You know, you could accept the huge changes that SP make of their anime adaptations of mangas if you treat the anime and the manga as two seperate continuities. I mean, they're their version. They can do whatever the hell they want with them. The manga creators can still do their own endings regardless of how the animes change things or not. Like, if SP wanted to make NS happen in their ending of Naruto, then they should've done regardless of whether Kishimoto made NH happen in his manga or not.
But they shouldn't be treated as two separate things, because unless it's an anime original show, then the anime is literally an adaptation of the manga. The entire point of it, is to animate what is shown in the manga, and that is what the fans expect it to do. So if the anime then goes off and does its own thing by changing or ignoring what is in the manga, then it gives an inaccurate representation of the source material. That is detrimental because anime has always had a larger global reach than manga - the anime fanbase has always been much larger than the manga fanbase, so more people will be watching the anime without knowing what is in the manga, which is the true story.
This can obviously lead to fans hating on the story or author for something that was shown in the anime, without knowing that the author had nothing to do with the bullshit that was shown in the anime, because it didn't happen in the manga.
The Naruto anime, is an adaptation of the Naruto manga. Therefore, it cannot be treated as something separate because that would contradict what an adaptation is. Even when the anime stays mostly faithful but changes a few things here and there - Whether or not those changes are acceptable would depend on the magnitude of the changes, and whether they would affect fan perception of characters and plot points.
For example, in manga, Sasuke and Sakura's fingers were interlocked while the former was in pain due to the Curse Seal:
Whereas in the anime, they changed it so that their fingers were no longer interlocked, and were instead just holding hands normally:
A minor change like that is fine because it doesn't affect anything in the grand scheme of things, nor does it really affect fan perception of the scene or the characters.
However, a change like the one I'm about to describe is wholly unacceptable.
Having Sakura doubt who she’d save first between Sasuke and Naruto.
This technically wasn't even a "change" per se between the manga and anime, but it was instead an anime only filler which was incorporated into a manga canon section, but it was so stupid and made absolutely no sense when considering Sakura’s very obvious allegiances to the village despite her endeavour to save Sasuke from the darkness. It occurred during Shippúden episode 222 (which adapts chapter 491 of the manga), and it was during a scene where Sakura was being tutored by a medical ninja.
During this scene, Sakura has flashbacks of their reunion with Sasuke in The Land of Iron. That’s when she wondered to herself who she’d save first between him and Naruto if they were both seriously injured. The scene occurs shortly after Naruto is transported back to Ichiraku Ramen:
In the manga however, after Naruto returns to Ichiraku Ramen from Mount Myóboku, the scene goes straight to Tsunade being pissed during the 5 Kage Summit because the general consensus was to hide Naruto and Killer Bee during the war, rather than to use them. Sakura having those thoughts never happened in the manga.
Canonically, despite her love for Sasuke, she would of course save Naruto first, not only because Naruto was also striving to save Sasuke anyway so it was really a no-brainer, but also because Sasuke was a rogue ninja who was aiming to destroy the village; Sakura isn’t stupid. However, a scene like this greatly altered fan perception of Sakura very negatively, and I remember seeing this scene as part of the reasons many fans gave for why Kishi failed at writing Sakura, despite the fact that Kishi had nothing to do with this scene.
This is why the manga and anime shouldn't be treated as two separate things. People expect the anime to do it's job and adapt the source material of the manga, and when it fails to do this, it consequently gives people a false impression of the true story, and often leads to fans having wholly incorrect perceptions of certain scenes, characters, and even leads to unwarranted hatred being levied towards the author.
izzy806
germansingergirl
jacobvanloon
