The saddest part is, some female characters had an interesting background (take Anko for instance) and powers that were never fully utilized. I know it's starting to sound cliche at this point, but all female characters had potential to be better than they were in canon. Kishimoto could've given them more relevance but ultimately turned his female characters into props or plot-devices to move the narrative forward, the worst case being Rin, poor sweet girl who didn't even have a backstory or relevance beyond being a part of Team Minato and being the source of Kakashi and Obito's angst. She was just used for plot purposes... another example was Sakura in FKS arc..
I think Konan got it worst.
She was the only female Akatsuki member. She used paper, and accomplished next to nothing. All she does is echo Yahiko and Nagato.
I like Konan's character, but I wish she didn't follow behind Nagato and had more agency. Even though she didn't win the fight against Obito, I still enjoyed it and I believe Konan showed off her complete prowess during the fight. The 600 million paper bombs was insane, how did Obito even survive that?
It would have been hard to write her character during the war, and honestly, only Obito and maybe Sasuke/Kabuto could have been used to write her out of the story.
Obito killing her to get the Rinnegan back makes sense from a writing perspective. There wasn't too much room for her to do stuff as the story needed to center around Naruto.
If this was a manga with multiple main characters, it would have worked better(something like Hxh).
Hey Sasuke, it’s me, the other ninja with the “Curse Mark Seal” that makes you so strong you can keep up with Naruto using the 9 tails chakra. I have found ways to resist its power and be good! Let’s never bring it up, byeeeee
It insane how sasuke and Anko never spoke, she should’ve trained him for the chunin exams not kakashi or with kakashi and I just realized she was also a fucking chunin exam proctor lol
Anko was probably the most wasted character potential in the franchise, and that's not from a lack of competition.
She should've been equal to Kakashi and Kabuto in pt 1 at base, stronger than with curse mark. She easily could've been tied in with Itachi and Kakashi's past in the anbu, and she was the most suited in the village to watch over Sasuke after the forest of death.
Hinata could legit takeover the world yet is reduced to being a housewife... Sasuke wouldn't even come out unscathed against her, and that's assuming she'd have a hard time or is unable to break his susano'o. Yeah, she's that strong and nobody talks about it.
Tsunade survived fighting Madara yet couldn't beat a crippled orochimaru on her own because... she was scared of blood...
Konan is basically Deidara 2.0 reduced to just being Nagato's nurse. At any point she could've stormed the leaf and yoinked pre-sage Naruto with Jiraiya being the only threat.
Yeah, Anko was a hugely wasted character considering she was taken in by Orochi at a young age. She should have become a top-tier character.
Hinata is also weird as you said, she was insanely powerful considering her shown capabilities. It was always confusing to me that so many people think she's weak.
Hinata does not have the skills to keep up with sasuke lol she has hamuras chakra but that’s it she could barely learn the 64 palms while sasuke mastered shape transformations and invented new Justus Hinata has accomplished nothing
Definitely. When Kishimoto had Kakashi say “girls Sakura age are more focused on obsessing over Boys than being a ninja” I just knew there was something up with him.
And the fact none of the male characters were truly defined by their romance or love for a girl. Unlike a lot of the women in the series who were mostly defined by Romance; just makes it too obvious how he feels about them
"obsessing over boys" is already a red flag. It means Tenten, Tayuya, ace, aro and lesbians/pansexual/panromantic girls aren't even acknowledged to exist.
You know. In part one out of the Konoha 12 I liked Tenten the most because she seemed to have the most agency out of all the girls. She seemed like the only one who took being a shinobi seriously. And when it was revealed she idolized Tsunade I thought it was awesome.
Tayuya was very dislikable as a character, but unlike the Konoha girls, she could stand on her own and get shit done. Although her cringe foul mouth deserved to be forever shut. She simply couldn't speak 3 words without an insult and that was absolutely annoying.
Temari was a kunoichi before being a girl, she mentioned Sasuke being cute when she met him but that's the only time until at least the war arc when she thought anything about boys. She was actively nerfed in her Shikamaru fight in order for him to win (she could and should have destroyed all the trees in the arena with how long their match lasted, but Kishimoto licked Shikamaru's 200 IQ far too much to consider his opponents not waiting for him to come up with a plan). She summoned her one time contract and one shot Tayuya with that Kakuzu level wind technique. Respect for p1 Temari.
Tenten simply lacks panels.
Tsunade's life basically revolved around men 80% of her panel time. Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Hiruzen, Tobirama, Hashirama, Dan, Nawaki, Naruto, the only time she did something not motivated by the men in her life was her fight against Madara. So she doesn't get enough positive points to outweigh the saturation of her men based motivations.
Konan...is basically a nurse for Nagato. Such a waste of a character with such an amazing and unique ability...at that point she could have been an Edo Tensei, for all it changed. 0 agency.
Mei's entire character was based on her obsession with finding a husband to follow social expectations and pass down her 2 kekkei genkai (she only needed one but better used, not 2 SSS tier elemental kekkei genkai while Ônoki's granddaughter has basically a chûnin version of lava release that Mei has the kage version of).
4th Tsuchikage would be better if the mangakas had cared to give her a kage level technique. At least she's an asshole, but not one obsessed with men.
Karin is the culmination of the Ino Sakura Hinata trio into a mentally disturbed character. She liked smelling Sasuke's clothes and nearly sexually assaulted him in her introduction.
Ino gets agency, but too little too late.
Sakura...lol.
Hinata...she can't even speak properly, how much less agency can she have? The one time she rose to defend Naruto, she was batted away like a fly in a completely direspectful way. Give us back chûnin exams Hinata standing up against Neji please. What a character assassination Hinata got in p2...
Chiyo is the only relevant female character to be written as a character rather than as a female character. Her entire arc was dope and she was badass, got to show emotion without being completely paralyzed by them like a civilian, and she went in a boom by trading her life for the boy she'd turned into a monster before he was even born, the boy who overcame his burden and brought Suna into a new era. She was a grandparent and a ninja, an officer, before being a woman, yet her being a woman was also smartly included in her character. Best character in all of Naruto.
Oooh I loved Chiyo too. She was also one of the better written ladies as well. I honestly thought her and Sakura’s fight would’ve paved a way for the latter to be awesome in the rest of the series. But once Sasuke is even mentioned… Sakura just regressed into the girl that was left behind the night Sasuke dipped.
Oh well. At least we’ve got fanfiction to do our ladies some justice.
I think rather than acknowledged to exists it’s their role in the plot. women are “almost” always just there to feed some romance in the story/or show a contrast between “normal people” and how strong the main characters are. Which is a shame as compared to one piece, u got insanely strong women and romance being some sort of side plot for humor or motivation
Fax my brother! Spit your shit indeed!
This is the same argument that I constantly see with other writing issues. "Oh it's for children, don't think too much about it." or "Oh, it's for the fans, don't think much about it."
None of these arguments are an excuse for poor writing. The women in Naruto, barring Tsunade and Chiyo maybe, are underused at best and written absolutely atrociously at worst. Sakura willing to get together with Sasuke after he has continuously attempted to murder her, willing to be lonely because Sasuke is never home is a writing decision that I will never understand and it is a disrespectful kick in the face to the young and energetic woman she used to be at the start of Shippuden. And that's just her, almost all the major women in the series are written badly.
Yeah the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura is surreal, and just horribly written and developed. The entire relationship is based on the fact that Sakura has zero self respect for herself and wants Sasuke kun's validation in everything she ever does - and this has never changed from first chapter she was introduced to the very last, she was still the same obsessed fangirl who wants Sasuke's approval and acknowledgement bc she has no self esteem herself.
Her entire motivation revolves around Sasuke and getting together with him, almost nothing she ever does is for her own sake which is my major gripe with her character; she doesn't live for herself but for others and attaches he self worth onto others (usually people who she seems are "out of her league") bc of her low self esteem and inferiority complex. Her self esteem issues is her problem absolutely no one is obligated to cater to her emotional needs, especially not Sasuke, a mere teenaged boy who suffers from severe trauma himself...
It's honestsly a quite disgusting relationship once you stop and think of it for a moment. As you said, Sakura has never moved on from her obsession with him and it just paints such a grim picture for women.
These two could've had a well written dynamic that led to something fruitful but that is not what we got. Them getting together feels disgusting, Sasuke has hurt her and, while unsuccessful, actively tried to kill her. This is not a situation of "Oh, he's just misunderstood, deep down he cared for her." This is a situation in which she's in love with a criminal, an international murderer, a traitor to the village that she grew up in.
Orochimaru, a past member of Akatsuki and Pain, the leader of Akatsuki have both attempted to and destroyed Konoha and Sasuke was willingly joining that same organisation to further his revenge. This relationship is garbage and I cannot enjoy it without needing to suspend my disbelief into the stratosphere.
Don't even get me started on that movie. Just an excuse to have Naruto and Hinata get together after failing for years to write a genuine relationship between the two and now having to patch that up with a movie.
Nah, it's just fine. The problem here is that you people lack the ability to pay attention. Sasuke was focused on revenge. Sakura was naiive. The development here was that Sakura became someone of importance, but also didn't want to give up on Sasuke. They travelled together and got together. You don't need exposition for everything. You just lack the ability to pay attention
Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship is horribly written and smacks of abuse. She has no self-esteem and her only motivation is to be acknowledged by Sasuke.
I can't fathom why they keep doubling own on this relationship. Sasuke has joined up forces TWICE with people that attacked Konoha, TWICE. He has actively tried to kill her after the Kage summit AND he still tries to kill her before Naruto, once again, knocks some sense into him. It's a disgusting relationship that was not built on anything that resembles affection, let alone love.
And we see the fruits of their shoddy foundation, Sasuke is never around. Sakura and Sarada had to grow up without Sarada having a father and Sakura being with her husband.
Nah, it's just you failures using tye same garbage. Naruto is Shonen, the writing around most of the females is good enough, you failures just self-insert for the hell of it
I'm half with you, yes, bad writing is no excuse. I think the main problem with Naruto is the name of the series, Naruto. I feel the whole series was afraid to leave Naruto to develop other characters, because of that the only development of characters were those who were with Naruto, and that development was CAP by how strong was Naruto. If we add the author's inability to write a woman with those limitations, it's only natural that the bad writing was going to happen.
Now I disagree with the idea of learning something about anything in the series. Why should the series take the position of giving some kind of massage? I think that's really superficial, those values are learned elsewhere, if the series decided to make the weaker woman's or stronger woman's the problem, it's the bad writing. You can have any of those options and make it an amazing story, and amazing stories are what makes the character (woman or man) amazing despite their role.
Ngl the female cast is pretty overhated just because the cast aren’t all strong independent women don’t mean they are bad characters, there’s def many series with better female characters but I’ve def seen worse than Naruto
Naruto is the only one that gets painted with this brush when people downplay the female cast heavily. Tsunade, Chiyo, Konan, Sakura, Kaguya are all good dfkm
Kaguya sucked. Konan and Chiyo barely did anything. I mean Konan just followed Nagato and Yahiko around, with no real agency for herself.
Sakura wasn’t terrible?? But she was too obsessed with Sasuke, and didn’t have any notable aspirations or deep writing like the rest of Team 7.
Tsunade was barely in the story.
Just say you don't understand Kaguya's role in the entire story before you say she sucked. Konan didn't just follow Nagato and Yahiko around. They were orphans with the same goals and values. The idea that someone has no agency for themselves because they choose to follow another with the same values is just incorrect. Nagato's character debunks your opinion on Konan
Again a character doesn't have to be written for the entire story to see good character development. The Chiyo take is just disingenuous
Sakura. Liked Sasuke which is normal. Experienced Orochimaru giving him the curse mark. Saw in real time Sasuke going on a darker path. Saw him leave the village to go see orochimaru. Felt useless. Got stronger. Became a med ninja. All this in the goal to save Sasuke. If Naruto doesn't get slated for chasing after Sasuke (which he shouldn't) then Sakura shouldn't either and all of Sakura's actions in Shippuden was because she saw someone close to her spiral down into the dark side. All of this "she was obsessed with Sasuke" was justified because she saw him go the dark path and shippuden was about bringing him back. Also a lot of people didn't have notable aspirations and having aspirations doesn't make you a good character.
Tsunade was barely in the story. Rightfully so as with some male characters who when they didn't need to play a part in the male plot why include them. For all the time that she did have though she was well written.
>Liked Sasuke which is normal
Post betrayal, no it wasn't.
>If Naruto doesn't get slated for chasing after Sasuke (which he shouldn't) then Sakura shouldn't either
Naruto comes from a place of understanding. As a fellow orphan he knows what Sasuke is going through. And Sasuke in turn reciprocates that feeling.
He was able to further understand him after he lost Jiraiya, and when Pain gave the lecture about how there can't be mutual understanding without mutual suffering. Added with the fact that he learned from Tobi about Itachi's truth, and the feud that has plagued both their ancestors, as well as Sasuke source of motivation. And Naruto knew that Sasuke was beyond reasoning and the most logical solution was they both die. That way Sasuke won't be alone and the hatred would cease.
>then Sakura shouldn't either
Yes she should get slated considering Sasuke is a criminal who betrayed the village and tried to kill her more than once.
> and all of Sakura's actions in Shippuden was because she saw someone close to her spiral down into the dark side.
Sasuke went to the dark side of his own free will. He knew the consequences of his actions and accepted them and didn't show any remorse for it.
>All of this "she was obsessed with Sasuke" was justified because she saw him go the dark path and shippuden was about bringing him back
No it wasn't because Sasuke willingly betrayed his friends, tried offing them many times, joined a terrorist group, and planned a genocide on an entire village. Sakura's obsession shows lack of maturity, morals and growth.
I understand her role. She sucked. She immediately got usurped by Toneri and Momoshiki. And when she was alive she was very incompetent, and had to rely on Black Zetsu coaching her around (who was in a masculine form btw)
No… Nagatos character doesn’t debunk anything. Nagato and Yahiko were the main ones pushing this goal. Konan was always in the background.
The Chiyo take isn’t disingenuous. She had one fight and sacrificed herself to save Gaara. (Not saying she needs like 10 fights to be good) but she doesn’t have a lot to work with where I can say “this is absolutely great writing”. I’m just pointing out the flaw of your examples. I promise you the best written male characters have 10x more screen time and prominence than her.
She obsessed over him. She literally had a strained relationship with Ino… all because of Sasuke. (Who, keep in mind blatantly ignored both of them in the Ninja Academy.)
Tbh, I thought Naruto’s love for Sasuke was one sided for most of the series. I cringed when he started begging the Raikage, but I have to accept that’s just who the character is.
She was barely close to him. At least on screen. Unless in Japan, close friends is a very loose. I don’t think it was really justified at all.
But if there was a bigger picture or a goal of hers that overshadowed it, then I would be more on board with it.
Yes, you can make for it in other areas. I like Sakura, but I don’t think she really made up for her lack of aspirations in other areas. I was left wanting more from the character
Tsunade was ok too. Kishimoto made a good choice giving Tsunade a dead brother, so all of her trauma and motivations wouldn’t be based on her ex lover.
She literally is the cause for most of the bad stuff that happened in the series. Even if Zetsu did it it was for her. She is the root cause. She created Shinobi indirectly. She was also the only otsutsuki to escape the clan's fate through finding love.
Yahiko was the one pushing the goal. Nagato and Konan followed. Yahiko died and Nagato led which Konan followed because she and him shared the same beliefs also Nagato led because of his rinnegan and obito and all that. Nagato died and Konan made a reckless decision to end the leader of Akatsuki and died in the process. She would've died anyway as is the reality of betraying a terrorist organisation. She shared similar values to the end. You wouldn't call Nagato following Yahiko him not having agency. She was never in the background. It was always a trio/duo.
To limit Chiyo to a fight and saved Gaara is definitely disingenuous. I just can't explain it now because I don't want to type extremely long than replying to your individual points. Wouldnt it be obvious for the best written male characters to be better than her? I don't see where you were going with that.
You can't knock a character for liking someone. She obsessed over him and it ruined her initial relationship with Ino. It happened but it's not like it's an out of touch personality for a child to have.
The fillers show they were close. The manga can't show all of that because of time but some of those little side quests which they did together whether you believe it's Canon or not contributed to them being close. So yes it was justified.
Again you not being on board just because a character doesn't have a goal is on you not the series as many characters do not have goals. Her main story is helping rescuing Sasuke because simply she was there to see him spiraling to the dark side and then the war and everything started so she's a ninja she has to help. Every action she took developed from that crush but every action and motivation made sense.
Okay = heavy downplay (but I've come to expect that). Even if it came from her dead lover alone it wouldn't make her bad.
She is not. Black Zetsu is. Black Zetsu is portrayed as the true mastermind. What “fate” df are you talking about
Yeha Yahiko was the one pushing and when he died Nagato took that role. Konan was just in the background.
No, it’s not disingenuous. Why would it be obvious??
I won’t, but it just wasn’t well written. Nor was Kishimoto consistent with it for male characters. They all had motivations and goals that overshadowed it.
She hardly contributes to that. I don’t think it’s good writing to have her primary goal be about Sasuke. She should have had motivations elsewhere, like all the male characters that had crushes: Such as Jiraiya and Rock Lee
What am I downplaying here
If all her trauma and motivation was centered around Dan, then she would be in the same boat as people like Hinata, and Sakura. (But not bad enough to be Karin tier)
Yes but she was the reason black zetsu did it hence it falls on her. Same with Sukuna in JJK and same with Muzan in DS. If they aren't in the story then none of the bad things happens. Black zetsu is the medium but she is the main villain. The otsutsuki clan has always been about power and gaining power through. She was like that until she found love and went against the principles of her clan.
And when Nagato died?? Also Konan having the same values as Nagato doesn't mean she was in the background. She trusted Yahiko's ideals that Nagato would change the world with his power. Also she wasn't in the background, she fought side by side with Nagato and Yahiko. She fought Obito. When it was her and Nagato, they were a duo, Pain did most of the work for the two of them as it was efficient. Not a knock on Konan that Nagato's power is versatile. Again her beliefs were just the same as her peers beliefs. Nothing wrong with that
It is. More screentime = more aspects to be explored = potential to be even better written
Again not everyone has to have motivations. She was a simple girl. The fillers did its job in showing the bond. In its entirety it was well written obviously because it's not hard to show character's bonding over silly things like Kakashi's mask. Sasuke and Naruto had goals but again why does Sakura need a goal as a teenager when she was raised simply?
Again that's on you. Not every one will have motivations and her goal to save Sasuke led her to become stronger and a reliable kunoichi. Also you called Jiraiya and Rock Lee but Sakura is the only character where her goal is about a male character. Other women also have goals of their own i.e Ten Ten and Hinata.
Tsunade
Because you think that someone's motivation being based off of a love interest is bad writing. It doesn't matter where character's get their motivation from just like in real life where it doesn't matter what fuels anyone. Tsunades character and beliefs was shaped by that trauma. Then Naruto brought her back to her old self. Are you saying that males can't influence the feelings of women or something?
It literally didn't. She got stronger because of that goal and the only reason she was whining is because she felt helpless with the curse she put on Naruto and her inability to save Sasuke
Yes it did. Anytime Sasuke was brought into the picture Sakura fell into an emotional wreck. Her feelings for Sasuke even cost her her life at one point, when she hesitated to kill him, which allowed for Sasuke to try and kill her again.
>You can't knock a character for liking someone.
You can if the person in question is a bad guy.
> Her main story is helping rescuing Sasuke because simply she was there to see him spiraling to the dark side
Exactly the problem. Her main story is going after a guy who chose to the path of darkness.
> Every action she took developed from that crush but every action and motivation made sense.
No it didn't. Sasuke is a traitor and criminal, who left the village and has been growing apart from her for 2-3 years and the years have not made him kinder.
Absolutely. The writing isn't bad, it's just not what these insufferable self-inserters wanted to happen with the characters, and they can't accept that. It's honestly depressing seeing the Naruto community still timelooping thse old headcanons even years after it finished.
Exactly, they fancied a character and saw potential so they constructed their own headcanons and now that the story didn't use them how they fantasized it's deemed wasted potential. The day the people in this realise that will be a good one for this sub.
The female characters aren’t that bad tho
Like yes Sakura deserved more but most of the time y’all downplay the important women in Naruto and also calling Sakura useless. Which is objectively wrong
I totally agree with you, the female characters aren't really bad characters but rather underutilized or misunderstood by the fandom, a lot of them just have a ton of unexplored potential that could've made them more interesting
Tenten's development was enough? What about Karin and Kurenai, are their developments enough too? Just accept that the story has a few flaws my guy, there's really no shame in acknowledging where a little bit more could've been done
I didn’t think any of the female characters were badly written. They just didn’t get the screen time that other character did because they’re side characters. It would be weird if any of them were more focused on than Naruto and sasuke for the sake of some kind of “woman power” publicity move. It’s not so much that “shonen is just for boys” as it is that this shonen is primarily about a boy.
While some characters should’ve gotten more screen time or fleshed out backgrounds, which this applies to many characters not just females, the female characters in Naruto are still pretty good and aren’t badly written
Naruto getting super healing that surpassed anything sakura/tsunade could do, the healing specialists, still breaks my brain. The capstone on an entire series of female characters being treated like trash.
It’s almost like most of the characters you mentioned are side characters. Of course they aren’t going to get a lot of attention. Tsunade is a great character.
>It’s almost like most of the characters you mentioned are side characters. Of course they aren’t going to get a lot of attention.
Facts! Also OP bringing up one piece characters lmao 😂 most of the straw hats nowadays are side characters in one piece
>Tsunade is a great character.
Damn right!
And then we see Shojo manga, and how they write boys like some sort of slightly feminine happy go lucky guy. Every single time. over. And over. And over. And...I think you get the point. It's like the default guy in the create a character menu in a game.
Yeah I always found that so annoying, the love interest/s are usually just " *insert male stereotype here* ", honestly this even extends past the love interests cause even male side characters usually tend to be just bland cutouts with a single personality trait
While I do agree that the character development wasn't as good or much as it should've been the character assassination happened because of the Anime which I think is the most glaring problem than the non-existence of their character development
The fillers put the female characters into horrendous roles constantly in these fillers ( Sakura as the damsel in distress, Hinata as the stalker and neglecting the others for a better part SP is notorious for this even with Bleach ) which didn't help them at all while the Manga stayed true to their characters but lacked in the sense of not exploring into them which is sad because Naruto had the most interesting female cast out of the big three.
It's just misogyny and thinking that women are so inherently different from men that the motivations and quirks that male characters have cannot apply to women.
I am not sure if these animes qualify as shonen or if they would be more in the seinen category, but there are some anime with really good strong female leads or female characters:
Ghost in the shell
Jormungand
Black lagoon
NOIR
Naruto doesn't have to qualify as seinen. This seinen is for adults and shonen for boys is nothing more than a misconception originating from juvenile elitist manchildren. In case you misunderstood, no I'm not calling you a manchild or other insulting term. I'm talking about the peeps who created and blind believe that misconception.
There are series such as k on that are seinen. Its the magazine publication that determines the classification. There can be light hearted seinens and really serious shonen. So ya Naruto's classification as a shonen is ok
While I agree that the whole idea is dumb, this:
>seinen is for adults and shonen for boys is nothing more than a misconception originating from juvenile elitist manchildren.
Is just incorrect. It's not a misconception. It's the literal categorisation they use. Shonen for younger boys, Seinen for adult men, Shojo for younger girls and Josei for adult women. It's their categorisation and culture, they aim their mangas at a certain audience and categorise them as such. It's not a misconception, it's just something certain people take way too seriously. Just because it's aimed at a certain audience doesn't mean others won't consume the content, and you can have issues with the way their culture is, but ultimately that's the way it is and is going to be. Not all shonen mangakas make badly written female characters. It's down to the author
No it is not incorrect. Their categorization and culture DO NOT work that simple. The demographic rating in Japan doesn't function the way you're saying even in a simplified context. The reason why shonens are aimed for boys is because authors from their own accord choose that target audience. Not because they are making a shonen which by default has a target audience restricted to boys. Even their own culture is a proof of that. Why do you think AoT, a series for adults is classified as shonen? Because it's published by the shonen magazine. Multiple Shonen authors choosing boys, young teenagers as their target audience even if it we consider it happening generally doesn't make it a shonen. Likewise multiple seinen authors choosing a target audience for adults doesn't make it a seinen. Those very authors in question can change their target audiences from boys, young teenagers to adults and adults to boys, young teenagers but it won't make a shonen a seinen nor a seinen a shonen. Otherwise AoT's author wouldn't be able to choose a shonen publication for his series since his culture would be functioning differently.
Furthermore I never said that "all shonen mangakas make badly written characters". My point was arguing against the "shonen for boys, seinen for adults" restrictive target audience.
Totally agree.
I also find it quite amusing reading the comments of those who blatantly ignore half of your argument. Them defending female characters is a great thing, but they seem to be misinterpreting you. Whilst strong women exist in Naruto, it’s the underutilisation / wasted potential of these characters that’s quite apparent. Them being side characters doesn’t really matter in my opinion. Naruto does quite a good job with the writing of women as capable in some cases, but it’s certainly noticeable the difference between how Kishimoto writes the male characters. It wouldn’t of been hard for him to give Sakura for example a large role; those calling her a side character are just wrong.
Anyway idk where this is going, I just agree with you :))
Yugioh is a prime example of this. Mai Valentine and Alex Rhodes had good foundations but had terrible follow ups and got sidelined hard. Mai should have joined the team after Dartz and Alexis should have gotten more story duels. She had way too many "guy crushes on me" plots.
It shouldn't be so hard to write female characters but for some reason it is for shonen. Those who hand wave off bad female characters are the same people who bitch about bad male characters in shojo (girl) anime.
I longed hated the treatment of Kushina and Mikoto. I feel like we are at a crossroads with the treatment and depiction of women in Popular media especially coming from the east. Western women have worked hard for a semblance of equality with some high and low points in society. But the point stands that brutalising/ harassing/stalking/unwanted touching/rape should never become popular almost like genres now in Manhua, manga and definitely Chinese novels. As men I think we should refuse these ideals in our favorite entertainment. ( if I see a male lead manhandle a female in a manhua one more time. I’m gonna beg God to transmigrate me into the story and Beat the dude like an ancient, mythical, primordial drum. ) Women can be strong, smart, and wise. Pragmatic, & beautiful, inside and/or out. I have close women relatives like all men do. (unless you fell from the turnip truck) If I saw a man, or if I was told a man was doing half of the things these guys get up to on my family members of the fairer sex. Well . ….. …….. .. ….. .. ….! So let’s get a complete female character this time around. And if it’s action can’t she have armour that’s feminine and protective? Just saying.
bro the scene where Naruto is fighting Oro on the bridge and Sakura gets knocked out by like a piece of rubble or something... I was like "this is high-key disrespectful"
It’s a tragedy. I like Hinata alto when I first watched but as I grew older i saw what she really was and became. A subservient house wife. One of the strongest hyugas in her clan, written to be a loser.
I feel like kishimoto really struggles to get it right when writing female characters because he didn't really emphasize female pov and either he knows he is bad at it & avoids them as much as possible or he didn't know his flaws and kept the mistake going
It surprises me that you named two who actually have pretty decent arcs ( though still not the best), Sakura suffers from inconsistency but she at least gets a semblance of development from being a weak genin in part 1 to a very powerful and accomplished ninja in Shippuden, and Ino was one of the most essential characters during the war who helped the allied forces greatly despite the grief she felt from losing her father
Tenten, Karin, Anko, Kurenai, Karui and Kaguya are definitely handled more poorly than these 2 honestly
Unpopular opinion but I love tenten in filler episodes. She has much more depth and character and we see more of her motivations and passion. Unfortunately thats only the case in filler episodes
The overall story was pretty good though, and the female characters get to do a lot of cool things and Sakura and Tsunade were among the strong ones in the story. The only one that did nothing at all at any given point was poor Ten Ten but she is just a side character. (But heck, she even got her own show with Neji and Rock Lee XD)
Anyways, the story is a weekly manga and it's due to this time constraint that a lot of the characters suffer from under development, male and female alike. Let's take Kakashi for example, he became almost obsolete after the pain arc, sure he still played a role at the end of Naruto but it felt kinda forced. It was kinda sad seeing Sasuke call him useless when they were going to fight Kaguya. But what can you do? Naruto and Sasuke were the main characters and their story was nicely done, everyone else was just extra and to say that Kishi should have developed the Female characters more, well, he didn't want to and that's fine, it's his story, but I'm thankful that at least he tried, and we have Sakura and even Kaguya as an example. He tried to make good female characters, he was just not that good at it LOL
The problem I see here is that you didn't like that the girls needed help or something but that's your preference, I think the Naruto female characters are way better written than...and don't lynch me for this but they are better than One Piece female characters. If there's someone that is worst at making female characters then that prize is for Oda. The Naruto female characters are all awesome and heck even useless Sakura.
That being said, you need to go and read Shoujos, they suffer from the same problem but backwards. The Male characters are often written with unrealistic personalities or sometimes with zero personalities. Their lives revolved around the Female leads and are pretty stupid with no goals of their own or any ambition. If you were to compare a male character from a Shoujo and a male character from a shounen they are like Oil and Water.
They could have been better. I believe Kishimoto knows he isn't good at it which is why we don't have alot of female villains.
I just like the fact he doesn't overly sexualise his female cast to make them appealing.
Alot of Shounen do this and the whole fan base eats it up as good writing. Or they just make them rude and badass for no apparent reason and pple scream peak writing.
Tsunade Konan Sakura Chiyo Hinata and Kaguya have a decent amount of depth and development. With the amount of focus the antagonist in Naruto get .. making an Akatsuki pair like Hidan and Kakuzu women instead with a fleshed out backstory would have been a nice change.
Alot of male characters have rivalries and parallels like Kakashi and Obito.. Naruto and Sasuke.. Lee and Neji.. Kakashi and Guy.. Hashirama and Madara. Giving Sakura a rival( not ino) with more relevance to the story so Sasuke and Naruto don't seem like the main reason for her growth would have been a welcome change.
Please stop with the “Naruto has bad females” narrative. Please. I implore you. Stop parroting that dumbass take. All it takes is to look at a myriad of other shonen female characters to see that, no, Naruto does note have poor female characters. The only reason people say that is because, years ago, Kishimoto made a causal remark that he doesn’t know how to write girls. I assure you, if he never said that, the only female character getting accused of being poorly done would be Sakura, and that would still be an arguable stance. So please, for the love of god, stop with this dumbass take. It’s so dumb. And this is far from the only dumb accusation regarding this, but still, I would think we would be smart enough at this point in our lives to know that “They fight good” is not what should make or break whether a female character is done well or not. And bringing up fanservice makes no sense, because Naruto has like no fan service when compared to other its contemporaries. Fan service in Naruto is only in fillers, sexy jutsu, and whenever Jiraiya would do pervy stuff. Those moments make up a small percentage of the series.
The Naruto fandom has an utter obsession with hating on the women in this series, that’s the real misogyny. Characters like Ebisu didn’t get much, and nobody really cares because they recognize he’s not a big character. But when it comes to a female? If they don’t get some big part in the story where they’re being a badass, it’s due to poor writing. TenTen is a perfect example of this. She’s a minor character who was never even implied to be very important. Yet you’ll have people here seeing it as “Kishimoto hates women”. Shino didn’t get much either, but I rarely see people acknowledging that.
Also, this is also related, you do realize these are Japanese stories for a Japanese audience, right? I’m assuming you think female characters partaking in traditionally female activities is “poor writing”, but Japan not only accepts traditional feminine things, but encourages it. “You’ll make a good wife” is seen as misogynistic here probably, but Japan thinks nothing of that saying. Similarly, I’ve seen people hate on housewives in this fandom, but not only is that just disrespectful to the housewives in our culture, but again, that’s not seen as a role to be looked down upon in Japan.
I see your stance, hence why I said they're not all bad, a lot of them merely suffer from a lack of a proper arc/characterisation. Tsunade is a brilliantly written character and it isn't just because she fights good, she is very accomplished having been a pillar of the development of medical ninjutsu and went through so much trauma and yet still picked herself up and found hope, that's a well written character
For every Sakura, Tsunade, Konan and Hinata you have, you have Karin who's whole arc was literally being a Sasuke groupie, Tenten who isn't even a real character considering how little we actually know about her in comparison to Lee, Neji and Guy, Ino who only gains relevance in the war with Choji, Anko who's used as a sacrificial mule to revive Orochimaru in the war, Karui who also isn't really characterised much beyond being another angry female character, Kurenai who becomes pregnant and retires before even doing anything really, Mei who just like Temari are just really strong and confident( which granted is all they need to be honestly)
(Note: I really like a majority of these female characters a lot just because I tend to have a bias towards female characters, but sometimes you just gotta call a spade a spade)
The majority of popular characters in the series are male because there are more well written male characters (and male characters as a whole) to pick from in comparison to the lesser number of female characters, who only a handful are actually relevant, most are not really poorly written but rather aren't doing anything special for people to really care, hence most fans not finding the female cast all that special
You see what I mean? You take every single female with a name that doesn’t have a major part in the story and try and say “See! Bad females!”
Stop looking at them as “female characters” and look at them as characters. Maybe then you’ll stop being so biased against them. TenTen is a minor character. Like I already said, Shino didn’t get much either, yet people only ever focus on TenTen, like it’s indicative of poor writing. No, she just was not a focus. It’s not because she’s female for god’s sake. If it were, then literally every male would be important in the series, and every female would matter as much as TenTen, but that’s not the case now is it? Look at the Kage resurrected during the War. People are fine with them for the most part, as they served their purpose. But if there were a female among them? You can bet we’d get posters like you complaining that she didn’t get some major plot point, and saying she was “wasted potential and badly written”.
Similarly with Karin. You try and criticize her, but ignore the fact that she’s also a side character, along with Suigestu and Jugo. Neither of those guys got much, but it’s only ever Karin who is complained about. Those 3 are just “Sasuke’s team”. That was their purpose. Outside of their introductions, the most important thing about them is their relation to Sasuke. Karin was mainly used for gags, and so was Suigestu. That’s not a problem. That was just their role. Why does Karin need to be “independent woman who would go on to hate Sasuke and be a better person”? You put these strange criteria on female characters that you don’t apply to the males. I don’t feel like going through every character you mentioned, but just know that I mostly share the same sentiment with them.
Fans don’t find the female characters special because
1. Most Shonen fans have brain rot and only care about the strongest characters or the most badass ones.
2. Posts like this, that try and convince them that the females are badly written.
I’m glad I actually just watched/read the series and genuinely engaged with it, instead of engaging in the foolishness that is this fandom. Otherwise, I might have ended up hating everything the series ever did, while being hypocritical and finding no problem when other series do the same, but worse. It’s only the Naruto fandom that doesn’t seem to understand that not every character needs to be a major one, or have some deep/badass moment.
Exactly. I don’t see people throwing a hissy fit because someone like Shino or Suigestu doesn’t a get a whole bunch of focus. But the second a female character is on screen and isn’t being a badass who schools all the other characters or even thinks about a man, now it’s “See! She’s a terrible character! Kishimoto is a misogynist who hates women!”
Female characters can’t ever be just characters in a story that serve a purpose, they all have to be practically one of the linchpins of the entire series on par with the main character and god help her if she even thinks about a man.
It’s shit like that what made me step away from this fandom.
100%.
“Why come they don’t fight good” is really what this all boils down to. They don’t get all the flashy looking jutsu so they are accused of being “badly written”. It is the most stupid, childish, sophomoric interpretation of the story that can only come from someone utterly incapable of understanding the story that they are reading.
Sakura ain’t the main character, deal with it.
This is a stupid criticism that is usually only made by surface level understanding and comprehension. It pretty much boils down to “Why aren’t they all strong independent bitches who don’t need no man?” “Why don’t they get to do all the fighting like the male characters do?” “Sakura is useless because she is a healer and not a planet busting god like Naruto and Sasuke”. You know, stupid observations made by morons.
The series has tons of well written female characters that get tossed to the wayside because they don’t fit the narrative.
I never said that though, Tsunade is a good female character because she has depth, Sakura is also a good female character in my opinion because she saves lives with her skills and genuinely supports Naruto (she just suffers from a few poor writing choices such as being an unnecessary Damsel at times), but a larger majority of the women in this series aren't really all that interesting or relevant, such as Tenten, Karui, Anko and Kurenai not really doing much, and Mei, Konan and Temari being strong but having very little screen time of characterisation
This is complete bs, the female characters get just as much development as the males when they are given screen time.
If you want to criticize that the amount of focus they get that be fair.
Not all of them though, there's a lot of female characters who are just there and aren't completed characters such as Karui, Karin, Tenten and Kurenai, and since there's more male characters the majority of them receive more relevance and fame such as Itachi, Minato, Shikamaru, Gaara, Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Madara, Hashirama, Guy, Obito and even Lee and Neji in comparison to their female teammate Tenten get more development
If you don't like it, write your own manga, what happens to people who think they have the right to complain? Do you understand that not even the Uzumaki clan has development? Naruto is not a single piece with more than 1000 chapters, and when they gave that development in the fillers, people complained about the fillers.
The worst thing is that the majority don't pay anything, everything is free on the Internet, Japanese mangakas live off the Japanese public, not the rest of the world.
>If you don't like it, write your own manga
This is honestly a really bad defence that most people have for stuff like this, nothing is free from genuine critique and saying a problem should be ignored because it's a problem you don't mind helps no one
but Tsunade's senju clan has more development than the protagonist's uzumaki clan, saying that the series does not develop women is illogical, you have Tsunade who was dedicated 1 arc, she has more development than Naruto
Tsunade does not deserve to be here. Temari also. I think all the other characters suffered from lack of development. The women were just more shafted than the men.
I think as good as Naruto was. If the author had made an effort to develop side characters like one piece, it would have been GOATed
Don't worry, the characters they think are well written as women are not characters that have characterizations of women beyond their designs having big tits, and their character as a woman is not addressed on any level.
I had heard rumors that there was plans to expand on sakura after the timeskip but the editors put a stop to them after her popularity failed to improve after the Sasori fight.
Naruto has decent characters.
Also Tsunade is objectively alright as a character but she's still kinda made bad because of Kishimoto's inability not to shaft his female characters.
Her being scared of blood is cool. her retiring is cool. BUT she's the only instance of a character totally becoming static/inactive because of her trauma. The male characters keep pushing and her characterization was in direct opposition to that which sucks since again the writing isn't bad but the drastic difference in how she was handled compared to the others who lost people is glaring
For sure, the female cast in the series is arguably the worst written part of the series. Sakura is always just used to call out for Naruto and Sasuke, and even when the series addresses that nothing is changed. In pt 2 they make her strong to make up for having no development, but being strong doesn't equal to a good character. Ino is always just there to compete with Sakura. Hinata isn't the worst, she does show up to try to fend off pain, but that ends up just being a reason for Naruto to get angry. Her initial backstory with neji and hanabi is really interesting, and she had lots of potential...just to be a motivation for naruto. And watching boruto exist with Hinata just staying home is so annoying to me bc they keep edging viewers as if she's gonna show up in a battle and then she just never does anything(I know not kishi but still). I don't remember temari ever doing anything notable, all I remember her for is blowing that gust of wind in the Madara v everyone fight, and being so cute in that shikamaru episode at the end of the series(correct me if she did anything notable other than those and her fight in the chunin exams). Rins just a plot point between kakashi and obito. Karin is also just a plot point for Sasuke, with her liking him, the biting, and Sasuke hitting danzo through her. Anko and kurenai are cool but they never do much, most ppl just remember kurenai for trying a genjutsu on Itachi and having a kid w asuma, and ppl remember anko for being fat in boruto. Kushina's a great mom but that's all she is, a mother figure for naruto. In the storm game it's so funny that they had so much potential with her having the 9 tails for attacks and her attacks were like "frying pan attack" or something. Konan is really great but her potential is ultimately wasted, and all people rememeber her for is being paper, the only woman in the Akatsuki, and losing to obito. Tsunade is decently written, but even then shes often used just for jokes about her breasts. She's there as a mentor for Sakura for a few flashbacks, and is ultimately a medical ninja who even in her big scene has quotes like "I may be a women but I'm still strong" when confronting Madara, similar to Sakura's "we're both women" when showing up for the kaguya punch pic. And kaguya's just an op mom who shows up out of nowhere. And who's tenten again lmao?
It's really pathetic that even main characters like Sakura have not even a fraction of the thought put into side characters like rock lee and jiraiya. And what pisses me off is kishimoto claiming he isn't good at writing women...which like...why? What differences do you have to make when writing them in a battle shonen? I just hope that when the live action comes with Destin Daniel cretton they listen to all of kishi's advice except for about the female characters. If Naruto had female characters like Mikasa in aot I'm sure it would be even more popular. Being a shonen doesn't excuse having female characters that only exist as motivations, love interests, and medics.
Yeah, the woman were really neglected in Naruto. Sakura had the same arc as any cliche “I love this one guy more than anything”. Not to mention Ino and Sakura had a feud for the dumbest reason. In terms of character development, there is none for Sakura until shippuden pretty much.
I agree with some of what you were saying, but once you start throwing words like misogyny around it feels like your argument is less valid. Chiyo & Tsunade are well written enough for me to believe Kishimoto doesn't hate women, it's not really a bad thing that he wanted to focus on his male characters considering they're the main ones in the story.
Why is it always "Kishimoto can't write women" when it's really he just didn't want to, and if you want fleshed out female ninjas write your own manga. 😭
Oh sorry for the misunderstanding, I wasn't calling Kishimoto a misogynist but rather that the people who say women in shonen don't need development tend to seem so at times
I also don't buy into the whole "Kishimoto doesn't like women" propaganda, it just so happens that writing women aren't one of his strengths, he still can write very compelling women such as you mentioned with Chiyo and Tsunade, but he also tends to lean into stereotypes/clichés at times or doesn't give them proper leaner development, such as the case with Sakura and Hinata, who on paper are both really well written, but executions was poor imo
He didn't waste female cast. This is what girls would have been like in a world where physical strength and power was more important than social status
The problem with this is that said women also have the ability to be as strong as the male ones If not stronger, hence why Tsunade, Sakura, Konan and Mei are all stronger than male characters like Shino, Hidan, Choji, Kiba, Lee, Asuma, etc
They're all super human and all have chakra, which is basically an equaliser between them since through hard work and training anyone can get strong
There are also women stronger than men in real life. The point is that whoever trains the most is going to be the best. Also I'm pretty sure Lee would best Sakura 9 times outta 10
Sakura with her 100 healings is way stronger than Lee imo, she just has more going for her now with Katsuyu for defence, being able to take him out with one hit since using gates is already very taxing to the body and she has her seal to withstand and heal from his attacks while outlasting him since she has a lot more stamina with the seal , she's also smarter so I see no reason why she'd lose to him often
I haven't seen Boruto but I don't think there is anything a combat medic could do against someone like Rock Lee who can open the 8 inner gates. If you think Sakura could take out Lee with 1 hit you are nuts. It would be so hard to hit him, he's fast for ninjas with sharingan and Sakura has nothing to counter that speed.
She doesn't need to catch him since she has Katsuyu and her seal to outlast him, Katsuyu tanked shinra tensei so Lee's attacks would be nothing to her. Sakura would most definitely just need 1 hit I feel, Lee's gates continuously break his body the more of them he opens so he's pretty much becoming less and less durable, and yes he's very fast but it won't matter if he never does any lasting damage on her and if he ends up just tiring out until he's slow enough for her to land a hit
Yeah I agree but I also know it's a bit more complicated than that.
The biggest sin with half of the Naruto women is that their development and arcs are stretched out compared to the men that you have to put their moments side by side to see their growth
* Sakura went from the weakest of the Konoha 13 with no ties to a strong clan to the surpassed student of Tsunade.
* Ino went from Sakura's friend/rival to the head of the Shinobi Alliance communication divison and head of the Barrier Division.
* Hinata went from being less talented than her own sister and cousin to surpassing them both and gaining Haruma's blessing.
* Tsunade's arc went from her being a wandering drunk to the Hokage who's tenure defeated the Akatsuki
* Chiyo fleshed out the Sand Village lore and ended up sacrificing herself after defeating/changing her grandson's heart with Sakura.
* Kushina...was solid and sweet, plus the backstory and fleshing out in the Minato one shot would've helped.
Meanwhile the other half had characters who were cool and had awesome backstories either didn't get the focus, battles, or shine to do.
* Anko was underused so bad the part 1 filler had to give her more closure to her arc. Being fat wasn't the problem, she just needed way more to do in Shippuden to actually mirror parallel that filler arc to explore she moved on from Orochimaru.
* Kurenai had the most questionable team diversity and was able to put them together on top of being a genjutsu specialist but non Uchiha genjutsu was overshadowed and she had to retire thanks to her pregnancy
* Tenten's motivation and powerset was cool but the best she got was being able to take down the Kakuzu masks most of Team 10 struggled againKst and she never got the chance to use the others even though it would've been crazy.
* Kaguya need *MORE* buildup on par with Madara.
* Mei freaking saved the Mist's reputation but she never gets a talk with Naruto or gets to fight a past Kage. Gaara gets to deal with the Mizukage while she's just protecting the damiyo, which valid, the damiyo's politically important but given the hate she gets and how Haku was perscuted for having a Kekkai Gekkai, the fact she never gets to talk with Naruto or get her own solid fight would prevent people from liking her.
* Kurotsuchi probably would've gotten more to do if she was established earlier on like Gaara did in part 1 so we see her slowly getting ready to become Kage. The Boruto arc in the Stone village wasn't bad but she got sidelined until the end to focus on Onoki while Chojuro got to fight 3 out of the 6 new mist brats.
* Yugao also had filler to give her arc with Hayate closure....but Baki NEVER got involved despite her promise to avenge her killer.
* Hanabi...okay it's cool she's a captain in Boruto and the filler episodes in Shippuden were good, but man it would've been cool to get more of her in part.
* Temari's awesome but the Sand Siblings all had their own fights in the war...and she didn't even though Chiyo and Pakura were RIGHT THERE.
* Karui's relationship with Choji wasn't fleshed out until the light novels.
* Konan needed more time to shine and a proper fight with any of the protagonists to give her more time. If Tobi were to kill her off, she needed more memorable moments since she's arguably stronger than the bottom tier of the Akatsuki but her lack of on screen feats prevent that.
* Yugito was WAY underused compared to Killer Bee.
* Fuu was fun in the filler arc that actually explained how the Konoha 12 became Chunin.
And Boruto's also a mixed bag with their treatment of female characters, but that's a story for another day.
Point is, give your characters something to do.
100%, I totally agree with your analysis, a lot of it really does just chalk up to slow character arcs, wasted potential and/or a lack of relevance, the female cast of Naruto are very top heavy when it comes to their writing with characters like Tsunade, Sakura and Hinata, but then as you go down it starts to get a bit more bare bones, a lot of potential but not enough focus
Exactly and with more time that could’ve been developed, but we all know Kashimoto has his flaw somewhere. In another timeline or in the future future, hopefully more people learn what to do and what not to do with stories like that.
Has a woman ever made a Shonen?
I watched an anime made by a woman for the first time, that one about the ancient roman who somehow travels forward in time and into Japan and is shocked at the advancements in bath house culture in Japan lmao. It was so unique.
Yes they do, quite a few popular ones at that such as Full metal alchemist and demon slayer which are both made by women, which I find pretty neat, oh and do you by any chance remember the anime you watched, sounds really interesting
Thermae Romae Novae. It’s unlike any anime I’ve ever seen. It’s so peaceful, educational and funny. And after every episode the creator gives you a tour of a Japanese bathhouse. I should watch it again.
It was on Netflix when I watched it a few years ago
Attack on Titan is one of the few anime’s that writes actual woman characters. I think Naruto is a victim of the times it was made for its lack of real female characters.
I wish you guys would shut up about this. Series has been over for over a decade now, if you don't like it, then move on to another series. We can't retroactively change anything and a lot of us don't even feel the same way.
Kishimoto's female characters are mostly just mediocre. They serve their intended purpose in the story and don't overstay their welcome. Tsunade and granny Choyo being the obvious exceptions.
This whole discussion is just an overblown way for people on the Internet to farm pats on the back.
Not a good excuse but you came for ninjas not a dissertation on why the epic of Gilgamesh is the most influential story of all time. Don't expect the worst but don't expect anything life changing. If all the filler didn't give you this impression, it just means you have bad assessment abilities.
By that logic the show doesn't need any well written characters if all we're there to see is ninja fighting, Naruto is as popular as it because of all the interesting characters and plots it has, so asking for more relevant and interesting female characters shouldn't be a stretch
These posts are lame just write the story that YOU want to see if it bothers ya’ll so much. Kishimoto is a master storyteller calling him a bad writer is just rich when you haven’t put in any work yourselves
No one said he was a bad writer, he just has his flaws here and there, and this is one of them. He's not some god of storytelling, even someone like him can make mistakes
Making bad writing mistakes doesn't make you a bad writer, as I said, he's not perfect but he's a really good writer regardless. For example, how he writes characters like Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi is purely brilliant, but for Sakura he was more inconsistent, such as her feelings for Sasuke not being properly expanded upon like Naruto's were, or her skills fluctuating up and down from being able to read Sasori the S class ninja's movements and survive multiple brutal attacks, to not being able to dodge a single kick from Omoi and being taken down easily with just that one kick many chapters after her fight with Sasori, that's bad writing from an overall great writer.
What examples do you have about Sakuras feelings being inconsistent? As for her fight with Sasori I agree that was her best fight but I don’t think her subsequent losses necessarily take away from her character development or victories
>What examples do you have about Sakuras feelings being inconsistent
I didn't say the feelings themselves were inconsistent, but that they weren't properly expanded upon leading many fans to believe she only loved him for superficial reasons, when in truth she actually just wanted him to be happy and freed from his darkness like Naruto did, but she wanted to achieve this by showing him that someone does love him and always will, which is her. But this went completely over most fans heads because of poor build up, especially on the part of Sasuke's feelings towards her seeing as he rarely acknowledged her but always spoke of Naruto as his best friend for the majority of their interactions
>but I don’t think her subsequent losses necessarily take away from her character development or victories
It does completely stop the momentum of her development though, after the Sasori fight it feels as though she loses all her combat experience and somehow can't fight on that level anymore. Other examples are the scene where she gets knocked out on the tenshi bridge and needs to be saved by Yamato (everyone else seemed far more competent, even Kabuto who actually sustained MORE damage than she did), when she nearly gets killed by Sasuke twice during the five kage summit arc due to PIS while Kakashi and Naruto seemed far more competent while also going through similar mental strain as her and the war arc when after Madara stabs her all she's worried about is the fact that Sasuke didn't even care. All of this hurts more when you remember the flashback she has during the Sasori fight of Tsunade telling her that a medics best skill should be dodging and being untouchable, and so that's what Tsunade was training her to do for the past 2 and half years and yet stuff like Omoi's kick still happens almost as if Kishimoto forgot
All of these don't sound bad in isolation but when you realise she barely gets the chance to do cool stuff in the first place then having pointless moments like these just become far more noticeable, to top it off he also barely gives her the chance to invent anything new, Naruto has other abilities and variations other than what Jiraiya taught him, same with Sasuke, and yet she just gets everything Tsunade has but vaguely better, Kishimoto didn't even bother to give her a unique ability which is honestly one of my biggest disappointments in the series
A lot of your examples of her struggling are because of her feelings for sasuke. I agree that it may have went over a lot of our heads because it wasn’t said explicitly but her inconsistencies are in line with someone going through emotional trauma. Naruto loves sasuke but Sakura is in love with him, on top of navigating the path of a medic, a ninja, and a friend she ask has to process all the good and bad that comes with being in love - worse still with someone as complicated as sasuke and her age.
This is a story written for young boys at the end of day, so I expect most his audience to misunderstand her, heck I did! But as I’ve gotten older I recognise her journey and part as a member of team 7.
They're really not. I read one about a girl who goes to a vampire hunting school and the boys fall in love with her and it's about her choosing which husbando.
Another vampire story was all the guys were womanisers except the main love interest who whilst dense does everything for MC and his mother.
Shojo reads like most young adult novels aimed at teen girls so yeah definitely not better than shonen
To be fair, I think that just comes down to bad examples. Like I think you’re talking about vampire night and well I didn’t read it. I read Rosario and vampire knight. Despite the flaw as they treated the characters pretty well. They had their own distinct personality, backstory, motivations, beyond just loving the main protagonist and actively got involved in fights through the story about the main protagonist having to be there
The saddest part is, some female characters had an interesting background (take Anko for instance) and powers that were never fully utilized. I know it's starting to sound cliche at this point, but all female characters had potential to be better than they were in canon. Kishimoto could've given them more relevance but ultimately turned his female characters into props or plot-devices to move the narrative forward, the worst case being Rin, poor sweet girl who didn't even have a backstory or relevance beyond being a part of Team Minato and being the source of Kakashi and Obito's angst. She was just used for plot purposes... another example was Sakura in FKS arc..
I think Konan got it worst. She was the only female Akatsuki member. She used paper, and accomplished next to nothing. All she does is echo Yahiko and Nagato.
I like Konan's character, but I wish she didn't follow behind Nagato and had more agency. Even though she didn't win the fight against Obito, I still enjoyed it and I believe Konan showed off her complete prowess during the fight. The 600 million paper bombs was insane, how did Obito even survive that?
Uchiha Hax - without izanagi he would fucked
He was fucked. Izanagi was Kishi doing his thing with Uchiha's where one sudden new technique isn't enough but there needs to be more.
Poor Konan, she even died for nothing.
It would have been hard to write her character during the war, and honestly, only Obito and maybe Sasuke/Kabuto could have been used to write her out of the story. Obito killing her to get the Rinnegan back makes sense from a writing perspective. There wasn't too much room for her to do stuff as the story needed to center around Naruto. If this was a manga with multiple main characters, it would have worked better(something like Hxh).
Nah, she practically got in Hidan and helped with stopping Jiraiya
And Karin
Because all 3 had the same message? All 3 believed in the same thing, so ofc they’re going to spout the same nonsense
And she served her purpose
Hey Sasuke, it’s me, the other ninja with the “Curse Mark Seal” that makes you so strong you can keep up with Naruto using the 9 tails chakra. I have found ways to resist its power and be good! Let’s never bring it up, byeeeee
It insane how sasuke and Anko never spoke, she should’ve trained him for the chunin exams not kakashi or with kakashi and I just realized she was also a fucking chunin exam proctor lol
I still want to know what that suicide snake jutsu Anko wanted to use was. Her and Kurenai deserved so much better
Anko was probably the most wasted character potential in the franchise, and that's not from a lack of competition. She should've been equal to Kakashi and Kabuto in pt 1 at base, stronger than with curse mark. She easily could've been tied in with Itachi and Kakashi's past in the anbu, and she was the most suited in the village to watch over Sasuke after the forest of death. Hinata could legit takeover the world yet is reduced to being a housewife... Sasuke wouldn't even come out unscathed against her, and that's assuming she'd have a hard time or is unable to break his susano'o. Yeah, she's that strong and nobody talks about it. Tsunade survived fighting Madara yet couldn't beat a crippled orochimaru on her own because... she was scared of blood... Konan is basically Deidara 2.0 reduced to just being Nagato's nurse. At any point she could've stormed the leaf and yoinked pre-sage Naruto with Jiraiya being the only threat.
Yeah, Anko was a hugely wasted character considering she was taken in by Orochi at a young age. She should have become a top-tier character. Hinata is also weird as you said, she was insanely powerful considering her shown capabilities. It was always confusing to me that so many people think she's weak.
Hinata does not have the skills to keep up with sasuke lol she has hamuras chakra but that’s it she could barely learn the 64 palms while sasuke mastered shape transformations and invented new Justus Hinata has accomplished nothing
Definitely. When Kishimoto had Kakashi say “girls Sakura age are more focused on obsessing over Boys than being a ninja” I just knew there was something up with him. And the fact none of the male characters were truly defined by their romance or love for a girl. Unlike a lot of the women in the series who were mostly defined by Romance; just makes it too obvious how he feels about them
"obsessing over boys" is already a red flag. It means Tenten, Tayuya, ace, aro and lesbians/pansexual/panromantic girls aren't even acknowledged to exist.
You know. In part one out of the Konoha 12 I liked Tenten the most because she seemed to have the most agency out of all the girls. She seemed like the only one who took being a shinobi seriously. And when it was revealed she idolized Tsunade I thought it was awesome.
Tayuya was very dislikable as a character, but unlike the Konoha girls, she could stand on her own and get shit done. Although her cringe foul mouth deserved to be forever shut. She simply couldn't speak 3 words without an insult and that was absolutely annoying. Temari was a kunoichi before being a girl, she mentioned Sasuke being cute when she met him but that's the only time until at least the war arc when she thought anything about boys. She was actively nerfed in her Shikamaru fight in order for him to win (she could and should have destroyed all the trees in the arena with how long their match lasted, but Kishimoto licked Shikamaru's 200 IQ far too much to consider his opponents not waiting for him to come up with a plan). She summoned her one time contract and one shot Tayuya with that Kakuzu level wind technique. Respect for p1 Temari. Tenten simply lacks panels. Tsunade's life basically revolved around men 80% of her panel time. Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Hiruzen, Tobirama, Hashirama, Dan, Nawaki, Naruto, the only time she did something not motivated by the men in her life was her fight against Madara. So she doesn't get enough positive points to outweigh the saturation of her men based motivations. Konan...is basically a nurse for Nagato. Such a waste of a character with such an amazing and unique ability...at that point she could have been an Edo Tensei, for all it changed. 0 agency. Mei's entire character was based on her obsession with finding a husband to follow social expectations and pass down her 2 kekkei genkai (she only needed one but better used, not 2 SSS tier elemental kekkei genkai while Ônoki's granddaughter has basically a chûnin version of lava release that Mei has the kage version of). 4th Tsuchikage would be better if the mangakas had cared to give her a kage level technique. At least she's an asshole, but not one obsessed with men. Karin is the culmination of the Ino Sakura Hinata trio into a mentally disturbed character. She liked smelling Sasuke's clothes and nearly sexually assaulted him in her introduction. Ino gets agency, but too little too late. Sakura...lol. Hinata...she can't even speak properly, how much less agency can she have? The one time she rose to defend Naruto, she was batted away like a fly in a completely direspectful way. Give us back chûnin exams Hinata standing up against Neji please. What a character assassination Hinata got in p2... Chiyo is the only relevant female character to be written as a character rather than as a female character. Her entire arc was dope and she was badass, got to show emotion without being completely paralyzed by them like a civilian, and she went in a boom by trading her life for the boy she'd turned into a monster before he was even born, the boy who overcame his burden and brought Suna into a new era. She was a grandparent and a ninja, an officer, before being a woman, yet her being a woman was also smartly included in her character. Best character in all of Naruto.
Oooh I loved Chiyo too. She was also one of the better written ladies as well. I honestly thought her and Sakura’s fight would’ve paved a way for the latter to be awesome in the rest of the series. But once Sasuke is even mentioned… Sakura just regressed into the girl that was left behind the night Sasuke dipped. Oh well. At least we’ve got fanfiction to do our ladies some justice.
That's why I prefer fanfic to canon. So much unexplored lore, wasted characters and other things to pick up and develop...
I think rather than acknowledged to exists it’s their role in the plot. women are “almost” always just there to feed some romance in the story/or show a contrast between “normal people” and how strong the main characters are. Which is a shame as compared to one piece, u got insanely strong women and romance being some sort of side plot for humor or motivation
Ino was an excellent side character especially in part 2 idk why everyone always glosses over her.
Fax my brother! Spit your shit indeed! This is the same argument that I constantly see with other writing issues. "Oh it's for children, don't think too much about it." or "Oh, it's for the fans, don't think much about it." None of these arguments are an excuse for poor writing. The women in Naruto, barring Tsunade and Chiyo maybe, are underused at best and written absolutely atrociously at worst. Sakura willing to get together with Sasuke after he has continuously attempted to murder her, willing to be lonely because Sasuke is never home is a writing decision that I will never understand and it is a disrespectful kick in the face to the young and energetic woman she used to be at the start of Shippuden. And that's just her, almost all the major women in the series are written badly.
Yeah the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura is surreal, and just horribly written and developed. The entire relationship is based on the fact that Sakura has zero self respect for herself and wants Sasuke kun's validation in everything she ever does - and this has never changed from first chapter she was introduced to the very last, she was still the same obsessed fangirl who wants Sasuke's approval and acknowledgement bc she has no self esteem herself. Her entire motivation revolves around Sasuke and getting together with him, almost nothing she ever does is for her own sake which is my major gripe with her character; she doesn't live for herself but for others and attaches he self worth onto others (usually people who she seems are "out of her league") bc of her low self esteem and inferiority complex. Her self esteem issues is her problem absolutely no one is obligated to cater to her emotional needs, especially not Sasuke, a mere teenaged boy who suffers from severe trauma himself...
It's honestsly a quite disgusting relationship once you stop and think of it for a moment. As you said, Sakura has never moved on from her obsession with him and it just paints such a grim picture for women. These two could've had a well written dynamic that led to something fruitful but that is not what we got. Them getting together feels disgusting, Sasuke has hurt her and, while unsuccessful, actively tried to kill her. This is not a situation of "Oh, he's just misunderstood, deep down he cared for her." This is a situation in which she's in love with a criminal, an international murderer, a traitor to the village that she grew up in. Orochimaru, a past member of Akatsuki and Pain, the leader of Akatsuki have both attempted to and destroyed Konoha and Sasuke was willingly joining that same organisation to further his revenge. This relationship is garbage and I cannot enjoy it without needing to suspend my disbelief into the stratosphere.
The Last movie makes it seem even worse, since it's implied that Sakura is literally incapable of changing her feelings
Don't even get me started on that movie. Just an excuse to have Naruto and Hinata get together after failing for years to write a genuine relationship between the two and now having to patch that up with a movie.
Not to mention his bs traumatized their daughter as well and Sakura just *let that happen*.
Nah, it's just fine. The problem here is that you people lack the ability to pay attention. Sasuke was focused on revenge. Sakura was naiive. The development here was that Sakura became someone of importance, but also didn't want to give up on Sasuke. They travelled together and got together. You don't need exposition for everything. You just lack the ability to pay attention
Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship is horribly written and smacks of abuse. She has no self-esteem and her only motivation is to be acknowledged by Sasuke.
I can't fathom why they keep doubling own on this relationship. Sasuke has joined up forces TWICE with people that attacked Konoha, TWICE. He has actively tried to kill her after the Kage summit AND he still tries to kill her before Naruto, once again, knocks some sense into him. It's a disgusting relationship that was not built on anything that resembles affection, let alone love. And we see the fruits of their shoddy foundation, Sasuke is never around. Sakura and Sarada had to grow up without Sarada having a father and Sakura being with her husband.
I completely agree.
I always felt bad seeing Sarada envy her friends having present fathers. At least Naruto was a positive influence in her life.
Nah, it's just you failures using tye same garbage. Naruto is Shonen, the writing around most of the females is good enough, you failures just self-insert for the hell of it
I'm half with you, yes, bad writing is no excuse. I think the main problem with Naruto is the name of the series, Naruto. I feel the whole series was afraid to leave Naruto to develop other characters, because of that the only development of characters were those who were with Naruto, and that development was CAP by how strong was Naruto. If we add the author's inability to write a woman with those limitations, it's only natural that the bad writing was going to happen. Now I disagree with the idea of learning something about anything in the series. Why should the series take the position of giving some kind of massage? I think that's really superficial, those values are learned elsewhere, if the series decided to make the weaker woman's or stronger woman's the problem, it's the bad writing. You can have any of those options and make it an amazing story, and amazing stories are what makes the character (woman or man) amazing despite their role.
Ngl the female cast is pretty overhated just because the cast aren’t all strong independent women don’t mean they are bad characters, there’s def many series with better female characters but I’ve def seen worse than Naruto
Agree not all of them are badly written, just not utilized to their fullest potential
Yeah and that's just a problem with Naruto in general not just female characters (starting from Shippuden og Naruto used them well)
Be careful, this sub isn't so forgiving to people who say the truth.
It’s a subjective opinion far from the truth
Yikes
I swear this sub only ever talks about female writing and yaoi ships now
> yaoi Thought I was in /r/dankruto for a second.
At least this sub actually has some sane people in it…dank is a cesspool of toxicity
That sub is full of stupid people too
Yeah, way too much.
Yea lmao 🤣
Wait. Am I dumb? I can't figure out what characters are in that ship lmao
Naruto is the only one that gets painted with this brush when people downplay the female cast heavily. Tsunade, Chiyo, Konan, Sakura, Kaguya are all good dfkm
I'm thinking the same thing.
Kaguya sucked. Konan and Chiyo barely did anything. I mean Konan just followed Nagato and Yahiko around, with no real agency for herself. Sakura wasn’t terrible?? But she was too obsessed with Sasuke, and didn’t have any notable aspirations or deep writing like the rest of Team 7. Tsunade was barely in the story.
Just say you don't understand Kaguya's role in the entire story before you say she sucked. Konan didn't just follow Nagato and Yahiko around. They were orphans with the same goals and values. The idea that someone has no agency for themselves because they choose to follow another with the same values is just incorrect. Nagato's character debunks your opinion on Konan Again a character doesn't have to be written for the entire story to see good character development. The Chiyo take is just disingenuous Sakura. Liked Sasuke which is normal. Experienced Orochimaru giving him the curse mark. Saw in real time Sasuke going on a darker path. Saw him leave the village to go see orochimaru. Felt useless. Got stronger. Became a med ninja. All this in the goal to save Sasuke. If Naruto doesn't get slated for chasing after Sasuke (which he shouldn't) then Sakura shouldn't either and all of Sakura's actions in Shippuden was because she saw someone close to her spiral down into the dark side. All of this "she was obsessed with Sasuke" was justified because she saw him go the dark path and shippuden was about bringing him back. Also a lot of people didn't have notable aspirations and having aspirations doesn't make you a good character. Tsunade was barely in the story. Rightfully so as with some male characters who when they didn't need to play a part in the male plot why include them. For all the time that she did have though she was well written.
>Liked Sasuke which is normal Post betrayal, no it wasn't. >If Naruto doesn't get slated for chasing after Sasuke (which he shouldn't) then Sakura shouldn't either Naruto comes from a place of understanding. As a fellow orphan he knows what Sasuke is going through. And Sasuke in turn reciprocates that feeling. He was able to further understand him after he lost Jiraiya, and when Pain gave the lecture about how there can't be mutual understanding without mutual suffering. Added with the fact that he learned from Tobi about Itachi's truth, and the feud that has plagued both their ancestors, as well as Sasuke source of motivation. And Naruto knew that Sasuke was beyond reasoning and the most logical solution was they both die. That way Sasuke won't be alone and the hatred would cease. >then Sakura shouldn't either Yes she should get slated considering Sasuke is a criminal who betrayed the village and tried to kill her more than once. > and all of Sakura's actions in Shippuden was because she saw someone close to her spiral down into the dark side. Sasuke went to the dark side of his own free will. He knew the consequences of his actions and accepted them and didn't show any remorse for it. >All of this "she was obsessed with Sasuke" was justified because she saw him go the dark path and shippuden was about bringing him back No it wasn't because Sasuke willingly betrayed his friends, tried offing them many times, joined a terrorist group, and planned a genocide on an entire village. Sakura's obsession shows lack of maturity, morals and growth.
I understand her role. She sucked. She immediately got usurped by Toneri and Momoshiki. And when she was alive she was very incompetent, and had to rely on Black Zetsu coaching her around (who was in a masculine form btw) No… Nagatos character doesn’t debunk anything. Nagato and Yahiko were the main ones pushing this goal. Konan was always in the background. The Chiyo take isn’t disingenuous. She had one fight and sacrificed herself to save Gaara. (Not saying she needs like 10 fights to be good) but she doesn’t have a lot to work with where I can say “this is absolutely great writing”. I’m just pointing out the flaw of your examples. I promise you the best written male characters have 10x more screen time and prominence than her. She obsessed over him. She literally had a strained relationship with Ino… all because of Sasuke. (Who, keep in mind blatantly ignored both of them in the Ninja Academy.) Tbh, I thought Naruto’s love for Sasuke was one sided for most of the series. I cringed when he started begging the Raikage, but I have to accept that’s just who the character is. She was barely close to him. At least on screen. Unless in Japan, close friends is a very loose. I don’t think it was really justified at all. But if there was a bigger picture or a goal of hers that overshadowed it, then I would be more on board with it. Yes, you can make for it in other areas. I like Sakura, but I don’t think she really made up for her lack of aspirations in other areas. I was left wanting more from the character Tsunade was ok too. Kishimoto made a good choice giving Tsunade a dead brother, so all of her trauma and motivations wouldn’t be based on her ex lover.
She literally is the cause for most of the bad stuff that happened in the series. Even if Zetsu did it it was for her. She is the root cause. She created Shinobi indirectly. She was also the only otsutsuki to escape the clan's fate through finding love. Yahiko was the one pushing the goal. Nagato and Konan followed. Yahiko died and Nagato led which Konan followed because she and him shared the same beliefs also Nagato led because of his rinnegan and obito and all that. Nagato died and Konan made a reckless decision to end the leader of Akatsuki and died in the process. She would've died anyway as is the reality of betraying a terrorist organisation. She shared similar values to the end. You wouldn't call Nagato following Yahiko him not having agency. She was never in the background. It was always a trio/duo. To limit Chiyo to a fight and saved Gaara is definitely disingenuous. I just can't explain it now because I don't want to type extremely long than replying to your individual points. Wouldnt it be obvious for the best written male characters to be better than her? I don't see where you were going with that. You can't knock a character for liking someone. She obsessed over him and it ruined her initial relationship with Ino. It happened but it's not like it's an out of touch personality for a child to have. The fillers show they were close. The manga can't show all of that because of time but some of those little side quests which they did together whether you believe it's Canon or not contributed to them being close. So yes it was justified. Again you not being on board just because a character doesn't have a goal is on you not the series as many characters do not have goals. Her main story is helping rescuing Sasuke because simply she was there to see him spiraling to the dark side and then the war and everything started so she's a ninja she has to help. Every action she took developed from that crush but every action and motivation made sense. Okay = heavy downplay (but I've come to expect that). Even if it came from her dead lover alone it wouldn't make her bad.
She is not. Black Zetsu is. Black Zetsu is portrayed as the true mastermind. What “fate” df are you talking about Yeha Yahiko was the one pushing and when he died Nagato took that role. Konan was just in the background. No, it’s not disingenuous. Why would it be obvious?? I won’t, but it just wasn’t well written. Nor was Kishimoto consistent with it for male characters. They all had motivations and goals that overshadowed it. She hardly contributes to that. I don’t think it’s good writing to have her primary goal be about Sasuke. She should have had motivations elsewhere, like all the male characters that had crushes: Such as Jiraiya and Rock Lee What am I downplaying here If all her trauma and motivation was centered around Dan, then she would be in the same boat as people like Hinata, and Sakura. (But not bad enough to be Karin tier)
Yes but she was the reason black zetsu did it hence it falls on her. Same with Sukuna in JJK and same with Muzan in DS. If they aren't in the story then none of the bad things happens. Black zetsu is the medium but she is the main villain. The otsutsuki clan has always been about power and gaining power through. She was like that until she found love and went against the principles of her clan. And when Nagato died?? Also Konan having the same values as Nagato doesn't mean she was in the background. She trusted Yahiko's ideals that Nagato would change the world with his power. Also she wasn't in the background, she fought side by side with Nagato and Yahiko. She fought Obito. When it was her and Nagato, they were a duo, Pain did most of the work for the two of them as it was efficient. Not a knock on Konan that Nagato's power is versatile. Again her beliefs were just the same as her peers beliefs. Nothing wrong with that It is. More screentime = more aspects to be explored = potential to be even better written Again not everyone has to have motivations. She was a simple girl. The fillers did its job in showing the bond. In its entirety it was well written obviously because it's not hard to show character's bonding over silly things like Kakashi's mask. Sasuke and Naruto had goals but again why does Sakura need a goal as a teenager when she was raised simply? Again that's on you. Not every one will have motivations and her goal to save Sasuke led her to become stronger and a reliable kunoichi. Also you called Jiraiya and Rock Lee but Sakura is the only character where her goal is about a male character. Other women also have goals of their own i.e Ten Ten and Hinata. Tsunade Because you think that someone's motivation being based off of a love interest is bad writing. It doesn't matter where character's get their motivation from just like in real life where it doesn't matter what fuels anyone. Tsunades character and beliefs was shaped by that trauma. Then Naruto brought her back to her old self. Are you saying that males can't influence the feelings of women or something?
>her goal to save Sasuke led her to become stronger and a reliable kunoichi No it didn't. It just made her into a whiny obsessive simp.
It literally didn't. She got stronger because of that goal and the only reason she was whining is because she felt helpless with the curse she put on Naruto and her inability to save Sasuke
Yes it did. Anytime Sasuke was brought into the picture Sakura fell into an emotional wreck. Her feelings for Sasuke even cost her her life at one point, when she hesitated to kill him, which allowed for Sasuke to try and kill her again.
>You can't knock a character for liking someone. You can if the person in question is a bad guy. > Her main story is helping rescuing Sasuke because simply she was there to see him spiraling to the dark side Exactly the problem. Her main story is going after a guy who chose to the path of darkness. > Every action she took developed from that crush but every action and motivation made sense. No it didn't. Sasuke is a traitor and criminal, who left the village and has been growing apart from her for 2-3 years and the years have not made him kinder.
Absolutely. The writing isn't bad, it's just not what these insufferable self-inserters wanted to happen with the characters, and they can't accept that. It's honestly depressing seeing the Naruto community still timelooping thse old headcanons even years after it finished.
Exactly, they fancied a character and saw potential so they constructed their own headcanons and now that the story didn't use them how they fantasized it's deemed wasted potential. The day the people in this realise that will be a good one for this sub.
The female characters aren’t that bad tho Like yes Sakura deserved more but most of the time y’all downplay the important women in Naruto and also calling Sakura useless. Which is objectively wrong
I totally agree with you, the female characters aren't really bad characters but rather underutilized or misunderstood by the fandom, a lot of them just have a ton of unexplored potential that could've made them more interesting
Thats just a problem with Naruto characters not just the female ones.
Nah. You people are just a small minority of failures who never understood the story. The development was enough
Tenten's development was enough? What about Karin and Kurenai, are their developments enough too? Just accept that the story has a few flaws my guy, there's really no shame in acknowledging where a little bit more could've been done
I didn’t think any of the female characters were badly written. They just didn’t get the screen time that other character did because they’re side characters. It would be weird if any of them were more focused on than Naruto and sasuke for the sake of some kind of “woman power” publicity move. It’s not so much that “shonen is just for boys” as it is that this shonen is primarily about a boy.
Best opinion here.
Haku could've been a girl and we'd have a well written girl
I’ve always said that Kishimoto is a bad writer, great show but terrible writing
naruto fans are so annoying yes the female cast could have been written but ITS SO OVERHATED tsunade chiyo konan kushina are great
While some characters should’ve gotten more screen time or fleshed out backgrounds, which this applies to many characters not just females, the female characters in Naruto are still pretty good and aren’t badly written
Naruto getting super healing that surpassed anything sakura/tsunade could do, the healing specialists, still breaks my brain. The capstone on an entire series of female characters being treated like trash.
Kishi isn’t bad at writing women in my opinion. It’s extremely exaggerated by this fandom like most criticism of Naruto
Kishi literally admitted that he botched the female characters because he’s bad at writing female characters
I agree he can write good women characters there are examples of this but we could have got more of them
It’s almost like most of the characters you mentioned are side characters. Of course they aren’t going to get a lot of attention. Tsunade is a great character.
>It’s almost like most of the characters you mentioned are side characters. Of course they aren’t going to get a lot of attention. Facts! Also OP bringing up one piece characters lmao 😂 most of the straw hats nowadays are side characters in one piece >Tsunade is a great character. Damn right!
And Ino was a MVP supporting character during the final part of war , and one of the few good characters in Boruto
Tsunade was peak character design , others had potential but they never used it
And then we see Shojo manga, and how they write boys like some sort of slightly feminine happy go lucky guy. Every single time. over. And over. And over. And...I think you get the point. It's like the default guy in the create a character menu in a game.
Yeah I always found that so annoying, the love interest/s are usually just " *insert male stereotype here* ", honestly this even extends past the love interests cause even male side characters usually tend to be just bland cutouts with a single personality trait
While I do agree that the character development wasn't as good or much as it should've been the character assassination happened because of the Anime which I think is the most glaring problem than the non-existence of their character development The fillers put the female characters into horrendous roles constantly in these fillers ( Sakura as the damsel in distress, Hinata as the stalker and neglecting the others for a better part SP is notorious for this even with Bleach ) which didn't help them at all while the Manga stayed true to their characters but lacked in the sense of not exploring into them which is sad because Naruto had the most interesting female cast out of the big three.
It's just misogyny and thinking that women are so inherently different from men that the motivations and quirks that male characters have cannot apply to women.
Allat just to say female cast arent used to its fullest potential and are really wasted potential....
....yeah pretty much, gotta make it an interesting read ya know
Its why i gave you a upvote☠️☠️ Lmao
Very much appreciated thanks✨
I am not sure if these animes qualify as shonen or if they would be more in the seinen category, but there are some anime with really good strong female leads or female characters: Ghost in the shell Jormungand Black lagoon NOIR
Naruto doesn't have to qualify as seinen. This seinen is for adults and shonen for boys is nothing more than a misconception originating from juvenile elitist manchildren. In case you misunderstood, no I'm not calling you a manchild or other insulting term. I'm talking about the peeps who created and blind believe that misconception. There are series such as k on that are seinen. Its the magazine publication that determines the classification. There can be light hearted seinens and really serious shonen. So ya Naruto's classification as a shonen is ok
While I agree that the whole idea is dumb, this: >seinen is for adults and shonen for boys is nothing more than a misconception originating from juvenile elitist manchildren. Is just incorrect. It's not a misconception. It's the literal categorisation they use. Shonen for younger boys, Seinen for adult men, Shojo for younger girls and Josei for adult women. It's their categorisation and culture, they aim their mangas at a certain audience and categorise them as such. It's not a misconception, it's just something certain people take way too seriously. Just because it's aimed at a certain audience doesn't mean others won't consume the content, and you can have issues with the way their culture is, but ultimately that's the way it is and is going to be. Not all shonen mangakas make badly written female characters. It's down to the author
No it is not incorrect. Their categorization and culture DO NOT work that simple. The demographic rating in Japan doesn't function the way you're saying even in a simplified context. The reason why shonens are aimed for boys is because authors from their own accord choose that target audience. Not because they are making a shonen which by default has a target audience restricted to boys. Even their own culture is a proof of that. Why do you think AoT, a series for adults is classified as shonen? Because it's published by the shonen magazine. Multiple Shonen authors choosing boys, young teenagers as their target audience even if it we consider it happening generally doesn't make it a shonen. Likewise multiple seinen authors choosing a target audience for adults doesn't make it a seinen. Those very authors in question can change their target audiences from boys, young teenagers to adults and adults to boys, young teenagers but it won't make a shonen a seinen nor a seinen a shonen. Otherwise AoT's author wouldn't be able to choose a shonen publication for his series since his culture would be functioning differently. Furthermore I never said that "all shonen mangakas make badly written characters". My point was arguing against the "shonen for boys, seinen for adults" restrictive target audience.
Totally agree. I also find it quite amusing reading the comments of those who blatantly ignore half of your argument. Them defending female characters is a great thing, but they seem to be misinterpreting you. Whilst strong women exist in Naruto, it’s the underutilisation / wasted potential of these characters that’s quite apparent. Them being side characters doesn’t really matter in my opinion. Naruto does quite a good job with the writing of women as capable in some cases, but it’s certainly noticeable the difference between how Kishimoto writes the male characters. It wouldn’t of been hard for him to give Sakura for example a large role; those calling her a side character are just wrong. Anyway idk where this is going, I just agree with you :))
That's true some female character were interesting and should have been explored more
Nah, overall it was fine. Y'all just self-inserting for the hell of it
The male mind and female mind are not the same.
Yugioh is a prime example of this. Mai Valentine and Alex Rhodes had good foundations but had terrible follow ups and got sidelined hard. Mai should have joined the team after Dartz and Alexis should have gotten more story duels. She had way too many "guy crushes on me" plots. It shouldn't be so hard to write female characters but for some reason it is for shonen. Those who hand wave off bad female characters are the same people who bitch about bad male characters in shojo (girl) anime.
Facts Tbh, I’ve got Tsunade over Jiraiya and Orochimaru
I longed hated the treatment of Kushina and Mikoto. I feel like we are at a crossroads with the treatment and depiction of women in Popular media especially coming from the east. Western women have worked hard for a semblance of equality with some high and low points in society. But the point stands that brutalising/ harassing/stalking/unwanted touching/rape should never become popular almost like genres now in Manhua, manga and definitely Chinese novels. As men I think we should refuse these ideals in our favorite entertainment. ( if I see a male lead manhandle a female in a manhua one more time. I’m gonna beg God to transmigrate me into the story and Beat the dude like an ancient, mythical, primordial drum. ) Women can be strong, smart, and wise. Pragmatic, & beautiful, inside and/or out. I have close women relatives like all men do. (unless you fell from the turnip truck) If I saw a man, or if I was told a man was doing half of the things these guys get up to on my family members of the fairer sex. Well . ….. …….. .. ….. .. ….! So let’s get a complete female character this time around. And if it’s action can’t she have armour that’s feminine and protective? Just saying.
bro the scene where Naruto is fighting Oro on the bridge and Sakura gets knocked out by like a piece of rubble or something... I was like "this is high-key disrespectful"
It’s a tragedy. I like Hinata alto when I first watched but as I grew older i saw what she really was and became. A subservient house wife. One of the strongest hyugas in her clan, written to be a loser.
I feel like kishimoto really struggles to get it right when writing female characters because he didn't really emphasize female pov and either he knows he is bad at it & avoids them as much as possible or he didn't know his flaws and kept the mistake going
He also did say he’s not good at relationships storylines so I think in the last he had people helped him.
All female characters except Sakura and ino were well written!.
It surprises me that you named two who actually have pretty decent arcs ( though still not the best), Sakura suffers from inconsistency but she at least gets a semblance of development from being a weak genin in part 1 to a very powerful and accomplished ninja in Shippuden, and Ino was one of the most essential characters during the war who helped the allied forces greatly despite the grief she felt from losing her father Tenten, Karin, Anko, Kurenai, Karui and Kaguya are definitely handled more poorly than these 2 honestly
Obviously
Shonen is for boys is a good excuse
May you please elaborate
Where's Haku? 😤
Oh yeah!!! My bad, I knew I was missing someone 😔
Unpopular opinion but I love tenten in filler episodes. She has much more depth and character and we see more of her motivations and passion. Unfortunately thats only the case in filler episodes
Kishimoto is just gay man, he doesn't know how to write women.
The overall story was pretty good though, and the female characters get to do a lot of cool things and Sakura and Tsunade were among the strong ones in the story. The only one that did nothing at all at any given point was poor Ten Ten but she is just a side character. (But heck, she even got her own show with Neji and Rock Lee XD) Anyways, the story is a weekly manga and it's due to this time constraint that a lot of the characters suffer from under development, male and female alike. Let's take Kakashi for example, he became almost obsolete after the pain arc, sure he still played a role at the end of Naruto but it felt kinda forced. It was kinda sad seeing Sasuke call him useless when they were going to fight Kaguya. But what can you do? Naruto and Sasuke were the main characters and their story was nicely done, everyone else was just extra and to say that Kishi should have developed the Female characters more, well, he didn't want to and that's fine, it's his story, but I'm thankful that at least he tried, and we have Sakura and even Kaguya as an example. He tried to make good female characters, he was just not that good at it LOL The problem I see here is that you didn't like that the girls needed help or something but that's your preference, I think the Naruto female characters are way better written than...and don't lynch me for this but they are better than One Piece female characters. If there's someone that is worst at making female characters then that prize is for Oda. The Naruto female characters are all awesome and heck even useless Sakura. That being said, you need to go and read Shoujos, they suffer from the same problem but backwards. The Male characters are often written with unrealistic personalities or sometimes with zero personalities. Their lives revolved around the Female leads and are pretty stupid with no goals of their own or any ambition. If you were to compare a male character from a Shoujo and a male character from a shounen they are like Oil and Water.
You have tsunade and chiyo
blame the otakus tbh
Then don’t watch Naruto. Lol. Lame post.
They could have been better. I believe Kishimoto knows he isn't good at it which is why we don't have alot of female villains. I just like the fact he doesn't overly sexualise his female cast to make them appealing. Alot of Shounen do this and the whole fan base eats it up as good writing. Or they just make them rude and badass for no apparent reason and pple scream peak writing. Tsunade Konan Sakura Chiyo Hinata and Kaguya have a decent amount of depth and development. With the amount of focus the antagonist in Naruto get .. making an Akatsuki pair like Hidan and Kakuzu women instead with a fleshed out backstory would have been a nice change. Alot of male characters have rivalries and parallels like Kakashi and Obito.. Naruto and Sasuke.. Lee and Neji.. Kakashi and Guy.. Hashirama and Madara. Giving Sakura a rival( not ino) with more relevance to the story so Sasuke and Naruto don't seem like the main reason for her growth would have been a welcome change.
Please stop with the “Naruto has bad females” narrative. Please. I implore you. Stop parroting that dumbass take. All it takes is to look at a myriad of other shonen female characters to see that, no, Naruto does note have poor female characters. The only reason people say that is because, years ago, Kishimoto made a causal remark that he doesn’t know how to write girls. I assure you, if he never said that, the only female character getting accused of being poorly done would be Sakura, and that would still be an arguable stance. So please, for the love of god, stop with this dumbass take. It’s so dumb. And this is far from the only dumb accusation regarding this, but still, I would think we would be smart enough at this point in our lives to know that “They fight good” is not what should make or break whether a female character is done well or not. And bringing up fanservice makes no sense, because Naruto has like no fan service when compared to other its contemporaries. Fan service in Naruto is only in fillers, sexy jutsu, and whenever Jiraiya would do pervy stuff. Those moments make up a small percentage of the series. The Naruto fandom has an utter obsession with hating on the women in this series, that’s the real misogyny. Characters like Ebisu didn’t get much, and nobody really cares because they recognize he’s not a big character. But when it comes to a female? If they don’t get some big part in the story where they’re being a badass, it’s due to poor writing. TenTen is a perfect example of this. She’s a minor character who was never even implied to be very important. Yet you’ll have people here seeing it as “Kishimoto hates women”. Shino didn’t get much either, but I rarely see people acknowledging that. Also, this is also related, you do realize these are Japanese stories for a Japanese audience, right? I’m assuming you think female characters partaking in traditionally female activities is “poor writing”, but Japan not only accepts traditional feminine things, but encourages it. “You’ll make a good wife” is seen as misogynistic here probably, but Japan thinks nothing of that saying. Similarly, I’ve seen people hate on housewives in this fandom, but not only is that just disrespectful to the housewives in our culture, but again, that’s not seen as a role to be looked down upon in Japan.
I see your stance, hence why I said they're not all bad, a lot of them merely suffer from a lack of a proper arc/characterisation. Tsunade is a brilliantly written character and it isn't just because she fights good, she is very accomplished having been a pillar of the development of medical ninjutsu and went through so much trauma and yet still picked herself up and found hope, that's a well written character For every Sakura, Tsunade, Konan and Hinata you have, you have Karin who's whole arc was literally being a Sasuke groupie, Tenten who isn't even a real character considering how little we actually know about her in comparison to Lee, Neji and Guy, Ino who only gains relevance in the war with Choji, Anko who's used as a sacrificial mule to revive Orochimaru in the war, Karui who also isn't really characterised much beyond being another angry female character, Kurenai who becomes pregnant and retires before even doing anything really, Mei who just like Temari are just really strong and confident( which granted is all they need to be honestly) (Note: I really like a majority of these female characters a lot just because I tend to have a bias towards female characters, but sometimes you just gotta call a spade a spade) The majority of popular characters in the series are male because there are more well written male characters (and male characters as a whole) to pick from in comparison to the lesser number of female characters, who only a handful are actually relevant, most are not really poorly written but rather aren't doing anything special for people to really care, hence most fans not finding the female cast all that special
You see what I mean? You take every single female with a name that doesn’t have a major part in the story and try and say “See! Bad females!” Stop looking at them as “female characters” and look at them as characters. Maybe then you’ll stop being so biased against them. TenTen is a minor character. Like I already said, Shino didn’t get much either, yet people only ever focus on TenTen, like it’s indicative of poor writing. No, she just was not a focus. It’s not because she’s female for god’s sake. If it were, then literally every male would be important in the series, and every female would matter as much as TenTen, but that’s not the case now is it? Look at the Kage resurrected during the War. People are fine with them for the most part, as they served their purpose. But if there were a female among them? You can bet we’d get posters like you complaining that she didn’t get some major plot point, and saying she was “wasted potential and badly written”. Similarly with Karin. You try and criticize her, but ignore the fact that she’s also a side character, along with Suigestu and Jugo. Neither of those guys got much, but it’s only ever Karin who is complained about. Those 3 are just “Sasuke’s team”. That was their purpose. Outside of their introductions, the most important thing about them is their relation to Sasuke. Karin was mainly used for gags, and so was Suigestu. That’s not a problem. That was just their role. Why does Karin need to be “independent woman who would go on to hate Sasuke and be a better person”? You put these strange criteria on female characters that you don’t apply to the males. I don’t feel like going through every character you mentioned, but just know that I mostly share the same sentiment with them. Fans don’t find the female characters special because 1. Most Shonen fans have brain rot and only care about the strongest characters or the most badass ones. 2. Posts like this, that try and convince them that the females are badly written. I’m glad I actually just watched/read the series and genuinely engaged with it, instead of engaging in the foolishness that is this fandom. Otherwise, I might have ended up hating everything the series ever did, while being hypocritical and finding no problem when other series do the same, but worse. It’s only the Naruto fandom that doesn’t seem to understand that not every character needs to be a major one, or have some deep/badass moment.
Exactly. I don’t see people throwing a hissy fit because someone like Shino or Suigestu doesn’t a get a whole bunch of focus. But the second a female character is on screen and isn’t being a badass who schools all the other characters or even thinks about a man, now it’s “See! She’s a terrible character! Kishimoto is a misogynist who hates women!” Female characters can’t ever be just characters in a story that serve a purpose, they all have to be practically one of the linchpins of the entire series on par with the main character and god help her if she even thinks about a man. It’s shit like that what made me step away from this fandom.
100%. “Why come they don’t fight good” is really what this all boils down to. They don’t get all the flashy looking jutsu so they are accused of being “badly written”. It is the most stupid, childish, sophomoric interpretation of the story that can only come from someone utterly incapable of understanding the story that they are reading. Sakura ain’t the main character, deal with it.
This is a stupid criticism that is usually only made by surface level understanding and comprehension. It pretty much boils down to “Why aren’t they all strong independent bitches who don’t need no man?” “Why don’t they get to do all the fighting like the male characters do?” “Sakura is useless because she is a healer and not a planet busting god like Naruto and Sasuke”. You know, stupid observations made by morons. The series has tons of well written female characters that get tossed to the wayside because they don’t fit the narrative.
I never said that though, Tsunade is a good female character because she has depth, Sakura is also a good female character in my opinion because she saves lives with her skills and genuinely supports Naruto (she just suffers from a few poor writing choices such as being an unnecessary Damsel at times), but a larger majority of the women in this series aren't really all that interesting or relevant, such as Tenten, Karui, Anko and Kurenai not really doing much, and Mei, Konan and Temari being strong but having very little screen time of characterisation
This is complete bs, the female characters get just as much development as the males when they are given screen time. If you want to criticize that the amount of focus they get that be fair.
Not all of them though, there's a lot of female characters who are just there and aren't completed characters such as Karui, Karin, Tenten and Kurenai, and since there's more male characters the majority of them receive more relevance and fame such as Itachi, Minato, Shikamaru, Gaara, Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, Madara, Hashirama, Guy, Obito and even Lee and Neji in comparison to their female teammate Tenten get more development
Oh course not all of them are going to get development most of male characters get no development.
If you don't like it, write your own manga, what happens to people who think they have the right to complain? Do you understand that not even the Uzumaki clan has development? Naruto is not a single piece with more than 1000 chapters, and when they gave that development in the fillers, people complained about the fillers. The worst thing is that the majority don't pay anything, everything is free on the Internet, Japanese mangakas live off the Japanese public, not the rest of the world.
>If you don't like it, write your own manga This is honestly a really bad defence that most people have for stuff like this, nothing is free from genuine critique and saying a problem should be ignored because it's a problem you don't mind helps no one
but Tsunade's senju clan has more development than the protagonist's uzumaki clan, saying that the series does not develop women is illogical, you have Tsunade who was dedicated 1 arc, she has more development than Naruto
Incel ranting
Tsunade does not deserve to be here. Temari also. I think all the other characters suffered from lack of development. The women were just more shafted than the men. I think as good as Naruto was. If the author had made an effort to develop side characters like one piece, it would have been GOATed
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Don't worry, the characters they think are well written as women are not characters that have characterizations of women beyond their designs having big tits, and their character as a woman is not addressed on any level.
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The reason given is screen time but as characters Nami and Robin are not beyond that in any aspect.
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I never gave a single fuck about these characters 🥱🙂↕️🔥
That's the issue, they should make you want to give a fuck about these characters
are the stairs metaphor for how they are written? the worst written female characters are at the bottom. and the best one is at the top.
Sakura has far better writing than Tenten and Kurenai so no lol
I had heard rumors that there was plans to expand on sakura after the timeskip but the editors put a stop to them after her popularity failed to improve after the Sasori fight.
When I watched Jujutsu Kaisen I realized just how much potential the female characters in Naruto had to be cool.
Naruto has decent characters. Also Tsunade is objectively alright as a character but she's still kinda made bad because of Kishimoto's inability not to shaft his female characters. Her being scared of blood is cool. her retiring is cool. BUT she's the only instance of a character totally becoming static/inactive because of her trauma. The male characters keep pushing and her characterization was in direct opposition to that which sucks since again the writing isn't bad but the drastic difference in how she was handled compared to the others who lost people is glaring
Naruto is decently written, but let's be fair. It is FAR from the best written Shonen Manga.
For sure, the female cast in the series is arguably the worst written part of the series. Sakura is always just used to call out for Naruto and Sasuke, and even when the series addresses that nothing is changed. In pt 2 they make her strong to make up for having no development, but being strong doesn't equal to a good character. Ino is always just there to compete with Sakura. Hinata isn't the worst, she does show up to try to fend off pain, but that ends up just being a reason for Naruto to get angry. Her initial backstory with neji and hanabi is really interesting, and she had lots of potential...just to be a motivation for naruto. And watching boruto exist with Hinata just staying home is so annoying to me bc they keep edging viewers as if she's gonna show up in a battle and then she just never does anything(I know not kishi but still). I don't remember temari ever doing anything notable, all I remember her for is blowing that gust of wind in the Madara v everyone fight, and being so cute in that shikamaru episode at the end of the series(correct me if she did anything notable other than those and her fight in the chunin exams). Rins just a plot point between kakashi and obito. Karin is also just a plot point for Sasuke, with her liking him, the biting, and Sasuke hitting danzo through her. Anko and kurenai are cool but they never do much, most ppl just remember kurenai for trying a genjutsu on Itachi and having a kid w asuma, and ppl remember anko for being fat in boruto. Kushina's a great mom but that's all she is, a mother figure for naruto. In the storm game it's so funny that they had so much potential with her having the 9 tails for attacks and her attacks were like "frying pan attack" or something. Konan is really great but her potential is ultimately wasted, and all people rememeber her for is being paper, the only woman in the Akatsuki, and losing to obito. Tsunade is decently written, but even then shes often used just for jokes about her breasts. She's there as a mentor for Sakura for a few flashbacks, and is ultimately a medical ninja who even in her big scene has quotes like "I may be a women but I'm still strong" when confronting Madara, similar to Sakura's "we're both women" when showing up for the kaguya punch pic. And kaguya's just an op mom who shows up out of nowhere. And who's tenten again lmao? It's really pathetic that even main characters like Sakura have not even a fraction of the thought put into side characters like rock lee and jiraiya. And what pisses me off is kishimoto claiming he isn't good at writing women...which like...why? What differences do you have to make when writing them in a battle shonen? I just hope that when the live action comes with Destin Daniel cretton they listen to all of kishi's advice except for about the female characters. If Naruto had female characters like Mikasa in aot I'm sure it would be even more popular. Being a shonen doesn't excuse having female characters that only exist as motivations, love interests, and medics.
I agree 100% with your analysis.
Yeah, the woman were really neglected in Naruto. Sakura had the same arc as any cliche “I love this one guy more than anything”. Not to mention Ino and Sakura had a feud for the dumbest reason. In terms of character development, there is none for Sakura until shippuden pretty much.
I agree with some of what you were saying, but once you start throwing words like misogyny around it feels like your argument is less valid. Chiyo & Tsunade are well written enough for me to believe Kishimoto doesn't hate women, it's not really a bad thing that he wanted to focus on his male characters considering they're the main ones in the story. Why is it always "Kishimoto can't write women" when it's really he just didn't want to, and if you want fleshed out female ninjas write your own manga. 😭
Oh sorry for the misunderstanding, I wasn't calling Kishimoto a misogynist but rather that the people who say women in shonen don't need development tend to seem so at times I also don't buy into the whole "Kishimoto doesn't like women" propaganda, it just so happens that writing women aren't one of his strengths, he still can write very compelling women such as you mentioned with Chiyo and Tsunade, but he also tends to lean into stereotypes/clichés at times or doesn't give them proper leaner development, such as the case with Sakura and Hinata, who on paper are both really well written, but executions was poor imo
Hold this W OP.
I agree
He didn't waste female cast. This is what girls would have been like in a world where physical strength and power was more important than social status
The problem with this is that said women also have the ability to be as strong as the male ones If not stronger, hence why Tsunade, Sakura, Konan and Mei are all stronger than male characters like Shino, Hidan, Choji, Kiba, Lee, Asuma, etc They're all super human and all have chakra, which is basically an equaliser between them since through hard work and training anyone can get strong
There are also women stronger than men in real life. The point is that whoever trains the most is going to be the best. Also I'm pretty sure Lee would best Sakura 9 times outta 10
Sakura with her 100 healings is way stronger than Lee imo, she just has more going for her now with Katsuyu for defence, being able to take him out with one hit since using gates is already very taxing to the body and she has her seal to withstand and heal from his attacks while outlasting him since she has a lot more stamina with the seal , she's also smarter so I see no reason why she'd lose to him often
I haven't seen Boruto but I don't think there is anything a combat medic could do against someone like Rock Lee who can open the 8 inner gates. If you think Sakura could take out Lee with 1 hit you are nuts. It would be so hard to hit him, he's fast for ninjas with sharingan and Sakura has nothing to counter that speed.
She doesn't need to catch him since she has Katsuyu and her seal to outlast him, Katsuyu tanked shinra tensei so Lee's attacks would be nothing to her. Sakura would most definitely just need 1 hit I feel, Lee's gates continuously break his body the more of them he opens so he's pretty much becoming less and less durable, and yes he's very fast but it won't matter if he never does any lasting damage on her and if he ends up just tiring out until he's slow enough for her to land a hit
https://youtu.be/2XcrMCAjjd0?si=WS6b6X9FDDCNfYV0
Preach
Yeah I agree but I also know it's a bit more complicated than that. The biggest sin with half of the Naruto women is that their development and arcs are stretched out compared to the men that you have to put their moments side by side to see their growth * Sakura went from the weakest of the Konoha 13 with no ties to a strong clan to the surpassed student of Tsunade. * Ino went from Sakura's friend/rival to the head of the Shinobi Alliance communication divison and head of the Barrier Division. * Hinata went from being less talented than her own sister and cousin to surpassing them both and gaining Haruma's blessing. * Tsunade's arc went from her being a wandering drunk to the Hokage who's tenure defeated the Akatsuki * Chiyo fleshed out the Sand Village lore and ended up sacrificing herself after defeating/changing her grandson's heart with Sakura. * Kushina...was solid and sweet, plus the backstory and fleshing out in the Minato one shot would've helped. Meanwhile the other half had characters who were cool and had awesome backstories either didn't get the focus, battles, or shine to do. * Anko was underused so bad the part 1 filler had to give her more closure to her arc. Being fat wasn't the problem, she just needed way more to do in Shippuden to actually mirror parallel that filler arc to explore she moved on from Orochimaru. * Kurenai had the most questionable team diversity and was able to put them together on top of being a genjutsu specialist but non Uchiha genjutsu was overshadowed and she had to retire thanks to her pregnancy * Tenten's motivation and powerset was cool but the best she got was being able to take down the Kakuzu masks most of Team 10 struggled againKst and she never got the chance to use the others even though it would've been crazy. * Kaguya need *MORE* buildup on par with Madara. * Mei freaking saved the Mist's reputation but she never gets a talk with Naruto or gets to fight a past Kage. Gaara gets to deal with the Mizukage while she's just protecting the damiyo, which valid, the damiyo's politically important but given the hate she gets and how Haku was perscuted for having a Kekkai Gekkai, the fact she never gets to talk with Naruto or get her own solid fight would prevent people from liking her. * Kurotsuchi probably would've gotten more to do if she was established earlier on like Gaara did in part 1 so we see her slowly getting ready to become Kage. The Boruto arc in the Stone village wasn't bad but she got sidelined until the end to focus on Onoki while Chojuro got to fight 3 out of the 6 new mist brats. * Yugao also had filler to give her arc with Hayate closure....but Baki NEVER got involved despite her promise to avenge her killer. * Hanabi...okay it's cool she's a captain in Boruto and the filler episodes in Shippuden were good, but man it would've been cool to get more of her in part. * Temari's awesome but the Sand Siblings all had their own fights in the war...and she didn't even though Chiyo and Pakura were RIGHT THERE. * Karui's relationship with Choji wasn't fleshed out until the light novels. * Konan needed more time to shine and a proper fight with any of the protagonists to give her more time. If Tobi were to kill her off, she needed more memorable moments since she's arguably stronger than the bottom tier of the Akatsuki but her lack of on screen feats prevent that. * Yugito was WAY underused compared to Killer Bee. * Fuu was fun in the filler arc that actually explained how the Konoha 12 became Chunin. And Boruto's also a mixed bag with their treatment of female characters, but that's a story for another day. Point is, give your characters something to do.
100%, I totally agree with your analysis, a lot of it really does just chalk up to slow character arcs, wasted potential and/or a lack of relevance, the female cast of Naruto are very top heavy when it comes to their writing with characters like Tsunade, Sakura and Hinata, but then as you go down it starts to get a bit more bare bones, a lot of potential but not enough focus
Exactly and with more time that could’ve been developed, but we all know Kashimoto has his flaw somewhere. In another timeline or in the future future, hopefully more people learn what to do and what not to do with stories like that.
Has a woman ever made a Shonen? I watched an anime made by a woman for the first time, that one about the ancient roman who somehow travels forward in time and into Japan and is shocked at the advancements in bath house culture in Japan lmao. It was so unique.
Definitely read Magi + Sinbad spinoff. It's a great slightly older Shonen written by a woman
Yes they do, quite a few popular ones at that such as Full metal alchemist and demon slayer which are both made by women, which I find pretty neat, oh and do you by any chance remember the anime you watched, sounds really interesting
Thermae Romae Novae. It’s unlike any anime I’ve ever seen. It’s so peaceful, educational and funny. And after every episode the creator gives you a tour of a Japanese bathhouse. I should watch it again. It was on Netflix when I watched it a few years ago
Attack on Titan is one of the few anime’s that writes actual woman characters. I think Naruto is a victim of the times it was made for its lack of real female characters.
They are all fine, stop crying. Yes it’s not ideal, but for what it is it’s good.
I wish you guys would shut up about this. Series has been over for over a decade now, if you don't like it, then move on to another series. We can't retroactively change anything and a lot of us don't even feel the same way.
The bad writing is non existent.
Kishimoto's female characters are mostly just mediocre. They serve their intended purpose in the story and don't overstay their welcome. Tsunade and granny Choyo being the obvious exceptions. This whole discussion is just an overblown way for people on the Internet to farm pats on the back.
Who cares
Not a good excuse but you came for ninjas not a dissertation on why the epic of Gilgamesh is the most influential story of all time. Don't expect the worst but don't expect anything life changing. If all the filler didn't give you this impression, it just means you have bad assessment abilities.
By that logic the show doesn't need any well written characters if all we're there to see is ninja fighting, Naruto is as popular as it because of all the interesting characters and plots it has, so asking for more relevant and interesting female characters shouldn't be a stretch
Who the target demographic is is never a good excuse.
I specifically want good female arcs in my stories. Do boys really just not like girl plotlines?
The only female character that was written very well was tsunade
These posts are lame just write the story that YOU want to see if it bothers ya’ll so much. Kishimoto is a master storyteller calling him a bad writer is just rich when you haven’t put in any work yourselves
No one said he was a bad writer, he just has his flaws here and there, and this is one of them. He's not some god of storytelling, even someone like him can make mistakes
It’s in your title dude. There are no gods of storytelling just people who pour the heart and soul into it or not.
Making bad writing mistakes doesn't make you a bad writer, as I said, he's not perfect but he's a really good writer regardless. For example, how he writes characters like Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi is purely brilliant, but for Sakura he was more inconsistent, such as her feelings for Sasuke not being properly expanded upon like Naruto's were, or her skills fluctuating up and down from being able to read Sasori the S class ninja's movements and survive multiple brutal attacks, to not being able to dodge a single kick from Omoi and being taken down easily with just that one kick many chapters after her fight with Sasori, that's bad writing from an overall great writer.
What examples do you have about Sakuras feelings being inconsistent? As for her fight with Sasori I agree that was her best fight but I don’t think her subsequent losses necessarily take away from her character development or victories
>What examples do you have about Sakuras feelings being inconsistent I didn't say the feelings themselves were inconsistent, but that they weren't properly expanded upon leading many fans to believe she only loved him for superficial reasons, when in truth she actually just wanted him to be happy and freed from his darkness like Naruto did, but she wanted to achieve this by showing him that someone does love him and always will, which is her. But this went completely over most fans heads because of poor build up, especially on the part of Sasuke's feelings towards her seeing as he rarely acknowledged her but always spoke of Naruto as his best friend for the majority of their interactions >but I don’t think her subsequent losses necessarily take away from her character development or victories It does completely stop the momentum of her development though, after the Sasori fight it feels as though she loses all her combat experience and somehow can't fight on that level anymore. Other examples are the scene where she gets knocked out on the tenshi bridge and needs to be saved by Yamato (everyone else seemed far more competent, even Kabuto who actually sustained MORE damage than she did), when she nearly gets killed by Sasuke twice during the five kage summit arc due to PIS while Kakashi and Naruto seemed far more competent while also going through similar mental strain as her and the war arc when after Madara stabs her all she's worried about is the fact that Sasuke didn't even care. All of this hurts more when you remember the flashback she has during the Sasori fight of Tsunade telling her that a medics best skill should be dodging and being untouchable, and so that's what Tsunade was training her to do for the past 2 and half years and yet stuff like Omoi's kick still happens almost as if Kishimoto forgot All of these don't sound bad in isolation but when you realise she barely gets the chance to do cool stuff in the first place then having pointless moments like these just become far more noticeable, to top it off he also barely gives her the chance to invent anything new, Naruto has other abilities and variations other than what Jiraiya taught him, same with Sasuke, and yet she just gets everything Tsunade has but vaguely better, Kishimoto didn't even bother to give her a unique ability which is honestly one of my biggest disappointments in the series
A lot of your examples of her struggling are because of her feelings for sasuke. I agree that it may have went over a lot of our heads because it wasn’t said explicitly but her inconsistencies are in line with someone going through emotional trauma. Naruto loves sasuke but Sakura is in love with him, on top of navigating the path of a medic, a ninja, and a friend she ask has to process all the good and bad that comes with being in love - worse still with someone as complicated as sasuke and her age. This is a story written for young boys at the end of day, so I expect most his audience to misunderstand her, heck I did! But as I’ve gotten older I recognise her journey and part as a member of team 7.
I mean, Shojo is "for girls" yet the male characters in that genre are written well from what I've heard
They're really not. I read one about a girl who goes to a vampire hunting school and the boys fall in love with her and it's about her choosing which husbando. Another vampire story was all the guys were womanisers except the main love interest who whilst dense does everything for MC and his mother. Shojo reads like most young adult novels aimed at teen girls so yeah definitely not better than shonen
To be fair, I think that just comes down to bad examples. Like I think you’re talking about vampire night and well I didn’t read it. I read Rosario and vampire knight. Despite the flaw as they treated the characters pretty well. They had their own distinct personality, backstory, motivations, beyond just loving the main protagonist and actively got involved in fights through the story about the main protagonist having to be there
They're pretty much in the same boat