#If Kishimoto hadnt done that kiss scene as a joke the manga would have ended in 50 chapters

[nikkisticki]

Firstly, the idea that Kishimoto couldn't figure out what to do with the narrative past ten chapters is correct, but do you actually think it's relevant to anything when the narrative hinged on chasing an idiot around who ultimately just acts as a lead for Naruto to go fight (insert enemy of the arc) or for Sasuke to learn something in place of the audience and then either be a dickhead or get his ass beat.

I'm not going to get into semantics about how Kishimoto speaking in an interview isn't the whole picture, moreso when he's been under their thumb for years.

If you replace Sasuke with Itachi's dog that swallowed the key to let Kurama out, nothing in the narrative changes beyond a sudden lack of yaoi potential and a framing for the Sharingan to reveal how it can do everything+1. You could still have Orochimaru trying to convince the dog to be a bad boy, you could still have the Akatsuki involved.

Sasuke served his best roles in Naruto, the time when he had the most opportunity to be given a character. Even then it just ends in him being shoved in a pot so the narrative can pretend he's being kidnapped (even though logically speaking he'd have been easier to move just being held in the embrace of spider-guy) to have the best fight in the first series end in a "wuh woh he got away".

As we clearly agree, Sasuke was added because rival characters are popular, but a rival needs to actually instigate things beyond acting as a long term maguffin. Sasuke bumbles through life, nearly dying repeatedly (see Sasukes best scene when Killa Bee beats him within an inch of his life) and never developing a personality or learning a thing until he suddenly does. He's no better then Bugboy, but people want to kiss him.

Sasuke fails so heavily as a character that he can't even appear sympathetic towards his own wife in Boruto, needing them to swing back around to insert moments so people don't keep calling Sakura a single mom, even when he functionally doesn't serve a purpose.

Of course, I gave up on Boruto years ago. Something about a room of sharingan possessing uchiha clones that I think were all made noncanon is all that remains in my head beyond knowing Orochimaru is a good guy and they added Duel Disks??, so maybe he got some actual development in between them milking the series for every last dime.

I know I'm here starting shit for no reason, but do people not use quotation blocks on Tumblr? so much cleanerrr

The 20+ character comments seems to have missed the target let me try again., Side characters implies they are characters with functional value beyond chumps to be fought in the starting tournament and as roster for mediocre arena fighters (I'll be fair that some of the Naruto games are fucking amazing tho), which isn't what they are. We both know Shino vanishes into the mist, Tenten becomes a character who gets to be mentioned and most of the rookie teams become nothing more then propagators of their seed so we can have pokemon fusion versions of characters in the next series.

The functional value of this style of cast creation is that people form favorites amongst the cast and are sticking around to see them (as is the Shonen tradition), doesn't it seem like a bizarre choice to then write around those characters existences because the narrative can't actually fit them?

Because they aren't there to be side characters, they are merchandise opportunities. Kishimotos best characters (in my opinion) tend to be the ones that aren't super powered god tiers, and he couldn't even fit Shikamaru in as more then "I exist to explain the plan and breed Temari" after a certain point (even when the Immortal fight is arguably one of the best fights in the series) when he got a lot of the best character work out of any of those characters.

Naruto is a great example of a story that was not designed with any end goal, and that's largely why it leads into a battle against God (except god is a space alien waifu) instead of anything that vaguely relates to the original themes of the narrative.

What it started as was about a boy whose alienated for something he can't control and left crippled by it, overcoming the odds in his own way and proving to others he is the greatest, even those who have pedigrees that involve inherited super powers. This gets rinsed out of the narrative almost immediately after the first tournament as Naruto himself becomes the center of attention for 4 seperate Hokages (including being the child of the coolest one) getting trained by the best fighters in the land, handed multiple new forms and becomes the generic shounen romp that has been getting sloshed out for three decades.

Stories change, and so do people. Not Sasuke though, he just got his character arc ended by his brother revealing he did it for a vewy gud weason. The reason is he had to save Sasuke!

God….

Hmm I wonder why this needs to be underlined all the time. What could possibly be the reason to bring up how odd and bizarre Naruto’s behavior is… we just don’t know.