Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-34277398-20190309153341/@comment-34277398-20190315014905

Nashikeine wrote: No one raised Naruto as far as canon or anime goes.

Say whatever people want that it was Hiruzen and Iruka being father like figures, they were not.

whether we take the anime filler as canon or not, the episode around the end which focused on Naruto and Hinata at the end of the series clearly showed that Hiruzen was an unknown to Naruto until he was some 5 or 6 years old. they met in a forest where a boy that young was gathering food in the wild and cooking for himself. Yes, it is also shown that from then onwards Hiruzen came to check on Naruto regularly, but that looked more like ones or twice a month to give him monthly stipened of some kind. Naruto literelly raised himself.

they say that Hiruzen used to take him out to eat at Ichiraku once in a while or so, but is that ever shown in manga or anime for that matter, or just made up fanfic stuff.

Iruka was no father figure too. Yeah, Iruka seemed to like Naruto, but it was more along the lines he pitied him. the man at first resented him and tried to ignore him (which apparently wasnt the worst treatment by the teachers, which gave rise to fanfics of teachers working against Naruto in my opinion) and only after a certain incident he started to see that Naruto wasnt the reason for his parents death. from there on Iruka treated Naruto like any other student. he didnt give Naruto any special treatment. Heck, despite knowing that Naruto was bad at Clone jutsu there never seemed to be any effort on his part to help Naruto with it and that wouldnt even need Iruka to like Naruto as that would be a general role of a teacher. Iruka even seemed to try to make example out of Naruto in front of the whole class apparently every time he was caught after a prank or something and in front of class that more or less resented Naruto or thought Naruto as a loser which would damage Naruto more. Yes, there is the Ichiraku bit, but that was only once and i cannot see it being a regular or semi regual thing between the two. Heck the one time it is shown in manga it is cleaarly because Iruka felt really bad because not only had he already humilated Naruto in front of the whole class for his prank, but was also making him clean the Hokage Mountain. we barely see any interaction from there on.

the only reason to Naruto Hiruzen was the grandfather and Iruka the father like figure is because Naruto is a damaged boy. he was looking for any form of acknowledgement from any person in the world and back then those two were the only people who ever acknowledged him as human being. to a normal human Hiruzen would be a benefactor and Iruka a passing acquintance.

Heck Kakashi, who clearly was favouring Sasuke in the OG Naruto went out of his way to see that Naruto did eat properly and had vegetables. that is more than Iruka did at least.

Jiraiya is the only person in my eyes who truly fits the role as a father to Naruto.

And if you dont believe in it then just remember that the adult Naruto who has clearly greatly recovered from his damaging childhood helping enlarge Boruto's Rasengan and you'll the people that truly impacted Naruto's life and there was Hiruzen or Iruka or Kakashi there Well actually with that argument, in the flashback Naruto also saw Minato. The reality is that Minato and Naruto only interacted for probably like 3 hours of Naruto’s entire life. Hiruzen and Iruka were definitely there longer than that. In fact, when Naruto became Hokage he said he ended up becoming the most like Hiruzen. He didn’t say that about Minato. Hiruzen also promised Kushina he’d look after Naruto. He continuously kept tabs on Naruto and Naruto’s belief in the will of fire can imply his interaction. Their relationship is close to the point that Naruto refers to him and grandpa.

At least that’s the way I like to look at it.