@chatte
the difference between the holding hands and the hug sakura gave naruto was. Naruto never returned Sakura's hug. naruto and hinata held hands.
I think I already told you to read the context.
Never returned Sakura's hug. True. But have you thought why? Because he was shocked that she did that to him. She was shocked, a reaction well-readable on his face. The overall context were people blushing around because in Japan, if you brought this, it's something like commitment and only engaged or married couple do that.
Second one, she took her hand to gave her confidence and his thanks along with enhanced chakra. No romantic context, no one blushing, Neji laying dead. I don't think the battlefield with corpses around is one of the most romantic places to portray lovely-dovely situation. Once again, context.
Yes, I know what it means both the hug and the hand-holding, however, the tiny detail there that misleads everyone is the context in which the situation happens.
In the
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, as you can see, the context is different. People lay dead around preparing to fight the Juubi. Naruto is ordering Hinata to get ready to fight the Juubi, no after-thoughts about her. Nothing. Not even something that could lead us to think he has some sort of romantic connotation. No blushing, no nothing. Not even Hinata is blushing as you can see. She only thinks about Naruto's hand which makes her feel safe. While this could be fair and square interpreted as just a platonic thought, we can give it, however, the benefit of doubt and consider it romantic. But it only comes from Hinata. Nothing of sorts from Naruto.
In the
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, however, we definitely have a romantic context. Let me explain you why.
First of all, you said that Naruto didn't reciprocated Sakura's hug, while he did take Hinata's hand, though we had an ulterior motive for it, however, given Hinata's thoughts, I gave you the benefit of doubt, however, must I remind you that we're talking Naruto here.
So, why didn't he reciprocate Sakura's hug? Well, if you would have seen Naruto and analyzed him all throughout the manga, he is a guy emphatically handicapped. I know it sounds strange, but, let's think about it. All his life he was alone and had to work his butt of in order to get people to notice him. He was only used to the idea that people are going to reject him, which, being the host of Nine Tails, everyone did. So he was used with people to treat him awful, reject him and in order to gain their acknowledgement, he had to fight his ass off in order to prove he was worth it. Why do you think that Iruka and Team 7 are so important to him? They were the first that acknowledged his existence, thing that he explained it to Gaara and has been shown all throughout the manga. So, once again, may I remind you of this part of Naruto that is emphatically handicapped. He doesn't know how to express his emotions when people actually show him recognition. Thing that happened when he first came back to the village after fighting Pein. Look at his facial expression when the villagers were welcoming him:
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.
What can we read from here? Definitely shock! He wasn't expecting that much people to welcome him this way, back home. If you'd have analyzed Naruto, you would've known that after this situation, he would have probably expected people to be ok with it, but not acknowledge his existence. Something like yeah.. Thanks for saving us Naruto but that's all. Not that cheery and happy how they were shown in the panel. So because they were all cheery and everything he just got shocked and didn't knew how to respond. Just stood there, still. That's why, in
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, we have kinds and others jumping on him and pulling him here and there, something like "Come on, move along, act goofy, jump up from happiness" but he's, like you saw it yourself, actually telling the others to "shove it down". Because, as I told you, he doesn't know how to respond to emotions and people giving him affection, showing the slightest care for him. No, he was a lonely boy, he's used to be alone, he doesn't basically know how to respond to the affection.
Now, when Sakura happens to hug him, what facial expression do we see, again, on his face?
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Now, getting back to the previous situation, what facial expression did Naruto have when the whole village welcomed him back?
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Exactly:
shock! In both cases, Naruto was in shock given the affection he had just received, from both the village and Sakura. Given that in both situations he didn't knew how to respond, he just didn't. He remained speechless to it if you wanna say like that.
So, no, sorry, but there is a difference between being in shock and not knowing how to respond and actually not responding at all. When you don't respond at all, you are just emotionless. When you are in shock, you simply remain with your eyes big wide opened and your mouth slightly open, just as Naruto was.
I actually looked for a description on how to draw a shocked facial expression. And a draftsmen described it like this:
facial expressions shock how to draw pencil
Shock Overview: The "shocked" eye is slightly different than a fearful/terrified eye. The big difference is the lack of separation between the pupil/iris and eyelid. The mouth remains open, but slightly less wide (when compared to fear/terror)
Another thing that tells us the context/scenario is a romantic one is the way the people around them were drawn. They're all blushing at the scene. Even Kakashi who previously wasn't.
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Whereas in the hand-holding scenario, as I told you, not even Hinata who we can consider to have romantic thoughts about Naruto, wasn't blushing. So, throughout the ways Kishi drew the scenes, logically, we can deduce there wasn't meant to be seen in a romantic way. And he did show us in 616 it was all a plan to transfer chakra, but people don't see it.
Another thing people missed. This is Hinata's reaction to Sakura's hug:
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Whereas, this is Sakura's reaction to Hinata's caressing hand over Naruto's cheeks:
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Why would Kishi draw her that ... shocked? Sakura's reaction is quite intriguing here, almost hard to describe but oh well... A smile that shows the person being ok with the fact that her love interest is being hugged vs. a shocked face of someone who supposedly doesn't feel anything for Naruto. Why would she be bothered?
Oh, and if you're telling me that it's the reaction for Neji's death, sorry, but she has been drawn to show the effects of Neji's death:
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That shocked face was intentionally put there as a witness to the situation. What for? I am sure we will know in the future. But she doesn't seem to be that happy as Hinata was when Sakura hugged Naruto.
not to mention the cover for volume 64 confirms it wasn't just for transfering chakra, plus he didn't hold hands with everyone, he high-fived, tapped, flicked the other members.
Naruto and Sakura have shared covers before. And in the actual cover they both look back at Neji with Hinata being sad and Naruto giving her confidence. Something that can happen between two normal friends. Why the need to turn Neji's sacrifice into some shipping stuff? Sorry, but that's a thing I cannot like about the NaruHina fandom no matter what. It's like Neji's sacrifice meant nothing when it sure did and Kishi is putting a big emphasis on that cover but all that people see is NaruHina. Really, it's a shame to Neji as a character and for the fandom as well. If that would have happened to NaruSaku I would go raging at 'my" fandom!
Like I said from the beginning, learn to make the difference in context.
He held hands with others as well. With Shikamaru he did.
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He also did it with TenTen (does that make NaruTen cannon?)
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The reason he held Hinata's hand more than the others is simple. Actually, Kurama explained it:
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But it seems like people like to get past that detail. Probably because it works better for them. But hey! Who am I to judge? In the end, yes, it was a NaruHina moment, but that doesn't have to make it romantic, the same way the development between Sakura and Naruto is not all romantic, it has elements of friendship, support, helping each other, so on and so forth.
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again if naruto had held sakura's hand all narusaku fans would be shouting narusaku cannon. [/url]
Nope. By this argument we should've screamed cannon when the hug took place, but we didn't.
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as for the leaving naruto in a pool of his own blood.
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pay attention to naruto's blood and the broken gate and the gang wondering if naruto is even alive.
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And I'm happy whoever Naruto ends up with, as long if he and the other person are happy (unless he dies, considering the possible theories that he might die in the final battle with Sasuke). Hope this helps! 
