Romance & Society in Naruto

[ace17]

i agree with u guys and i just dont understand how shounen mangas can have a really high sense of violence but not romance u c ppl getting stabbed and get beating to a pulp but no romantic interaction whatsoever i personally like romance in action stories but i think kishi just doesnt want to touch subject any deeper which hurts the overall story

[THM Nindo]

I think that Kishi doesn't want to have too much romance, because it would change the focus of the manga.

In the beginning, the story was the story of a young ninja going through hardship to become Hokage and be acknowledged by everyone.
In part 2, it became the story of a young ninja going through hardship to "save" his best friend from the cycle of hatred and revenge.

The story is NOT about a young ninja in love.
And I feel that Kishi thinks that adding a love story will seem to weaken the ultimate goal of Naruto.

If we see Naruto flirting with Sakura or Hinata, or stuff like that, that means that he's "forgetting" Sasuke and his quest to save him.

----

There would be hundreds of ways to introduced a love story without changing the focus, but there are already a lot of people more interested in the NaruHina romance than in the NaruSasu Bromance/Friendship.

And I think Kishi doesn't want it to go any further than that.

To enjoy his manga the way he wants us to enjoy it, we need to be 100% invested in the relation between Naruto and Sasuke.

[Jammin]

I think that Kishi doesn't want to have too much romance, because it would change the focus of the manga.

In the beginning, the story was the story of a young ninja going through hardship to become Hokage and be acknowledged by everyone.
In part 2, it became the story of a young ninja going through hardship to "save" his best friend from the cycle of hatred and revenge.

The story is NOT about a young ninja in love.
And I feel that Kishi thinks that adding a love story will seem to weaken the ultimate goal of Naruto.

If we see Naruto flirting with Sakura or Hinata, or stuff like that, that means that he's "forgetting" Sasuke and his quest to save him.

----

There would be hundreds of ways to introduced a love story without changing the focus, but there are already a lot of people more interested in the NaruHina romance than in the NaruSasu Bromance/Friendship.

And I think Kishi doesn't want it to go any further than that.

To enjoy his manga the way he wants us to enjoy it, we need to be 100% invested in the relation between Naruto and Sasuke.

I can buy that as a possible motive; although I think that whole line of reasoning is deeply flawed.

The reason I say that is, if the primary goal is to focus on Naruto/Sasuke, they need to be maintained as relatable and understandable as individuals or the whole experience falls apart (which it kinda has for me lately). And I would argue distancing a character from his sense of love and everything that comes with it diminishes audience connection with the characters. Which serves to detract from the Naruto/Sasuke narrative rather than add to it.

I could understand wanting to keep the characters simple but the removal of a defining characteristic of people who are Naruto and Sasuke's age is something that I would say goes beyond simplification and undermines them as relatable characters. Because "love" is a basic motivating factor for people and something almost everyone can empathize with.

-------------------------------------------

Take action/adventure movies and books for example; or the cartoons Jessie brought up.

Even though those are most often not love stories. Love is, more often than not, a part of them. The reason for this is that through characters loving each other the audience gains a deeper connection to those characters. If done well, whatever kind of story is being told, the presence of a romance subplot strengthens the audience's ties to the characters; which in turn strengthens the story as a whole.

[Brill]

I don't think Kishi wants to think of his younger characters dating and being involved with each other. It is just a hang-up with him. He will throw hints out there, but has a major problem progressing anything or letting things get too close between characters.

Naruto and Sakura were developing a serious relationship and then Kishi stopped it. Now we are on a path toward NaruHina and SasuSaku. Which is fine for Kishi since Sakura cannot interact with Sasuke and progress any relationship. She can only love and interact with a picture. And Hinata has no romantic interaction with Naruto. We still have no clue if Naruto even has feelings for Hinata. So the "romance" is very impersonal and antiseptic.

Naruto and Sakura were developing a serious relationship? Where? I saw a house of cards being built but no foundation. NaruHina has always been a subtle relationship missing all the flare and antics of the others- then again, you don't go 6-tails over a nobody. As for SakuSasu that may happen but will never be palatable. Kishi uses romantic relationships to establish and direct characters. Sakura is only pursuing Sasuke because she loves him, otherwise you could have removed her entirely. Hinata's focus of self-improvement is only to be recognized by and to protect Naruto. Without that she would fall into obscurity like the remaining classmates. Kishi also uses romance to make stereotypical third wheels like Ino and Rock Lee, but he does nothing with them except to introducing the conceprt which is just a waste in my book. He uses romance to give traits to his characters rather than making them storylines.

It's an interesting line of thought.

The whole way the series has really avoided tackling love/relationships seems bizarre to me, and try as I might to understand the reasons behind it, I really just don't get it. Naruto is by no means the only series that avoids that stuff like the plague either. One Piece and Bleach do the same thing to one degree or another.

It's very surprising to me to see such an integral part of characters pushed aside. as if to say "We don't want to deal with this". Shounen always seems to gravitate toward friendship but often seems to me like they are afraid to really get into the concept of young love. They occasionally build up such things but almost never will they take the leap and let things actually move along.

-----------------------------------------------

Perhaps their reasoning is that "If we delve into romance it will make our manga seem girly." or "Young boys aren't really interested in that stuff". That would just be plain silly. Almost every Disney movie ever made had a romance aspect. The same is true of almost every successful superhero comic.

I am just deeply confused at how a writer can think avoiding a huge aspect of being a teenager makes his teenage characters in any way better.

Well do most shounen titles delve into romance? They really don't. Why? Because they don't fit the mold. Most shounen titles are energetic, upbeat series. The ones that have romance are the tragic titles like Inuyasha, Claymore, or Ruroni Kenshin. Romance sticks to a tragic hero like flies stick to crap. They can't avoid stepping into it. Look at Claymore. Claire is the perfect tragic heroine on her road to revenge while Raki is her pillar to keep her human. Full Metal Panic. Sosuke is a tragically clueless military maniac yet he rallies to protect Kaname from all dangers (yes it's technically a comedy). Fairy Tail, the only major romance is the tragic romance between Ezra and Jerard (sp?). Cage of Eden is an environmental tragedy where a classmate dies every other chapter, yet middleschoolers still have time for romance. Do you see any tragic characters in Hunter x Hunter (well, there is Kirapica but he isn't getting any)? In Soul Eater or Blue Exorcist, Bleach or One Piece? No, they're all really average normal individuals, no tragedy there. Does Naruto have any tragic people? Not really, even Orochimaru and Nagato can be explained off as having a rationale for their behavior. So Naruto doesn't lend itself to tragic romances nor does it lead to happy dating scenarios. It's ninja school, not a slice-of-life high school which is where you see most romantic storylines play out. So while romance may be a thing for teenagers and American cartoons it's not really a topic taken on seriously by shounen titles. Some authors do play at it but most don't. So shounen and romance typically don't go hand in hand. I can be done but Kishi has decided not to play that game which is why we don't have much to say about it in this thread.

[THM Nindo]

To go back to the original goal of that thread (which is to talk about Romance and society in Naruto)...

We can't put aside the fact that the romance might not have the same importance in a ninja society.
I mean... they are not like us.

They enter the academy at a young age (some even at 4-5 years old) and learn how to fight and kill other people.
They are taught to have no emotion (remember Sakura reciting the ninja code when she thinks Sasuke is dead in part 1?).

Some of them become emotionless killer machine, so love is not an option.
Actually, in this world, it really seems like love is not an option for a ninja...

Look at the unmarried couple we know of:
Minato-Kushina : Both died
Asuma-Kurenai : Asuma died
Hayate-Yuugao : Hayate died
Dan-Tsunade : Dan died
Yahiko-Konan : Yahiko died, and Konan died years later

The Shinobi know that they can die in any mission.
And they are taught to sacrifice themselves for the good of the mission.

So, it's understandable that they put romance aside.

So, we can really compared them to regular teenagers...

PS: Yes, like every teenager, Naruto most likely wonders what's under Sakura's and Hinata's clothes, but that's just hormones.

[Kay3795]

To go back to the original goal of that thread (which is to talk about Romance and society in Naruto)...

We can't put aside the fact that the romance might not have the same importance in a ninja society.
I mean... they are not like us.

They enter the academy at a young age (some even at 4-5 years old) and learn how to fight and kill other people.
They are taught to have no emotion (remember Sakura reciting the ninja code when she thinks Sasuke is dead in part 1?).

Some of them become emotionless killer machine, so love is not an option.
Actually, in this world, it really seems like love is not an option for a ninja...

Look at the unmarried couple we know of:
Minato-Kushina : Both died
Asuma-Kurenai : Asuma died
Hayate-Yuugao : Hayate died
Dan-Tsunade : Dan died
Yahiko-Konan : Yahiko died, and Konan died years later

The Shinobi know that they can die in any mission.
And they are taught to sacrifice themselves for the good of the mission.

So, it's understandable that they put romance aside.

So, we can really compared them to regular teenagers...

PS: Yes, like every teenager, Naruto most likely wonders what's under Sakura's and Hinata's clothes, but that's just hormones.

Ninja or non ninja, shinobi or non shinobi, u still breath the same air we do, u still produce babies like we do, still reason with logic like we do, still emotional like we are. Once u come to understand this fact, u'll know that love/romance not being a part of the story is unrealistic story telling.
Since Kishi has already designed his characters to produce all these nomal things we humans do, it becames rather apparent that Romance is a must have for the story irrespective of what Kishi even thinks.

You said ninja are trained to masked their emotions unlike the real world but I see instances of this occurrence happening in the real world yet those hardened battle veterans still have emotions and they still produce babies(lol) and reason with logic. People as young as even 6year old children are forced to witness the deaths of their parents and loved once.

One one the reasons i love Naruto is really the fact that it's close to what actually happens in the real world(minus romance and someother things)

THE FACT THAT THERE'S NO PROPER ROMANCE DEVELOPMENT IS INEXCUSABLE!!!

[Jammin]

To go back to the original goal of that thread (which is to talk about Romance and society in Naruto)...

We can't put aside the fact that the romance might not have the same importance in a ninja society.
I mean... they are not like us.

They enter the academy at a young age (some even at 4-5 years old) and learn how to fight and kill other people.
They are taught to have no emotion (remember Sakura reciting the ninja code when she thinks Sasuke is dead in part 1?).

Some of them become emotionless killer machine, so love is not an option.
Actually, in this world, it really seems like love is not an option for a ninja...

Look at the unmarried couple we know of:
Minato-Kushina : Both died
Asuma-Kurenai : Asuma died
Hayate-Yuugao : Hayate died
Dan-Tsunade : Dan died
Yahiko-Konan : Yahiko died, and Konan died years later

The Shinobi know that they can die in any mission.
And they are taught to sacrifice themselves for the good of the mission.

So, it's understandable that they put romance aside.

So, we can really compared them to regular teenagers...

PS: Yes, like every teenager, Naruto most likely wonders what's under Sakura's and Hinata's clothes, but that's just hormones.

If you love somebody and you find out that one of you might die how do you react? That wouldn't cause me to put up emotional walls so much as add the sense of urgency and get me thinking things like "If I don't tell ____ I love her now, I may never get the chance.". Isn't that just the standard human reaction to such things?

To add to that Naruto has always been about bonds. Friendship and love aren't so different from a practical standpoint. If one isn't avoided why would the other be?

Plus, the process of killing emotion comes at the price of humanity. The land of waves arc addressed that with Zabuza. So shinobi in the narutoverse try and control emotion rather than avoid it. Sure sometimes this leads to tragedy but to quote an old cliché....

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."

- Alfred Tennyson

-------------------------------------------------

One thing i would like to make clear is that the hormonal/sexual side of love means absolutely nothing to me as far Naruto goes because that part doesn't carry much, if any, narrative value.

The value is in the process of lovers realizing their feelings for one another, letting the audience make a part of that bond their own, and use that to reinforce the quality of both the characters and the story. Nothing draws an audience in like a pair of characters falling in love with one another.

[Kisame Hoshigaki]

Hah isn't Tsunade a bit old for him? He probably wants children (surprised he doesn't have any considering the kage title seems to be passed down through family in his village)?

are you implying that tsunade's hokage eggs are no longer fertile???!!!

im sure she would be able to give birth however after seeing the spirit of dan i doubt she could fall for anyone else

[Jessie]

*sigh* Seeing Dan rush over to Tsunade in spirit form and kiss reminds us that Kishi can write romance. As long as someone in the couple is dead.

I was all for Jiraiya x Tsunade being a tragic love, but seeing how much Tsunade and Dan loved each other made me realize that never could have worked out. I guess Dan and Tsunade will have the afterlife


It is amazing how much better the anime can be with couples than Kishi. This week in the anime Temari and Shikamaru acted like an old married couple. Something that should of happened more in the manga during the war And you know when Naruto saves Hinata later in the war, the anime is going to add a lot to that scene. It just feels like Kishi is holding back.

[Brill]

Or he just chooses not to do it. Which is par for the course. Kishi can write a scene for a developed romance, he just can't write a sceme for a developing romance. And truth be told, the anime staff can't either. They just put more of the same antics in it. While it's entertaining, it's not really development.

[Kisame Hoshigaki]

does anyone still really believe that naru x sakura is a possibility??

i mean if you watch the anime, there are certain elements that hint towards some romance between them, but in the manga (which actually counts) there doesnt seem to be the same romantic connection

but the way naruto looked back at hinata and remembered her trying to save him from pain, tells me naruto has began to have reciprocated feelings for hinata

[Jammin]

does anyone still really believe that naru x sakura is a possibility??

i mean if you watch the anime, there are certain elements that hint towards some romance between them, but in the manga (which actually counts) there doesnt seem to be the same romantic connection

but the way naruto looked back at hinata and remembered her trying to save him from pain, tells me naruto has began to have reciprocated feelings for hinata

I personally think the chance is next to nil.

To be honest, I still don't read that scene as any real growth in Naruto's feeling for Hinata but it doesn't matter. Because in the scene were she was rushing toward Naruto's showdown with Tobi she's steeled her resolve to tackle him and pry an answer out of Naruto's thick skull. When she does that there is just no way he's going to go "uh no, but we can still be friends." Kishimoto can not, and is not, going to do that. He can't build her up like he has and then pointlessly rip her heart out.

In my opinion, Hinata and Naruto is happening and that is set in stone. Nothing short of Hinata dying is going to stop it at this point(and that's not going to happen either)

--------------------------------------------

To be clear I still like the idea of NarutoXSakura better but it seems to me like the wind is just not blowing that direction.

[Kisame Hoshigaki]

I personally think the chance is next to nil.

To be honest, I don't still don't read that scene as any real growth in Naruto's feeling for Hinata but it doesn't matter. Because in the scene were she was rushing toward Naruto's showdown with Tobi she's steeled her resolve to tackle him and pry an answer out of Naruto's thick skull. When she does that there is just no way he's going to go "uh no, but we can still be friends." Kishimoto can not, and is not, going to do that. He can't build her up like he has and then pointlessly rip her heart out.

In my opinion, Hinata and Naruto is happening and that is set in stone. Nothing short of Hinata dying is going to stop it at this point(and that's not going to happen either)

--------------------------------------------

To be clear I still like the idea of NarutoXSakura better but it seems to me like the wind is just not blowing that direction.

well i believe sakura had plenty of chances to win naruto's heart, hell he practically begged her for a date at times

but hinata has always admired naruto, since way before he was a hero, and part of me does want naruto to have the woman he desires, however i agree that it is clear as day that naruto x hina is a given at this point. and honestly i am glad it will turn out that way

[Brill]

does anyone still really believe that naru x sakura is a possibility??

Sure, anything is possible, but is it likely? 1 year ago several people believed it was still a strong possibility. Now, only a few hold-outs remain.

i mean if you watch the anime, there are certain elements that hint towards some romance between them, but in the manga (which actually counts) there doesnt seem to be the same romantic connection.

The anime staff can do whatever it wants. It's not bound to follow the manga. It typically does to keep the fanbase happy but it goes off on it's own tangents when it feels like it. Two months ago the anime staff had Naruto declare his unrequitted love for Sakura to a complete stranger before making it to Turtle Island. Where was that in the cannon? It wasn't, but the staff did it anyway. If Naruto eventually does declare feelings for Hinata is some weird way the anime staff is going to look pretty stupid for doing that. They're gonna have to backpeddle greatly to explain the 180 degree turn.

but the way naruto looked back at hinata and remembered her trying to save him from pain, tells me naruto has began to have reciprocated feelings for hinata

It's something. For Naruto to say "it's all in your eyes" is not something Naruto would say. It's a moment, no smoking gun but it helps lay the foundation for something more substantive down the road. Time will tell.

[Kisame Hoshigaki]

Sure, anything is possible, but is it likely? 1 year ago several people believed it was still a strong possibility. Now, only a few hold-outs remain.



The anime staff can do whatever it wants. It's not bound to follow the manga. It typically does to keep the fanbase happy but it goes off on it's own tangents when it feels like it. Two months ago the anime staff had Naruto declare his unrequitted love for Sakura to a complete stranger before making it to Turtle Island. Where was that in the cannon? It wasn't, but the staff did it anyway. If Naruto eventually does declare feelings for Hinata is some weird way the anime staff is going to look pretty stupid for doing that. They're gonna have to backpeddle greatly to explain the 180 degree turn.



It's something. For Naruto to say "it's all in your eyes" is not something Naruto would say. It's a moment, no smoking gun but it helps lay the foundation for something more substantive down the road. Time will tell.

yes that moment , in my mind confirmed , at least to some extent that naruto has some sort of feelings for hinata

i know this isnt a "romance" story, but i am happy naruto will wind up with a girl like hinata