Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-4437326-20150209145643/@comment-25626003-20150210005532

Honestly, despite the many issues I've seen with the direction of the series when it came to main and supporting characters as well as the pretty blatant DBZ stuff, I love Naruto for what it is. I agree with Hisana456's take. I don't think any of you can sit there behind your computer or laptop and name a "perfect manga, because no author is perfect and we all have our own likes and dislikes when it comes to these things. That being said, I'd like to share with you guys my take on the direction of the series after Part 1, since it seems that's where most of the hate comes from....

1) I loathe the direction Kishi took Sakura after her bout with Sasori. First off, I hated Sakura in Part 1. I found her very shallow and selfish as evidenced when she trashed Naruto in the beginning for being bratty because he's alone. But her development in the anime fillers after the Sasuke retrival arc as well as the Kazekage rescue arc beyond the typical *****ing and crying for Naruto to ease her sufferings, was pretty cool to watch and pleasing to watch. Then it all went down hill, and hit rock bottom when she professed her "love" for Naruto in the land of iron. And even during the war, nothing changed. Before Sakura fangirls jump on me, I'm not going to hop on my soapbox and claim that Hinata's any better but Hinata's a support character. Sakura is a main character, and Kishi did a poor job of developing her more. I have way more respect for Ino's character than I ever would Sakura's and that's saying something considering the little panel time the other 3-man squads got, which is another issue I have altogether (others in this thread have expanded on this, so I won't rehash).

2) It's probably my fault for trying to instill logic and reasoning in a manga/anime series, which is probably the root of the issues I've had altogether lol, but there were only two villains in the series that were villains to the core I thought. Although I thought Kaguya was pretty [please insert more appropriate word here], she was a villian at the core as well as Orochimaru, Madara, and even Black Zetsu. Guys like Obito and Nagato were converted too quickly and too easily by Naruto in my opinion, and it fed into the typical protagonist persona, which I've seen a million times already.

That said, Sasuke was the only reason I could tolerate that side of Naruto, because he symbolized the opposite of him and I actually liked that Kishi made the series almost just as much about Sasuke as it was about Naruto. Naruto is my personal favorite between the two, but I cannot deny the fact that Sasuke certainly added an element to the story that you simply can't replace. I'm sure a lot of guys feel the same way. Part II in general was a lot darker since the Akatsuki were the main antagonists, then Sasuke became a psychotic madman and that's when I got hooked more because that was when I started seeing Sasuke as more human (still insane, but human). I didn't care for shippings really. The only reason I was a little against the Sakura-Sasuke relationship is because it was the most unrealistic and I didn't wanna see Sakura get what she wanted.

All in all, I appreciate the series for what it is. It's just that if I had it my way, I would've had a couple more honorable deaths among the Konoha 11. Neji's death was worst one of the bunch.