Kishimoto Reveals Why Naruto And Hinata Ended Up Together

The Naruto series was largely focused on the journey of Naruto Uzumaki as he made his way to the top, from someone deemed a worthless ninja, to becoming the strongest Shinobi of all time. While this was the primary focus of the story, that certainly doesn’t mean that other elements weren’t at play. The Naruto series, just like the vast majority of the shonen out there, had its own subpar romance subplot, and one of them focused on the main character, Naruto Uzumaki, and Hinata Hyuga.

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At the end of the series, these two characters ended up together, and it was certainly exciting for some fans to see. Kishimoto has officially revealed why he made this decision, and what it means for the future of the story.

Naruto Uzumaki’s Romance Subplot In The Story

• Naruto Was In Love With Sakura Haruno
• Eventually, Naruto Ended Up With Hinata

Naruto Uzumaki’s romance subplot was quite intriguing in the story. At the very beginning of the Naruto series, it was made clear to the fans that Naruto Uzumaki was in love with Sakura Haruno, his teammate. On the other hand, Sakura was clearly in love with Sasuke. There was a love triangle in Team 7, and Kishimoto purposely put this in the story to raise the excitement of the fans. Of course, this plotline was not handled well in the story at all, and it is safe to say that it wasn’t as exciting as fans would have hoped for it to be. Regardless, it worked to a certain extent.

Naruto’s interest in Sakura was maintained right up until the very end of the story, and so were Sakura’s feelings for Sasuke. According to the prediction of some fans of Naruto, these two would go on to end together. After all, Naruto was the main character and Sakura was deemed as the heroine in the early parts of the story. However, Kishimoto had other plans.

Right from the get-go, Kishimoto had made Hinata the love interest of Naruto Uzumaki. While Naruto was always interested in Sakura, Hinata was carefully observing him from a distance, and rooting for him when no one else was. As such, there was a real possibility of these two characters ending up together. When Kishimoto decided to move away from the Naruto and Sakura plotline, it became clear to the fans that he would go with Hinata as Naruto’s eventual partner, and that is precisely what happened during the timeskip of the Naruto series between chapter 699 to chapter 700. In the final chapter, it was made clear to the fact that Naruto and Hinata had officially ended up together, and that they even had two children. The names of these children were later revealed to be Boruto Uzumaki and Himawari Uzumaki.

Why Kishimoto Made Naruto And Hinata A Couple

Kishimoto Felt Bad For Not Rewarding Hinata

Often, fans wonder as to why Kishimoto ended up making Naruto and Hinata a couple. After all, Sakura was a very good option for Kishimoto to utilize as well. This was especially true because as the story continued, Sakura’s opinion of Naruto changed drastically. Whereas she once saw him as an annoying child, Sakura eventually started to warm up to Naruto a lot more, and the possibility of these two ending up together, especially in the event that Sasuke remained a criminal, was quite real. At the same time, Sakura could simply also have gotten over Sasuke at some point, and given that she spent quite a lot of time with Naruto, this could also have developed into a solid relationship. He could easily have gone with Sakura, but persisted with Hinata in the end, and he has now revealed the reason for that:

Hinata exactly watched Naruto, as he persisted from the beginning, the whole time, Hinata was always the only child who was supporting and cheering for him. Although Naruto was unsuccessful and sometimes things went badly for him, he persisted and tried his best. Hinata understood, and that it was cool that Naruto was determined to never give up. However, Sakura also noticed and recognized that about Naruto along the way. Of course, as Hinata had been watching him since the beginning, I thought that I would feel sorry for Hinata for not being rewarded. – Kishimoto

Clearly, according to Kishimoto, the reason why Hinata was chosen as Naruto’s ultimate partner is multifaceted. The very first reason is that Kishimoto already planted the seed for Hinata to be with Naruto. Although he hadn’t thought too deeply about it at first, but when it became clearer that Hinata continued to root for Naruto throughout the story—as that was the entire point of an otherwise underwhelming character—Kishimoto simply didn’t want to take that away from her too.

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In his own words, he would feel bad for Hinata, who had been observing Naruto right from the beginning if she did not end up with him. It must also be said that Hinata was the only character who watched Naruto right from the beginning, and not only when he started becoming more mature and was worthy of praise. Hinata’s love for Naruto is not superficial, and she certainly deserves to end up with him, to say the least.

Do Naruto And Hinata Make A Good Couple?

Naruto and Hinata Are An Underwhelming Duo

The question of whether Naruto and Hinata ended up making a good couple is quite an interesting one. Clearly, the premise of this couple is very interesting, but it cannot be understated how underwhelming this couple truly is. Hinata and Naruto share a grand total of three major moments in the Naruto series, one of which is very forced. When Naruto stood up for Hinata in the Chunin Exams arc, that was certainly a phenomenal moment written by Kishimoto into the story. Similarly, when Hinata jumped in and rescued Naruto from Pain, fans could see that Kishimoto had actually put an effort into this plot point. However, in the war, when Kishimoto killed off Neji to bring Naruto and Hinata together, it was quite easily one of the worst decisions he made and it just showed how desperate he was to salvage a train wreck of a romance subplot and make fans believe that he had done enough to see these two characters end up together.

If Kishimoto truly wanted to give fans good romance surrounding these two characters, there should have been an entire arc surrounding their love, and Hinata and her feelings for Naruto should have been focused upon way more.

Of course, fans did get that in the form of The Last: Naruto the Movie, however, it was certainly not enough and was too little too late, given that fans already knew at this point that they end up together. While the fault doesn’t lie with the characters or their romantic relationship, the author certainly did not do them justice in any way or form.

Naruto is available to read on the MangaPlus and the Shonen Jump app. Fans can read the official release and support the author by doing so.

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Naruto

Release Date

October 3, 2002

Creator

Masashi Kishimoto

Number of Episodes

220

Streaming Service(s)

Netflix
, Crunchyroll
, Amazon Prime Video
, Peacock
, The Roku Channel
, Amazon Freevee
, Hulu
, Hoopla
, Pluto TV
, Tubi