Some Dude: Hokage-sama! The village has been attacked!
Hiruzen, doing calligraphy or some shit: How many ANBU are lying dead?
Dude: About six, in a creepy panning shot with a discordant chord!
Hiruzen, sucking on the tip of his brush like a weirdo: Ahhhh, yes. Despite the fact that we only graduate 9 genin per year, and only promoted one genin to chuunin in the last exams, six of our most elite soldiers dying is merely slightly alarming, because after all, none of them had names. This threat will call for… *camera zooms in* characters with names.
Basically, if you’re an Uchiha with a name you got the Sharingan.
Yeah the whole “strong feeling” bullshit is part of the cavalcade of bullshit in Naruto Gaiden: Scarlet Spring. What, Sarada is the first Uchiha to ever experience enormous joy and expectation? Really? Really?
The first Naruto Gaiden manga is so awful, and the second Naruto Gaiden (Full Moon) is so aggressively awful, that I’ve come to the point of headcanoning that Kishimoto actively hates his own creation and is trying to kill it. I don’t actually believe that it’s true, but it is more satisfying than the alternative, which is that Kishimoto actually thinks he’s produced a good story about admirable heroes.
I have deliberately avoided answering Boruto questions on this blog any longer due to the fact it gets me heated.
However despite this, I still am sent questions regarding this shithole series and people are still curious about what I think of it now, 40 something episodes in. To the person who sends me continuous information on the series: I don’t care and never have. Please stop. To everyone else: I haven’t always been entirely honest about how I really feel about Boruto, sarcasm aside.
So here you go.
Warning: This answer is not pointed towards you individually (anonymous). Please don’t take everything I’m about to say personal or as a direct attack on you.
Naruto might’ve “ended” fifteen years ago, and people who are still angry have every god given right to be. Because when you “end” a story in a mediocre, anti climatic, unsatisfactory bullshit way, it’s going to piss a lot of people off—as it rightfully should. Because when you disrespect your own characters the way Masashi Kishimoto did, a lot of people who spent most of their childhoods invested in the livelihood of the characters only to be told at the ending “I don’t actually give a single fuck about these characters or what they were primarily intended to represent” is a huge bitch slap to the face to the people who supported the creators work and art after all that time. It’s disgusting, it’s triggering and it’s horrifying. Sasuke’s character is primarily so popular due to how savage his creator treated him. Kishimoto started this universe off with a child suffering from traumatic loss by someone he adored with the essence of his existence—to end it by making that character not only a dog to the system that betrayed his entire clan, but rooted him to character that understood him the absolute least of all people. As an invested reader (as many of those were) this is disrespectful as fuck to do to a character. Kishimoto spent so much time reiterating to us about this broken, fucked up system only to have the one character going against it suddenly lay down and accept it, no more questions asked, silenced forever. If Sasuke Uchiha was at least handled and written correctly, people might’ve accepted the ending far easier, in time. However, this was not the case. Sasuke Uchiha represented oppression and injustice yet the ending made him even further ostracized. As in; his problems weren’t solved, his trauma wasn’t mended and his heart was still crushed. This hurt very many people, as it should. Your favorite character at the end of the story doesn’t even have a last word.
It’s the way that the Boruto series despite branching off into its own supposed direction and storyline continues to rob and borrow ideals from its predecessor in horrendous ways. In a way, I’m glad Boruto happened. I’m glad that the world sees something like Boruto because it highlights in clear depiction everything the studio and the “people” care about; ships, ships, rehash, ships, rehash. These are the people who watched Naruto and Naruto Shippuden to see Hinatits collapse while talking to Naruto, to see Sakura regress significantly when Sasuke is present—Boruto: Next Generations is aiming for those people and the studio damn well knows it and they are bringing what those people want to see, what’s going to get them to keep coming back. Because who cares about a child shinobi system highlighted as brutal in the original series? Not them! Let’s romanticize missions. Who cares about the Hyuuga Clan branch system? Not them! Let’s make sure we show everyone how important Hinata truly is. Oh and Neji? Yeah let’s never mention him again except for comedic relief. Who cares about punishing criminals and imprisonment? Not them! In fact let’s continue to bring in the main villain and even better let’s give him a child that he openly experimented on and portray him as a good parent! Who cares about all of those things? The true fans did. It’s the way they wash these important issues under the rug and never mention them again. It’s the way the issues that were tackled and prevalent in Naruto are no longer even discussed or mentioned. Because that was Neji Hyuuga, Sasuke Uchiha and Yahiko’s duties. Guess where all of them went. Notice that Sasuke is never seen in the village. Want to know why that is? Because he would challenge the system. Nope! Can’t have that—twelve years out on the hunt for a make believe villain you go Sasuke! The creators seem to not understand that the series can most definitely thrive if they were not continuously shitting on the old one; they could have created this universe in the Naruto realm that everything still exists without destroying the previous characters development. Naruto and Sasuke struggling against a battle with a weak minded villain with foolish ideals was atrocious—not to mention Sasuke goddamn Uchiha couldn’t dodge kunai. If the creators had actually paid attention during the original series, they would know that the Uchiha clan were one of the clans to master weaponry. So to have Sasuke—a Uchiha—struggling against them was a massive “fuck you” to his character and everything he made of himself. It definitely shows. Then they had Sakura attack the weak minded villain with a sneak attack, despite his entire cranium was shrouded in eyeballs and not seeing that attack coming. They really want us to buy this? Oh but wait—Boruto: Next Generations can’t have logic in it, people can’t read that deep into it. It’s a show for the new generation, it needs to be kid friendly. Maybe we just won’t notice, right? Yeah. Let’s pretend we don’t notice. In another way I’m glad Boruto happened, it reiterated to us significantly how unoriginal their ideals were as well as the incompetence of Kishimoto as a writer. Want to know a secret, my friend? We could have excused shitty writing if the story was satisfactory. We could have excused improper and rushed pairings with shitty writing, if the ending were justified and believable. Oh..but..that isn’t the case. In fact, the ending outright proved to us just how shitty of a writer Kishimoto actually is. So guess what? We’re pissed. The bullshit excuses of him being a young mangaka at the time is insanely inexcusable—it’s your profession to create stories and content and you fall back on discrediting your profession as undermining your own ability? My favorite outlandish lie that Kishimoto spoke was when he admitted he could not write romance—but Naruto was a series he wrote about the essence of the budding relationship between Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuuga.
Wait—excuse me? But Kishimoto, you just said you are not very good at writing romance. My god..so why did you aim to write a romance story if you cannot write romance? Is it because…that isn’t what Naruto was about, perhaps? It’s the way that the authors intended dream for the protagonist became so undermined that he had to change his entire wording in order to make us believe that..it made sense. Yeah..believe it! Get this: Naruto Uzumaki an orphaned Konoha resident is ostracized due to harboring a demonic beast within him that wreaked havoc on the village years prior. Despite the sour looks and disdain of others, he perseveres on the journey to becoming Hoka—marrying Hinata Hyuuga. How fucked up would that make you feel? An average reader in the beginning would not derive that bullshit notion upon first picking that manga up. Could you imagine Masashi Kishimoto using that as his pitch? They’d throw him out the door quicker than Rock Lee’s downfall of being a relevant character. It’s the way that the own creator contradicts himself with his own wording. Stating he could not write romance and goes on to develop multiple—mutual—ships that take a back seat to underdeveloped asspull pairings. It’s the way that Boruto also fleshed out his inner shitty writing abilities by creating light novels. Here’s the thing about Light Novels; they are intended to explain situations, storyline or anything that does not initially fit in the manga itself or did not have time to be explained or developed. They are meant to help the reader themselves understand certain aspects or criteria that otherwise they wouldn’t have found in the original/initial material. Masashi Kishimoto decided now was his time to help everyone understand just how it was Naruto Uzumaki’s dream of becoming hokage was actually a fluke—it was to marry Hinata Hyuuga instead. Now this is after the disaster film of The Last. We’re still asking questions and here comes our Lord and Savior Masashi Kishimoto about to deliver us some tea! What the—there isn’t anything? There’s just Naruto boinking Hinata and..creating two children? Fine. You know what—you win this round Masashi Kishimoto. As a reader, we’re still confused about Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, though. The Last showed zero development between them—we’d like to understand how it was they got together. Bless us with your Light Novels Kishimoto. Deliver us answers!
Okay, well so far this prologue is looking promising. Looks like we’ll be given answers regarding Naruto and Sasuke…okay, then..
What the devil….okay. So this is Sakura and..Sasuke’s relationship? He just—returns. And says he’s back. I mean this would be acceptable if he just returned from grocery shopping but haven’t you been gone for years, man? Okay..let’s uh..see if Sakura’s provides some insight about this..relationship.
(couldn’t find pictures of her novel, I’m guessing because it was absolute trash, but here’s a video that goes through the story with hilarious commentary: https://youtu.be/_xBCABYy3qk)
For a summary, at the end of Sakura shinden, we are not provided answers regarding Sakura and Sasukes relationship in the slightest. Throughout her book she’s constantly..wet over him, that’s primarily all. In short, Kishimoto didn’t deliver us with answers to shit, except exposing his piss poor writing abilities. But wait! Wait, I forgot something! Oh that’s right—Gaiden! God how could I forgotten about Gaiden!? Maybe he provides some answers there for us?! Yeah to save you the trouble—he doesn’t. You’re welcome, I won’t torment your eyesight with the images. Kishimoto in Gaiden went on further confusing the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura. The point I am making here is that the reason those Light Novels and Gaiden became so popular was that people were expecting to read the material and gather information or answers that supported these relationships. To provide hindsight to their explanations or to at least give light as to how they started to develop that perhaps wasn’t in the manga. And the creator disrespects his fans so much that he doesn’t even give them that. He doesn’t provide answers, he doesn’t further explain information, he downright doesn’t do anything except appeal to what people want—I actually am not even sure what that exactly was for the Light Novels themselves, it all seemed like a mass of bullshit to me since they didn’t go on to explain particularly anything. People supported that man from beginning to the end and they were punched in the face repeatedly with the nonsensical explanations. Rightfully so, people should be pissed.
It’s the way the creator robbed a vast majority of people their time and investments to provide nonsensical endings with illogical pairings to support his work and art. People are pissed because he doesn’t care and all the evidence points to..he never did.
As I’ve stated previously; it’s not that we hate Boruto (the character included) it’s that we hate what it did to Naruto (the character included) and Sasuke for the sake of fan service and shipping bait. None of the questions we have were answered and absolutely nothing for these poor souls were justified. They are, instead, making a mockery of our childhood.
And that is what’s utterly disrespectful most of all.
the same bandits that got destroyed by 12 year olds were able to impersonate the Daimyo’s most trusted servant and kidnap his son, with the entire shinobi world being extremely lucky they just wanted money otherwise the Daimyo would probably be dead by now.
a new group that I affectionately refer to as the “Akatsuki Lite” has been formed that was able to raise, in their own words, enough money to buy an entire country for a “vessel” of some sort. said vessel has now been lost by these idiots, and I don’t think I need to explain why something so expensive being let loose is going to end up killing a bunch of people.
i’m also 99% sure that this “vessel” is Kawaki, because the Akatsuki Lite members have similar tattoos & stuff but he wasn’t present at the meeting. Kawaki is the gentleman that, according to the first chapter, will destroy the Leaf village in about 3 years (because that’s what’s trendy these days) and will “send Boruto to the place he sent the Hokage.” it also looks as though Boruto is the only person that can stop him because 100 Healings Sakura, Eight Gates Lee, and fucking Sasuke (?????) are all just absent for whatever reason or possibly dead/in the same place as Naruto.
and from Sasuke’s own words, we know that “the crisis in this world” still isn’t over.
all of this has happened in 16 chapters or arguably 6 considering how about 10 of those chapters were just retelling events from the movie.
this isn’t even some alien nonsense that these guys understandably can’t control. these are ninja, participants of the shinobi system causing chaos in whatever way they can, on a way larger scale than some petty bandit, pretty much restarting the “Cycle of Hatred” Naruto swore he’d end by making some important friends. this is the Naruto world on the same bullshit they said wouldn’t happen ever again.
none of this even addresses what’s been going on in the Boruto anime because I honestly don’t watch it, but considering how they apparently had a 7/8 year old also try to destroy the village (yeah that was a thing for a while) I doubt things are any better over there.
all I’m trying to say is Boruto’s dad flopped and lied to Nagato and all of the other people he promised world peace to.
I can see both sides. On the one hand, just because your parent had a rough childhood does not mean that their failures in parenting don’t hurt. You also can’t expect children to understand the past if they are not TOLD about the past (and there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that the Bort generation is told much of anything about their own parents history–Boruto knows nothing about Hyuuga branch slavery, Sarada doesn’t recognize Team Taka, etc).
Naruto is not a competent Hokage. He is overwhelmed by paperwork in a way that previous Hokages were not shown to be, despite having as many or more people to delegate to, and being younger and more vibrant to start with. He is also hypocritical with regard to how he uses his clones. He doesn’t make significant changes with regard to the shinobi system, in particular the fundamental unjust basis of it, which is “military and police work based on ability to pay”. The daimyo and his son feature prominently in the Bort manga and it’s made completely obvious that the ninja world economy and government is some kind of bizarre feudalist/capitalist hybrid, the literal worst of both worlds if you’re a have-not. Nor has anyone apparently learned any lessons from their recent history. The whole Sumire plotline for example–what the fuck were the Sixth and Seventh Hokages thinking with regard to Root that they let that situation happen?
On the other hand, Boruto’s predicament just can’t be as compelling and attractive to the reader as Naruto’s, and the reader is comparing them as stories. Moreover, what makes Boruto annoying to me personally is how much the narrative keeps giving him unearned rewards of people’s adoration. The whole “Boruto is Mitsuki’s sun!!!” trope is annoying as fuck to me, especially in light of the entire thing being shown to be Snakebert brainwashing Mitsuki into becoming obsessed with Boruto, so when next gen fans act like this is sweet and wholesome instead of creepy af, that annoys the hell out of me.
Mitsuki is not a sweet healthy boy with an appropriate crush; Mitsuki is a massively traumatized child who has been literally drugged and brainwashed into an obsession with the son of an extremely important man. Brrrr. Heebie jeebes. Y i k e s. But the franchise itself is so eager to recreate the S///NS “dynamic” for the $$$$ and is treating it like ship teasing and agah;dslfkjs it’s gross okay.
And it’s not just Mitsuki; Bort gets all kind of “barely adolescent male power fantasy” shit that only makes sense when you realize it’s meant to appeal directly to 12 year old boys. Like a lot of people shit on Hinata for the way she blesses Boruto going off into deadly danger even though he just failed the chuunin exam for cheating and there are certainly many experienced adult ninja available (including Hinata herself!!!), but you need to understand Hinata isn’t a three dimensional character anymore; she’s purely “Boruto’s mom” in this power fantasy where the 12 year old boy gets told “oh yes, sweetheart, I, your mother, think of you as equal to an adult male–no, BETTER than the average adult male, a HERO among males, TOTALLY ready and able to go and SAVE THE WORLD while I stay here!”
To me, THAT is the annoying shit.
The problem isn’t that silly adolescent power fantasies shouldn’t exist. I have no problem with Dragon Ball type franchises where there’s no societal depth and everything is pure escapism about power rankings and people’s hair turning colours even though it isn’t their final form yet.
But original Naruto teased us with so much more than that. But either they didn’t have any intention of following through or they chickened out.
I liked Naruto because he was a boy who wanted to become Hokage to get validation, and then he was a boy who wanted to become Hokage to DO things with that power to help others.
Boruto wants to be like Sasuke, because…? He’s a “real” ninja? He’s cool? He fight real good?
That’s annoying, and off-putting. All style, no substance.
Fool me once, I’ll fuck off to fanfiction land before I ever let you fool me again, Naruto franchise.
yeahhhh and ending defenders are like “oh but it was already resolved before the end of the manga 🙂 Hiashi told Hizashi that the branch house and main house now fight alongside each other as equals :)”
Yeah? Talk is cheap.
1. Neji, pre-Talk no Jutsu, told Naruto that his inescapable destiny as a branch house member was to die for the benefit of the main house.
2. Neji died to protect the heiress of the main house.
Some resolution of his storyline. Neji was “free” to “choose death” more or less exactly the way his father Hizashi was “free” to “choose death”.
And then his death was wasted! “Does Uncle Neji like sunflowers?” Let me tell you about your Uncle Neji, Himawari: when he was younger than you are now, he had a painful seal placed on his head that humiliating branded him as property, and his uncle, your grandfather, regularly punished him by activating the seal and causing him intense, seizure-inducing pain. Nobody stopped your grandfather from doing this, and he said sorry that one time so everybody forgave and forgot.
Sounds pretty horrible, right? I mean, God, what kind of horrible Hokage would let someone torture a child and just do nothing?!
Oh yeah, your dad, Naruto! He knows allll about this but he does nothing 🙂 🙂 🙂
Naruto’s Talk no Jutsu to Nagato is unsatisfying because Kishimoto didn’t have an answer to how Naruto was going to change the shinobi system and protect the little countries, leading to how Kishimoto didn’t make Naruto change the shinobi system and protect the little countries.
Sasuke vs. Naruto ended up being “bad idea” vs “no ideas” and the “happy ending” is that “no ideas” won. Konan and Neji were conveniently killed off and the plot lines they represented never brought up again.
As for why Kishi is like this, I can only make conjecture from his interviews. He’s never seemed like a person who had a strong artistic vision and message, but rather a person who sought to be adaptable to the market and to please. And he wrote the plot and developed the world as he went. And he started the manga as a young man (26) struggling to make it in a toxic environment, but ended the manga as a huge success… in an equally toxic environment. Young mangaka and animators in Japan are still working the same crazy hours; it’s hard not to draw comparisons to Naruto and Sasuke’s adulthood and fatherhood, and the post-Naruto Kishimoto emphasis that children need to forgive busy (Naruto), absent (Sasuke), and even abusive (Snakebert) fathers unconditionally.
Quoting myself: (Sasuke) has a phone, two summons, and the ability to teleport, yet can’t write a letter or make a single call once in like a decade; nearly kills his kid when he first sees her, then belittles and invalidates her totally legitimate questions; the narrative basically absolves him of any lasting bitterness from his daughter from this, or any of his other shitty decisions (”lmao what do you mean I should train my own kid? I’d much rather train that kid over there that looks like NARUTO”). Remember kids, Father knows best!!!
That’s… that’s about it.
sasuke left to protect his family and his village. any sort of communication would have put them in danger. second, you can’t talk about family matters in a mission but you can still see very well how affectionate he was especially when he was home with sarada and sakura. you see him caring for sakura and saving sarada from that knife attack, how he immediately jumped to save her. he “nearly killed” his daughter because of the circumstances like when he was attacked by the onion head not because he wanted to, and at this point i’m pretty sure you haven’t even read gaiden because you’re just too bitter. sasuke didn’t say that him coming back would erase everything bad that he has done and you can see how sad he feels to leave again because of this mission. but he hasn’t done anything bad at all, relating to his family, to even begin with. he left to protect them but he also felt bad for leaving again. so you can stay salty and pressed but that won’t change anything. there’s not even a point in making these posts and tagging them with “anti naruto ending” because nothing will happen anyway. kishimoto won’t make another ending version just for you salty pricks that don’t appreciate his work.
and THAT’s… THAT’s about it.
Oh boy, it’s been a while since I had a pro-Bort challenge.
First off, let’s get one thing clear, and this is my only warning on this: no more personal attacks, and yes “salty pricks” is a personal attack. If you can’t discuss a manga without resorting to name calling, I personally am not here for that.
Ok back to the issue at hand.
“any sort of communication would put them in danger”
Why? How? Really? Continuously, and for roughly a decade straight?
Bad writing is the most charitable explanation for Sasuke’s actions here. The only in-universe explanation is that he doesn’t give a shit. It is quite simply unbelievable that near-god Sasuke with two summons, a cell phone, and a teleportation power, operating 100% under his own direction and not in any way imprisoned, can’t send a simple “I miss you” one goddamn time in nearly a decade. Even shitty parents who don’t care that much make more of an effort than that in the real world.
“you can’t talk about family matters in a mission”
Ah yes because The Mission is more important than family. Yep. Oh wait, no, that’s part of the toxic bullshit that made shinobi such a mess of trauma in the first place, the kind of shit that Naruto was supposed to change when he became Hokage.
“there’s not even a point in making these posts and tagging them with “anti naruto ending”
I do that so that people who don’t want to see it can blacklist it, and people who do want to see it (hint: a non-zero amount of people, judging by the number of likes, asks, reblogs, and comments this content gets) can find it.
“kishimoto won’t make another ending version”
God! That’s the last thing I want at this point. Every new piece of material Kishimoto releases with regard to Naruto is more horrifying than the one before, and that’s not even getting into the Studio Pierrot and the new Boruto manga writer and mangaka.
Yeah. Keep that away from me. God. No.
Instead, what I’m intending is rallying together people who are producing alternate ending content. Which they are! It’s good! It’s really, really, REALLY good stuff! There are one-shots! There are doujinshi! There is art, there are novels, there is meta and headcanons! And yes, many of us like to mock the bad stuff. What’s food without salt? Bland, that’s what.
5. Fugaku – Most of his bad parenting was him following tradition aka the best he knew how, but even so, his decisions with regard to Itachi are appalling responsibilities to put on such a young child; his pitting of Sasuke against Itachi was run of the mill crappy favouritism/pressure. On the plus side, he died!
4. Hiashi – Like Fugaku he basically just went along with the child abusing traditions of his clan, rather than creating new and exciting torments just for the hell of it; had a change of heart, although he never apologizes to Hinata on panel; his abuse is retroactively handwaved away as him being “strict”
3. Sauce-K (Naruto Gaiden) – Has a phone, two summons, and the ability to teleport, yet can’t write a letter or make a single call once in like a decade; nearly kills his kid when he first sees her, then belittles and invalidates her totally legitimate questions; the narrative basically absolves him of any lasting bitterness from his daughter from this, or any of his other shitty decisions (”lmao what do you mean I should train my own kid? I’d much rather train that kid over there that looks like NARUTO”). Remember kids, Father knows best!!!
2. Rasa – Specifically chose to create a child for the purpose of exploiting and manipulating that child, but intended something positive out of it (wanted to make a strong living weapon to protect the village he was responsible for); fucked up over and over until his ignominious death
1. Oroch!maru – Specifically chose to create a child for the purpose of exploiting and manipulating that child; said exploitation and manipulation was not in the slightest for any good purpose, but basically “for the lulz”.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY I HOPE YOUR PARENTS ARE BETTER THAN THIS
Orochimaru: “People would be surprised to see me freely waltzing around Konoha doing whatever the hell I want.”
I WONDER WHY
I hate how Naruto just handwaves Orochimaru’s past away. His whole justification is “It’s in the past, but we’re cooperating now.” Apparently Orochimaru is analyzing Danzo’s old research, which is quickening Sasuke’s investigation. Which makes zero sense. Danzo didn’t do that much research on Kaguya and her alien brood. Is he analyzing Sumire’s seals? What was he doing all the years before Sumire showed up? Nobody cares. He can do as many clone experiments as he wants so long as he continues helping Konoha.
Even if Orochimaru is merely reading old reports, the situation is still sketchy. Poor Anko has her childhood abuser in her workplace and she has no clue. I strongly believe that Shino doesn’t recognize Orochimaru in the conference: it’s implied that Orochimaru is disguising his face, and Shino seems more confused/suspicious than shocked. If Naruto hasn’t told Anko or Iruka about Orochimaru’s identity, he definitely wouldn’t tell Shino.
Regardless, there is so much wasted potential with Anko. If she’d been Mitsuki’s teacher, we could have had some delicious drama and maybe even some karma.
Cheloneuniverse 