#real conspiracy hours at justice4sasuke

[justice4sasuke]

I feel like no one wants to say Kishimoto was teasing ships to keep readers engaged but idk man.

On one hand I feel like I heard that Japanese fans aren't as heavy into shipping as fans outside Japan so why would Kishimoto care or know about it, but then Kishimoto has to know the fanbase outside of Japan is if not bigger at least comparable to the Japanese fanbase so that's not an excuse anymore.

And why else is Kishimoto like doing a big thing with Hinata and Naruto and then almost immediately doing a Sakura and Naruto thing while also attempting to sprinkle in (attempts at) Sakura and Sasuke and Karin and Sasuke stuff.

And of course him accidentally making Naruto and Sasuke look gay as hell instead because that's just peak Kishimoto behavior (or Naruto gay as hell, Sasuke here against his will because he clearly gives a fuck about no one here).

idk I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I don't know why these ship moments start getting heavy handed during the war arc so I wonder if it's not just a ploy for reader engagement/retention. It's not to help with the ending because only one of those couples has an ounce of heart behind it and like I said it's multiple pairings for the same characters, not anything consistent.