"Worst Written Women" | A Defense of Naruto Women

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[@neko9589]

everyone wants to be hokage ME: nah shikamaru wants to be a cloud 🌥 😂

[@pamtheman5748]

Shoot! I want to be a cloud too.

[@danialqureshi]

What a drag

[@James_Wisniewski]

Sometimes, it's not up to you. Mendokuse~.

[@UltimatePower01]

Funny how life works

[@Theunloved1738]

Shikamaru now:”………………………..fuck!”

[@5my9other93half]

I like how Tenten only gets mentioned briefly once in this video, perfectly sums up her character LOL!

[@ShouryaRathore]

why do people care about tenten, who cares.

[@pickedceasar1216]

@@ShouryaRathore because she’s part of Rock Lee and Nejis squad as well as the konoha 11. Maybe if she wasn’t framed as being a member of the next generation then people wouldn’t care as much

[@triplefried]

​@@pickedceasar1216exactly this. Everyone says "why are you bringing up tenten" but she's been around so long and hasn't gotten enough of a spotlight to shine like the others such as neji or lee or even shikamaru, so many side characters thrown away

[@sofarsogood8680]

​@@ShouryaRathoreremember during the war, Tenten got the legendary weapons but Kishimoto didn't explored or expanded anything from that . Of course , we care as much as kakashi using Zabuza's sword

[@mememanathome2802]

@@pickedceasar1216 I dont know why people care so much about konoha 11, they are just groups introduced to keep the chuunin exams interesting and most of the characters have been given attention (like shikamaru, choji ,ino and ino-shika-cho as a whole, hinata, neji , lee, kiba in part 1) Only tenten and shino wasnt given any attention. The problem is yall think konoha 11 is just as important as strawhats in one piece, the correct parallel would be team 7 has the same importance which they got.

[@majestyzx9081]

Oh no Merphy, you didn't go into the forums. That's the Internet equivalent of being a war photographer.

[@nichescenes]

The problem is most media is reviewed by men, they did a stat on imdb and most reviews are 80% men. for example I looked at older comedies for minority films, and see low reviews for minority films that people consider classics, from friday after next to house party, not saying their good, but it makes sense men wouldnt enjoy them as much outside the demo. Mostly men read shonen or are expected to. The women are graded on a power level scale of importance. The takes are usualy very base line, due to the community being mostly 13-35, overall the writers try to do deep material but alot of the editors know that doesnt sell (or they assume it wont.) so they try avoid the axe and focus on men. Naruto gets hate but the women obviously do alot. It's just alot of popular series get heavy criticism picking them apart. Frieren i just watched, is great but if people picked it apart like naruto they would make it seem awful. Even if said issues arent that big a deal. Ugh they have a shonen like final fight, ugh the pacing is slow, ugh the characters arent as deep as monster or so on. Im strawmaning lol but you get my example.

[@VinnieMF]

​@@nichescenes The vast majority of women who read and watched Naruto also agree with the female characters being poor, this is not a "male centric review sphere made it so people have a poor opinion of the female characters". Besides that, most people criticize them regarding also their arcs and proeminence, not only their abilities. This is the purest of straw mans.

[@bblala1408]

​@@VinnieMFI think it has a lot to do with Sakura. One of the character with the most screen time, but there is not really a scene, wheter it is a fight, speech or anything that made her "special" to most. Someone like Lee for example cemented himself in the heart of the fans with a single fight. Gaara had multiple speeches or moments even though he rarely appears. I just feel like she, as the main female character of the show, is really lacking compared to a lot of characters in the series. The same can be said for most other female characters except Tsunade.

[@atlasrises4]

I think the hate on female characters is just an extension of Naruto's problem with barely using its side characters as much as the reader would like. Then it's pushed further by the early Sakura and Ino story, and having every woman's story centered around a guy in their life.

[@troyii435]

I think this is the core of it. I think the characters themselves are great but their potential and the possibility of further depth doesn’t always get capitalized on simply with most characters and Naruto, then it stands out particularly for the female characters because the series has them all fill somewhat similar roles or have similar initial motivations. I have very little problem with how the characters were actually handled in Naruto ever. Most of the feelings are about wishing there was more because there’s so much potential

[@momogi618]

yeah i think the core reason people saying that is because of sakura which becoming useless or close to it whenever sasuke come into the picture. after shippuden her story and character become so great then turn 180 when sasuke comeback into the picture i hate that so much.

[@Blast_S_rank_1]

​@@momogi618she become ussless around garbage naruto not Sasuke

[@momogi618]

@@Blast_S_rank_1 explain shippuden to me when they trying to save gaara, now explain to me again when they find out sasuke whereabout. kishimoto literally make her useless whenever sasuke come into the picture.

[@Echo-nn8dt]

Every man’s story is centered about a guy in their life.

[@rauliggynashow9092]

Ino is a triple threat. She fights, learned medical ninjutsu and later became a sensory ninja like her dad.

[@NicaremE]

She became THE sensory ninja, and now is propably the main defense for konoha with naruto out of the picture

[@RedEyeItachi]

I dont know if I would go that far. She has little to no fighting skill and little to no medical ninjutsu skill. Just cuz he can do it doesn’t mean she is actually good at it. Her main job is sensory and mind control. She rarely ever fights or uses medical ninjutsu

[@trishahernz7809]

She’s also Shikamaru’s right hand woman and part of the conspiracy to make contact with Boruto, who in that part of the story a rogue ninja and a criminal so yeah she’s pretty good in the Boruto manga. Surprisingly Sakura seemed to cease to exist which is odd because her husband and daughter are still relevant.

[@UNKNOWNL3G3ND]

She just knows fighting and healing, not the best at it, probably the better ones of the sensory ninja, well it's more of a compliment to the Leaf security system.

[@Ajsobrainsalot]

Sakura became the best medic, learned how to fight, and has the most experienced when it comes to fighting op enemies

[@Nando-hj4zi]

i will never tolerate tsunade disrespect. I know kishimoto isn’t the best at writing women but what he did w tsunade deserves praise. truly one of my fav characters in the naruto verse period 😊

[@sarveshnathan7559]

There's nothing special about Tsunade's character. She's very meh tbh

[@Mr2dmonkey]

@@sarveshnathan7559 Hmm, u werent paying attention to her character, then, or this video, if you believe that.😜

[@sarveshnathan7559]

@@Mr2dmonkey Literally her character doesn't stand out. She spends most of series in a desk with more only big moment being healing the people in the Leaf during Pain's attack.

[@henryschroder3450]

@@Mr2dmonkey you can fully comprehend a character and still find it bad kiddo

[@Nothisndhdudjdjdj]

@@sarveshnathan7559honestly i don’t know any other character with hemophobia and PTSD. Im sure for some people thats an insanely relatable character. As well as her grief and depression

[@gaara_of_the_desert1118]

I think people are less angry about women being healers, and more mad that no men are.

[@sailingheartmusic]

except kabuto 🤔(in the beginning of the story lmao)

[@wadeo_0]

@@sailingheartmusic and Cee from the cloud village

[@Phatnaru0002]

I don't really get the issue with that anyway. Biologically, men have advantages in combat, and women have advantages in social dynamics (this applies to healthcare and childcare in the fact that women are biologically more comforting). It's a good thing we've gotten away from the past, where men and women are forced into roles they don't feel comfortable with, but there's nothing wrong with recognizing that the MAJORITY of these roles will be filled in accordance with natural, biological advantages/needs.

[@rendezvousonmemorylane]

@@Phatnaru0002 WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???? They have superpowers! What advantage do the men in Naruto have over women????? Stop projecting your world values on Kishimoto's made-up world! wtf...

[@SogonD.Zunatsu]

​@@Phatnaru0002I'm pretty sure you've designed a comment that will piss off all sides.

[@jayd.doubledubs]

Rip Anko's potential

[@oyamampendu9467]

Why's do ignore Ibiki the genjustu specialist who is only used to hyped up other characters Or the 3rd Procter Hayate Gekko who's death remains just shock value?

[@D__634]

Anko would have been a great source of intel on finding out Orochimaru's hideout.

[@justincain2702]

@@oyamampendu9467 You are going to be able to point to plenty of male characters who are sidelined because it's 90% of the cast.

[@ShouryaRathore]

she never had any, she just had a cool design thats it lol

[@jayd.doubledubs]

@@ShouryaRathore She was Orochimaru's former student. Could've been a nice flipped parallel of Hiruzen and Orochimaru's relationship. Anko just wasn't written to keep up with the power creep

[@jamescreasman4180]

I think Kushina wanted to be a hokage for a similar reason as Naruto. She wanted to be acknowledged for more than a girl with a demon spirit in her. But I think Minato helped her realize that that wasn't necessary.

[@elijahbowers1]

I've never thought Tsunade was poorly written. I do have issues with Sakura though.

[@wahajali2237]

If you're problems with Sakura are loving Sasuke Their relationship was way better in the manga. Anime made Sasuke too emo and Edgy

[@elijahbowers1]

@@wahajali2237 I read it and watched it. No she has other issues imo.

[@wahajali2237]

@@elijahbowers1 What are your other problems? Like making fun of Naruto in episode 3?

[@elijahbowers1]

@@wahajali2237 it's the problem Kishimoto and many mangakas have with side characters. (So I don't hold it against him) Sets up certain expectations for them then they get neglected or imo miswritten. I was so hype for her early Shippuden then she feels thrown to the side after the first big arc. Kishimoto did do really cool and awesome things with other side characters though.

[@master1sa]

@@wahajali2237 the problem is that loving Sasuke is her MAIN character trait.

[@munsulight721]

We found another character that Merphy dislike as much as Caribou in One Piece : Karen. She is so damn annoying Loved the video and agreed with your points

[@FuckYoutubeAndGoogle]

Karin

[@discomoon22]

I loved the arc with Sasori and the puppets. Yeah that has to be the highlight of two strong women in the story. They kicked ass. It’s good stuff. Sakura made quite the leap and she showcased all that she learned. Chiyo way passed her prime was still enough to take down members of the Akatsuki. That arc doesn’t get enough love! Awesome video!

[@FuckYoutubeAndGoogle]

That is Sakura's only win in the whole series, and she was hard carried by Chiyo.

[@cubearts1]

people portray Kishi like this evil Misogynistic dude when i think he just lacks confidence and ends up with clunky execution, , hell the strongest character in universe of the original series is a woman, and in the sequel and the main boruto era thing he wrote focused entirely on a female lead. i think his hearts in the right place, his execution is a bit mixed. that being said, you mentioned liking Kushiha, id suggest reading the minato one shot that came out last year, its honestly such amazing little story for how long it is.

[@cinnamonroll96]

I mean I wouldn’t say he’s a evil misogynistic guy. But saying Naruto and saying shounen don’t have a problem with misogynistic portrayals or treatment of female characters is just wrong. 🤷🏽‍♀️

[@anonymousname5860]

“Karen… existing”. Yeah that pretty much sums it up.

[@SASMADBRUV7]

It enrages me when they get characters like sakura, ino and ESPECIALLY KARIN to be in love with sasuke for no other reason than him being cool and handsome. Nothing more in depth than that. It makes the characters look weaker than they are

[@charlesacker9174]

Yeah Karin's exceptionally under utilized. Like she's Naruto's biological cousin. Her and Pain are literally Naruto's closest living relatives until he has children of his own. She didn't even get a wedding invite lol.

[@SASMADBRUV7]

@charlesacker9174 I always thought it's odd that they never reference directly that naruto, Karin and nagato are all related. Naruto would have loved to hear that

[@grinko1222]

Not ino. She grew over her crush. If anything, she's just acting like a 12 year old girl. Sakura was the one letting her crush be most of her character

[@devilslayer3548]

Yeah but that was part 1 sakura who was a dumb 12 year old kid did people want to act like a adult and have no development

[@Swagjutsusolosfiction]

Sakura and ino were 12 yo girls that's literally what they do. And ino got over her crush for Sasuke, Sasuke was Sakura teammate and she spent more time with him. Karin was really just there as a sasukes personal plot amor

[@CrimsonWar5]

"Even some male characters get pushed aside for naruto" Immediately thought of Kiba, Shino who btw has 0 L's, and konahamaru lol

[@lunarhinata8889]

Anyways here is a part of a character analysis I'm writing on Hinata who in my opinion is one oef the best written side characters in Naruto, if you don't believe me read this. It only covers part of her character until the Chunin exams and takes some material from The Last movie and the subsequent episodes released with it... If you have any questions just ask me... Hinata was born to the world shouldering the responsibility of her family, to lead the Prestigious and old Hyuga clan with a strong unwavering fist. But her personality was that of a soft spoken girl who was kind, gentle and empathetic, her name literally translates to "Pure white lily facing the sun" to signify her purity as a character and a person. Because of Hinata's nature, her father Hiashi thought that she would not make a good leader for the clan so to motivate her, he pit her against her younger sister Hanabi. In this match Hinata lost to her sister since she was unable to land the final blow out of kindness for her sister, Hiashi who saw this as hesitancy and weakness disowned her and essentially kicked her out of his clan. Hinata being born with high expectations and being unable to fullfill them to her family left her with a scar in her early years as she felt inadequate, weak and an unloved failure who cursed the way she was. She berrates herself for her past failures and constantly underestimates herself. Which in turn made her unable to believe, trust nor love herself and it lead her on a downward spiral of self hate and guilt. She betrayed herself and lost all will to fight and change. She developed an inferiority complex and her repeated failures in missions and in training because of her inability to trust in herself only made things worse for her. Although she trained very hard every day, it means nothing if she couldn't believe in herself. These feelings would eventually lead to the Hinata we see in early part of Naruto, a depressed mess with social anxiety which is seen through her general mannerisms(her shyness & being easily flustured, avoiding social confrontations by avoiding talking and looking down while talking to another, stutter and shaky voice etc..). She is passive, indecisive, hesitant and always prefers to be in the background of situations that she is put in, she is always overruled by her peers and her opinions aren't cared even by her peers as she lacks agency. Even her character design of wearing cozy long sleeved sweaters as if to hide from everyone, and not showing her skin in the slightest compared to other kunoichi because she doesn't see the value in such things and certainly wants no spotlight as she hates being judged by people, like how her father and her clan by extension did with her in the past. Around this time she sees Naruto, another loner in the world who struggles with similar feelings of inadequacy, self acceptance and failure but a degree worse that what she has to deal with, and yet he faces the world with a smile and a firm belief in himself. She relates to his struggles of acceptance and mostly his confidence/his ability to believe in himself, the trait that she wishes for. She forms a connection with Naruto, watching him from far away. Seeing how he fails repetedly but never gives up, this motivates herself to try harder and in turn beleive and accept herself, that she too could maybe change if she never gave up on herself. Watching Naruto he basically fills her with hope, belief and self worth, making her able to accept herself again. She sees Naruto as a person who although fails, have the ability to stand back up and keep on fighting for his goals, unlike herself from the past who just accepted their fate and stayed sulking with the hand they were dealt with. Seeing this redefines her ideology on strength and made her wish for that strength for herself too. Her belief in Naruto is emphasized further by the symbolical irony of their Doujutsu, the Byakugan. The Byakugan makes them look blind eventhough it grants them the ability to see through everything, but in seeing everything they are blind to their own strengths and weaknesses, which is symbolized by the blind spot. Hinata, before anyone, saw Naruto's strengths despite everyone else calling him a failure, but she was blind to her own strengths until Naruto showed them to her.

[@ThePlKLE]

This dude merphy is completely on point here. The assertion that female strength only exists in the form of being more masculine is completely ignoring the strengths of femininity

[@nichescenes]

I think she's noticing the flaws in the community reviewing the series from shonen vs say the ones who commented on monster or vinland saga like stories. The naruto people focus on strength and fights which is fine it's the point it's exciting but their are more than those goals. It's like how i feel when i hear, ugh this character was bland...why...well they were boring...it pushes the idea in works that to make a character likeable their extroverts, screaming, loud, always happy, and women are conservative, polite, speak when spoken to etc the garbage no one really likes in real life. It is why i get frustrated with critics where they devolve into base level stuff. That said i can and do fall for it and mess up and under think a narrative. Just gotta check for my bias and assume hey the author likely knows more than me where they are taking the story. Also many forget parts, since they read it over 20 years not 6 months like her.

[@kasi4363]

The issue is that the strengths of femininity is exclusive to the female cast. The saying of fighting men and healing women come to mind. How many men do you see as healers in this show?

[@Katokhann]

​​@@kasi4363could be remembering wrong but didnt Madara say Hashirama was better at medical ninjutsu than Tsunsde?

[@kasi4363]

@@Katokhann But did we ever see it in action. This is basic show don't tell.

[@Katokhann]

@@kasi4363 it's still a statement that should be considered.

[@jetkirby]

Hinata is not the best written female character but she is better than worse imo, her battle to overcome her meekness and emulate naruto's ninja way of never going back on her word are better than a lot of the other characters in the story Shyness->bravery is one of the best character arcs in story writing

[@foggyfrogy]

Her character arc is actually the opposite of the ,,woman forced to become a housewife"-arc. She is forced to become a ninja while actually being fine with the "typical" female role. In Naruto she sees someone who never gives up and finds his own way to deal with the cruelty of the world and she looks up to him for it. I'm never gonna tolerate Hinata-slander (ง'̀-'́)ง

[@azuregrace214]

Plus it's not like her meekness came out of nowhere, her father practically made her meek with constant berrating. It's onky natural she would turn out that way when you have an abusive father and feel like a failure because of being disowned by the hyuga. Imagine spending a majority of your time trying to please your father while withstanding his abuse and he throws you away like trash because you are unfit to lead because of your personality you were born with. Of course she would turn out that way.

[@sterlingsloan6626]

Glad someone is out here defending the Naruto women fairly while also pointing out criticisms. Kushina is one of my favorite characters in the whole series and she's absolutely amazing.

[@guileticia9]

I understand that Sakura is a normal girl, but that could be more explored, like we've seen with Lee, that has an character arc about not been very talented. But what it seems to me, is that she has nothing because Kishimoto didn't know what to do with her, in fact, the only flashback we got of her had nothing to do with this, but was about Sasuke or her big forehead. What I felt watching, was that on the Shippuden Kishimoto saw that she wasn't working, and then decided do copy all of tsunade's abilities. It just felt lazy to me..

[@raven-sf3di]

I find adding characters that are supposed to be the normal one just boring. It's why Rei from Star wars sucks . The character starts walking around with no link to an overarching story.

[@Ajsobrainsalot]

Her backstory was her being bullied which made her insecure plus she was talented

[@Twenty4-n7n]

Rewatch Naruto then you will understand Sakura 🤡

[@Vinsmokesanji790]

@@Ajsobrainsalotjust compare her backstory with other characters in Naruto and you will see why she is poorly written

[@Ajsobrainsalot]

@@Vinsmokesanji790 Ok? Idk where this idea that a character has to have a crazy backstory to be well written came from, and since Kishimoto was trying to make sakura more realistic it makes sense that her backstory isn’t super insane, heck Shikamaru is a poorly written character if we use ur logic

[@sonsai10]

The "tank, damage, support" thing is called the holy trinity because they are all important roles to fill in combat. Healers and supports get such a bad reputation in all media for not being flashy enough

[@ZevsMika]

I never thought i'd see you do the Hinata "Naruto kun" 😭😭😭

[@bunnycarrotaf7853]

Time frame it please 😂🤣

[@prajwaleliya9539]

15:20

[@H3rmon861]

I think one of the biggest think I appreciate about Naruto’s female cast is their character design. Most shonen have women (and most often times girls, under the age of 18) with a design that is way too oversexualized while Naruto, they always seemed reasonable. Not every female character has a skimpy outfit with unrealistic proportions: they’re just normal teenager. I get they’re doing this because it’s for an audience of teenage boys but still

[@cinnamonroll96]

It’s unfortunately really a low bar 😭😂 And the whole it’s made for teenage boys thing, first is just not accurate to the actual audience of shonen and second even if, misogyny shouldn’t be normalized as a part of what makes a man or boy. So the way how a lot of ppl always try to dismiss these things is so wild to me. Like are they hearing themselves talk?😂 I mean the active dismissal of misogyny not only within the anime/manga industry (let’s be honest it’s all media forms) but more specifically shounen genre and its audience respectively is not being taken seriously.

[@aino-kaisav5504]

I wouldn't say Kishimoto ia necessarily bad at writing women, even if he himself thinks so. He more seems unsure what to do with his female characters so he avoids writing them.

[@afnanbogey]

Yeah I think he overthinks how to incorporate female/feminine elements. They end up landing flat very often, or it seems like he needs to muster up a lot of effort to give them a moment. I will say, he does a good job of generally not objectifying them, considering the era and genre.

[@TheRockerX]

Ironically, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. He's afraid of writing women, so he avoids giving them too much to do, thereby fulfilling his original fear of writing women poorly

[@wahajali2237]

@@afnanbogey Thats the reason they are hated in the first place. Kishimoto never objectified any of them even Tsunade fails in comparison to bleach or One piece fan service Shonen in general writes men better than women So why only does Naruto gets this treatment. It's because of this

[@devilslayer3548]

To be fair it a catch 22 because someone is going to complain how he would write woman anyway Should have written them the way he wants

[@faith4657]

Well he needs to conquer that fear and his other manga samurai 8 does a good job at its female character.

[@thenoodelman]

Tsunade might be the most developed character in the show.

[@pantyosashu8137]

hehehehehe

[@sevisavory]

Chill out now

[@thenoodelman]

@@sevisavory Most of her story is about overcoming the trauma of losing everybody close to her in the war. She goes from the gambling drunk petrified of blood to one of Naruto's key role models and the Hokage keeping half the village alive during the Pain invasion. That's a full arc.

[@sevisavory]

@@thenoodelman stll doesnt mean shes the most developed character in the show. Chill out now

[@thenoodelman]

@@sevisavory good argument

[@hafizhaekal1352]

Chiyo isn't talk about enough in Naruto fandom, i feel like there's not many old women representation in anime. Usually most author wanted beautiful or sexy women in their series but Chiyo is not only a powerful fighter in the series she's also pivotal to the theme of the story.

[@imitationpitaya]

Chiyo was great!

[@obvv7714]

Tsunade is a fantastically written female character

[@sarveshnathan7559]

She's not fantastic. She just meh. A bland vanilla character.

[@Drakenlord]

She's good by Naruto standards. That's it.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

@@Drakenlord Yeah, and that's not saying much. Very low bar.

[@faith4657]

Very low bar? Meh? A character who has lost many and doesn't want to get close so that she doesn't lose more. Someone who basically changed the history of Naruto by having a medic team on all squads, someone who had to overcome their fear and was seen as an important figure in history? She's way more than you give her credit for.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

@@faith4657 Her being the best female character is a low bar because many of them are lame or straight up awful.

[@moonlight2870]

The problem with Naruto women is how often they get dropped to the sideline. They get some oretty cool arc or set up....for like a couple chapters and then are forgotten. You guys remember Anko and her whole thing with Orochimaru? You guys remember how Sakura said she loved Naruto so he would stop chasing after Sasuke so she could kill him, only to fail in the last second, not because Sasuke was too strong, but because she "couldn't bring herself to do it"? You guys remember when Shikamaru's father died, and it was a super emotional moment because of the interactions we have seen between him and Shikamaru, but then Ino's das died at the exact same time and no one cared because we never seen him interact with her? Or when Shikamaru and Choji got cathartic moments with their fallen sensei Asuma but Ino got absolutely nothing? Not to mention how few female characters are there to begin with. Every single team is two boys and a girl, akatsuki only has a single female member, Tsunade was the first female hokage, the Sasuke rescue team at the end of part 1? Didn't have a single girl in it until Temari dropped to save Shikamaru's ass. The sound quartet (or quintet) only had a single girl in their ranks... you have so few women in your manga already and you do NOTHING with them. I'm glad you found reason to enjoy these characters, but most of those reasons once in a huge while. Characters like Kakashi, Naruto, Gaara, Shikamaru, all of them get multiple opportunities to grow, to change, to show how cool and badass they are. Girls get a single moment if that, and their moments are usually unresolved.

[@ritacirocavalcante]

You not mentioning Tenten at all kinda, involuntarily I guess, made your point further.

[@arunabhalahiri4931]

Also the inconsistency in Kishi's writing doesnt help the case at all. Also the slapstick style comedy involving the female members feel super cringy and kinda unearned. Unearned this is the term I would like to use in describing the female character development in Naruto, especially regarding payoff.. Though Konan, Temari, Tenten are good characters. Tsunade, I have mixed feelings about but I can stand by her. Kushina too...

[@paulogaspar8295]

all those characters where "dropped to the sideline" like exactly all characters in naruto except naruto and sasuke. because they are the main characters. Do you remeber what happen to Shino? Do you remember what happen to Sai? do you remember what happen to Kiba? All those characters where also dropped to the side and are male. The problem here is the bias. Women that read the series have the bias of none of the main characters being woman. And people got mad at that fact and at the fact that they where not as strong as the main male characters. that's it. That in conjunction with Kishimoto "admitting" to not being the best with female characters made people just bring that idea to the extreme. 1- Shikamaru had 1 single arc to grow in the entire show. Gaara also had one single time to gror in the war and everything else was through flashbacks. Tsunade had more episodes showing her in the war, with her old boyfriend, her struggles in the war. It's a bias of numbers. there are less female characters that are given a lot of episodes and back story than there are male characters and it's the fact that they are not as strong as the main men in the show.

[@darthralin]

Yes, that was my experience as well. It's not that Kishimoto can't write women. It's that he rarely does.

[@redhawx4216]

They just don't get a proper time to shine. I mean at the end of war both Naruto and sasuke, heck even kakashi got a mad power boost. Like wtf is she going to do? Punch the shit out of kaguya? And that exactly what happens which looks bad in my opinion .

[@NKMitch42]

I think part of this is also that some of the worst moments in the story are centered on decisions made by the women. Sakura telling Naruto she loves him to try to guilt him back to the village is pretty egregious in this regard. But Sakura also participates in the Rescue Gaara in a way that highlights all the best parts of her character and my favorite fight in the story alongside Chiyo (who is easily my favorite side character)

[@nahuel3433]

That moment is one of the best. It shows the deep desperation of the characters involved and the sacrifices they are willing to make to stop Naruto's unrelenting obsession that almost caused an international incident. It's certainly not the kindest move done, but it is a great one especially from a storytelling standpoint.

[@Junosensei]

Yeah, I felt that Sakura's lie was a great moment for her, mostly because she was willing to say the most humiliating thing she could say to Naruto, all for the sake of trying to take full responsibility for everything. It was a dick move, and it wasn't a positive step for Naruto or the story, but it felt like the kind of conflict her character needed. I was more disappointed with her being unable to finish what she started afterward, which undercut this moment more as a result.

[@J.Crime123]

19:46 "Why are support roles so undervalued?" Ever played a game online which has a different class system with other people as a support class?

[@mylittlemexicanfriend9907]

im sure he respects her now that hes married to her 💀💀💀

[@foxesofautumn]

You can tell from how he never spends any time with her. Respect from afar... living the dream, there, Sakura.

[@bshiii3907]

@@foxesofautumnboy he’s protecting the village

[@mikeclarke5732]

That’s worse, imagine marrying the man who tried to kill You multiple times not even for a reason he just feels like it, who’s openly told you he doesn’t like you calls you annoying constantly that’s what we call Stockholm syndrome

[@devanplays3509]

@@foxesofautumn yall are dumb

[@TheRockerX]

As someone who thinks Kishimoto doesn't write women well, Tsunade has always been the exception for me. She's an extremely well-written character (in her introductory arc at least, before getting sidelined). I also think the issue of female characters getting sidelined applies to most of the male characters as well. Naruto and Sasuke take the front seat to the detriment of most of the OG cast from Konoha. I'll never forgive the complete sidelining of Rock Lee after Part 1

[@TheeKing7]

"Just a healer" Looks at clips of Sakura and Tsunade breaking opponents bones and creating craters. "Yup, just a healer" .... 😂😂😂

[@dominicmallano5633]

Sakura’s obsession with Sasuke even after he becomes a terrorist was really bad in my opinion.

[@Blast_S_rank_1]

This trash village is terrorist not Sasuke

[@emperorluffy6001]

Yes 😂

[@MatheusNiisama]

Was Naruto's obsession with Sasuke that much better tho.

[@captainziggy82]

@@MatheusNiisamano, they were both garbage lmao

[@deathswitch2404]

Realistic though. Real love doesn't choose and suddenly stop when people mess up

[@Jay_SGE]

FINALLY. Someone who I know will tackle the issue with nuance.

[@liamerasmus8592]

I really hope Merphy reads the “Whorl Within the Spiral” one-shot that Kishimoto put out last year. I honestly thought it was some of his best work and it focuses so much on Kushina, so I think Merphy would love it.

[@michaelballack3051]

Well it was written and drawn by Kishimoto himself so it's canon material unlike Boruto

[@noavgg]

Think that Naruto has overall good female characters. The problem they have is the samma as most other characters that aren't Naruto or someone with a sharingan is that they didn't get enough screen time. Would rely have liked to see more of Hinata, to se more of the huga clan and how they were suppose to be a rivel to the Uchiha and there sharingan.

[@whodat4lyfekris]

The Karin shots were hilarious 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Starting to think she's not a fan of Sasuke's Sacrificial Side Piece 😂😂😂 10:26 15:21 17:48 18:33

[@Beast-jb6iv]

Saying that Sakura is weak considering her impact during the Kaguya fight where she was the only human being while Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, and Obito were all essentially demigods during that fight is rediculous.

[@hc.117]

Now you have finished the manga I want to talk to you about 2 cultural problems that the ending of Naruto have: 1)Kaguya Zetsu betraying Madara has been planned since the end of Naruto Part 1. After Naruto's first fight against Sasuke in the Valley of the End (chapters 233 and 234) Sasuke has a reaction similar to that of Hashirama (chapters 626 and 681) to the fact that Zetsu is watching them and Kakashi says in these chapters to how similar Naruto and Sasuke's story is to Hashirama and Madara's story. This is a foreshadowing of the fact that Zetsu manipulates the reincarnations of Indra and Ashura in the shadows. The cultural problem here is the fact that since his first appearance Black Zetsu speaks in katakana (the Japanese speaks in 3 languages: hiragana, katakana and kanji). Everyone in Naruto speaks in hiragana except black Zetsu who speaks in katakana. When the Divine Tree (Kaguya) tells Madara to absorb it (after his fight against Gai) the dialogue is written in katakana, it's a foreshadowing on the fact that Black Zetsu has been his will all along (this is why the revelation comes out of nowhere when we see it in the translated version). As you can imagine, this is a detail that the Japanese noticed and which was ignored during the translation. This point is a little more subjective but I thought it would be better for you to know this detail. 2)The reincarnations This point is a little more complicated, sorry. Maybe after seeing it you wondered how this concept of reincarnation worked (don't worry, you're not the only one) This concept of reincarnation is samsara (rinnegan means "eye of samsara") and it's the main belief of Buddhism and Hinduism (Japan is a Buddhist country and the universe of Naruto is based on the Japanese religions). The main belief of the concept is that each person lives several lives and that the basic situation of each of their lives is decided by the actions of their past lives but each person can react to this situation on their own (karma except that it is over several lives). It's a religion whose main belief is free will. This mainly means 2 things: 1. Hashirama and Madara's choices influenced the life context of Naruto and Sasuke. Hashirama abandoned Madara and Madara manipulated Obito who caused the Kyubi's attack on Konoha (Naruto's life context). And the Kyubi attack on Konoha caused the Uchiha clan to be rejected from the village, their revolution and therefore their massacre (Sasuke's life context). But as it is a religion which believes above all in free will, it's Naruto and Sasuke who make their own choices by themselves and that from the beginning (that's why they can stop the cycle by stopping to fight, it's because of karma) 2. Everyone in Naruto is a reincarnation, it's not just Naruto and Sasuke. It concerns everyone, the fact that Naruto is Ashura's doesn't change that. He is subject to the same rules as everyone else. If I'm talking to you about it, it's because many criticize this concept in the "well, Naruto wasn't a failure since he was destined to fight Sasuke" mode. It's totally false, it influences them (because of karma) but as I told you it's a concept whose main belief is free will and that's the reason why Naruto and Sasuke do peace at the end. Naruto has accomplished everything by himself since the beginning (this is the main rule and belief of this reincarnation) This concept of reincarnation is what Naruto deals with from the beginning (with Pain's speech on the cycle of hatred, Obito and Madara's plan and the situation of the ninja world) and the final questioning that Kishimoto brings here it's "the fact that your life context is similar to another one, does that mean that you will make the same decisions?". The answer is no, Naruto did not abandon Sasuke like Hashirama did and Sasuke did not choose the same path as Madara. The fact that your life started in a certain way does not mean that you will end it the same way, it is you and you alone who choose the destiny you want to follow. There you go, sorry if this part is a little longer but this point is a much more complicated cultural problem If you still have some questions don't hesitate to ask me

[@jayd.doubledubs]

"I'm sure he respects her more now that he's married to her" One thing Boruto does really well imo is the Sasuke-Sakura marriage Yeah, Sasuke's absent from home a lot, but that's mainly due to him being the Shadow Hokage to atone for his sins. I really enjoy all the little scenes we do get of adult Sasuke and Sakura's relationship

[@collecter343]

Scene of him giving her a ring was sweet as hell

[@reksio_xyt8733]

the Sasuke retsudon (i think) novel the one with the dinosaurs was really great and showed how he did actually love her unlike in shippuden. it was animated in boruto and it was very nice

[@92JazzQueen]

Nah it's a bad marriage with no chemistry

[@BriSand1993]

I feel like Jun Esaka really understood what Kishimoto was getting at when it came to the Sasuke and Sakura pairing whereas I think his original intention was having a relationship formed from forgiveness and understanding with Sakura understanding why Sasuke went down the path he did and forgiving him despite all the times he hurt her essentially being the romantic version of the brother relationship he had with Naruto. Thing is, the way Kishi wrote it didn't come across for a lot of people. But when Jun wrote their novel it's clear she was able to write their relationship and showcase it in a much better nuanced way than Kishi could. The way she highlighted how Sasuke is essentially a soldier that's always away from his family due to his duty as a shinobi who protects the village from afar while Sakura being head of the medical department makes her an important pillar that's necessary within the village; so both are important assets for their homeland that unfortunately make it difficult for them to be together. It's also shown that Sasuke does indeed think of both Sakura and Sarada when he's in his travels and that no matter how long or far apart they are; nothing would ever change the fact that they're a family. Sasuke's upset that he misses key moments in both his wife and daughter's lives but that he's never worried Sakura will ever betray him because he trusts her completely. Sasuke's favorite feature about Sakura are her hands because they're the hands that have saved many lives including his as a doctor as well as the hands that brought up their daughter. To Sasuke Sakura hasn't aged at all when he points out her lack of wrinkles in comparison to his. Both love each other dearly and people need to stop with the jokes about Sasuke being a deadbeat that doesn't want to be with his family or that Sakura's pathetic for being with someone who isn't around a lot while ignoring all of the important context.

[@jdeleon5816]

Kishimoto is a genius. People don't understand that Kishi comes from the country side with a very traditional mindset. Garbage characters like Mikasa are loved for being a "strong woman" and nothing else to her character.

[@travissmith6380]

Tsunade written very well, the rest of the ladies...not so much. Sakura,Ino,Hinata all wasted potential. Dont even get me started on Anko or Ten Ten. Power wasnt the problem, plenty of Female Bad asses in Naruto, most just got nothing to do.

[@25redshark]

Hot take, but I think Sakuras false confession to Naruto is really good. Is it uncomfortable to read? Yes. Its supposed to be. But Sakuras arc is about learning to understand people thru Sasuke and Naruto, since she did not go thru what they did growing up. Shes like us, the reader, kinda an audience surrogate, and while shes improves at understanding them, shes still not doing quite what they need. Also look at things from Sakuras perspective. Shes learned Naruto carries this heavy burden of the ninetails, but also feels responsible for the promise he made to her about Sasuke. He has, in a very short amt of time, lost control and jeopardized a mission, lost control and hurt her and almost hurt his team, was going to suicide by Sasuke, got his arm injured by his own jutsu, failed to get sasuke or itachi, lost his teacher, village got smooshed, lost control and barely won vs pain, got beat up for sasuke, and now is about to come to the defense of a criminal to the whole world. From Sakuras perspective, shes trying to potentially save Narutos life. Its a very selfless act coming from a character who was very selfish in part 1

[@devilslayer3548]

I don’t understand why people got mad at that The point was to stop Naruto for going after sasuke and relieve him of that burden and end everything herself

[@nerds-nonsense]

@@devilslayer3548 people got mad because that's a really dumb thing to think given the context of their abilities and Sakura is generally shown to be pretty smart. Her choices are just frustrating to a lot of people.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

Does Sakura really think Naruto did it just because of that promise, even though it's clear he cares about Sasuke? Even if Sakura convinces Naruto, and she does kill Sasuke, is she gonna tell him after that she was just lying to him so she can kill his best friend behind his back? The fact that she think this would work, after all the times she's rejected him? She is willing to break Naruto's heart on the off-chance that Naruto would believe her, just so she can kill Sasuke herself, which she failed to do anyway, making her a big hypocrite for trying to get Naruto to give up on Sasuke when she herself couldn't, and makes all that confession completely pointless. Her decision to lie to Naruto so she can kill Sasuke behind his back is one of the many reasons that caused Naruto to faint from hyperventilation. It's obvious that she's only said it to make herself feel less guilty about the promise. "Its a very selfless act coming from a character who was very selfish in part 1" The fact that Sakura thinks the main reason Naruto is going after Sasuke is because of the promise he made to her is selfishness. Almost like Naruto doesn't have his own reasons.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

@@devilslayer3548 "I don’t understand why people got mad at that " I don't understand why people play dumb on why people get mad at that

[@sarveshnathan7559]

@@nerds-nonsense "Sakura is generally shown to be pretty smart." And yet makes a lot of dumb choices.

[@lidiadiasdecastro4530]

Agreed. And yes, Sakura should not have ended up with Sasuke. Pick someone else. Literally anyone else, like Lee who always liked her and would have understood her struggles, or even Kankuro after she saved his life from the posion... I just feel like ending up with Sasuke the absentee husband is not fair to her and cheapens her character arc.

[@Blast_S_rank_1]

Sasuke the best character in this show

[@emperorluffy6001]

IMO Sakura should have ended up alone.

[@bananaman-mp3]

@@Blast_S_rank_1 he is a good character!! but ending up married to sakura did them both dirty its like assassinating two characters with one stone... because sakura's reasons for liking sasuke were never explained in proper, as far as we know she just liked him at first because hes pretty and cool and later on because she became too attached to him for becoming teammates... i guess?? with naruto we at least see WHY sasuke means so much to him but we never get that with sakura so her crush seems shallow. and sasuke? he only ever saw sakura as a teammate/friend at best. he always rejected her romantic advances. also the fact that hes reserved around her and that sakura makes herself small with him as opposed to her usual personality with everyone else. getting together was bad for both of them :(

[@lidiadiasdecastro4530]

@@Blast_S_rank_1 That's fair and I actually really like Sasuke! I just don't think he should have ended up with Sakura in the end.

[@BlueCheeseLucci]

I mean she got what she wanted and pretty sure she is not surprised by Sasuke actions. Also Sasuke is doing a job and has to do it cause he really got off easy after the war

[@abigailaceves9230]

I’m not a Naruto fan, but I have seen a few videos criticizing the writing of the women in the series. So it surprised me to see a woman actually defend their role and impact to the story while so acknowledging the flaws in the writing. - - - - - BTW, love your videos on both your channels. Ever heard of Rumiko Takahashi?

[@edwardnowakowski5990]

I adore Naruto as a series, but tbh, I feel like the big complaint in how the women are written is the wasted potential. There are so many fantastically designed female characters, but they fall by the wayside. Kurenai is the most powerful non uchiha genjutsu user in konoha, and is used exclusively to show how powerful itachi is. And she’s there to mourn asuma, and that’s it. We don’t even see the major impact that she has on her team like we do with kakashi and asuma. There are very few actual jonin in the series, with most of the adults being either chunin or “special jonin”, so having the only female character with that rank never really get to show her strength or even pass along her experience, feels like wasted potential. Beyond that, tenten is effectively a joke, hinata’s character is hard to describe if you can’t bring up naruto while doing it, which is a shame because her clan is incredibly interesting politically, she just never feels connected to those politics. yugao was set up so well to avenge hayate after the chunin exams, but that never comes to light. Anko mitarashi could have been used for more of the orochimaru stories. And sakura despite being the female character with front page billing always felt like an afterthought. I’d say Ino, Temari, and Tsunade are the only major female characters who got properly used, and even then I have a hunch ino wouldn’t have that honor had shikamaru not been so popular

[@elementcreed257]

The problem i mainly have with how Sakura's writing was handled was how inconsistent it tended to be, almost as if Kishimoto couldn't commit to making her a skilled and powerful ninja just like the other team 7 memebers. Sakura's comeback at the start of shippuden was IMPRESSIVE to say the least, she comes back as a highly intelligent medical ninja who outshines the entirety of the hidden sands medical unit and saves Kankuro's life, she plays a massive role in defeating the first akatsuki member taken out in the series while demonstrating how truly skilled she is in both combat and intellect, but then, all this momentum just dies. She doesn't have anymore big standout moments up until the war and practically just exists when Naruto and Sasuke are involved, we don't see her training in the background or interact meaningfully with anyone but Naruto. In the five kage summit arc she's essentially used as a plot device for Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi to be more interesting, even during the war Kishimoto manages to sneak in the fact that she was so disappointed when Sasuke didn't care about her after Madara stabbed her, despite the fact that the last time she saw him he tried to mercilessly kill her in cold blood so by all means she really shouldn't have been surprised, but for some reason Kishi thought that any sane person would care about such during the potential end of the world. Small inconsistencies and a lack of hype make her the least interesting in team 7 to most viewers (She's still my fav character though, hence why i have so much to say about her so forgive me lol). It also doesn't help that she doesn't display any unique abilities throughout shippuden beyond everything Tsunade can do but vaguely better, basically turning her into Tsunade 2.0. You'd expect a main character to have at least one new technique to improve upon all they were taught but Kishimoto doesn't do this for her and instead goes down the lazier route, she's still really cool imo though, just needed a bit of polish.

[@okikai]

there are SOME who are well written, but most are not. the thing you are picking up on is that they all get good writing at some points, but that then gets utterly undermined. we fans were hurt by that wasted potential. when you look at how men vs women are written, women are obviously being limited by his awareness that they are women, in a bad way. i personally want my women characters to be written as people first.

[@novucriptor3954]

Agreed!

[@pickedceasar1216]

Yeah most of them are basically Fridges without dying as almost every woman to some extent in Naruto only exists for motivation for another male character The closest we got was Temari and maybe Tenko preshippuden

[@-Teague-]

Exactly, genuinely can't believe taking the stance of "they aren't bad all the time!" That doesn't make the writing any less harmful

[@D__634]

The problem with Naruto is the only characters that have impact on how the story progress are members of team 7 and the people before them. Like if you make a flowchart, you'll draw a long straight line from Hagoromo up to Naruto. The rest of the teams are . . . almost no depth at all.

[@filliiiii7]

@@-Teague-you like anime?

[@sakura-kisaragi]

As someone who loves Sakura Haruno and Tsunade, this was an interesting video to watch.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

Lmao at loving Sakura

[@oyamampendu9467]

​@sarveshnathan7559 2024 hating mocking someone for liking wht others are told to hate

[@dowoomsday]

@@sarveshnathan7559 p@jeet

[@lunarhinata8889]

You say that Hinata's crush on Naruto could be written better, but the story really gives a solid foundation for her to be inspired by Naruto so I recommend you to read the flashback she has of Naruto in his fight with Kiba. She literally likes him because she wants to change herself for her own betterment and progress as a character by being inspired by his Ninja way. I mean in the Proud failure speech she literally redefines what "strength" means to her and seeing that in Naruto and how inspiring it is why she likes him in the first place.

[@94evangelion]

I will say this in defense of Kishimoto, the anime was much worse about the portrayal of the female cast with the flanderization, sexualization, & cutting out key scenes/even outright altering key scenes

[@devilslayer3548]

It wasn’t that much sexualization in Naruto compared to other anime

[@94evangelion]

​​​@@devilslayer3548 well, there is a increase in chest size with Hinata, which is problematic since she started in the series at age 12. That being said, even though the anime was much worse about the female cast portrayal, Kishimoto is still not that great at writing the girls & he gets worse about it Post-Pain

[@CoOlKyUbI96]

I remember first watching the anime and thinking how Sakura’s character was really nasty. So many times she would punch or slap Naruto. Sometimes it was justified, sometimes I felt it was too excessive. Then years later I read through the manga only to discover that the amount of times Sakura hits Naruto is significantly less

[@94evangelion]

@@CoOlKyUbI96 and also, the anime remove alot of the positive Sakura scenes from the manga. Cuz in the manga, there is a lot of scenes where she is very supportive of Naruto & his dream, especially in the Chunin Exams.

[@CoOlKyUbI96]

@@94evangelion yeah it was almost as if I was seeing an entirely different character. So many fans were probably exposed to the anime instead and that’s probably why they hate Sakura?

[@sumandark8600]

With the healer thing, I think it's less that people see healers as bad, but more that practically every named healer is a woman, & that just comes across as very tropey & playing too much into gender stereotypes That makes it less of an issue of writing women (as the men are also affected by basically not being allowed to be healers), & more of just an issue of putting characters into boxes based on their gender

[@Junosensei]

Hinata was my favorite character in the show and I used to think she was well-written, all because she was the most relatable character to me and I struggled very strongly with skittishness and shyness at her age. Sadly, she got so very little attention overall. Her one moment post-time skip was hype and still stands as one of my favorite moments in the show (she did what just about no one else could do at the time), but her character arc is nonetheless centered around her feelings for a boy and too brief to carry the weight that many other characters carried. Honestly, I ended up liking her character arc in the "The Last" film more overall. It was a nice bridge between the ending and the epilogue. I just wish her motivations involved something other than pining for Naruto.

[@malanala7371]

I agree. I still loved Hinata for the same reasons and still do to some extent, but I also admit she could have been a lot better. Hinata had a lot of potential to grow and become a fighter having gentle fist and byakugan. But Kishi chose not to develop it or her relationships to Kurenai (mom figure who took her in), Neji and team 8. People say that Hinaga was treated as just the love interest, but she didn’t even have the privilege to be treated as such either. Kishimoto reduced her screentime, gave her no scenes with Naruto because he was too fixated on creating the perfect red herring for the sakura x naruto x hinata love triangle scenario. Now that they're together, we dont even get to see them in Boruto as a couple. Worst, they wont let her be a mother in the show and manga.

[@davidcorrea-3136]

Naruto definitely has a side character problem more than a woman problem.. Also, timeline wise.. most complaints should actually be directed towards boruto imo lol Madara:offended a woman is fighting him because he from the not too distant past where thats unusual Tsunade: got medics..yes mostly woman took the role, but they are just starting to fight as well as heal, breaking the stereotype Later: the 2 woman kages seem to be the only ones ever Any continuation of the story from here should have more frontline non healing woman to show natural progression of equal standing to the males Imo anyways

[@osonhouston]

Sakura is a genjutsu master. I think if Kishimoto had focused on that aspect of her skill before she became a medical ninja, Western audiences would have received her better.

[@dudeguy8686]

Would have been a solid path, if Kurenai wasn't also called a genjutsu master, the best in the Leaf, only to get handled like a child by Itachi. That basically made genjutsu a joke of a technique for the rest of the series, if it wasn't Sharingan'd.

[@Mozartmeh]

She is actually NOT a genjutsu master. She simply has resistance to most, if not all Genjutsu.

[@osonhouston]

@Mozartmeh She should have been a genjutsu master. Unfortunately, Sauske is am Uchiha, and genjutsu is their weapon. Naruto is the ninjutsu specialist. She should have been either a taijutsu specialist, a weapons specialist, or a combination of both. Kishimoto didn't write women well, Temari is an example of a woman written well. Himata, Tented, Ino, and Sakura needed work. They were one note and not much else.

[@Mozartmeh]

@@osonhouston Indeed. I would have enjoy'd most of the female cast more if they just did different things and were not left out.

[@anexlainn4574]

A lot of people are going to tell you to avoid Boruto, I'd say you should ABSOLUTELY check out the boruto manga, and the Naruto light novels (traditional books) as well as watch The Last: Naruto the Movie. The Boruto anime has a lot of production issues but the manga is oftentimes one of the most popular and hype new releases in manga.

[@nedeemmalik]

I stg the hate of women in naruto is truly just based off sakura not being a fellow god along side naruto / sasuke. Also the “i love you” ploy from sakura genuinely killed her off to humanity

[@Tala_Rahal]

Such an awesome video, thank you Merphy! This series holds a special place in my heart and always didn’t like how much people were over hating this story (in my opinion)

[@Angras_advocate18]

Nah Merphy u can’t be defending sakura😂😂 anyway we need to get type-moon on her radar it’s the strongest franchise in anime with their base abilities giving them immeasurable speed. & my power scaling playlist is all the proof we need, my essay playlist also proves it has the best written characters in anime especially in the girl aspect.(something shonen struggles with) Like generic anime channel’s shirou vid, its billion$ budget & ufotable even come together to give us peak animation of any year they drop or period. It’s also the lotr of anime with lore on lore & galore.

[@skullknightyt]

Never thought the day of Merphy Naruto days would come but here we are. Can't wait for her to read the last arc.

[@bibhashbhardwas9266]

Bahahaha i love how she doesn't even talk about cardboard with padding with no personality (hinata)

[@BladeWinters]

Can't believe you're already done with Naruto, feels like only a weeks ago when you started. I alittle sad that the Naruto journey is already over but I'm sure once you start another, I'll be like "Cool, new series."

[@arpadszabo661]

I don’t think Kishimoto is bad at writing women, he’s just terrible at giving side characters relevant screentime, but that’s true about men too. Or will anyone argue that Kiba was handled well? Like, come on. One point though. Idk why Tenten exists. Like, take her out of the story and nothing changes. We lose some simping for Neji and a shinobi that can use weapon scrolls, even though she’s not particularly great at it. It’s still stupid memeworthy that she was the only one in the kazekage rescue arc who didn’t stalemate, but was actively losing to her clone.

[@boristhespider9487]

I'd be more general and say that a lot of secondary characters are not written very well, or more often just forgotten about. It just happens that more of them are female. Besides Sakura and I guess Tsunade, female characters are just not important enough in the story to matter in the series overall. Especially among antagonists: besides the very last one (who nobody likes), there are just no female main antagonists. They are just henchmen (henchwomen?). Konan is awesome, but she's put aside to give the spotlight to Nagato and Yahiko. Mei is a cool kage, but she's the least developped (and weakest) of the 5 Kage by far. What about female uchihas or senjus? Yeah... Konoha's teachers? Kurenai is the only woman and...where is she? All the other teachers got their moments.

[@EmberAwoken]

I can’t wait to get your take on Bleach. Considering you’ve read two of the “Big Three,” I think it’s almost necessary at this point that you start that!

[@Aether_GM]

Theyre underutilized, for sure. But its hard for me to argue that a character is both underutilized and well written. Because if they were well written, they would feel satisfying in the story

[@paulogaspar8295]

and they do. Ino, hinata, tsunade, kushina, chiyo, kaguya all had satisfying character arcs. The problem is that they where all secundary characters like most characters are in naruto except for naruto and sasuke. People are just mad that the main strong characters are not woman and that sakura never had god like powers like the 2 main guys in the series.

[@AP_Klutz]

​@@paulogaspar8295💀

[@SpikedKirby]

@@paulogaspar8295 no... they didnt. Kaguya litteraly poped out, said nothing and died

[@Vax_XXIV]

@@paulogaspar8295 What is Ino's character arc please explain???

[@ShouryaRathore]

@@Vax_XXIV did you not watch the war arc

[@tyforestreacts]

Really my only problem with most of Naruto’s female characters can really just be lumped in with the series’ side characters in general: Next to none of them were given enough time to develop. They have TONS of potential, but nothing is done with it. Tsunade is, at the very least, decently written, and at the most, one of the best written characters in the entire series. Sakura started off pretty bad, but there was a big turnaround when the Shippuden era came along. Unfortunately, her character peaked with her fight with Sasori, and it was all kinda downhill from there. I’ll even defend her “I love you, Naruto” thing, but that’ll take a bit of time. Hinata, my girl, was done incredibly dirty. The entire subplot of the Hyuga Clan Branches drama is basically never brought up again after the Chunin Exams, and is just resolved offscreen. I’ll grant Kishimoto this, at least her crush on Naruto has depth and not a crush for the sake of it. Anko is the most wasted character in the show and you can never convince me otherwise. Like I said, most of the female cast has problems, but those are problems that can extend to the entirety of the side cast.

[@trehanzy1776]

The saddest argument around Kushina is that in most extra media her personhood is boiled down to just being a wife/mother with no focus on her skills as a ninja

[@TerrelSam]

Even in the games where they had the most freedom. They made her attacks all centre around being a housewife. Like using a frying pan as a weapon

[@yumin_pluto558]

@@TerrelSam Despite the fact that she was training to become Hokage before she fell in love with Minato. I think that whole backstory is what made me hate him as a character. Outside of that backstory I just think he's kind of boring, but with it he is the excuse that was given for why Naruto's mom was just a mom without any ambition, despite having it previously. Like I can respect characters choosing to settle down or just be a parent, but there's nothing that bridges "I want to be Hokage!" and "I'm fine with just being a housewife." Maybe I just read too much One Piece, but wasn't that your dream? Okay, you've become the Hokage's wife, don't you have any skills to help him out then? Any official capacity? No, just a housewife with a gag frying pan?

[@TedSaint-r5b]

How much of that extra media is canon? In the actual anime we see her in really all of four or five episodes. Which are almost entirely centered around Naruto’s birth. And even then we see her given a lot of character development that is removed from being a wife or mother. As for her skills, she suppressed the nine tails multiple times. Something we’ve seen maybe two or three people ever do.

[@grinko1222]

When did she give up being hokage or a ninja? She was a mom yes but it's not she gave up. She was pregnant, that's all.

[@Swagjutsusolosfiction]

​@@TerrelSam 🤦‍♂️That's depending on the outfit you use. If you use housewife kushina you literally get her with the pan, if you use jonin kushina she pumbles you to death.

[@stard00]

I also read it and Sakura is the worst 😂

[@Wallie759]

People generally dont like girls being the healers because its an established trope at this point. You see it in video games the most where the girl is always the medic while the boys fight and take hits. Its not necessarily bad, but the connotation is that the healer is always passive and reactive without their own agency. Many people thus equate the trope of girls being healers to them basically being passive and on the sidelines healing people and not part of the action. Its an important thing happening in the story but also puts them out of the story essentially. Pain invading konoha for example. Sakura is healing people in a hospital and thats great and all but she's basically a silent background character at that point. Thats mainly why I think the healer criticism is a thing. Healers stand and watch and dont get cool moments in shonen where people come for action. Its also kinda meh that we never see super competent medic males. The only real named one is kabuto

[@isacami25]

i forgot that kabuto was also a medic

[@grinko1222]

That's bs. Healers aren't passive and deserve more respect. Healers are support but so what? They're one ones carrying their team.

[@nerds-nonsense]

​@@grinko1222 I mean, they're saying how thing are, not should be. We're talking about Shonen, action manga/anime for boys, yes healers are generally seen and written as passive. Most of the women in Naruto *are* passive during most of the story, they didn't carry anything. Look at Katara from Atla, her roll as support was not undermined at all. The audience matters.

[@grinko1222]

@@nerds-nonsense Explain Kabuto then.

[@oyamampendu9467]

​@nerds-nonsense in Orochimaru was part of the medical ninja and he never surpassed Tsunade. Kabuto was the reason for Sasuke living

[@JayDLegend]

I agree with alot of this video… but I’ll never abandon Tenten slander

[@ghostchannel4766]

As for the combat vs. medical debate, Merph, I think part of it comes down to the audience understanding the complexities. For example, we learn the Rasengan is incredibly difficult from its chakra flow to shaping that chakra. It's so difficult that Naruto started off using Shadow Clones to compensate. The evolution of this is when Naruto has to learn the Rasenshuriken by infusing the Rasengan with Wind chakra. The audience has a good understanding of how this pipeline happened, and there is a strong uniqueness to it. Sasuke is generally on the opposite end where his combat techniques are more associated with cost. When he uses his Mangekyo Sharingan, there's a spiral into insanity and darkness for him as well as great pain and a risk of going blind. Every time Sasuke used it until EMS, those threats were constant. The entire 5 Kage Summit was seeing how complicated it was for Sasuke to learn new Mangekyo Sharingan techniques before his eyes or body gave out as he took on threats beyond his capabilities pre MS. In contrast, Sakura struggles on this front because medical ninjutsu is a bit more underdeveloped. The best technique medical ninjutsu has is...storing chakra until you want to release it, at which point the user is effectively immortal. We already don't necessarily know the ins and outs of it, so the capstone is more confusing. As for the men aspect, Madara directly insults Tsunade for her craft not measuring up to Hashirama, and the worst part is that he's right. Hashirama's cells alone lower the time limit of KotoAmatsukami from 10 years to a day. All of the strongest villains are utilizing it in some way or other to heal or adjust biological limitations. Tsunade's medical ninjutsu, her years of study and hard work, ultimately don't measure up to a guy who's been dead for a long time simply existing, and that's obviously very demeaning on its own. However, paired with the ambiguity of how medical ninjutsu works, it's worse. One begins to question why the seals *can't* accomplish similar feats. I hope this paints a clearer picture.

[@larrytillmanjr1130]

I think Sakura suffers from being part of the the core ensemble in a battle shonen story. Tsunade works as a character because she's well written and is a side character. Those two things give her the freedom to be a supporter more often than a frontliner without losing the audience's respect and affection. On the other hand, Sakura being part of the story's main trio came with the expectation that she would get close to the same development as Naruto/Sasuke and that she'd have more chances to beat people up. The Kazekage Rescue Mission, in my opinion, exemplifies what the audience expected Sakura to be throughout Part II: a top-notch healer, but also a warrior who can stand apart from the other core characters and hold her own. I think much of the flak she gets is disappointment that we didn't get more stand-out moments like like that. I personally think it's okay that she ended with Sasuke, though I agree that the journey there wasn't well done. What if Sakura went on a few dates during Part II, tried to move on, but ultimately failed? Would that serve as an improvement?

[@MagillanicaLouM]

Never hated how Naruto women were written cause i feel so many characters that are also male were fumbled too lol. But yeah, folks just took Kishimoto saying he admits writing for female characters was something he felt he struggles with and discourse over the years just exaggerated that to mean Naruto has some of the worst female characters is manga history and that contributed a bit to folks saying in fact, manga in general always has shitty female characters, ignore that most the ppl saying this only read the most talked about 4 or 5 big names made for the literal young boys demographic (mostly under the same publisher too) which they constantly mistake as its own genre and assume that all manga with said label are the same fantasy action affairs and therefore must all write characters the same way. It's just decades of hyperbole born from frustration that sometimes a female character isnt always at the forefront of the action and that they actually have to read and understand their characters instead of being able to just get excited at them always doing cool hype action shit. And also definitely some cultural dissonance with a story written originally in Japan in Japanese by a Japanese author primarily for Japanese readers and THEIR preferences in literature amongst their culture (i know its not a monolith but of course there's gonna be differing tastes for some things compared to us reading from Murica). Its a weird rabbit hole really. Only further intensified by at least the Western anime community online these days having become a lot of ppl trying to farm engagement through basic bitch hot takes repeated every few weeks.

[@dudeguy8686]

Congrats on officially finishing 1 of the Big 3! One Piece doesn't count yet, obviously. Thinking on it, Ino, Tenten, and Hinata are all characters I wanted more out of, but ultimately felt kinda empty. Same with Lee, Neji, and Kiba though. That's not a uniquely female writing issue, but a side character issue, i suppose. Sakura, i was willing to enjoy see grow, Sasori was peak, but then she pulled an unforgiveable moment in talking to Naruto late-Part 2. That manipulation.. just dirty. Now, that might be good character writing, but for an antagonistic force for Naruto, and that doesn't do Sakura any favors on the opinion charts.. Tsunade though, top 3 ladies in all anime, in my humble and correct opinion. Awesome fights, and awesome leadership moments throughout the series. For future recommendations, i unfortunately can't say Boruto is on the list. There are one-shot short stories that are great (like Itachi's), but Boruto hasn't done much for me besides disappoint my curiosity. There'll be millions of fanboys who disagree with that take, but man, did everything drop in quality.. Might be good for the algorithm, but not for the soul. Well, thanks for this vid, and looking forward to the Part 2 finale!

[@ZombalayaQ]

Oh Tenten, even in conversations that just focus on the women, you get overlooked and forgotten 😭😭

[@prathamakamble5834]

They even forgot hinata what do you expect 💀

[@viniciushenrique8967]

I love the Karin bash in the video. And the worst part... SHE IS ONE OF THE STRONGEST CHARACTERS IN NARUTO!! SHE F-ING RECHARGED TSUNADE!!! Such a waste...

[@animagamer2]

I'm so grateful you had such an even-handed perspective on this! It drives me insane when people downplay the girls' achievements just because they aren't as strong as Naruto and Sasuke. A statement that holds true for 98% of the cast. The fact remains that the women of Naruto are some of the most influential badasses in the past 2 decades. Especially Sakura, whose infamous scene I will continue to argue, has much more depth than people give it credit for. I do ultimately agree with the perspective that there's a lot of missed potential with the female cast though- it would have been awesome to see powerful Jounin like Kurenai and Anko get a real chance to show their stuff. I mean, Kurenai is literally the best Genjutsu user in the whole village- without magic eyes! And Anko, don't get me started on Anko. Nothing screams missed opportunity more than Anko.

[@DarthVoxyn]

I LOVE the girls of Naruto ( except Sakura). These women are strong in different ways. Healing is useful yet very few men have the capability for healing

[@AverageBananas12]

-Understood the complexity of Goku giving Cell a senzu bean on her first read through -Defends Kishimoto's attempt at writing female characters Merphy is on a damn roll!

[@crocoboi7936]

Yeah sometimes we need people like Merphy who challenges the fanbases of popular anime

[@cjsdizzy]

I know! 😊

[@CoOlKyUbI96]

True rat behavior. We love to see it

[@laurentiuslancaster1657]

I wouldn't say the worst, but it's definitely Kishimoto's weakest trait with him sidelining them a lot. Be it Kurenai, Tenten, Temari, Anko, etc.. Most notoriously Sakura though I can emphatize with her actions, she just kinda becomes somewhat of a Romantic Subplot of Team 7. Doesn't help that she's smackdab in between two literal Demigods And then there's Kaguya...

[@stevenbyrd6123]

Tsunade is pretty good, but sakura feels like kishimoto wrote himself into a corner with her

[@jairacosta3804]

A lot of the hate comes from Naruto women being compared to it’s other big 3 female counterparts it’s the weakest female cast of the three

[@parinashah5854]

I have no issues with Sakura ending up with Sasuke. Yes, I know this could have been much better or platonic relationship could have worked too. But after reading Naruto gaiden I can say even though Sasuke would have no problem being alone, he dearly appreciated Sakura for being there for him.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

"he dearly appreciated Sakura for being there for him." Except she wasn't. There relationship was just a one-sided crush and never developed beyond that.

[@parinashah5854]

@@sarveshnathan7559 that’s y I said during boruto arc not in naruto. Naruto gaiden takes place in boruto.

[@foxesofautumn]

But it was Naruto who was there for him in the main series. He basically told Sakura to piss of at every turn. The fact her crush survived that kinda just makes her look delusional or full of self-loathing (Which isn't a bad way to take a character if had been framed that way but it wasn't.)

[@manovrsb]

​@foxesofautumn it's funny cause Sasuke never told Sakura to piss off yet Sasuke told Naruto to get lost multiple times and yet you ignore that.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

@@manovrsb Actually he has told Sakura piss off. More than once. Read the manga.

[@patriciocarrasco7641]

Sakura frustrates me because of the potential, Kishimoto gave her all the tools to be an anti Sasuke ninja and just not writre that. She gave her affinity to genjutsu that well could have nullified any genjutsu of Sasuke (who aside of the Uchiha ones, is not that great), in Taijutsu she obliterates almost anyone (only exceptions for me Tsunade, Guy and maybe Lee) and in ninjutsu, she has the freaking medical prowess to counter any damage done to her

[@bxllx1]

I personally think Sakura is written very well unlike the other women characters especially Hinata, Ino and Ten Ten. People hate sakura way to much as for me I think she has great development. We started with the trio of three idiots. Sakura was selfish totally obsessed with sasuke and ignorant and even mean to Naruto. Later she realized how weak she is and started to train with tsunade also because she and Naruto became friends and she felt guilty for the things she done and him feeling bad for not saving sasuke. She wanted to become strong to bring sasuke back herself and not let Naruto handle her problems. When Naruto came back after the timeskip we saw how strong she became and how good they work as a duo because of their friendship. Later she gets told naruto is in love with her and Sauske is evil. As a 14/15 yo girl this makes her unsure how to feel and she wants to bring her self to love Naruto to. As Naruto says she lied to her self. In the final war we saw that sakura was able to heal a lot of injured ninjas and damaged many enemies as well as discovered zetsus secret. Later she kept Naruto alive. She was a important supor role for Naruto and Sasuke to defeat Kaguya. The other women lacked of screentime and development in my opinion. Konan and Tsunade got their development and grew on my. But Ino had some nice moments but they didn’t stand out for me and her character didn’t develop at all. Her relationship with a certain character also came kinda out of nowhere. Hinata also wanted to become strong but we never saw her becoming strong. She wasn’t that shy anymore later but after her confession to Naruto nothing changed. She couldn’t do anything in the war arc and hasn’t won any fight. I think this potential was wasted and they could haved used her to show how strong she became just for Naruto. On one hand are Temari and Tenten had lovestorys with Neji and shikamaru. Unfortunately we did not saw a lot of this and this would actually help to give them more character and personality. Rin on the other hand only was shown in flashbacks but her love story with Obito was very detailed and give her a personality that was more than just the girl. She was ready to sacrifice her self and support Obito as her friend. She was not very strong but her backstory showed what her strengths were and also explains for me why sakura reminds obito of her. As Naruto is obito, Kakashi is Sasuke and Sakura is rin of team 7.

[@sarveshnathan7559]

"People hate sakura way to much as for me I think she has great development" No she doesn't. Her development stopped after the Kazekage arc. "Sakura was selfish totally obsessed with sasuke " And still is till the very end -useless throughout Pt.1 -Gets upset when Sasuke won’t share his personal problems with her, even though Sasuke doesn’t have to tell her anything and that she shouldn’t pry into his personal affairs. -Tells Sasuke that revenge won’t make him happy, even though she grew up privileged and pampered and never experienced loss or betrayal like Sasuke did. -Wallows in self-pity whenever people call her out on shit. -Claims to understand Sasuke’s pain, and then says if Sasuke leaves she will feel alone, completely disregarding her family and friends. She thinks her pain of seeing Sasuke leave is comparable to Sasuke’s pain of los his family.This is peak insensitivity and short-sightedness. -Is willing to betray her village for Sasuke, a guy she has only known for a few months. -Obsesses about Sasuke, even after he tried to kill her three times -Bitches about Sasuke not loving her -Compared Sasuke’s pain of losing his clan to her pain of seeing Sasuke leave -Was willing to betray the Leaf to be with Sasuke -Emotionally blackmailed Naruto -Didnt kill Sasuke when she had the chance -Complains about Sasuke not caring about her in a middle of a war -Pathetically begs for Sasuke to return despite the fact that he was an asshole to her -In spite of Sasuke’s feelings almost getting her killed and the fact that Sasuke a a criminal who tried to kill her and destroy her village she still has feelings for him -Recklessly makes stupid decisions -Punched Sai just for speaking the truth about Sasuke -No backstory -Lack of ambition -Destroyed character development If you think Sakura was written very well you need a reality check.

[@bshiii3907]

@@sarveshnathan7559why are you crying in every comment?

[@badkarma450]

​@@bshiii3907 Leave it Bro he is brain dead

[@hello9470]

One thing that annoys me is that people think Sakura is obsessed with Sasuke which is false. Here why OBSESSED MEAN preoccupy or fill the mind of (someone) continually, intrusively, and to a troubling extent. Sakura called out to Sasuke and LET HIM KNOW HE was wrong WHEN SOMEONE IS OBSESSED THEY WON’T TALK BACK. Sakura's objective extends beyond simply being with Sasuke, as evidenced in the same canon material. It said one of her other goals is to be like Ino bc Sakura admired Ino for how confident & straightforward. She wanted Ino to see her as an equal & not just a helpless crybaby. However, a lot of haters use this scene. Sakura “UNDERSTAND THIS... I'M NEVER LETTING YOU ANYWHERE NEAR SASUKE.” Ino “WHAT--?!” Sakura “YOU'RE NOT EVEN HIS TYPE! AND I'M NOT THE WEAK, NEEDY LITTLE GIRL I USED TO BE. YOU'RE NOT EVEN ON MY RADAR NOW” To say... Sasuke’s importance on Sakura’s character can’t be more obvious here when it comes to Ino and their rivalry, the first thing she states is about Sasuke and how unappealing Ino is (nevermind she doesn’t know what “Sasuke’s type” is). Because Sakura ties her self-esteem to how appealing she believes herself to be to Sasuke, she assumes other people do as well, therefore, to feel superior, she tries to downgrade both Ino’s self-esteem and importance when it comes to “Sakura’s radar”. “Yet they once again completely and conveniently ignore the explanation that came directly after that scene” Kakashi “SAKURA'S NOT TRYING TO THROW HER WEIGHT AROUND... ...AND SHE'S NOT THE KIND WHO'D BULLY SOMEONE JUST TO BE CRUEL. SHE'S JUST MAKING SURE INO IS TOO RILED UP TO THINK OF GOING EASY ON HER... ...FOR OLD TIME'S SASUKE.” All Sakura was trying to do there, was to push Ino’s buttons to ensure that Ino didn’t hold back, because despite what the hater says, this was indeed about Sakura’s growth as a person. She wanted to be able to beat Ino at her best, to prove to herself that she was at least her equal, and was no longer “just a bud” as Ino herself said she was. SAKURA'S OTHER GOAL WAS TO BECOME A BETTER Ninja and Help her Teammate. she cared about her teammates beside Sasuke multiple times and saved them. showed gratitude, and was a caring and strong girl outside of Sasuke. She constantly thought about Team 7 as a whole being happy IF Sakura was obsessed with him she would’ve made Sasuke her absolute life goal, motivation, a reason to train, a reason to get, stronger, etc. However, throughout the canon material, she always considered her teammates as equals, sometimes even favoring Naruto over Sasuke. Sakura's commitment to her comrades was unwavering. She trained tirelessly, drawing inspiration from not only Sasuke but also Naruto, Ino, and Lee. She cared deeply for her teammates, going above and beyond to save them on multiple occasions. Her gratitude and strength extended far beyond her relationship with Sasuke. It is important to recognize Sakura for the caring and strong individual she is, independent of her connection to Sasuke. The word “obsession” is automatically canceled out if you read the canon facts correctly and acknowledge them. Sakura caring for Sasuke was nowhere near a troubling extent, as he wasn’t the only one in her mind. Or how they say Most of the female characters' existence is tied to the existence of the male characters. The existence of many male characters is ALSO TIED TO the existence of other male characters. Sasuke -> Itachi Naruto -> Sasuke Madara -> Izuna Also, there were other male characters, whose existence was tied to that of other female characters. Obito -> Rin categorising "infatuation" as a female thing only? Male characters also had infatuations: Naruto -> Sakura Obito -> Rin Jiraiya -> Tsunade.

[@badkarma450]

Finally Some one Who understands . I have been arguing the same thing in the comments with brain dead people

[@hello9470]

@@badkarma450 honestly I understand your struggle bc it is so annoying bc the Naruto fandom would nitpick what to remember and not to remember.

[@TEG13]

What's worse, though, Karens negative presence or Tenten's lack of it?

[@cheshirekoala9457]

What bothers me the most about Kishi's women is how unable or uninsterested he seems to be in making them inspirirng both for the audience and for other characters in his world. Let me explain: There are many male characters that act as mentors or guides for Naruto and his friends. We all remember that iconic phrase form Obito/Kakashi about never letting your comrades behind. We see how passionate a teacher Might Guy is. We have Jiraiya writting books in an effort to bring peace to the world. And the thrid hokage with his poems about the Will of Fire to protect the future generations, and we even see how this message passes through his son, Asuma, and his student, Shikamaru; however, the woman who actually carries a baby in her womb, Kurenai, doesn't really teach us anything about the Will of Fire, or anythitng else. We see, however, the Hokage-to-be, Tsunade teaching Naruto a valuable lesson about never giving up... Oh, wait..!, eer... actually, it is the other way around, isn't it? It is the teenage Naruto the one who teaches old granny Tsunade to never give up and helps her overcome her fear of blood, let her deceased loved ones go, and make the right decision to not help Orochimaru and become Hokage instead. Kishimoto's women are not as good as men at guiding other characters. And even when they are, the audience doesn't get to see it. And I'm particularly thinking about Tsunade. Yes, she is clearly a great teacher. In fact, I'd say she is way better than Jiraiya, but we don't get to see how she does it. I mean, we spend a lot of pages/screentime seeing Naruto popping water balloons to learn the Rasengan, but we never get to see how Sakura learns medical justu from Tsunade. We could have... I don't know... see Sakura doing exercises to channel her chakra in the exact shape of a kidney to protect it from bleeding. But I guess that would make the Rasengan look like child's play. There are no details about medical jutsu, they just put their hands on the chest of their patient and heal ¿I wonder why people don't find healers inspiring? It looks like when it was about the male fighters Kishi wanted to SHOW us what they are doing and how much they struggled to achieve it; but when it was about the female healers he didn't seem to care. He was just happy with TELLING us that they trained hard and they are awesome, but we don't need to dive into how they do it because it must have been boring, tedious and uninspirirng. Not as exciting as popping water balloons.

[@FallenPhoenix-ml5mn]

The problem with support units in Naruto is how little they actually do that. Naruto has like 700 chapters, I can count the amount of times Sakura healed her team on 1 hand. Look at Wendy in FT, she is a healer aswell and she gets no hate, because she is allowed to heal constantly, she is buffing the team constantly, she is so much more plot important and relevant than Sakura. In Naruto the issue is that the women on paper has everything they need to be fantastic, but they aren't allowed to show it. Like on Paper Sakura has super strength able to destroy people with 1 hit, thats awesome! Then for 99% of her hits she is just punching the ground and missing her opponents never allowed to get the final shot. If you removed Sakura from the series and replaced her with anyone else with healing abilities what changes? What does her character specifically change in a meaningfull way? An example would be One Piece, Nami is nowhere as strong as Sakura, but Nami just being Nami has bailed the straw hats out half a bilion times and she has a important role for the crew to go on, same with Robin. Sakura is a member of team 7, the OG team, she should be infinitely more relevant and active than side characters like Shikamaru and Guy but she isn't. The equivalent to me would be Bon Clay (who is awesome) had more screen time and comtribution than Robin or Nami despite them being straw hats. It just doesnt make sense.

[@botanbutton]

🙌🏾🙌🏾for the Wendy mention! Best baby girl!

[@HaleonRanks]

Sakura since she became a healer has been shown healing MANY times. Are you just hating for hate sake? She healed in Rescue Gaara arc, in Pain Invasion arc (shows to be the primary healer and even giving instructions, and in war arc, she was the head or so of the healing corps and stuff, then entered the battlefield and STILL healed there. I really think people should rewatch Naruto before just making statements such as this. Does Sakura have issues, especially at the beginning of the series? Hell yeah. But saying she isn't shown enough healing is objectively wrong.

[@FallenPhoenix-ml5mn]

@@HaleonRanks Says many times mentions 3 to 4. Naruto is 700 chapters long and 700 episodes long, the amount of healing she has compared to the ammount of screen time and episodes the show has is monumentally skewed. And again in those 700 chapters of the manga how many enemies did she KO with her super strength? If this was a short series like FMAB that runs only 50+ episodes that would be fine, but this is 700 episodes long and having her, a main member of team 7 not a side character like rock lee heal 5 times and win 1 fight is not good. I dont hate Sakura, she is fantastic in the novels and Boruto (anime and novel, she is not in the manga) but in OG and Shippuden the author barely used a inch of her potential and abilities, constantly sidelining her as if she is not a member of team 7.

[@botanbutton]

@@HaleonRanks I don't think OP is saying she doesn't use her medical ninjutsu, it's that she doesn't use it enough compared to other characters that have, more or less, the same skill set. Wendy from Fairy Tail is a good example. She has support and combat abilities because of her sky dragon slayer magic and in the chapters she's in, she shown using one or both. The mangaka makes her an active participant in a majority of the chapters she's in despite her being a kid, too. Her being on the battlefield is often key to the team winning big story bouts because she can heal injuries, provide support spells like defense, flight, etc, and then combat with her dragon slayer magic in the frontline with the rough and tough dragon slayers or the backline with long range moves. She wants to be able to do like the other dragon slayers, who are big older guys, and she does with encouragement from everyone on the team. She's actually pretty great! Sakura doesn't often get moments like that, not like she should, not like she deserves. This person on tumblr does a great a breakdown of what Sakura does in all the manga chapters of Naruto. Like, it's an AWESOME breakdown and gives great insight on how Kishimoto was characterizing and utilizing her. An example: #4. Sakura uses medical ninjutsu in 39 chapters, about 11.74%. But if you take away her use of Katsuyu healing, it's 8.43% or 28 chapters. There are 700 chapters in Naruto. ( you can find the rest at primnroses . tumblr . com / post / 668670437670240256 / every-time-sakura-is-shown-in-the-canon-manga )

[@HaleonRanks]

@@FallenPhoenix-ml5mn Still a terrible point because you don't just mention chapters as an argument. You ask yourself 1. When did Sakura actually become a medical ninja? What was in Naruto Shippuden. Naruto Shippuden isn't 700 chapters. 2. You ask yourself, what arcs was Sakura in? She wasn't in Tale Between Brothers, Jiraiya the Gallant backstory, or the Shikamaru arc. Those are another several chapters gone. 3. Then from there, she used her healing abilities in a) Helping Kankuro after Sasori decked him b) Helping Chiyo by using the antidote to Sasori's poison c) Helping keep Chiyo alive via healing d) When Pain attacked, she oversaw the healing of the entire village. e) She oversaw the healing during the early parts of the war for the entire shinobi world and was shown doing just that at least three separate times. f) She came during the final parts of the war and saved many lives with her healing and summoning Katsuyu g) She saved the MC from literal death or at least kept him alive long enough before he came back. h) She heals Naruto and Sasuke after their final battle and saves them from bleeding to death. I'm sure I'm forgetting more instances. How many more instances do you want? Not everything in Naruto is a fight and not every fight needs Sakura. You wanted her at five kage summit healing Kages? You wanted her in Itachi vs Sasuke healing Sasuke? Even when it would make no sense for her to be in those scenarios? What the heck are you talking about? Do you expect her to be in every arc? Nobody argued that Sakura wasn't completely useless in OG Naruto, what YOU are talking about is Sakura's healing. She isn't with Naruto in every single battle he fought, nor should she be. The hate people have so Naruto is so stupid because 80% of it is just their own headcannon. Sakura heals a lot in the show and has healed in every fight she has been in since she learned medical ninjutsu.

[@LordDTwigo]

The problem is. Most anime fans are illiterate and have no ability to even analyse a show. Anime fans have some of the most outrageous takes. That you would never find in any other fandom that involves literature because people who actually read know how to analyse what they're reading. Kishimoto does a good job writing women. The problem is that anime fans are drowning in ADHD and were prescribed ADHD by the doctor as a joke. They have the attention span of 5 seconds and have anime playing in the background while they're off doing something else. They basically know nothing about the stories they proclaim to love most of the time. It's insane.

[@spencermoore1953]

Fantastic video! You definitely changed my mind

[@Xagzan]

I don't think the women in Naruto were bad characters. I just thought, from beginning to end, Kishimoto simply didn't care as much about them. In a series that started with Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura as the ostensible main trio, for it to eventually become the Naruto and Sasuke show, with her relegated to rare moments of importance, was messed up. Frickin Shikamaru eventually got equal if not more focus. And yes, fighting =/= good writing, but in a shonen battle manga, it's kind of more important than in other stories, and Kishimoto giving the boys an endless buffet of power ups, while Sakura (and Tsunade) is only allowed to punch and heal, also showed me where his priorities lay. Sakura aside, I'll never forgive Kishimoto for completely wasting Konan. Not only was her sacrifice pointless from a story perspective, since it changed nothing and Obito recovered the eyes anyway, but it wasted a potentially interesting relationship between her and Naruto as Jiraiya's last students. I think it would've been nice to see a sort of pseudo-parent/child relationship grow there, yet complicated by her complicity in what happened to Jiraiya. As it stands though, I don't think Naruto ever even learned what happened to her, unless it comes up in Boruto, which I don't really follow.

[@luujasonful]

This is a great video and why I'm subscribed, balanced.

[@nichescenes]

yeah this is why i like book reviewers not into manga. They dont power scale etc. That said they focus a bit too much on character as a plot person myself. They arent used to it so i get it. The fights do tell a story but it takes time to notice. People usually act like shonen has no story due to fights being skippable and slice of life or ect being better cause it focuses on characters. I can read a personality type book if i cared that much about cool personalities, story matters too along with thrills and action does it for me.

[@sammalla5238]

NO, THEY ARE NOT.. Read some modern shounen for slightly better female writing, just slightly tho

[@ryanbrooks2434]

I feel like a lot of the claims about the woman being “poorly written” are most often just manifestations of how bad Kishimoto is at writing romance.

[@laurentiuslancaster1657]

Good point

[@foxesofautumn]

I'd agree with that. It really messes with Sakura's story arc especially.

[@UltimateMustacheX]

I constantly see people complain that the women become housewives in the end, but that's barely even true. All of the girls who became mothers stayed housewives until their kids went to the Academy, then started up at least part-time work. 1) Sakura works at the hospital (and probably went in for emergencies even before Sarada started to school) 2) Ino leads the Barrier team (and likely could still have some degree of oversight before Inojin started to school) 3) Tenten owns a store (no kids, so this doesn't apply to her anyway) 4) Temari is an ambassador / Shinobi Union member (and likely stayed at home till Shikadai went to school, since her husband and brothers could easily cover for her until then) Hinata and Karui are the only ones still full time housewives, but that makes sense: 5) Karui is definitely the type to want to go back to the front lines, but she's in a different village now. Is she going to put on a Leaf headband and fight for them? Would she travel back to her old village to do missions? Obviously she'd be done fighting in this situation. And technically we have no idea if she's got some civilian job we don't see. 6) Hinata still has a kid in the home, who only just started the Academy. So she would finally be at the point where she'd start work again, though I assume timeskip plot will get in the way (I'm anime only). However, I don't see her ever doing anything else. She may be one of the most powerful females at this point, but she doesn't like fighting (she may not directly say it, but come on). And she doesn't have a specific skill set for other work like Sakura/Ino/etc., so housewife is the only option. But she finds way more importance as a housewife. Because even if her kids are old enough to not need her full time, she's still the wife of the ninja president. She knows how hard Naruto works as Hokage, and wants the home to be a zone where he can come back to and drop everything at the door. So she will maintain that role full-time to ensure it can be that for him. (Kushina was no doubt the exact same for Minato). And yes, there are people these days who just can't seem to grasp why a woman would want to do that for a man, but this mental degradation of modern society is fairly new in the grand scheme of things, and we're not fully past the generations that understood it.

[@MidnightSpecialist]

Love hearing your breakdowns, they're very eye opening and usually on point when presented the way you do