojo vs sukuna #gona wrong #they should have taken out each other #but no Gege is a b*tch and can't be bothered with anything else but shock #shock doesn't value good stiry telling #sukuna fans don't interact cuz I'm literally grieving #how is Itadori getting an uograde #is Sage of the Six Paths equivalent gonna pull up and give him sage powers or something? #on the same day I got Dazai back and lost Gojo #why do some authors creat op characters if they don't know how to handle them properly #killing of your strongest sorcerer OFF SCREEN is gonna make you lose a lot of money Gege #who is gonna pay for your bills when your name and face becomes revealed in october

[akatsukitrash]

1, 2, 3, 6, 7, [SWERVES TO AVOID 8 I'M SURE WE AGREE] 9, 12, and 20 for tobirama i'm a greedy hog

HIIII

Character Ask Game

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

Honestly, I don't even remember the first time I saw him. I watched Naruto during my entire childhood, so at most I must've been 5 or 6 when I saw his fight against Hiruzen, and I don't believe he stuck out to baby me. But during the War arc, while I was entirely focused on Madara, he appeared. And for some reason, that one panel with the four Hokages back from the dead are what did it to me. He was the one my eyes kept going back to. It might not be the only reason I like him, but his unique character design is definitely what drew me to him at first. He became one of my favourite characters soon after thanks to his dynamic with Hashirama and Orochimaru. I like that there is so much to explore in his character, so much hidden under the surface. He's very compelling to me.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

His being so hard working. It's just so interesting to me, and makes him feel more human rather than another effortless genius. Fun fact, he's ranked 3rd most hardworking character in the entire verse, after Gai and Lee.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

He never gets really confronted to how terrible Konoha is (being told without any details that the Uchiha "are no more" isn't really much of a confrontation to the dark side of the system he helped create) and so he never questions his ideals and aside from a half-hearted admission that Madara's plan isn't so bad, he doesn't ever think of a better way for peace to happen. Hell, he just blames that war solely on Madara like he's the source of all evil. It's very annoying bc it makes his character feel static - he never learns about his mistakes nor is forced to confront other point of views (Madara briefly talks to him but a) Madara dislikes Tobirama for obvious reasons so he's not trying to recruit him and b) Kishimoto decided Madara is an irredeemable villain for doing less crimes than the average Konoha shinobi and so he would not write Tobirama questioning his beliefs). Basically he's a state dog and dies that way.

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

Oh this is gonna be sad. Well not to reveal too much of my own Tragic Backstory on my blog (unlockable at Level 5 of Friendship for mutuals though!), I relate a lot to the loneliness and jealousy he must've felt as a child. It's another thing that drew me to him, because the flashback isn't even from his point of view nor does Hashirama dwell on how things must be for his brother. He lost Itama and Kawarama, and Hashirama was more interested in his friend than in Tobirama's feelings (mind you it's not Hashirama's responsibility to deal with that, he was a child soldier himself wrestling with insane amounts of grief and guilt, but I get why baby Tobirama would be upset). And having to deal with an abusive parent on top of it all, while expected to not bother anyone with his feelings...yeah. Another less sad thing we have in common is that we're both mad scientists. I'm not elaborating.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Explore the complexity of his character and feelings! He's such a tertiary character, I genuinely didn't expect so many people to take such a liking to him, and especially to still discuss him, his past, his actions nearly 10 years after the ending. He's taken seriously by a good chunk of the Founders' fandom and I really like that. It's rare for a character I like to not get treated like absolute dog shit (anti tobirama fans who? let's pretend they don't exist shall we).

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Probably, yes. Honestly it's likely he'd be the one yelling after me to do chores than the other way around.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Cooking is like therapy for him. Originally, he wasn't allowed in the kitchen due to his blindness, but Butsuma tends to have a hard time saying no to him + is generally not an ableist parent, so he eventually let him and he learnt on his own. He's very good at it, and it helps him feel grounded when he's anxious. He hates it when someone messes with his kitchen though. Don't change the spices placements or he'll kill you.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Touka! She's described in the databook as Hashirama's close associate, but I like to think she was the boys' best friend (it's the entire basis of But in this twilight, our choices seal our fate, really). He and Touka develop a very beautiful friendship throughout the years. I also like to think he would've gotten along with Deidara very well. I know! I'm making connections with characters who could never interact but hear me out. Deidara INVENTED a DOJUTSU just to counter Sharingan genjutsu. I feel that's smth that'd get Tobirama's nerdy ass squealing in delight. I can see them spend hours discussing jutsus. Plus I feel Deidara is calm enough to not anger Tobirama nor awaken his Mother Instincts (like Naruto does). There is the little issue of Deidara being an anti government terrorist and Tobirama being, well, the government, but if that wrinkle is smoothed out, I think they'd have a blast together. Pun unintended

Thanks for the ask!!!

#tobirama senju

[khorai]

Same Anon as before. Do you have any unpopular opinions about certain characters?

A lot even but i will only talk about my opinions regarding the characters from the Naruto manga that I appreciate - if I expand, we'll be here tomorrow - .

Firstly, let's start with Sakura.

I don't understand why some—actually, many—of her own fans say she is poorly written.

She isn't...?

Sakura has issues concerning her character, but it has NOTHING to do with bad writing but more about her role in the story and how she was used. As for her character itself, she-is-not-poorly-written.

Honestly, I hate this claim because it gives the impression that her character is bad when that's not the case at all.

Coming from the antis, it's not surprising —they can't even understand the character of their own favorite, so understanding Sakura's character would be a miracle— but from her "stan"?

Just...no.

She is not poorly written, and that's my final word on it. I'm more than tired of hearing this nonsense. Yes, the narrative failed her many times— like many other characters, for that matter —but it's not the "bad writing" of her character to blame, but rather Kishimoto's inability to focus on characters other than Sasuke and Naruto.

Another unpopular opinion about her is that I HATE fanon versions of Sakura (and when I say fanon, I also mean popular headcanons about her circulating in the fandom).

It may sound extreme, but you'll quickly understand why:

Initially, it was actually the opposite. I loved it because I enjoyed seeing the different iterations of her that fans could create. It was always refreshing to read other versions of Sakura in fanfic—that admittedly had little to do with the original—growing and experiencing incredible things. I liked that.

And then things got worse.

For some reason, many of her fans —and antis as well— started confusing her canon version and her fanon version (some takes on her are so OC that I sometimes wonder if we're talking about the same person), while others began to claim that she should have had techniques like mokuton in the canon.

... What do they think Sakura is?

Naruto and Sasuke?

If they want their headcanon to be somewhat plausible in the context of canon, at least give her something that aligns with his philosophy of hard work.

Mokuton, from what I know, only manifests through the Senju lineage. If she had it in the canon, she would have to be descended from a Senju —naturally or artificially, it doesn't matter— and honestly... I disagree.

That's not Sakura.

This girl is a titan of her own making, partly thanks to her courage and hard work, and then thanks to Tsunade and Shizune -bless these ladies-

I would never want her to have power-ups like Naruto; it would negate everything she has done since the beginning of the manga, and that's just a big no.

I can understand her fans being upset about her treatment by Kishimoto —I am too, a lot— but that doesn't mean we should change her character to fit a shoddy female version of her male counterparts; that's just rude.

It wouldn't even be the same person anymore.

My last unpopular opinion about her (I have many more, but I'll just stop here) is that she deserved better.

... I classify this as an unpopular opinion because what I mean by that is not: "she deserved better than Sasuke" or "she deserved to be with Naruto" or AGAIN "she should have gotten over Sasuke" or some other thing like "she should have had some super powerful ability."

No, what I mean is that Sakura deserved her own arc.

An arc in which she wouldn't have to carry the weight of the shinobi world's guilt on her shoulders as usual - if Konoha is messed up, it's not her fault-

An arc in which we could see her actually experience her other skills, have other epic battles, build other relationships, break free from the grip of Team 7 in general.

She's supposed to be the heroine of the manga, but Kishimoto treated her like a supporting character with way too much screen time.

Damn, we don't even know what her home life is like.

We don't even really see her parents in the manga, and why is that?

Because she doesn't have an overly tragic background to make Hades pale?

Because she doesn't have balls?

Compared to her teammates, she doesn't matter, is that it?

The only thing we see her do again and again is blame herself for things beyond her control.

Like...why?!

Kishimoto made her some kind of martyr of pain, and it infuriates me every time I think about it.

The worst part is that many of her own fans sweep this under the rug and prefer to argue about who "deserves her."

Sasuke here, Naruto there... is she a piece of meat?

It's almost taboo to talk about the real problems surrounding her character in this fandom without someone mentioning how "Sasuke doesn't deserve her, and Naruto is much better" or how "Sakura is obsessed with Sasuke's dick."

...

Lol.

Next, Sasuke.

Sasuke deserved better...

and

Sasuke was wrong...

are notions that should more often go hand in hand.

His redemption journey was a good idea because, no matter what his most zealous fans say about it, Sasuke needed that journey.

Konoha hurt him, and it's easy to become an apologist for his character given all the crap he went through, mainly because of the incompetent authorities of this crappy village, but... that doesn't change the fact that he is not without blame and that he also did messed up things.

However... I don't like the resolution of his character arc.

Once again, Kishimoto reminded us in the cruelest way possible that Naruto is a classic Shounen, and the protagonist must always be right.

To the detriment of Sasuke.

Attention, I'm not saying that Naruto's view was wrong and Sasuke's was right because that's far from the case.

What annoyed me is the way the author handled it.

It seemed like Sasuke was almost wrong to think the way he did, when given his situation, his reaction was actually expected and normal. I really don't like how he put Naruto's opinions on a pedestal at the end of manga.

He gave Sasuke a completely independent story that didn't revolve around Naruto's sphere of influence -quite rare even today in the Shounen era- .

He endowed him with his own will.

Literally more than Naruto, it was Sasuke who led the dance in the manga, and why in the end?

So that everything would go in the direction of the protagonist?

And that, without even serious questioning of the Konoha system?

What was the point of Naruto knowing the truth about the Uchiha massacre then?

So yes, I don't like what Kishimoto did to Sasuke's character in the end; I find it unfair to him.

I classify this as an unpopular opinion because, even though I'm not a fan of the resolution of his character arc, that doesn't mean I'm "pro-revolution" or that I think Sasuke did nothing wrong, because he did.

This brings me to my second unpopular opinion about this character:

Sasuke is not a revolutionary.

He is not the character built to challenge the system that some of his fans think he is.

Like… since when did Sasuke become someone who could change Konoha's system in the first place?

That was never his goal; the only thing that led him to make that infamous statement was anger and betrayal he felt towards Konoha. It was his obsession with revenge that led to this thought, and nothing else.

Moreover, excuse me, but his plan was crappy.

Eliminate all Kage, okay.

Take the lead of all the villages, okay.

Launch a revolution and change the system...

As if the other shinobi of the alliance would just stare at him and do nothing -_-

His idea was doomed to fail from the start.

I'm theorizing a bit here, but basically, here's the deal:

Does he really think he can eliminate the entire Shinobi alliance? (because that's what he would have had to do to achieve his goal)

With what help?

That of Team Taka?

Lol.

Yes, Sasuke is powerful, but even he couldn't have pulled off this feat without becoming ridiculously overpowered (even more than at the end of the manga).

The only thing this plan would have brought if executed would have been to alienate all Shinobi nations against him (well, he already did it, but it would have been even worse).

And if, by some miracle, his plan had worked - if he had succeeded in his revolution - it would have just caused decades and decades of war between rebel factions - because there would be if we still follow the logic of the manga - wanting to return to the old times, others wanting power for themselves, and others simply refusing to let power go to an Uchiha (let's not forget the reputation of this clan).

Moreover, to change a system hundreds of years old in a world governed by the law of the strongest, it takes much more than violence and a strong desire for revenge.

He would need many brains at his disposal: tacticians, politicians, doctors, advisers...

In short, he would need allies he could trust and who would not betray him.

Unless he wants to be a bully, which honestly seems more likely to me.

He would need the help of countless geniuses in each field for this revolution to be successful, and from what the manga tells us, all these people are in the alliance.

... Who would want to work for him willingly after all he would have done?

And even if there are people willing to do so, it will always be with the fear of possible betrayal.

If even Madara and Hashirama - alias shinobi gods in their time - needed strong allies to create Konoha and make it a prosperous nation...

(even though it went to hell afterward, but still)

What will Sasuke do with a partially destroyed nation that he will have to rebuild with his own hands?

And let's not even talk about the fact that he was consumed by revenge and half-crazy when he talked about this revolution.

I still can't believe there are people who take these words seriously.

I really wonder what kind of revolution they expected with Sasuke in that state of mind?

If it had happened, it would have led to two possible situations:

The death of the last surviving Uchiha or an even more gruesome massacre than the one that wiped out his clan.

Although, considering those who support this pseudo-revolution among his fanbase, the latter option would have suited them just fine.

Another reason that honestly makes me think this thing is stupid is that it doesn't align with the manga's vision.

Kishimoto, despite the few innovative takes he has made several times regarding the plot and some characters, remains a staunch traditionalist. Sasuke would never have become a villain, and he would never have been killed either; that would go against Naruto's dream.

He would also never have become a "revolutionary" challenging the system.

It's not his role; he's not the protagonist.

The character of Sasuke - like all the others, in fact - exists within the limits of the plot; we cannot go beyond and make his character something it was never supposed to be.

Although, for me, it's a good thing that he isn't because his plan was just as bad as Naruto's flawed idealistic vision.

I still think that if Kishimoto had made them talk normally for once, without them having to almost kill each other, if he had made them come to a compromise that would have combined their two ideas, it wouldn't have been as half-baked in the end.

To choose between the plague and cholera, he should have just paired them together -_-

But no, he had to choose nardo's protagonist vision.

Another opinion about Sasuke is his relationship with Naruto, which I find... shaky? overestimated? poorly written?

They share a strong bond, that's an undeniable truth, and you'd have to be pretty stupid to deny that.

It's the main bond in the manga, after all.

But in terms of friendship... I have doubts.

For me, the only reason I believe Sasuke and Naruto are friends is that Kishimoto said so.

We hardly see it in the manga.

Their relationship literally built on years of objectification, selfishness, disdain, rivalry, misunderstanding, resentment, and a huge savior complex.

Naruto made Sasuke his priority not out of genuine concern but because he wanted to prove he was worthy of being Hokage, and for that, Sasuke had to come back at all costs.

That's not friendship; it's selfishness and objectification.

Oh, I don't doubt that he cared, but the problem is that the manga doesn't really show us that.

Moreover, this idea that "Naruto understands Sasuke" is, for me, a bunch of nonsense.

Maybe he does so at a superficial level because of their slightly similar experiences, but if we go deeper?

Naruto doesn't really understand him, and it showed particularly when he learned the truth about the Uchiha massacre.

For Sasuke, it's more complicated.

He has a lot of mitigating circumstances that actually explain his behavior (Itachi being alive, the curse of hatred).

But in general, he played the role of an antagonist for most of Shippuden, and the fact that his character arc didn't revolve around Naruto made him some kind of insensitive jerk to everyone - at least on the surface - .

If Sasuke wanted to take revenge on the world, Naruto wanted to save him.

And neither of them was willing to give in on that.

I'm not going to judge Naruto for not caring about Sasuke's goals after Itachi's death. Who in their right mind would support such a plan?

It was supporting a one-way ticket to self-destruction.

And I'm not going to judge Sasuke for the numerous attempts to kill Naruto because that would be unfair.

However, what I judge is how Kishimoto made their communication impossible.

When they start talking seriously, it always has to end with one of them almost dying at the last moment.

Even Vegeta and Goku had more civilized discussions than these two, and that says something.

I like their relationship, but I sometimes find it hard to label them as friends, let alone best friends.

There's a lot of things that haven't been well-managed in there.

Third opinion:

Sasuke is not evil.

He is not the cold, emotionless individual that more than half of this God-forsaken fandom wants him to be.

I never thought I'd classify this as an unpopular opinion, but considering the nonsense I've seen about him, I had to do it. According to this fandom, both among his stans and antis, Sasuke is abusive, sexist, possessive, indifferent, unfaithful, easily manipulable, selfish, a lousy father, and the list goes on.

Of course, he is none of that, but it's always amusing to see people forcing their fantasies onto his character. This guy has always marched to the beat of his own drum; he has no more official truth about him other than this, and that really irritates a lot of people.

Now, onto his big brother:

Itachi... is not a good person (I still can't believe I have to say this).

He is not even a martyr from my perspective.

I really dislike how his character is glorified in certain parts of the fandom. But at the same time, I don't like how he's demonized among the antis.

Itachi is not an angel, but he is not a demon either.

He's selfish and an unparalleled manipulator, but that doesn't make him evil. He can also be gentle, warm, and incredibly loving - though he has a peculiar way of showing it- .

He's a character with a messed-up mentality, and I love him for that. I hate seeing his character being destroyed by people trying to fit him into boxes he doesn't truly belong to; it annoys me.

In the end, Itachi is a tragic character who found himself forced to make horrible choices. His life was just immensely... torturous.

I love him, but given all the mess he caused, his death was both expected and deserved.

He was tired, disillusioned, sick, and with a list of Uchiha deaths as long as Tobirama's (not to mention what he did to his brother). So no, the idea that he shouldn't have died is truly ridiculous.

Please, let this tormented man find peace in his death.

I'll stop here because at this point, these are not even unpopular opinions but downright diatribes.

#ask #anon ask #I don't even know how to tag this #It’s pro and anti at the same time...? #sakura haruno #sasuke uchiha #itachi uchiha #anti naruto fandom #anti fanon sakura #anti fanon sasuke #I hope it's not crostagging I'm doing #please excuse any mistakes it's not my native language #sorry for the messy response anon #my thoughts were a bit of a mess when i wrote this

[idkhowtopickausername]

I feel like the post I just rb-ed gets at something that I’ve been thinking lately about how a certain portion of my frustration with fandom is related to how discourse is structured rather than necessarily a frustration with the people engaging in it (although sometimes there’s that too). I felt this way a lot about Naruto when I was more actively engaged in discourse about it but had been around long enough to get tired of some things that kept cropping up. Like thematic viewpoints like “describing Sasuke as evil or abusive or misogynistic for his treatment of Sakura and acting like he’s to blame for her being sidelined by Kishimoto’s writing is a bit ridiculous and also genuinely bad because it plays into his vilification as a revolutionary character” gets shoved into the anti Sakura camp and tagged as such which differentiates itself from the viewpoint it’s reacting to and it becomes about like vs dislike for the character and a competition over either hyping her up or railing against her so you end up with these extremes when talking about a character that has very little plot relevance in the actual show, and pro vs anti SNS becomes simultaneously a shorthand for enjoying the ship and also for certain thematic stances on whether their relationship is healthy even though people can have differing and complex opinions about those things. There usually is a stance that I agree with and posts that use particular pro/anti tags that I agree with I just wish the general framework of discussion left more room for discussion of themes and framing. Idk it just gets frustrating because a lot of times people’s approval/disapproval of a character’s actions and/or narrative role does not necessarily align with whether or not they like the character, but there’s not really other tags/avenues through which to voice that criticism, and trying to have conversations about themes in a character and ship oriented framework seems to lend itself to a lot of repetitiveness

#I’m not sure that I 100% agree with the post but I like that it pointed this out #also I hate that whenever I want to make a comment it ends up being like a paragraph long so it sounds like #I’m way more serious about than I mean to be 😭 #I also want to point out the fact that a lot of this is related to people who like characters reacting poorly to criticism and labeling it #as hate

[weepingnightmarenaruto]

Like I get why people say the writing quality of Naruto went to shit after the Pain arc (and like yeah in some ways it did) and/or shit on the ending (and yeah it was bad). But like pre pain arc Naruto had:

badly, sexist writing of female characters

kishi introducing a “the chosen one” trope (child of the prophecy) in his “going against destiny/underdog” story

a whole oppression and genocide plot where he is basically implying that he thinks being a cop is oppression. (Like the military/government giving you the responsibility of the police force is them oppressing you apparently, according to Kishimoto.) (the writing of the Uchiha clan in general is a mess).

generally just bad and inconsistent writing of systemic critique. Like he couldn’t make up his mind about what he would do with it, so he just ended up critiquing/pointing out some issues while ignoring others. Eg. Chunnin exams: critiquing the Hyuga clan issues ✅ critiquing Sunas treatment of Jinchurikks (and by extension Konoha and the Jinchuriki system in general) ✅ critiquing the event that allows children to participate in the Naruto universe version of the hunger games/gladiator fighting ❌

Inconsistent framing of revenge (like it’s okay for Shikamaru to avenge Asuma, but Sasuke wanting to avenge his clan by killing Itachi is bad) like kishi wrote Kakashi as being against Sasuke avenging his clan by killing Itachi, but with Shikamaru, Kakashi went along with it and participated in it. Kishi is also inconsistent in how Sasukes want for revenge is portrayed (like it’s good or bad depending on the arc).

The story being thematically inconsistent. Like it changes from arc to arc and ends up contradicting each other)

The writing of the Hyuga clan

Inconsistent characterisation (eg. Hiashi Hyuga, Sakura Haruno).

Abandoning plot lines and characters

Very obvious he didn’t plan stuff out in detail and just wrote the story as he goes.

#naruto #anti kishimotos bad writing #I think the issues with post pain arc Naruto and the ending #was a consequence of the bad writin pre pain arc #like the signs were there #naruto critical #mine

[rozaceous]

I love too much tcba♥️ Itachi's pov leaves me with mixed feelings. I think partly because I tend to humanize Itachi too much and forgive the massacre as if it's not his fault. But analyzing everything, Itachi made his decision and that was his village.

itachi is such a loaded character to unpack, and i put the blame for, eh, most of it onto kishimoto's shoulders. the start of naruto canon sets itachi up as an unambiguous, bad guy, bogeyman type. he's mysterious, sure, but there's no doubting that he's an antagonist.

once we start to move into shippuden, tho, so much of the narrative framing of the series shifts. there's so much brilliant meta out there abt it that's better than what i'm saying rn, but essentially kishimoto takes the anti-authoritarian views from before (think wave arc) and starts backtracking. bc if he followed thru to the logical end, he'd end up having to write something that's anti-konoha and anti-state. and for whatever reason (editorial, maybe) he doesn't do that. so to set up konoha as a beacon of goodness, certain characters have to be Right and Good, and other characters have to be Wrong, and foremost among those characters is sasuke. and what's the easiest way to devalue sasuke's desire for revenge? make itachi the victim instead of the villain.

obviously there's a bit more to it than that, but personally i find itachi's narrative arc and subsequent martyrdom to be absolutely batshit. and i'm not abt to retcon the entire motive behind the massacre in my fic as i think it's really delicious, but my take is definitely less forgiving than some others that are out there.

that being said, even in my take, itachi is a victim. (he can be both victim and villain! he has the range!) he's honestly really pitiful.

one of the other things that i play w in tcba is objective truth versus perspectival truth, aka unreliable narration. is what the character is telling you is real and true actually the truth? so with that in mind, kabuto's view of things re:itachi at the end isn't necessarily wrong, but it's his view of things only. i doubt sasuke sees itachi continuing to live as nothing but a punishment...

honestly, i'm really glad that you have mixed feelings, because i don't think anything about itachi's situation is clear-cut other than that it's horrible! and thank you so much for liking tcba ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

#all of the most delicious meta separates authorial intention from execution imo #the doylist vs watsonian takes as it were #and naruto is the prime example of that #i'm pretty mean to itachi in tcba but he's so fucking tragic no matter how evil he can seem #at the same time he is just so awful lmao #idk like i said in another ask response; i've read fic w him as the good guy and loved it! #no character has to be any one thing #they just have to be consistent within the fic #internet user demands answers #tcba

[leportraitducadavre]

Naruto

Related content on my blog for cellphone users

Disclaimer

I’m not a shipper of any of the problematic four. I analyze canon and enjoy some crack-ships. Shipper to none.

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Naruto re-read

#posts - if this doesn't work, try searching the hashtag that follows: #naruto re read (spaces necessary)

Feminism

About feminism and my female characters critiques.

Inclusivity: The woke fandom's drug.

Female empowerment in the Naruto fandom and Feminism without feminists (a companion piece).

Fictional works vs. real historical events. Is it ok to use parallels?

The infinite “who’s strongest Kunoichi” debate and the sexist erasure/degradation of female characters. And a response to it.

Contradictory traits in a character = Bad writing?

Political review

Revolution! Is Internal Reform possible for the Shinobi System? Or is too corrupt to be changed from within?

The Curse of Hatred - or a poorly constructed theory based on bias.

The Chunin Exams -and their actual purpose

Naruhina/Hinata Hyuuga

Hinata’s suicide or why her intention to fight Pain wasn’t to save Naruto.

Hinata endorses slavery. A quick explanation of why.

NaruHina A full analysis of their relationship. Plus, could The Last have worked if it didn't reduce Naruto's character?

NejiHina or the possibilities of the pairing.

The Hyuga clan. And the Caged Bird Seal.

Sorry, no, Hinata never hit Pain.

SasuSaku/Sakura Haruno

Debunking the idea that Sakura was born into a “clanless” family.

SasuSaku a full analysis of their relationship, part one.

Sakura isn’t stronger than most characters. And a small addition. 

Sakura and Ino, an analysis of their relationship.

Sakura and Naruto, an analysis of their relationship. Part 1

Sakura as Orochimaru's apprentice and Sasuke as a Medic AU.

Sakura's personality. A defense of Kishimoto's writing. Additionally

Other pairings

ShikaIno. Why this ship has problems.

My opinion about the idea that Kishimoto "planned SNS".

Uchiha clan

How the Uchiha are perceived, a short exploration through Kishimoto's writing.

Were the Uchiha truly oppressed?

Minorities using violence, is it ok?

Sasuke Uchiha

Sasuke and Kakashi’s relationship. What went wrong?

How Sasuke and Obito surpassed their role in the manga (meta).

Sasuke as a Medic AU and Sakura as Orochimaru's aprentice.

Itachi Uchiha

About Itachi, his fandom, and moral standpoints.

Can Itachi's character be fixed? Spoiler alert: It's the fandom's perception of him that should change, not his character.

Debunking an Itachi stan

Madara Uchiha

Madara Uchiha and sexism.

Madara Uchiha’s characterization.

Obito Uchiha

Obito Uchiha. A character ruined by the fandom and his relationship with Minato.

Obito’s redeemers. A small debunk of their arguments.

Shisui Uchiha

Shisui Uchiha. A quick analysis of his participation in the manga.

Fugaku Uchiha

Fugaku Uchiha, the neglectful father.

Naruto Uzumaki/Naruto the series

The white boy, the hero. Parallelisms between Santiago Maratea and Naruto Uzumaki.

Naruto Uzumaki, an underdog or a genius?

Naruto Uzumaki and the hero concept

Other characters

Team Taka. Their relevance.

Kakashi of the Sharingan.

Shikamaru‘s Sexism. Analyzing Sasuke Retrieval Arc.

Minato. A fandom-perceived hero that might not be such.

Jiraiya. My thoughts against the fandom’s obsession with calling him a hypocrite.

Neji vs. Kidomaru. An analysis of their fight.

Yamanaka clan techniques. and a quick rambling of the clan.

Rock Lee.

Hiruzen Sarutobi

Tobirama Senju

Tobirama. The Scientist. An exploration of Tobirama’s academic status and a debunking of his COH theory.

Does Tobirama defy masculinity? No, he doesn't.

Fear and Racism - an analysis of Tobirama’s advocates.

Boruto

Sarada Uchiha and the non-importance of her MS. A small rant about why the quote "she awoke her MS out of love, unlike the others" is false.

#naruto #naruto analisys #meta #pinned post

[maoam]

I'm sorry for this long ass ask. I just wished to get a bit this out of my chest. Feel free to delete it if you would want to feel a bit more positive!

As you said once, if I remember correctly, there is no one more mysoginistic in fandoms (especially shonen) than the het shippers rather than the "fujoshis." In my personal experience, at least, I rarely have seen people hate a girl because she is in the way of their mlm pairing. But I have seen in het ships women be especially vile with their words like slut shaming, body shaming (flat chest vs busty discourses).

Especially in the Naruto fandom, I don't understand why NH and SS stans have to be on the march of war against each other, or why pit their favs against each other when they clearly are "not in the way" of their respective pairings, or even harass all other ships. In fact, I Hinata and Sakura are even in friendly terms. If not outright, they don't care about each other's existence for most of the time, I think?? So why so much catty?

Sometimes, I visit NH/SS/NaruSaku blogs out of curiosity, without doing anything but looking. Usually their content is all about shitting on other pairings but just that. They don't support other creators who appreciate the pairings, like writers or artists. Just shit on the rival pairing while be like "unlike that shit, this pairing has sense and is better". Like, they are more obsessive about what they hate rather than what they love. Absurd.

I have seen people call Sakura a cumdumpster (I swear to god that word-) and Sarada a hoe/slut, and considering Sarada is like 12 to 16 years old... well, it weirds me out. Or shame on the fact Hinata is a busty woman and usually that's the only bad thing they can say about her that comes to my mind, along with other slut shaming.

Or the weird obsession Sakura fans have about Sakura's body, like "THIS IS WHY SHE IS NOT FLAT." Why do you care so much if she's beautiful anyway?

I can go long but I won't because it sounds kinda frustrating.

But why can't these people just... stay in their planes? And ignore each other? Or if they love their one true pairing, just support artists or recommend fan fictions they like, or heck do something themselves and create a more positive environment not only for the fandoms but for themselves as well. Because most of the time, they go on anti - or pro tags and just harass people who think differently like they do with you or sneezemonster-

Again, sorry for the rant, and thank you if you had the patience of reading. Bless your day and keep doing what you do! What you write is always interesting to read <3

People mistake fujoshis (or just people who ship gay pairings) complaining about the het ships having no mutual development/how the female character in said ship has no individual development/revolves only around the guy she likes as "hating on the female character/misogyny". Which it isn't. Sure there might be couple who are misogynists, but that really isn't what I usually see. Meanwhile het shippers are indeed very vile in their ship wars.

"I don't understand why NH and SS stans have to be on the march of war against each other, or why pit their favs against each other when they clearly are "not in the way" of their respective pairings"

Because to them shipping is also a contest, and everyone is their competitor. They need to show everyone how they ship the best ship or how "their girl" is the best girl of the show. NH will talk about how Hinata is more "fertile" than Sakura (which is really misogynistic), how she is the heiress, how she is the richest girl in Konoha (lol). All very shallow things, none of them she even earned. And SS will go out of their way to "prove" Sakura is better looking than the other Naruto girls, because somehow that matters more than Sakura not having any dignity in the story... And yes, SS's crazy need to prove Sakura is not flat, sometimes they straight up edit Kishimoto's drawings so she would have a bigger chest.

This is also why these especially crazy people don't flock to shojo as much, since shojo doesn't usually have as big of a mainstream audience as shonen. And maybe they are addicted to one-sided interaction, because they relate to it? They can't relate to a female character that has reasonable feelings?

But yeah, recently I have seen a lot of Historia hate and it's all "she's spreading her legs to the farmer", "Whorestoria", "even her whore mother didn't like her", "blonde whore" and so on from certain het ship fandom. But sure fujoshis are the worst ones for saying Mikasa's character revolved too much around Eren...

#anon #fandom stuff

[kokonutcat]

Hi there. hope you're well

Dont you think its so funny that both SP and NH stans go out of their way and perform all sorts of mental gymnastics in an attempt to draw parallels between Kushina and Hinata?

First off, Kushina respects herself. She is hot headed, has no fears about expressing her inner thoughts and emotions and puts up with no BS from anyone. i see her as a noble character and she managed to make a huge impact during her appearance when Naruto first met her

Now lets look at hinata. She is shy, timid, almost invisible, has no goals and agencies besides Naruto on the brain 24/7. She is a bad wife and a mom.

Allow me to make this clear by giving you a scenario. Look at the scene where Naruto wasnt there for Himawari's birthday. He sends a clone instead, both hinata and Himawari are upset, Boruto wants to murder his dad. What does hinata do? As per usual, NOTHING! as a matter of fact, she is ok with her husband's lack of participation in his own family life. this is because she is selfish and rotten to the core as a character. She wanted naruto and after finally getting what she wants, she doesnt care about the rest of the world, even if they are her own kids. She'd rather let her on kids suffer for her own sake than stir the pot.

Now, if this was kushina who had to face what hinata did, she wouldve barged into the hokage office, grabbed her husband by his ears, smack his face and knock some sense into his head and perhaps might have even entered the kyuubi mode. Thats how canon Kushina is.

There can be no comparison between a diamond and a dusty pebble on a road left to the wind and weather. There are times when the SP went out of their way to portray that hyuga garbage as kushina but thank god for small things, its used as a comic relief, for shits and giggles and for other non serious moments. there can be NO comparison between Kushina and this waste of space called hinata hyuga

#anti hinata hyuga

Hello

Yes, I’m fine and I hope you are too.

I find it ridiculous how some certains stans/shippers make parallels between characters who have nothing in common to prove a point. SP wanted to portray her more like Sasuke too (both the stans and SP want her to be what Sasuke is to Naruto).

Meanwhile Kishimoto doesn’t bother to make her relevant to the plot or to Naruto at best (he treated her like a normal comrade, she never was that special person), and seems to openly mock her character and her relationship with Naruto at worst. He can write women if he wants to, like he did with Kushina by giving her a personality, an interesting backstory and a ship that makes sense despite of the few screentime she got. Also Boruto isn’t real and I stand by that.

#ask #anti hinata

[orbleglorb]

info post!

pt: info post

hi i'm sasha orbleglorb. i use he/him and they/them with no preference. this post is going to basically be a little intro post/guide to my blog. it has my tag system and stuff for wip wednesday/OC ask games, because i rb a LOT of those. it'll be updated every now and then :]

disclaimer(?)

pt: disclaimer (?)

i don't want to call this a DNI, because tbf i don't care if people who don't agree with me follow me. if you pick fights about it, you're getting blocked. but if you are anti-endo, exclusionist (including more "weird" identities like bi lesbian), or feel any type of strong opinions about the proship debate (in literally any way), you will occasionally see things that make you uncomfortable or piss you off. do with that what you will.

interests:

pt: interests:

blaseball (i post about this the most), world religion (i don't rlly post about it much, because people can be weird about it), lost media, my ocs, other ppl's ocs.

tag system

pt: tag system

#undescribed - images without an image ID

#id in alt or #id in alt text - images with the ID in alt text, but nowhere else in the post

#later gator - posts i have saved for later

#not screenreader friendly - posts that include formatting that is hard or impossible for screenreaders to read. this includes special fonts, even the ones on tumblr. this does not include bold, italic, bigger, or biggest fonts.

#colored text - posts with colored text. as far as i know, colored text is readable by screen readers. but it can cause migranes and be hard to look at, so i have a category for it.

#save for later - practical posts i want to reference later

#insert a queue pun here - queue tag

#sasha lore - posts about my personal life & general things happening with me. negative/bad stuff tagged with #rant and #vent

#asks 4 sasha - ask response tag

#eyeball emoji. hey - ask game tag

#orble art insp - posts that inspire me artistically

#orble art ref - art references

#blaseball (organizational) - blaseball posts i make that i don't want to maintag, but would like to organize somehow. i do this with multiple fandoms, and they all serve the same purpose.

#orble art - art tag

#orble writing - writing tag

#firewalker with me friday - every(ish) friday i reblog the song "firewalker with me" by the garages

#sidelined sunday - same as above but with "sidelined" by the garages, every(ish) sunday

#wip wednesday - an ask game where i post my wips & ppl can request snippets (more info below)

#wip wednesday works - snippets of wips i post on wip wednesday

all triggers/content that needs to be censored are tagged without TW or CW in the tag. for instance, anything with transphobia is just tagged #transphobia, anything with flashing lights is just tagged #flashing and #flashing lights.

ask game stuff - OCs, favorite characters, ships, fic wips

pt: ask game stuff - OCs, favorite characters, ships, fic wips

essentially, i reblog a lot of ask games that are about OCs, ships, and WIPs. because i'm a blaseball fan, and blaseball has no canon, i also like it when ppl send blb players for OC asks! so, if you want to send an ask but don't know what to ask about, here's a list of things for when i share those ask games:

👤 OCs 👤

most used/fleshed out ocs (bolded are main characters): alejandro salinas, arthur murphy (that's the only ref i've posted), connor shrapner, diego salinas aguilera, dhia hassan, ezra hoffman, gwen shrapner, hannah abrams, leylo gromit (nee wright), manea, marco salinas rojas, nicostratus dreadful, silas vanderzee, william shrapner, and zach schneider (nee wright)

ocs with a decent amount of lore: amos salinas (nee wright), catalina salinas flores, dolores rojas velásquez (flores), christopher shrapner, callum ferreira-cohen (nee wright), danika murphy, gabriela flores salinas, james voland (nee wright), luke fullmer, martín salinas flores, mallory shrapner, matthew norman, minato kishimoto, opal dreadful, ornias dreadful, penny dreadful, rowan wallace, taylor wallace, timothy "mothy" miller (and dreadful but dw about it), wilbur wright, and valerie schneider

other ocs: aidan thompson, aliyah anderson, margarita salinas castillo, carlos salinas castillo, cecil weaver, camilla salinas rojas, cynthia wright, daniel cohen, gilberto flores martinez, henry milburn, indigo milburn, irene salinas, jackie ong, jessica, josé salinas pérez, maría concepción castillo gonzález de salinas, mei, mercedes aguilera, molly mae wright, nicole murphy, oliver wright, peter wright, rory wright, sergio ferreira, tristan, wendy ong, and zellie anderson

‼️ Favorite Characters ‼️

blorbos that are basically my ocs: conditional yuniesky (i call him yuniesky torres), chester abu-zaid (nadeem abu-zaid and his service dog, chester), fletcher berger

blorbos that are not basically my ocs, but i have a lot of lore for them that others do not: parker macmillan, megan ito, new megan ito, clare ballard, mike townsend, tillman henderson, declan suzanne, lenjamin lin, flattery strewnberry

💞 Ships (and some characters): 💞

Here!

🖊 WIPs: 🖊

fic wips: every other wednesday i do a little thing called wip wednesday, where i share a list of my wips and ppl can request a snippet of each wip. the most recent wip files post (which will be tagged as #wip wednesday) will be the most reliable for this.

#pinned post

[yama-o-utsusu]

What scenes do you think Anti-SasuSaku folks "misinterpret" (or just blatantly try to twist beyond all context) the most?

There's one motif that people misinterpret ALL the time. And it's not just anti ss or anti sakura mind you, but ss shipers as well. And it drives me mad, because general interpretation it's very ooc for Sasuke and Sakura, as well as it doesn't make sense when you take a look at their later interactions.

It's the "you're annoying" dialogue, the first one especially

Sasuke doesn't actually think Sakura is annoying. Someone reading manga for the first time could've thought so, sure, but we know their interaction when Sasuke leaves the village. If it was a mere state of his mind at that moment, he wouldn't have said it again. I firmly believe that Sasuke is just repeating Sakura's own words, ones she directed at Naruto. In that whole scene, Sas is carefully analyzing what Sakura says, the way he react indicates that it's the first time he heard that Naruto is an orphan. That immediately makes him sympathize.

Are Sakura's words annoying? Yes. But I always viewed it as Sasuke being put off by her attitude, her bad attempts at showing-off to him, by her childish mindset and not him genuinely disliking her. Repeating her own words here is crucial and Kishimoto makes immediate point of that. The whole scene is written especially to kick-start Sakura's character development and she doesn't take this "insult" personally in any way, because she actually realizes her own awful attitude.

The second time Sasuke uses "you're annoying" is a way to distance himself from Sakura, sure. But have you ever thought how both these interactions essentially boil down to Sasuke being touched by her words and not liking it? And while the first instance comes from the point of annoyance, the second is painful and hard, and we don't even see Sasuke's face because he's clearly hurting? People really think he's being cold and uncaring but these manga panels ooze with tragedy. Can you imagine being absolutely alone, traumatized, your only point in life is to end somebody's else, you don't believe anything good can happen to you or that you deserve it yet somebody just falls in love with you so deeply their heart shatters when you leave??? And the only think that comes to your mind is to thank them??? Sasuke thanks Sakura for loving him, caring about him, wanting him safe and near!!!! Because he is genuinely thankful!!!Sakura wants to go to Orochimaru with him, not because "hurr durr she's a desperate chaser" BRO do you really think she doesn't realize who Orochimaru is??? THe same guy who tortured them both in the Forest of Death??? Who KILLED the fucking HOKAGE??? Sakura know so well Orochmaru is terrifying, dangerous, that he will probably kill her and yet she still wants to go?? Purely out of love for another person??? And you know what Sasuke feels hearing that??? He puts her to sleep just so she doesn't follow him, because he wants her to be safe and Orochimaru is not safe!!! He's cutting the ties with people he loves because he loves them!!!!

Anon I'm sorry this got so deranged I hope you get my point klfjsdfsdj ss in general is soft and kinda woven into the manga so i feel like it just takes a very gentle approach to get all the little tidbits. And Kishi may be bad at writing romance but he sure is a master at writing emotional scenes.

#other pro sas scoff at me for shipping ss #i say theyre sleeping on this relationship #beating the shit out of each other for love?? thats so passe #try caring so deeply that words cannot describe it and their souls just dance in the air and somehow they know everything they need to #sasusaku #ANON IM SORRY