re: Naruto ending, but what if the only ending had been an open-ended hopeful one (as in, 699), without that glimpse into the future? Ok, I get they wanted to set Boruto up, but really, the “it’s X years into the future and everyone is paired up and has carbon-copy kids” ending is the most awful thing that can happen to a franchise (besides a sequel-ish thing about the future kids that is light years away from the spirit of the original). Just look at harry potter! Fuck this kind of epilogue.

fineillsignup:

699 wouldn’t have been a terrible place to end it, but I have to say that “but did Naruto become Hokage???” would have always been an unsatisfying note in that case.

It’s just that “He DOES become Hokage! Except he misses his own inauguration and is overworked and miserable and out of touch with his kids and his best friend is never around and he sleeps on the couch and orphan children are still being abused and experimented on under his watch 😀 😀 :D” is objectively a worse ending than that.

I think an open-ended hopeful ending would be Naruto as a relatively young Rokudaime–18-20, let’s say, which isn’t ridiculous when you consider that Gaara is Kazekage before he’s 16–being inaugurated.