#but like. i'm more mad about how they're disregarding almost everything about sasuke retsuden over kakashi's eye bags

[kakashihasibs]

@pax-thuban tags are good too

LOOK AT OUR OLD MAN HE LOOKS SO GOOD I LOVE HIM

[non-operator]

... well, there's actually a lot of things I want to address, but first, what are we even counting as "canon" appearance?

kishimoto doesn't draw boruto, and even if he did, as far as i know, kakashi hasn't appeared in the manga. And if we count boruto anime as canon, it directly contradicts what kakashi looks like at the end of naruto, as kakashihasibs pointed out.

kakashi retsuden does mention that many women see kakashi as "tall and handsome" and "a fine man" but that says nothing about whether kakashi looks young or not. He can still have those eye bags then. even more so since half of his face is covered up, so no one can actually say if he looks super young or not. I feel like this is more of his personality and charisma at work than his actual appearance.

Again, if we take the anime as canon, then the above argument applies: kishimoto didn't draw it and it still contradicts kishimoto's depiction of kakashi at the end of naruto. Furthermore, since the description of kakashi remains vague (he's just generally attractive and that's it), the anime artists are also making their own interpretation of kakashi. the same way all of us and the artist for sasuke retsuden are. So i don't see how the sasuke retsuden kakashi is less "canon" than the anime.

I'll admit i haven't read sasuke retsuden, so I don't know if the other panel is the only other instance of kakashi appearing previously, or if there's more. But the panel shows us a side view of kakashi's face, it's not exactly letting the reader take a good look at his face, so he could arguably still have eye bags even in that panel.

now onto my main point: why does this make sasuke retsuden "non-canon"? this might seem like a really petty point, but to mark sasuke retsuden as "non-canon" just because you don't accept kakashi's appearance seems rude.

is that how we're going to critique the story? on a minor detail? seriously??? you're just going to ignore the plot and characters? for kakashi's appearance? kakashi--a character who doesn't even play a major role in the narrative for sasuke retsuden?

it's probably fair to assume the artist didn't read kakashi retsuden--because he's not expected to. This is a job to him. In fact, he might not even have watched the entirety of boruto or read the sasuke retsuden novel; he could've just been told the plot points or only saw the storyboard. And been told kakashi is 50 years old at this point... so he drew him as a 50 year old.

Kakashi's not even a major character for this story. There's no reason for the artist to pay attention to making him look pretty when he in, what? a flashback? mentioned briefly for one panel? I don't think it was high in the artist's list of priorities to check what kakashi looks like. Even if it is an inconsistency, it just feels unfair to him to judge his entire performance on that, considering he seems to stay accurate for the more important characters.

I think to just say it's "not canon" because of kakashi's eye bags overlooks how the artist actually stays pretty faithful to kishimoto's art style (it's so much better than early boruto). And he's good at panelling; it's not super cluttered and spaces out the story beats really well.

LOOK AT OUR OLD MAN HE LOOKS SO GOOD I LOVE HIM