I hate the way Masashi Kishimoto writes female characters.
WHY is it that the whole "love is dangerous to divine trees" conversation took place with Matsuri? Because she is the tree from Moegi?? Why did she recognize and feel Moegi's feelings towards Konohamaru, but SASUKE'S TREE DID NOT RECOGNIZE HIS LOVE FOR HIS OWN DAUGHTER????
No clan loves as deeply as the Uchiha, but still, those feelings would not transfer to the divine tree clone??? There is no consistency with his writing.
I hate the way the female characters are dressed and how they are always being saved in fights. The only good in the Naruto manga was that the female characters were mostly not sexualized and never the young ones.
I hate that SARADA is supposed to be trailing Naruto's path, but she was never his student, while Boruto got to become Sasuke's student. All to make room for Kawaki
I hate that Boruto got to train and develop new jutsus, his OWN jutsus, and techniques, while SARADA is only allowed to repeat her father jutsus.
They gave her nothing. Just like they give nothing to so many other female characters.
Himawari got Kurama, which is nice. But aside from it, she is practically useless and the age when both Naruto and Sasuke and Gaara and Shikamaru and Neji were all powerhouses, even Kiba, shino, Lee and chouji were powerful at that age. Because that's when all the boys got to go on their own special arc to go after Sasuke
They could have had Sarada studying Naruto's history (if they really did not want her to be Naruto's student) and going way to learn sage mode with the toads in order to be closer to him since she admires him and thinks he is dead.
They could have allowed her to make a contract with another summoning creature, like Sasuke did with hawks. Maybe even crows , as a nod to Itachi.
Most importantly, they should have given her her own jutsus
They never allowed it for Sakura, she is only allowed to repeat Tsunade skills (in the manga, she does have a detection jutsu of her own making in the light novel)
This is what separates the strong shinobi in the story and the good/significant characters in the story from the boring, bland ones. And they almost never allow female characters to have that.
Naruto and Sasuke not only inherited a lot of jutsus and techniques, and a huge amount of chackra and a bijuu, they also developed a bunch of new jutsus and put their own spin on these jutsus and gathered knowledge from different sources. Which is what is being done for Boruto.
I hate that Boruto is placed as this genius that can learn everything that SASUKE (another genius) has to teach in only 3 years. I hate that he is placed as this person who always comes saving everyone and that everyone is basically defenseless without him. I hate that the female characters are never prominent in fights or consistently the ones stratergizing. They are never the most powerful in the trio, never the most intelligent, never the ones learning or creating incredible jutsus, never the ones to hold their own against powerful foes (male foes). Never overwhelming anyone.
But they are always the ones being protected, saved, making stupid mistakes , being overwhelmed. But they are not even given the grace to be total failures that achieve incredible power or unlock amazing abilities through hard work, like Guy or Lee. Even when Sakura did it, it wasn't well done because she never got to their level, like Guy did.
Female characters are consistently bland. Never good enough to be powerhouses and never bad enough to be made fun of and develop. And always talking about romance.
And yet, the deepest emotional connections are made by the men, amongst themselves.
I hate that Kishimoto is incapable of writing nuanced female characters because somehow, he thinks women do not have hearts and minds like men do. He SOMEHOW thinks female friendships amount to rivalry for boys( ino and sakura before and now sumire and sarada); that female goals revolve around the men in their lives (sakura, tsunade, hinata, the girl from akatsuki); and that women that do not have men in their to fuss over, do not have anything interesting to say (tenten, anko, and all the other female characters).
I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate it mainly because this story was such a success that it cemented the way young boys will subconsciously think about women for generations to come. And also how shounen will be written for generations to come.
I hate that every girl is hypersexualized in Boruto. And how the story is going. And how Sarada is being developed (or better, not being developed). How she is portrayed to SAY stand offish things but never be able to back it up with power and cunning. How she will never be on the same level as Boruto, like Sasuke was on the same level as Naruto, because the moment Kishimoto made her into a girl, he made her inferior and not as relevant to the story.
If she was a boy, I bet that she would also have received karma, and she would end up developing rinnegan, and she would struggle with entity inside her and flee the village or pretend to turn over to the other side like itachi did. She would be a rival to both Kawaki and Boruto, and we would have a three-way deadlock at the God level. OR she would not get the karma, but would have enhanced her body like orochimaru did, somehow achieve rinnegan and be the one to show that Shinobi are better than gods. She might be the one to look for the other bijuu, and the one to study how and develop a way to destroy the trees, but would need boruto and kawaki to do so. She would definitely have left the village to gather power.
OOORRRRR Sarada could have been a failure like Naruto or Obito. Kishimoto could have done that since he wants Boruto to be a genius paralleling Sasuke. He could have made Sarada a seemingly failure like Naruto. Ashamed to be part of the Uchiha, made fun of for being pretty but not smart, or ugly and stupid and have her compared to Sasuke and even Sakura. She could have been, like Naruto, capable of great empathy and forming good friendships and want to be dependable. She could have had the Hokage goal as the way to prove she was not a failure and that she would carry on her clan's legacy. She could have found out about he clan, her uncle, the fears regarding the sharingan. How they would emerge again the more Uchihas increased and awakened sharingans. Kishimoto does not have the balls to create a sympathetic failure in a female character, the way he did with Naruto and Lee. All of his women are weak, but annoying and conceited. He reserves that level of humanity only to males.
If she had been male, she would have had a waaay closer relationship with power figures like Kakashi and shikamaru (like Boruto has). And she would get away with a lot more. She would have been allowed more depth and closer connections. More knowledge and the opportunity to reflect on things way more.
And I hate that, just because she is female, kishimoto somehow does not know what to do with her. Even though she has even more potential than Sasuke had and a bigger motivation to leave the village and gather power.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
Thank you, tumblr, for letting me rant.
