the retsuden novel are canon? im still a bit confused with that issue
Hi 😊 thank you for the ask
I think it depends on your perspective on what canon is. To some people canon is only what the original author wrote or created and everything that is not written by the original author or exists in the manga is not canon and that's a valid perspective and based on it all the novels are not canon because none of them was written by Kishimoto.
For me, my perspective is a bit less strict than that. I believe that anything that is reviewed and approved by the original author as part of the official franchise is canon, and so to me all the light novels are canon because they were all reviewed, approved and even illustrated by him and because they stated that Kishimoto told them that he doesn't want the characters to be anything different from the picture he has on his mind and that he even gave them a story outline to follow when they were writing the Hiden series and they just built the story on the outline he wrote and especially that we have seen Kishimoto using things from the novels in Boruto manga like Kakashi's Purple Lighting which he invented and used for the first time in Kakashi Hiden and many more small details that was first stated in the novels and exist in Boruto manga which is being written by Kishimoto too.
So in conclusion, I do understand the people who don't feel that the novels are canon enough to them and their opinions are completely valid even if I disagree with it but being in the fandom for so many years I realized that people will always see things differently when it comes to popular fictional stories like Naruto, so you have to learn to enjoy it the way you think is right from your own point of you and stop caring about how others see things from their own point of view, although, I understand how difficult that can be sometimes, I am still trying to learn it myself, god knows how many times I ran crying to @depressedhatakekakashi about something someone said about Kakashi somewhere 🙈 thank you, Taryn for putting up with me all of those years 😂❤️ but for the most part, I just ignore the things that I disagree with now. So anyway, in my opinion all of the novels are canon including the Retsuden series and I have enough reasons to believe so myself but at the same time I still understand and respect the other opinions that don't consider it canon and that they have their own reasons to believe so as well.
