Question Are the main characters regressing?

CBlitz · Jan 20, 2010

By main characters I'm referring to Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. By regressing, I mean in terms of character development. This is really apparent in Sasuke's character, yet there are subtle hints in both Sakura and Naruto as well. Sasuke went from a calm cool-headed thinker to reckless whiny brat. Sakura had some small development in the Chuunin exams, HORRIBLE "development" (if you could call it that) when she confessed to Sasuke. She became a lot better after the timeskip but exclusively for the first arc lol. Than she became useless again for no apparent reason until Kishi decided to "develop" her by having her go after Sasuke. Naruto pisses me off the most since he went from HOT-BLOODED GAR to pathetic sniveling wimp in one friggin arc. All three at this point are not making admirable choices nor are acting like their traditional archetypes as the main characters. Usually characters grow in terms of maturity exponentially as the series goes on, but Kishi seems to be pulling an Evangelion over here with these 3. It looks like they already peaked with their development a while ago and are now deteriorating, perhaps they're even worse off than when they were first introduced. I'll be really happy if Kishi does go the Eva route and turns them into mentally unstable characters that people can't really identify with. Turning it into a deconstruction of normal shounen would be a brilliant move on Kishi's part, in terms of writing anyway.

what does everyone else think of the main 3's development so far? Would you say that they are admirable characters, or simply more realistic compared to when they were first introduced?