The Shonen genre has seen a lot of rivalries, but none of them are as big as Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto. While both series were entirely different in terms of almost everything, fans and their respective manga creators still believed it was a competition between the two to see which was a better shonen manga.
Both series had some of the biggest fanbases the anime and manga world has ever seen, but there was one toxic trait that every Naruto fan had, which made Oda’s work in One Piece outshine Kishimoto’s Naruto. This toxic trait involved blaming Kishimoto for every misinterpretation or anomaly that took place in Naruto at the time.
A few years ago, a Reddit discussion among anime and manga fans talked about this toxic trait of Naruto fans and how it might have affected Naruto’s rivalry against One Piece. They even explained how they felt bad for Kishimoto as he had to deal with such toxicity since the beginning.
The Unhealthy Attribute of Naruto Fans Toward Masashi Kishimoto
Naruto is a complex story about a young child who wants to prove his worth as a Shinobi despite being neglected and disgraced by his own village. The story has a lot of different plotpoints that are divided into 700 chapters, and every chapter offers a unique perspective towards the mindset of Masashi Kishimoto as a writer.
However, the complexity of the narrative made it difficult for Kishimoto to explain every little detail about the characters, plots, abilities, jutsus, etc.
I really feel bad for Kishimoto sometimes. Naruto deserves a way better fandom.
byu/Ank8 inNaruto
Also, there were some storylines that the Naruto fans as a collective did not agree with much. This led to a lot of criticism towards the mangaka and his work in Naruto.
Some of the biggest examples of this are Kishimoto’s way of portraying Sakura as a realistic character and the discrimination towards Naruto as a jinchuriki when he was a kid. These aspects were a little harsh towards the characters and the story. Fans had a hard time agreeing with these elements and the way Kishimoto portrayed them.
Naruto Fans Are The Reason Why Masashi Kishimoto Cannot Compete With Eiichiro Oda
Naruto fans have always blamed Kishimoto for the anomalies that took place in Naruto. They have deemed them as either lazy writing or the mangaka’s incompetence. While they supported Naruto as a series, they could not show the same love for its creator. And something similar can be seen with Naruto’s sequel spin-off series, Boruto.
One Piece fans, on the other hand, have always supported Eiichiro Oda regardless of the issues that the series faced. Be it the length of the series or the infinite number of mysteries introduced in the story, the One Piece fandom has stood with Oda and put its trust in him and will keep doing so until the series reaches its end.
A fanbase holds a strong position in determining a series and a manga creator’s future. While Naruto’s fanbase showed incredible support and love for the series, they could not offer the same for Kishimoto, and this is one of the reasons why Oda always stayed ahead in the race between the two creators.
You can watch Naruto on Hulu and One Piece on Crunchyroll.
