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SAKURA’S CONFESSION
Honest to god, I hate that the Sakura confession scene has been so hated. I never thought it would be so controversial.
But one take I haven’t seen and maybe I’m alone on this was that, when I first watched the scene, I honest to god that it was a test run from the authour’s side to see how fans would ACTUALLY react if Sakura did develop feelings towards Naruto.
I truly do believe even though the writer had his planned final pairings, that he still did test around with toying with the idea of different pairings like Naruto x Sakura.
Remember when Yamato during the bridge arc made a comment towards Sakura about her care towards Naruto? I think the bridge arc was when someone said in one of the databooks, Sakura was noted to be confused about her thoughts on Naruto. It was implied that she was maybe developing feelings towards him post timeskip.
As a NaruSaku shipper, I see the confession scene was the ultimate acknowledgement of the slow romantic tension that had built around the two. I know this is super subjective but still.
Anyway, during her confession, I remember she was blushing and shit, honestly I took that initially as her admitting to herself that “yeah I guess I’m saying something I kinda been feeling lately out loud and it kinda feels good”. I don’t know why so many people took her confessions as super evil and manipulative. Again, I know I’m being bias but my girl isn’t a good liar come on. When she lies, she does that closed smile thing with a voice crack.
Also, remember when Naruto rejected her confession and they started arguing about the validity of her confession and she was like “why are you telling me I’m wrong” moment. To me, that means it was more genuine and if anything she was shocked that Naruto thought she was lying.
Now, I’m not saying she didn’t have ulterior motives or anything. She of course did but I think that she honest to god was okay with “settling” with Naruto. Like at some point in early Shippuden, she started to like both of her comrades.
I know people like to sanitize the romances between the characters because it’s cleaner that way. It is messy if characters marry their partners but the story also acknowledges that they crushed on other people before then. I’ve seen people purposely not acknowledge his long term crush on Sakura because well, he’s married to Hinata but like cmon guys - let’s not do that because that is a narrative change and something you can really downplay because there are 200+ episodes of the guy liking another girl who isn’t his future wife.