Kishimoto cannot write women characters or he cannot write romance. Yeah, this is a stupid notion even if he says so himself. I have seen people say this when they want to defend Kishimoto for writing his women characters in a way terrible. Now, let me explain myself before we get started. It is easy to read naruto and think the biggest problem of the story is sakura. This is a trap. Sakura is a problem, but she is part of a bigger problem that because she is one of the main characters, people ignore the other problems in the story. Sakura character is so bad that a person can easily miss off of the other problems in the story. Sakura character isn’t an isolated problem. Instead, she shows how terrible Kishimoto is with all of his characters. Let's look at a short example before we get into the meat of things. Rock Lee characters are someone that people fell in love with in part one because of his determination and his character short comings. People wanted to see Lee grow and become someone that overcomes his short comings with hard work. Instead, Rock Lee is thrown to the waste side with 0 accomplishments.
Kishimoto isn’t romance nor women characters. It is his unwillingness to develop his characters. I will prove it to you with two different females in part 1 of the manga before the time skip. Now, both girls are part of the K 12. The konaha rookie 12. I need not cite Temari for this case. The two females I am using are Hinata and Ino. These two prove that when Kishimoto isn’t lazy, he can write both a female character and a decent romance.
First up is Ino. If a person isn’t looking hard they would just write off Ino as a Sakura clone and was just as useless as her in part 1. This is just not the case. Ino comes off more of a Main character than Sakura in part 1. Heck if you switch what Ino does and what Sakura does in part 1. I don’t think people would have the opinion that Kishimoto was bad at writing female characters. The big problem many people have with Sakura is that she is useless and always stands on the sideline. If you replace Sakura with a tree in most of part 1. Nothing really change. Ino was the leader of her team. She had to force her team to train. Not only did she force her team to train but also she was watching them. I don’t know how many people remember her complimenting Shikimaru during his fight with Temari. She acknowledges that Shikimaru was good at developing plans. That was the reason she thought Shikimaru would win. Now, that being said she didn’t understand her teammates 100% of the time. She didn’t predict that Shikimaru would give up. There was also another important part. She had a clan and could use her clan abilities adding to the fact she had a defined role on her team. Sakura being a healer made 0 sense in the grand scheme of things.
She was a healer on a broken team that didn’t really need a healer. But what was worst was part 1. She wasn’t needed at all. She didn’t help the team accomplish any goal besides being an extra body. The forest of death she just stall until sasuke got up and hurt the people that was attacking them. Kishimoto didn’t take any time in writing sakura. He just needs a person to like sasuke and to hate naruto, while naruto to like her. She was just there to make a love triangle. Need more evidence. Ino’s father is in the manga. They do not show Sakura’s parents. What is Sakura reasoning for being a ninja? You can say the same thing about Ino as well if it wasn’t in her family. She is a ninja because her dad is one. It makes sense in following the family tradition. If you compare Sakura and Ino on a main character status. Ino destroys Sakura, and it isn’t even close. Now that being said there is another character that beats Sakura. This is for the romance department.
Part 1 Hinata is proof if Kishmoto wanted to he could create a good romance. The reason I say this is that Hinata and naruto build something that could have expanded upon. Here their love could’ve built over time because they both had something in common that could have brought them closer together. The reason it fails is the reason everything in naruto fails. Before we get into why the romance fails, we need to look at what it was leading to. Naturo saw hinata as only a good person vs Hinata who idolize naruto. They came from two very different backgrounds and both had to face a difficult childhood. That doesn’t mean they both came out thinking the same way. Naruto found the will of never giving up while hinata on the other side felt hopeless. Without, even knowing Naruto never give up attitude help Hinata with her self esteem. With that start, it started a snowball effect. Hinata stilled needed another push with fighting her stronger meaner, cousin and with Naruto words even though she lost she could break even more chains holding her back. When it became Naruto’s turn to fight neji, hinata’s cousin. Hinata give naruto the confidence to face Hinata’s cousin. Their relationship started off with them helping each other. If Kishimoto was any decent writer, he would have built on top of this and have them working off each other. Instead, he throws hinata into the background.
Part 2
Now, this leads into the main point Kishimoto refuse to develop his characters. This is a huge detriment to his story. Naruto is a character-driven story and the characters, and only one real character evolves with the story pushing it forward. The person most people hate sasuke. With each new event, he grows and changes his approach to life. Good or bad he changes with new information that they give him. That doesn’t make him a good person nor do I think kishimoto wrote well him. But compare to him and other characters he is light-years better than the rest of the cast.
I can hear people asking why naruto is a character driven narrative instead of a plot driven one. There are two reasons for this, one is the goal of the protagonist and the second is the setting of the world they live in. Naruto wanting to be Hokage isn’t the job he thinks it is. As the story progresses, we learn about the things that the Hokage have done to protect the village. Things that Naruto would never have done. Not only this but naruto doesn’t train to become the Hokage. The Hokage is like a president with superpowers. He has to give orders, make teams, and figure out who is worthy to go on what mission. Naruto only learns how to get stronger. Naruto does nothing to qualify him for the job he wants.
The Hokages have to do what it is best for the village. A Hokage that Naruto love and respected order a genocide. Can anyone see Naruto doing the same? What is worst there is a clan in konaha that had huge problems as well and Naruto ignore them. The Hyuga clan had a noble class and a subservient class. This was bad on its on but it gets worse. The subservient class gets a mark after they are born that the noble class can use to attack them. Naruto fights a one of the lower classes and this was supposed to solve the issue, but he still died with a mark on his showing his lower class. And he died protecting a Noble. I can hear people now screeching on how he did it on his own free will. But really. He was born to die for the noble class and he died for the noble class it doesn’t matter if he wants to or not. It was his destiny which is makes it worst because the reason he beat the crap out of hinata and was an ass in the first place was because he wanted to beat destiny.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
But yes this is the problem with naruto. Naruto problems are bigger than girls being written poorly. It is that Kishimoto was bad at writing characters. I will go into more details and comparisons in a later video.