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MAIDEN

| Female | Adult | Artist/Writer/Hobbyist | Just a gal that enjoys cute and sexy things, obsesses over fictional characters, and loves drawings OCs/Self-Inserts

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Kishimoto Never Meant For Hinata To Be Seen As Naruto's Savior In Pein Arc. However, He Was Also Smart

Kishimoto never meant for Hinata to be seen as Naruto's savior in Pein arc. However, he was also smart enough to be creative about it. By this time, he knew Hinata would be paired off with Naruto, he could have written Hinata with a bit of grace. But Kishi doesn't work like that. To choose to write her confession this way, he showed her to be a silly girl infatuated with the hero, not as a shinobi or someone who cares or thinks of her family or village or anything else. She has been almost invisible prior to this in Shippuden, hardly having any contribution to the narrative or a battle. So this chapter could have served to portray a more well rounded Hinata, but Kishimoto had different plans. Safe plans though. On a surface level, it seems Hinata is doing it out of the force of her love for Naruto, but we get to see how things unravel and it does not show Hinata in a good light.

So while Naruto is battling Pein, it is made clear that Naruto's message has reached the Konohabitants (people of Konoha), and they know what to do, not interfere.

This message has reached Hinata as well.

She is clearly worried, she is sitting there, under the protection of her branch family bodyguard.

We can see that Katsuyu is there with her and her injured slave.

So while Hinata is on this side, on the other side, Inoichi and team have located Pein and need to send teams with chakra sensing type shinobis to look for the exact location.

Well, Hinata is a chakra sensing type.

Right then, to stress on this, Kishi makes Gai's team enter Konoha, and Neji is shown to use Byakugan to recognise Jiraiya's frog, Gamabunta. So we get the impression that a chakra sensing shinobi would have been really able to help.

But then, before anything could happen, we see her doing this.

And then immediately, we see this happening to her.

Hehehe, idc what anyone says, Kishi did it this way for the chuckles, I just know it. You must have seen this happening in cartoons, some foolhardy loser who highly overestimates their abilities would unthinkingly rush in to fight the villian with all the swagger they could muster and get yeeted out in the atmosphere Right Away and then you hear - AAAaaahhhhh... which then slowly fades off into the distance. Always draws chuckles and sniggers, great comic timing. Heh.

Now, just the way Kishi wrote this chapter called 'Hinata's confession', is quite informative of Hinata's feelings for Naruto and Naruto's complete obliviousness of Hinata's existence. We understand that Inoichi has found Pein's location and needs 'chakra sensing type' shinobis in as many teams as possible and they are relaying that message through Katsuyu.

So if Hinata had waited two more seconds, she would have probably been able to contribute to the battle rather than falling on her face with strike one.

Hahaha. Kishi, you genius, you.

He established the whole scene where Shikamaru, Ino, Inoichi, Katsuyu, Shiho etc are planning a smart scheme and following up diligently, actually contributing to the battle. We have already seen Sakura doing her job, helping villagers and the injured (one of her good moments, there are so few and so far apart sigh..), we have seen Konohamaru blast one of the paths of Pein, we have seen Tsunade doing her best saving people, we have already seen Kakashi and team fight Pein intelligently and creatively, and then we see Hinata who is literally just sitting there. How exactly do we see her contribute to anything?

So as we see Kishi developing this battle arc, we have seen how various Konohabitants have contributed to the battle, and we have gotten a strong sense of how absolutely devastatingly strong Pein is, and then we see Hinata charging in like a lunatic, while the others are hatching plans and schemes and actually using their training to somehow defeat Pein.

Yes, Hinata is emotionally driven to protect Naruto and can't think logically but her short sightedness almost got Naruto killed. Some confession. Heh.

If only she had shown some patience and mental acuity, something shinobis are actually trained in. She would have been able to help Naruto and somehow contribute to the battle. But well, that has never been Hinata's strong suit.

Thing is, she admits she is being selfish. She Knows whatever she is doing won't help anyone. She knows she can't hope to defeat or even delay Pein. And she obviously isn't able to help Naruto. She went there to die, she knew she probably would die, so might as well confess to Naruto before either he died at the hands of Pein or her. If she really wanted to help Naruto, she would have used her abilities to hatch a plan of action. Or devised some creative trick. Or something that she knew would have at least a miniscule chance at succeeding. Not what she did.

But well, that's not how Kishi wrote her. Never intended to. He always meant to portray her as a wallflower, someone whose everything revolves around Naruto, who stalks him from a distance, who only shows courage and motivation to fight when Naruto is looking, who does nothing to make her presence felt.

What's even funnier is Kishi establishes this right away. How? With the panel cover of this chapter.

This is Hinata. In a chapter called her Confession.

Sitting there, nervously balled up while not even looking directly at Naruto. Naruto turned away from her, going about his business without even being aware of her existence. How the touch of his distinctly drawn mere passing shadow makes her curl her toes and blush uncontrollably. Like a shy little girl in throes of a high school crush. When Kishimoto said in one of his interviews that Hinata is someone who watches from the shadows, he didn't mean it only figuratively lol. 'Hinata - the shadow girl'. That man cracks me up, the joker.

The visual language says everything you need to know.

He couldn't even be bothered noticing her on his own, is it any wonder that Naruto doesn't respond to her confession?