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I am convinced that everybody possesses within them the capacity for MIRACLEHATE. It is like an allergy, but from one's sensibilities instead of one's immune system. If you are lucky, you may never truly encounter the object of your MIRACLEHATE
Or you can be me, I guess, although I don't recommend it.
I present the object of my MIRACLEHATE: Masashi Kishimoto.
I. Hate. This man. I hate him SO MUCH. I hate his misogyny and his bullshit plot arcs that don't make any sense and his complete lack of grasp of the concept of pacing in any shape or form and his inability to remain true to any theme, ANY THEME AT ALL.
I hate his inane attempts at writing politics and his failtastic world-building and the way his storytelling strategy seems to be to throw a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks and his masturbatory Sharingan fetish.
OH AND I HATE HIS MISOGYNY. LET ME REITERATE THIS IN MORE DETAIL. I HATE THE WAY HIS FEMALE CHARACTERS - MANY OF THEM INTERESTING IN THEIR OWN RIGHT, AND DESERVING OF A PLACE IN A FAR BETTER CREATOR'S CAST - ARE CONSTANTLY, POINTEDLY, AND DELIBERATELY SHOVED ASIDE SO THE CHARACTERS WITH THEIR MALE COMPATRIOTS CAN BE PUSHED INTO THE LIMELIGHT. I HATE THE WAY SAKURA SPENT ALL OF PART ONE STANDING IN THE BACKGROUND HOLDING A KUNAI, AND SPENT MOST OF PART TWO UNCONSCIOUS WHENEVER A FIGHT WAS HAPPENING. I HATE HOW FEMALE CHARACTERS ARE JAMMED INTO THE ROLE OF 'HEALER', NO MATTER HOW MUCH OR LITTLE IT MAY SUIT THEM (HINATA? OKAY. INO? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU ON?). I HATE HOW YOU CAN COUNT THE NUMBER OF DEVELOPED FEMALE CHARACTERS WITH BACKSTORY AND SHIT ON ONE HAND, AND IF YOU DO THE SAME WITH GUYS YOU WOULD RUN OUT OF FINGERS AND TOES. I HATE HOW NARUTO AND SASUKE BOTH HAVE FAMILIES THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO THE STORYLINE, EVEN IF THEY ARE SORT OF DEAD AT PRESENT, BUT AS FAR AS WE KNOW SAKURA HAS NO PARENTS, BECAUSE WE'VE NEVER HEARD A FUCKING WORD ABOUT THEM. I HATE ALL OF THIS SO. MUCH.
And it seems like no matter where I go, Naruto-wise, there is always something to remind me of how much I fucking hate this man! THE MIRACLEHATE IS ALWAYS THERE. LURKING. WAITING FOR THE MOMENT TO STRIKE. I read a new chapter and BOOM, MIRACLEHATE. I re-read an old chapter and BOOM, MIRACLEHATE. I look up some detail on the Naruto Wikia and BOOM, MIRACLEHATE. I look up anime screencaps for iconning and BOOM, MIRACLEHATE. THE RAGE IS ALWAYS SIMMERING JUST BELOW THE SURFACE.
And there is this bizarre DISCONNECT between the man and what the man has created, because although I loathe Kishimoto to the very core of my being, I like Naruto! I like what it could be, I like a good deal of what it is, and I mourn for its lost potential on a daily basis. THIS IS MY DILEMMA, OH FLIST. There are many people I wish would read Naruto so we could meta and RP and go off creating fanon together because Naruto has a wicked-awesome cast and potential. BUT I CANNOT IN GOOD CONSCIENCE RECOMMEND IT TO THEM, because reading the manga is like A NEVERENDING STRING OF DISAPPOINTMENTS, LIKE A LARGE GROUP OF SLEDGEHAMMERS RE-ENACTING A TWISTED VERSION OF THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE ON MY KNEECAPS.
Would you like to know what made me realize that I possess true MIRACLEHATE for Kishimoto? Let me tell you. It is this minor, insignificant scene at the end of the entire SASUKE IN A BUCKET arc, which I was rereading because I was bored and wanted to see is Sakon/Ukon's powers made any more sense on a third re-read (surprisingly, they did!).
So everybody who looked dead is actually alive, etc etc, and being tended to by Leaf medical guys. And there's this scene with Kiba and Akamaru and Kiba's hot sister where she looks Akamaru over for serious injury and says that he'll be fine. Innocuous, it seems, but this time my eyes fell on a word that I guess I skimmed before or something:
Vet.
Kiba's hot, badass-looking sister. Is a vet. To wit: A healer.
The instant my brain made that connection, it was like a fucking fire went up behind my eyes and I saw fucking red and I raged like never before. IT WAS COMPLETELY AND UTTER DISPROPORTIONATE TO THE ACTUAL IMPORTANCE OF THE REVELATION, but that matters little in the face of MIRACLEHATE.
This was not a stunning new revelation or anything! The fact that Kishimoto is a sexist fuckface is not news! I have known it for a very, very long time! BUT YOU SEE? MIRACLEHATE. JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU CANNOT HATE SOMETHING ANY MORE, IT PROVES YOU WRONG. THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER LEVEL TO MY HATE. ALWAYS.
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what
what
what
okay fuck you kishimoto. I KNEW THE HANDWINGS WERE A SIGN.
...although I think the thing that made me quit reading was how he killed off the entire Sound Four without giving any of them except Kimimaro any sort of substantial backstory, because goddamnit I liked those guys and a friend's portrayal of Tayuya was what got me to read Naruto in the first place. Of course, I have a weakness for recurring Quirky Miniboss Squads and I was even vaguely disappointed when Grimmjow's posse got gunned down, even though admittedly they weren't interesting at all outside of fanon.
Still, man. Wasted potential.
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I still think all their curse seal forms had really fucking terrible designs, though.
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I think that I have that same disconnect between Kishimoto and his work, though. Naruto is .... not an epic manga, or amazingly deep. It's good for a shounen, though, in my opinion, and I like it. It belongs to a genre in which I usually can't stick with a series for more than five chapters. It has an interesting world, interesting characters, I actually like the character designs (though his art is ... inconsistent; it's either interesting, good, shitty, or spectacularly shitty), and it can be touching on distant levels (it used to be VERY touching back when other characters did things lol)!
And yet you have Kishimoto, who could not think of anything to say in an interview about his inspiration for Sakura other than 'wanting to make her annoying' and that 'she's a girl, and the first thing I thought was girls cannot understand boys.'
Really, now? Way to go, asshole.
I care very little about him, though, so I can't have miraclehate toward him. I totally understand why you would, though. I definitely go easier on him, but I know what that's like.
I do think most of my miracle hatred is reserved for people irl, just because unlike canons, I cannot fanwank and meta them into tolerability, or find redeeming qualities in them and explore that side with my imagination. That's the great thing about a lot of canons like Naruto or Bleach, with interesting characters and concepts but horrible HORRIBLE exposition and plot/thematic inconsistencies.
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SO MUCH WORD. SO MUCH.
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Most canons I like have finished, though, so it usually is not as effective as I'd like it to be. :'(
But yeah, eughhh Bleach is even more grating because of the faux-feminism that fans seem to praise the series for. It seems that for as stupid as Naruto fandom is, at least people criticize Kishimoto, even if everyone squabbles over it, repeatedly. People let KT get away with a lot of shit.
IN THE END BOTH FANDOMS ARE RLY DUMB THOUGH :(
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I feel like nowadays Bleach fandom is way stupider than Naruto fandom. But that's just in my experience.
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The fact that Bleach at no point contains the line "I guess girls of her age are more interested in boys than in ninjutsu" also sort of takes the edge off.
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WHYYYYY
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This pretty much puts my issues with Bleach into one big sexy rant, but
The fact that Bleach at no point contains the line "I guess girls of her age are more interested in boys than in ninjutsu" also sort of takes the edge off.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH :'( true
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Perhaps it depends on whichever one you read first I don't know. All I know is that while everything in that rant is 100% accurate, it seems like Kubo is just failing unintentionally to me. Whereas in Naruto the misogyny is so POINTED and DIRECTED and seemingly deliberate that I actually have to make an effort to imagine Kishimoto as anything other than a creepy basement troll vicariously using his manga to enact revenge on the mean girls who wouldn't take him to the prom.
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I guess Naruto never gets my hopes up about the women :( like Bleach does. Also, I am a shallow woman and think the naruto ladies are cuter, because they aren't so ... pornirific and bug-eyed.
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That makes me think, if we ever , by some miracle, get even an ounce of Gai flashback, I want his sensei to be a woman. The GARiest woman there ever was to live.
And on naruto re-reads. I love doing them! Because I actually find things to like in places I didn't before. Er, except like .. half of Part II. I couldn't find anything to like, but I tried :( However, something that always annoys me on these Naruto re-reads is just ... how awesome Tsunade was and basically what she's turned into.
What the hell, seriously.
It's hard, for me, to read the series and not completely dislike Naruto as a character. I feel bad, because I don't think it's actually HIM (his character just isn't my type; if someone is going to be LOUD HYPERACTIVE ANNOYING NINJA THAT DOES WHAT THEY WANT TO DO IN LIFE I want them to have people, you know, not falling over their feet for them and magically being won over. Because there's nothing endearing about someone who goes against society/the rules and is magically adored for it. I want people to look at you and go "Um, okay? Creepy/weird/eccentric person, I respect you but don't understand a thing you say and am just gonna be over here now" otherwise it loses its charm for me), but ... everything Kishimoto does with him.
Sasuke, as much as I adore him, used to be kind of the victim of these hand-me-down powers, theme destroying kind of ones, and magical "CONVENIENT PLOT DEVICE!!11" type of stuff. Now, Naruto has him beat in that category like, ridiculously hard, and it's worse since he's set up to be the hero in the end.
It's just sad how many characters fell through the cracks, despite having just as strong of ambitions as Naruto and Sasuke.
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Also oh god, stop me from re-reading the Sannin threeway fight. I do not want to remember the insanity that was a badass medic ninja having a blood phobia and getting beaten up by Orochimaru's henchman (awesome as Kabuto is), or Tsunade doing less in the fight than a drugged-up Jiraiya or a crippled Orochimaru.
Just. I do not want to ever remember this.
Sasuke, as much as I adore him, used to be kind of the victim of these hand-me-down powers, theme destroying kind of ones, and magical "CONVENIENT PLOT DEVICE!!11" type of stuff. Now, Naruto has him beat in that category like, ridiculously hard, and it's worse since he's set up to be the hero in the end.
OH YES. THIS. And while Sasuke was set up in a sort of adversarial position this was possibly excusable because presumably Naruto would BEAT-DOWN him to his senses with the power of HARD WORK AND EFFORT and the theme would remain at least partially intact, but NO. Now Naruto's doing it too and he's doing it WORSE than Sasuke ever did and this makes him seem like a massive, massive hypocrit because WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO 'THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS', HUH? HUH!?
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GRR ARGH I HATED THAT. >:((((
Agreed on all points. I don't quite have the miraclehate for Kishimoto, but... well I'm pretty close. I also have it for KT but that's a whole other can of worms.
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I'm cracking up so hard because it's so true, I can never in good conscience recommend Naruto to people unless I know they have the same approach to fandom and canons as I do. I do find, however, that it's easier for people to rush through it in a new way now than to have waited weeks and weeks for updates like I have for years D:
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I would add something, but you've just said it so perfectly, I can only add that my icon totally demostrates my feelings for Kishimoto and my utter agreement with this rant.