Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-32554648-20180706173543/@comment-1210805-20180720131633

Seelentau is right, and I don't get how people are confused by the explanation.

Canon as we think of it doesn't exist as something that is thought about in Japan. The word "Gaiden" has absolutely no relation to our idea of canon. It simply means it's a side story, rather than part of the main story. The form it takes is up to whoever creates it.

Because the concept isn't really relevant to Japanese creators or audiences it doesn't have the most elegant translations, so usually when statements do get translated the western audience takes it to mean canon or non-canon. They don't.

Take Toriyama's statement mentioned above. It doesn't so much mean that something isn't canon, it simply means that Toriyama, or whoever the author in question is, didn't really take those other works into account when working on their own story. There's an understanding that these stories are more self-contained and won't show up in the original author's work.