My Counterarguments to Common Anti-NaruSaku Arguments


1. I hate NaruSaku for the same reasons that you hate SasuSaku. Sakura was too mean to Naruto.

SasuSaku fans that I have spoken to have made this argument. They try making NaruSaku the same as SasuSaku, and they have yet to explain to me what it is about SasuSaku that forgives its mistreatment and what it is about NaruSaku that condemns it.

Sakura's poor treatment of Naruto in the beginning was exactly the reason why I started off not liking Sakura. For the first third of part one, she wasn't nice to him at all, and I was always hoping that she would see how much Naruto sincerely liked her and how much better off she would be with him.

What separates NaruSaku from SasuSaku is the fact that from early on in the series, Sakura consciously decided that she needed to start being nicer to Naruto. In chapter three, she thinks "Maybe next time... I can be a little nicer." By the chuunin exams, Sakura is already considerate of Naruto and wants to protect his dream of being hokage. [link] [link] [link] Kishimoto uses THREE pages to show Sakura thinking about Naruto. She says that she is confident that she can answer. For Naruto alone, she was willing to sacrifice her chances of becoming a chuunin in that exam and Sasuke's chances too. Never once has Sasuke been shown to think about Sakura's feelings or Sakura in such a way. The only times that he thinks of Sakura are two or three times as a part of his "Team 7" reminiscence near the end of part one. Never once, has Sasuke ever reviewed the way that he treats Sakura and come to the conclusion that he should be nicer.

Now, a SasuSaku fan might argue that no one has made Sasuke come to realize that he treats Sakura poorly, in the way that Sasuke made Sakura realize. This isn't quite true. Naruto has yelled at Sasuke when he was being mean to her. [link] Furthermore, Sasuke was aware that he wasn't kind to her. At the goodbye scene, Sakura says to Sasuke that he always seems to hate her. [link] She also tells him that he never talks to her (which is pretty sad considering that as a team, they must spend a lot of time together). [link] It has been brought to his attention that he isn't very nice to Sakura, and he still has yet to consider changing the way he treats her or regards her.


2. Sakura hits Naruto. He deserves someone who won't hit him.

She doesn't hit him because she dislikes him or for reasons like that. She hits him or yells at him when he steps out of line, when he says or does something perverted, when he says or does something crude, and when he is disrespectful or rude. Sakura isn't the only one to hit or chastise him either. Kakashi has hit and scolded Naruto, and Iruka has too. Tsunade even challenged Naruto when he was being disrespectful. She hits him not out of dislike for Naruto (it is clear that she cares about him and enjoys his company) but out of her great sense of propriety.

Sakura has only hit him twice so far in Shippuuden, and there's a reason for that. After seeing Sakura's super strength for the first time, Naruto thinks "I should stop playing around in front of Sakura... she could kill me." [link] He does not think that out of concern, fear, or replusion. Naruto smiles gently as he thinks this. He marvels at her strength and realizes that he should start acting more maturely. I've heard people say that Hinata's quiet nature will calm Naruto down, but Sakura's got that taken care of.

Another point that I'd like to make is that Naruto doesn't mind. He knows that he steps out of line, and when Sakura hits him, he never lessens his affection for her. Besides, he is a ninja. He is fully capable of dodging her punches. She's never hit him with the intention of really hurting him, like she did Sai. [link]


3. Naruto represses his personality around Sakura. He'll yell at Gamabunta for not respecting him, yet he lets Sakura beat up on him.

No he doesn't. Naruto is himself around Sakura, and Sakura is free to be herself around Naruto (while she repressed her personality around Sasuke). He doesn't yell at Sakura because she has never said or done anything that he disagrees with.

Yes, Naruto did yell at Gamabunta for not respecting him. [link] However, Gamabunta yelled right back, effectively forcing Naruto into submission. [link] When Naruto steps out of line, only forceful reinforcement brings him back. He gets the message that way.


4. Naruto and Sakura would not have been friends if Sasuke had not yelled at Sakura in the beginning and left the village. Their relationship was pretty weak in part one.

Now THIS is inaccurate. It is actually because of Sasuke (or rather her obsession with Sasuke) that Sakura didn't like Naruto. When Naruto impersonates Sasuke to ask Sakura what she thinks of him, Sakura says "Naruto is always getting in the way of my love... and he always enjoys seeing me struggle." [link] Sakura started off hating Naruto because she thought that he, the class clown, had singled her out to make her life difficult. Naruto would ask to sit next to her, and she would think that he is just trying to prevent Sasuke from sitting there, for example. When Naruto accidentally kissed Sasuke, she interpreted it as mocking her, stealing his first kiss before she did, or in some way preventing Sasuke from being with her. [link] [link] Later, Sakura asks out Sasuke, and when she is rejected, Naruto asks her out. [link] [link] She, of course, interprets it again as the known troublemaker mocking her and trying to prevent her from being with Sasuke. In that scene in chapter three, she says that "Naruto doesn't understand anything about me", but she realizes in chapter 183 that Naruto does understand her and sincerely care about her. She also realizes that she was the one who did not understand Naruto. [link] [link]

Their relationship was FAR from weak by the end of part one. Sakura's relationship with Naruto had been growing from the start, and it was certainly stronger than Sakura's relationship with Sasuke. As she revealed in the Goodbye scene, he never really talked to her much and always acted like he hated her. He never tried to remedy that either, whereas Sakura made an effort to understand Naruto and open up a friendship with him.


5. Naruto's crush on Sakura is just as shallow as Sakura's crush on Sasuke. He only likes her because she is pretty.

Nope. Sure, he thinks that she is pretty, but his reasons for liking Sakura are deeper than that. When Naruto talks to Sakura disguised as Sasuke, the words "all I want is for you to acknowledge me" are repeated in his mind before he thinks "I feel like I finally understand why I like her." This suggests that he previously did not understand what it was about her that attracted him so much, and it rules out a shallow, "appearance alone" crush. He admires Sakura for her great determination, and throughout the series he continues to admire her.

Also, when Naruto sees Sakura for the first time after two and a half years, she asks him about how she looks, and Naruto tells her "You look fine! You haven't changed at all!" [link] If Naruto was in love with her because of her appearance, he probably would have blushed and made an inarticulate compliment. At this point, Sakura just needs to be Sakura for him to love her; she doesn't need to be beautiful.


6. All I see is a lovely friendship. Going beyond that is OOC.

Well, a close friendship between Sasuke and Sakura is OOC right now, and Naruto going out of his way to think of Hinata is OOC. Naruto and Sakura have the closest (plot-relevant) relationship in the entire series right now, and it continues to grow closer and stronger. It is also the only pairing with some romantic development. There are several hints that Sakura is beginning to have romantic feelings for Naruto. The Yamato line I will discuss later.

Another important NaruSaku scene follows Sai's second insult of Sasuke. [link] The first time that Sai had insulted Sasuke, Sakura punched him violently and tells him that she won't hold back the next time. Well, after the "next time" that he insults Sasuke, she thinks about how Naruto will react and not about how Sai's insult angers her. Sai continues the insult, and Sakura thinks about Naruto. [link] She discusses Naruto's relationship with Sai and worriedly watches Naruto. She even thinks about Naruto's relationship to Sasuke, not bothering to consider her own. [link] (Of course, nobody discusses Sakura's bond with Sasuke, not even Sakura) Then Sakura tells Sai that she would have punched him if it hadn't been for what Naruto said, "that to save Sasuke, he'd even work with someone like you who'd badmouth him." [link] She says that to save Sasuke, she won't hurt him. Sai then brings up her relationship to Naruto. He says "Sakura-san, you're very tender to Naruto, aren't you?" (or "gentle with" in this this translation). [link] Untranslated, this is the same "tender", the same word that Shikamaru's dad used when he said that "even the toughest woman is tender to the man she loves". Sai is suggesting that Sakura has special feelings, for Naruto and he can't describe them. Since, Sakura's feelings for Sasuke have been left ambiguous in Shippuuden, it may be possible that she punched Sai out of consideration for Naruto rather than because of her own feelings. Sai has certainly interpreted it that way, and even though he is an outsider to team 7, his views and interpretations are valid. Kishimoto would not waste panels for something pointless. This was genuinely a romantic NaruSaku moment.


7. Sakura still doesn't respect Naruto's silliness and perverted side, which are part of who Naruto is. Hinata appreciates his personality. She also appreciates his sense of humour and his spirit.

No, she's actually beginning to like that side of Naruto. In chapter 285, Naruto clumsily compliments Sasuke, and Sakura gives him a genuine smile. [link] She enjoys being with Naruto, and now smiles when he acts like an idiot. As for his pervert side, Sakura has a strong sense of protocol and doesn't like it when he says or does something crude, but don't forget that Sakura is a pervert too. [link] Konohamaru even says that she is just like him and Naruto. [link]

How much has Hinata seen of Naruto's silliness and perverted side? They've barely interacted. How do we know that she appreciates his "sense of humor". All we know is that she admires his will to never give up. That's the only side of Naruto that she has ever thought of, and that's the only side of Naruto she has ever discussed with him.


8. Yamato wasn't going to say that she loves Naruto. He was going to talk about her confidence issues.

Pardon? They weren't even talking about anything related to her confidence, and that doesn't fit in AT ALL with what they were talking about right before that! Yamato said "It's not what you do for Naruto that's important... It's how strongly you feel about him that counts... Sakura... I can tell just by looking at you. The truth is you... have confidence issues?" It just doesn't make any sense. is Japanese and has read that part in the manga both in English and in Japanese, and she said that Yamato couldn't have been talking about anything other than her feelings for Naruto, and very likely suggest that Sakura loves Naruto. Of course, we can't know for certain, since he was cut off. That seems to happen in all stories, you know. There's about to be a romantic "moment" between two characters and it's cut off to postpone the romance. It's happened several times between Naruto and Sakura so far (the kiss in chapter three, Sai talking about Sakura's feelings, Sakura about to feed Naruto ramen), and it happens in nearly every other story with romance in the world.

Keep this in mind: It took a lot of reading "underneath the underneath" and creating assumptions for the person who made this claim to come to the conclusion of "he was talking about her confidence issues." Just like how the average novel is written at the reading level expected of a 7th-8th Grader, Kishimoto wouldn't want to write something so advanced and difficult that it takes a lot of intellect and theoretical thinking to understand, because the series wouldn't have sold very well if it required "too much thinking." If Kishimoto honestly wanted us to come to the conclusion that Yamato was talking about Sakura's confidence issues, he would've made it a little more explicit (so that the "average Joe" reading it would understand).

I, personally, love analyzing things to death, but most readers don't. Many readers also don't spend all of their time getting involved in the online Naruto fandom, and those readers wouldn't have seen all of the people parading around the "Confidence Issues" theory. I imagine that most anti-NaruSaku people wouldn't have come to that conclusion if it weren't for that essay on the NF board.


9. Yamato doesn't know about Sakura's feelings and history with Sasuke, so he's wrong.

Ah, but Kishimoto certainly knows about the "history" between Sakura and Sasuke and of Sakura's feelings for Sasuke. He put that scene there for a reason. If what Yamato was about to say was pointless or unimportant, then Kishimoto wouldn't have included it. Kishimoto included this because it IS important and shows that Sakura's feelings ARE changing. Again, he would not waste panels for "nonsense".

Furthermore, it is likely that Yamato DOES know about the history of Team 7. Do you think that Tsunade would send Yamato to lead a mission to find Sasuke on a team with Naruto and Sakura WITHOUT informing him of what happened? I mean, Tsunade had briefed Yamato alone about the mission, and then there was that meeting between Kakashi, Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Yamato. The other three know what happened with Team 7 VERY well and we saw the part of the meeting in which Jiraiya talks about the kyubii and its four-tail state. For such a highly emotional mission, why would all three of them neglect to inform him of Naruto and Sakura's strong feelings about Sasuke. That would be stupid. There's more too. Yamato saw how violently both Naruto and Sakura reacted when Sai insulted Sasuke. Yamato is not an idiot. He can tell that Sakura and Naruto have strong feelings for Sasuke.

Also, Sasuke has practically NOTHING to do with her feelings for Naruto. Yamato doesn't need to know about her feelings for Sasuke (even though he probably does know). All he saw was how strongly Sakura felt about Naruto. Sakura once felt romantically towards Sasuke, but that doesn't mean she can't start developing feelings for Naruto. She can feel strongly for two people.

10. This doesn't prove that NaruSaku will happen.

Well, I agree there. It does not prove that Naruto and Sakura will be romantically involved one day. What this DOES prove is that Sakura may be developing romantic feelings for Naruto and that (assuming she still has romantic feelings for Sasuke), and Sakura will likely have to choose between Naruto and Sasuke somewhere down the line.

Anyway, my point was just that this scene is significant and does prove that Sakura is beginning to have feelings for Naruto.


My Opinion of NaruSaku

I simply adore this pairing, not because of my certainty that it will happen, but because I love the NaruSaku relationship and I want to see it continue to grow and deepen. I love how they balance each other out without being complete opposites. They are incredibly similar, but the differences that do have make NaruSaku a healthy, balanced relationship. Of all three pairings, NaruSaku has the most development and the most interaction. I love how Naruto and Sakura can be themselves around each other and treat each other as equals. It is their interactions and the incredible amount of mutual trust that draw me to this pairing. I love it to death, and I am so certain that it will happen. It's the only main pairing that makes sense to me. Of course, "to each his/her own".