As you can see, there pretty much are some sexist undertones in this story. It’s not malicious on Kishimoto’s part, but the undertones are still there. While there is somewhat of an understanding that there are no specific policies ruling the Narutoverse based on gender — and females are generally treated with respect by their peers and subordinates — they are not always treated as equal to a man by virtue of the dialogue and by their perceptions of women. This is ultimately a reflection on the mangaka.
This is not to say that anyone and everyone complaining wanted the girls/women to overpower ALL the males, let alone surpass Naruto and Sasuke. That is a strawman. It was always understood that Naruto, at the very least, would be among the strongest characters in the end. As Naruto’s rival, the same was true for Sasuke. That was not the issue.
The fact remains that any female in this story would always be outclassed by a male. It did not matter how powerful a female was, even in comparison to the vast majority of characters or people in the Narutoverse. Yes, there were plenty of male characters who have gotten shafted, but the main issue is that they were first treated like characters first, males second. Can you say the same for all the ladies? No, you honestly can’t. That is what people have complained about, on top of weak overall characterization.
I am certainly not telling anyone to avoid the story of Naruto because of this — or any flaw — in the storytelling nor were those who made threads along these issues to complain about Kishimoto. Anyone can find sexism in various stories written by men and women. I have talked to someone who found sexism in Shakespearean plays. If you have ever read Bram Stroker’s Dracula, you will find lines praising Mina, but if you put that into today’s context, they would come off as condescending. People complain about the Twilight series and 50 Shades of Grey because of how both the male and female characters were portrayed. And, of course, there is plenty of sexism in other manga series. Bakuman immediately comes to mind, as it has dialogue that is more blatantly sexist. It certainly appears intentional by the creators.
Given what I’ve said, this is not an overall judgment of Kishimoto himself. I really do not believe that anyone complaining about Kishimoto’s handling of his female characters is crossing that line and accusing him of being a full-blown misogynist. I personally wouldn’t cross the line and make assumptions about his personal life, either.
I do think it’s fair to question how much Japanese culture — and if the values Kishimoto was raised with — have influenced his writing, though. In obvious ways, his writing has been influenced by Japanese culture.
There are general expectations of men and women in Japan. For one thing, women have generally expected to marry before the age of 27 (but that might be shifting now). Also, famous women are held to different standards than famous men. That’s another discussion for another time, but you hopefully get the point.
Now, look at the general setup for the Naruto world. While there are of course some modern and even Western influences, the shinobi system is partly based on the Sengoku Period in Japan. The shinobi in Naruto are quite different than classical ninja as we know them, but they still live under a feudal system with daimyo as heads of state. Speaking specifically of gender, there are general expectations of men and women that are illustrated in Naruto.
Beyond that, it’s pretty stupid to solely blame that culture for all we have found in Naruto. Sure, all writers may be affected by their surroundings, but on the whole, we hold them accountable for their own prejudices. We call out Western writers, so why should Kishimoto be any different?
Still, it’s as if some of the responders to this particular topic take criticism of Kishimoto very personally. When looking at their comments, it’s immediately clear that it’s not about him anymore — if it was at all for them.
I have seen more accusations of feminism — as strange as that sounds — than I care to count. The people who do this are themselves guilty of politicizing the issue and they often make the discussion more contentious than it needs to be. This is a way of trying to shut people up, but does it ever work? The people making these accusations are also ignorant, because plenty of people who refuse to call themselves feminists — and are leery of the modern movement — will recognize there’s a problem with the portrayal of females in Naruto.
(For instance, I never identified as a feminist for various reasons, and this is before I even began to take a deeper look at the modern feminist movement. More specifically, I see some troubling things in today’s “activism,” like the ideological shaming at American colleges and universities and I am generally aware of the abuse on social media, like Twitter. Also I’ve never been an activist in any sense. Unfortunately, there might still be some intellectually dishonest individuals who will ignore what I just typed in order to fit their own narrative. Moving on…)
No one is calling the people who defend Kishimoto on this sexist pigs, but they certainly play the role with their pointed comments. When the perceived treatment of the females in Naruto is discussed, people on forums have been inevitably subjected to some of the most offensive posts on those forums — outside of death threats, support for pedophiles, and calls for torture and mutilation. Men are deemed to be superior to women on all levels (including internal fortitude) and more important as human beings due to overall physical strength and athletic ability. This plays out when seen how these posters treat the female characters themselves.
A funny thing I must point out is how, besides some light trolling, these “defenders” have those among them who go out of their way to denigrate the female characters in Naruto. Sure, many of us have complained about their characterization — even as fans of these characters — but we are still willing to weigh their best in-story contributions on their own and give Kishimoto credit for their best feats. Ino, for example, was one of the most impressive from Naruto’s peers during the war. I agree with that without question, but there are some guys who go out of their way to undersell Ino’s performance. Others have said far worse things about other characters, namely Sakura and Tsunade. On one had, while much of the hate Sakura gets is from her overall bad development, I have to question where some of the Tsunade hate comes from, given the things that have been said about her. While some people fixate on her huge breasts, in many cases, she has been called a bitter cunt, a bitch, and a whore. I have seen posters act like she was somehow an obstacle for Naruto and someone expressly hate on her for doing “a man’s job.” Is anyone willing to insult my intelligence and say NONE of that is rooted in misogyny? “There are no sexists here.” Riiiiiight. GTFOutta here with that nonsense.
There is more to a person — and a character, for that matter — than physical strength and fighting ability. Anyone could have talent, strength of character, mental toughness, and contribute to society. Furthermore, it is not enough to have physical strength or talent; the important thing is what one does with it.
Beyond this, I have often read comments like, “You’re the real sexists!” The accusation of projection in this case is actually projection, because this is often paired with the above sentiments of male superiority and greater human worth.
It’s also silly when you think about it. So, someone needs to be sexist in order to recognize sexism in others? It’s like when someone points out valid instances of racism, only to be accused of being racist. It’s a wonder I haven’t heard someone tell me that one needs to be stupid in order to recognize stupidity.
And sure, there are plenty of people who play the race card, as there are definitely plenty of people who cry sexism when that isn’t the case. Those people should be called out and have their arguments viciously attacked. But there is no excuse for the behavior of some who are “defending” Kishimoto. They don’t want to consider any valid arguments, because it seems obvious that they are really trying to defend themselves.
I don’t have a problem with everyone defending Kishimoto — on any front, depending on how they do it. Of course I don’t. For all the complaints I have had about this series, I cared enough to follow it and I envy Kishimoto on some level since he was able to earn a living off his talents. Now, while I may disagree with some who defend Kishimoto on certain topics, I respect anyone who calmly explains their point of view and is willing to listen and debate anyone on the opposite side. That’s not too much to ask, because I’m willing to abide by that as well.
And if anyone is offended by this (or any) line of criticism aimed at Kishimoto that is fine. But what I hate to see is the above behavior I pointed out and when someone defends a famous (or semi-famous) individual more than they would someone they actually know. I would also ask for some individuals not to resort to making asinine comments that are more offensive than anything ever said or done in the manga.
That’s all I have to say on the subject for now. On to new things!
Shmaltz and Menudo 
Great read, although I wish you didn’t downplay feminism in your conclusion. You say “it’s not about feminism”, but it absolutely is: you are criticizing the portrayal of female characters and their inequalities in regards to male characters. What you did is the very definition of a ‘feminist critique’ and it’s sad to see you undercut the very points you made. Furthermore, the fact that it’s a feminist critique is exactly why I read each of your posts on this topic. Having followed Naruto since I was a child, I’m overjoyed to see you put together arguments and analyze moments that rubbed me the wrong way but couldn’t understand why. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “ideological shaming on college campuses” although I do see the ridiculous amount of hate and abuse towards feminists on Twitter. It sucks, I wish people realized that being feminist just means supporting the idea that men and women should be treated equally. Your critique of sexism in Naruto is very important, as works of fiction are often how we define our life.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this. I’m glad to see someone appreciated my efforts. In fact, these posts seem to get the most traffic because sexism is such a big topic within Naruto discussions.
Now, I would like to address a few of your points.
When you look at it this way, I’ll have to concede the point. On several levels, it is about equality and I have complained about the disparity in treatment between males and females in Naruto.
When I look at it all, it’s pretty jarring, isn’t it? While a number of males have received poor treatment, as I’ve said before, it wasn’t [primarily] due to their gender. There were so many moments in the story where gender was brought up but it served no greater purpose but to delineate the characters and reinforce the notion that women were weaker, even with magical powers.
I learned even more by going back to these manga pages and finding moments I didn’t really think about the first time. But the later chapters were still fresh in my mind, especially Chapter 576.
Nowadays, the “regressive left” has virtually taken over on college campuses. There are safe spaces, trigger warnings, and dissenting opinions are generally stamped out. Some of it can be seen in on college campuses like Berkeley. While I don’t like Milo Yiannopoulos or Ann Coulter, there was violence and threats of violence on that campus in response to those two being invited to speak there.
I made this series in part to voice my frustration over sexism on the Internet. It’s real and it shows up even in discussions about Naruto. People’s reaction to this topic in general was very telling.
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Hello! Text is very nice, it’s good to see the effort you put on it and well, this is very well put, but… It’s all about feminism, or sexism or both.
Ask yourself first… Why do representation of such characters bother you, in first place? We must agree that several characters from Kishimoto suffer from improper or bad characterization, lack of coherent development or even good driving factors and motives. Sakura is indeed one of the worst offenders, we pretty much agree on all that.
But then again, ask yourself why do bother with that, why do even have the need for best representation of certain characters in a work like this? What your inner motives for doing so, being unsatisfied by this type of thing? I believe you’re just upset by the wrong thing, for something that has nothing to do with Naruto series and by far one of the least important points to critique on it. It’s a non-issue.
I could throw all the cliches here (It’s a shounen manga, the story isn’t about Sakura, et cetera) but we do already know that the answer is that, in general, the range of interests of the female and male public is wildly different, just check the things both buys and compare. Themes like the ones Naruto presents (power, rivalry, fights, wars, sacrifice, and list goes on…) are better suited to a specific mindset of readers, composed mostly by boys; while it should be good to see better female characters in Naruto, it wouldn’t make the series much more better or appealing to this public.
Other than that, powerful females do realize feminism fantasies of power but aren’t attractive to most men anyway, and I’m not talking about attracting sexually, I’m talking about someone buying the idea of a very strong woman that is clearly an alien archetype that defies logic and common sense — and not in a good way. Kishimoto did well for avoiding potential reader being put off by some strange element. He did some woman extremely strong like Tsunade and later Sakura, but not game-breaking strong, since it should simply not fit even in hyper fantastical setting like Naruto.
You told about chakra as an equalizer, but in this series men are relegated to have more power anyway (the protagonists Naruto and Sasuke/antagonists at least), with chakra or not, since it’s important but not pivotal to the plot, not where we do have have a Maito Gai or a Rock Lee, and chakra is much more of a stamina to drive fantasy-like powers like tangling shadows.
In the end, they had a narrative to fill, if they choose to do Naruto from a female standpoint, tell me, what the plot should be about? The recurrent theme about wars and to protect their families in encrusted in a men’s sense of duty, it’s baked in their DNA, it has history from since the first of the mankind days in caves, we already had lots of wars where hundreds of millions of man died.
Can we backtrack any example of the opposite side? Where woman died to protect their man and not only their children? Why do we need to include woman in such slaughter, to begin with? it’s the reason I’m here to suggest you to review your viewpoints. It’s easy to some ideology take us the sense of reality that backs up most of the things. Ideologies creates needs that doesn’t exist, cause artificial insatisfaction with things that are perfectly fine.
Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of spare time to just explain my point entirely, but I hope do you get most of what I’m trying to convey here. Have a great week!
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Thank you for reading and responding. I have decided to quote parts of your comment and respond to most of your points.
I made this series because this is a topic that has raged since the manga was being discussed online, maybe even before. The treatment of females in Naruto not only bothers me but many other people who have followed the series for a number of years. Even guys who liked the series overall acknowledged how bad the treatment of females in Naruto was. They might not have had a problem with it but they didn’t blame anyone else for having a problem with it.
And if I was to be perfectly honest, the treatment of most characters in the manga was pretty bad. I even acknowledged how males in the series were horribly developed, and that includes the titular character. However, at times, the females were singled out for bad treatment while their gender was mentioned. I even included quotes from the manga and the mangaka that demonstrate this point.
I am quite familiar with the “It’s a shounen” argument, but it doesn’t hold up. Being a shounen doesn’t excuse Kishimoto’s fear of properly tackling complex themes nor does it prevent him from properly developing his characters. BTW, I’m not even a Sakura fan, but the type of development she was given offends me. It was exceedingly bad, and it might go beyond her gender, but there was plenty of gender BS thrown in for good measure.
I think you are underestimating male readers and male connoisseurs of various media. There are many who don’t mind powerful females; in fact, they love stories that are well-written, just as many female followers do. Maybe some guys prefer male power fantasies, but if they hate powerful females in any work of fiction, they are the ones with the problem.
In general, I don’t have a problem with all the female characters being less powerful than Naruto, Sasuke, and any of the final villains. The story was about the titular character and his rival, so it would make sense for them to be the most powerful be story’s end. However, the problem arises when none of the females really have a place in combat despite being in a profession that requires those within it to put their lives on the line. That makes the females extraneous.
Just look at the mini-arc with Hashirama and Madara. There were no women in it, but it was good because Kishimoto focused on character development. Many people, including women, would prefer a story like that, even if it meant that female characters were kept to a minimum. What we got instead was a story that talked about equality and the value of females but undermined those ideals at just about every pass and turn. It’s just another example of Kishimoto’s problems with showing and telling.
If the story had been from a female standpoint, there is no reason why the main character would not be willing to put her life on the line. There are stories where women do that, so what’s preventing Kishimoto from making a story like that?
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I really do enjoy your writing and effort you put in answering me. One thing we must agree, we prefer stories with better written characters, including females. Clearly Naruto isn’t up to that standard. It’s a average-to-good shounen, and that’s all. I think we could learn a bit from Naruto in order to write better stories, but I see Naruto as fine on their own for what was intended and proposed originally.
In these times I just tend to see most discussions about sexism as fruitless and useless since most of the ones behind tend to push an narrative to further their agenda, to alienate something from their original public and fans, just for envy of the success of given franchise. You know that these guys do exist, right? Why they just don’t create their own franchises or support the ones that fits better their values?
As a fan of some things, I don’t want to see my franchises kidnapped for someone who want to forcefully implant their values and views on that, and that’s all. I guess I don’t need to explain why, right? Everyone has their tastes and once I want to be challenged in my views I dare to try something else, to a good degree of finding some cool new stuff. I guess most people are like that, anyway.
I really appreciate your answer and hope you can do understand my concerns. I have a critic against the attitude of some, but all I can see here is a good text with several good points. Cheers!
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Thank you for responding again. I would like to first pull part of your comment and respond to that.
Of course, there are people out there who use discussions of feminism and sexism to push an agenda. Often, that agenda involves them upping their own stature or making more money. I can think of a few YouTubers who are like that and I can’t stand them. This is not what I’m doing. I just created this series because of the many threads and discussions I have read/been a part of regarding this aspect of the Naruto manga. Many of those discussions devolved into shouting matches and the worst behavior always came from people who called themselves “defending” Kishimoto; in reality, I feel that those who were disrespectful were really covering for themselves.
Regarding your other point about hijacking the series, that’s a strawman. I never tried to petition Kishimoto to write the story the way I wanted to. That would be entirely fruitless and ridiculous, especially since his target audience is what it is and even he is surprised about the worldwide reach his manga had and still has. To be fair, there were plenty of developments I didn’t like, but I continued to follow the story based on its premise. I wanted to see Naruto don that Hokage cap. Granted, Kishimoto messed that up, too, when you consider that Naruto missed his own inauguration.
All that said, this is what I would like to see from stories: Authors need to fulfill the promises they make, respect most of their characters, and be satisfied with the final product. They need to show more than they tell and not leave readers/viewers with too much unfulfilled hype. Unfortunately, there was so much unfulfilled hype in Naruto and it doesn’t just apply to the females. It applies to the titular character, too. In the case of the women, though, we have added gender-based epithets and I question their place in the story.
In the end, if someone makes a story, that story is going to be criticized. Many people do that because they care and in looking at how a story if created, we learn something from it. The story might have themes we don’t like or messages we don’t agree with, but when we look at those themes, we can better understand how we think about certain things in real life. Fictional stories are not going to sway me, and I’m not going to start a riot because I disagree with the story’s themes or someone criticizes themes/ideas I might like or agree with.
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But the only thing I don’t understand here is that you speak how undertonned females are in Naruto and that kishimoto should be called out but then you claim that staning for feminism shouldn’t be the part of Naruto fandom. To be honest, it was very well written but it feels kind of strange. I agree that Sakura is written poorly but I have never seen anyone call tsunade a wh##e or slut. I would have liked it more if you pointed out all the females and not just the war heroes.
I too think that females were written tremendously bad in Narutoverse including Tenten who never achieved her dream or get anything near to any other character, or Hinata whose mere feat is dying after literally seven panels of fight with pain, like what was kishimoto thinking when it was only for seven panels, and it was really stupid how Naruto never even blinked back at the girl who just died for him.
Every female was indeed written bad, because even Konan never had her own dreams or aims, she just clinnged to yahiko’s dream and remained a supporting character. I am a Temari fans from the very beginning but it was really weird how gaara, a fifteen year old kid became the kazekage, they literally waited for three years after the fourth kazekage died and made a little kid the kazekage and Temari is still lesser to him. Even if she was the best wind style user in the whole shinobi alliance, she was replaced very immediately as Naruto simply learns wind style.
And no one can call it a proper unbaised feminism if Sakura isn’t called out, even when she finally was capable of fighting besides her teammates, she was never as much as powerful as them, to be honest, I don’t think it was anyway possible for her because of no clan or kekkei genkai or handed eyes but the way she is criticized, even if you have a look at how much the fans criticize her, it isn’t about her being bad written, it’s about her boobs, pretty disgusting! Every second meme on Sakura is about her chest and every first is her being trash because she never fall in love with mc. I know that Sakura did call Naruto an orphan when she was a kid but so did Naruto, Kakashi and Boruto, it’s strange how she’s the only one being called out and not the males! Kakashi even after knowing about the massacre said that the uchiha clan isn’t that good either during the chakra control training right in Sasuke’s face, but no one literally cares!
Well we can all just keep agreeing that sakura is the worst character ever because you just said that sakura hate is okay because how badly her developement is written, right!? Everyone can agree becoming a pillar of your nation is way worse development than being a creepy class teacher after being one of the bloody best bug master, from fighting a blood thirsty jinchuriki to being literally nothing, or born a slave to die a slave, and not to mention our beloved orange hokage, Naruto – don’t ever give up on your dreams; also Naruto – oh great! You became what you wanted to be now you gonna be the most fodderised kage ever.
You skipped every point about her, infact you didn’t even go there cause Sakura already represents the feminism in Naruto fandom, even after literally so much hate, she was able to stand beside her teammates, become one of the most powerful kunoichi and the best medic but I guess this is the worst development. The people who love Hinata are almost the men community and if not that they make weird statements about how she is what every male desires, she’s publicly commented on her chest, people make memes comparing the chest of female characters in Narutoverse, even her fanarts and merchandise is her naked body, it’s pretty creepy being a female in this fandom.
Sakura on the other hand has been called a hoe, a sl*t, flat, her fans get death threats and rape threats, people who are totally retarded love to draw her body cut in half and her organs coming out of her body totally drenched with blood, all this because of the stupid thing she said as a little kid, try to understand my friend, when your haters are mostly misogynists you already stan feminism and that’s the reason why most almost all Sakura fans are women. But then again you go like we can’t call anyone miso without being miso ourselves, like bro the one’s calling you miso are mostly women, so don’t worry the answer is pretty much more simple than you think which is ‘you are a miso’!
“I hate how people on social media like Twitter call out others for being sexist” for those who don’t understand this statement, twitter is the app where Sakura feminism has been trending for about two months ever since retsuden was announced!
When you yourself laugh at women being called bit*h, sl*t or hoe just because they rejected the character you self inserted in, you don’t have any right to call yourself a feminist! Don’t even fantasize about being called one! And this goes the same with the people who can call tsunade something like that.
Kishimoto on the other hand is the same guy who didn’t drop Sakura even after being forced by literally everyone, even when literally every other anime has more bigger chested girls, only he was the one to cover their bodies or draw them decently, the dancing naked hinata was a filler, if you want to call someone out, call sp for pressing so much on Hinata’s boobs and not on training in the fillers, but I know you won’t because you enjoyed her naked body rather than her quite personality!
“I agree that ino is indeed a great character but some people can say bad stuff about her if not worse” no one says anything about Ino, she’s literally so neglected that no one gives a damn about her, if some say these stuff they are very few, and the fact that you know what worse anyone can say about her is because you are a part of that group of people! Literally no one I have never seen anyone who will criticize Ino in Narutoverse!
How can you write on ‘sexism in Narutoverse’ and totally ignore all the body shaming Hinata goes through each and everyday!?
It’s like you were going to write on feminism for Naruto but instead went on calling out the feminists!
It’s not about Sakura, it’s about every girl who gets sl*tshamed in west, you loved Hinata in the movie but you don’t like her anymore in Boruto, instead you want to cling to Ino because you are short on fans now, cause no one loves a boobless hinata, eh!? But if I call you out on that, I am a fake feminist!
Now that we all know how terribly she is written, why won’t you call out at her instead of using two random girls who have nothing to do with your so called feminism cause they are written pretty well.
“I really envy how his skills in writing earned his living” people should! Because other writters are basically limited to four to five characters and don’t give a damn about others, except stan lee, literally every story has only few characters others are just disposable fodder. I hope you understand what I mean. Have a nice day.
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Okay, I edited this comment to have some reasonable paragraph breaks. (Pro tip: use Shift + Enter twice to add an extra space before paragraphs.)
Regarding your comment: I don’t know who much of this is aimed at, but I believe you misunderstood much of what I wrote in this series. I focused on a group of prominent male and female characters in Naruto because focusing on *everyone* would have been unfeasible. Also, I posted this series before the *Boruto* manga series began. The series focused on the *Naruto* manga, Kishimoto’s character development, and some of the experiences I had when reading forum posts from sexists and misogynists who followed the manga.
I have next to nothing to say about fans of the series today because I have largely moved on to other series. I will have to take your word for it that some fans focus heavily on Sakura and Hinata’s bodily appearances. But when I was a regular forum-goer, I saw people disparaging Tsunade in horrible ways.
All in all, this series was a way for me to vent my frustration with the way Kishimoto underdeveloped so many of his female characters, Sakura included. For what it’s worth, I was never among the people who disparaged Sakura. in fact, I have praised Kishimoto for giving the character a decent showing in the Rescue Gaara Arc.
I think your anger at me (if that’s the case) is misplaced, and you have misinterpreted some of my writing.
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