Spot on! Normally I wouldn't say this, mainly because I dislike pairings in Naruto because they for the most part make absolutely no sense at all and have little to no development, but as much as I hate Sakura and believe me I really really REALLY HATE Sakura to the very core, (honestly who hasn't jumped on the Sakura hate train at this point?), for development and realism sake, it should have just these following instead:
SasuKarin and NaruSaku. Why you ask?
Short Answer:
Because it would have made the story much more simple and less hard to swallow when it comes to this drama that we are having now.
Long Answer:
This whole mess could have been avoided entirely, I.E. the drama and Kishi could easily have been able to put a ton more effort into what he is doing now and the upcoming stuff he has in store. If we didn't have the drama of Sarada's real mother in this gaiden then I guarantee you, we would have had a lot more development on Shin and Orochimaru's wherabouts once the gaiden began even. I know that it's supposed to focus on the next generation, but from the looks of these chapters it kinda focus's on both the old and new generations (hence the title of the gaiden of course.)
I will quote from someone I talked to online not too long ago about this topic I.E, the character development and the Red Herrings:
("If NS was made canon in Kage Summit arc Kishi wouldn't be able to keep milking the pairing fans with teases, you see everything in that story was moved by the author greediness, the more popular characters ( who weren't in the way of the MC) received spotlight, characters had their roles reduced so the MC could shine more and become more popular, etc. The problem with this is that Kishimoto completely lost the way his story was building up to go
But you are right, Kishi should've just made his "red herring " canon in the end since it was more developed and then the story could focus on other things other than building the underdeveloped pairings...")
Finally if SasuKarin turns out to truly be canon in this manga (which looks that way and I am glad of it btw), then still what I said above about NaruSaku would have made this story a lot better because we would not have a soap opera about who is Sarada's real mother and all that crap we have now.
I get what Kishi is doing right now, he is delivering a decent message with all of this, but still he really did not have to do that at all.
That is literally all that i have to say on this regard, I will never bring up pairings like this in the near future, that's for sure!
I usually steer clear of them for a reason like how a lot of people do. But if I had to choose in truth, it would be ShikaTema. Why? Just like with DBZ, Krillin x Android 18 made the most sense and actually was realistic, healthy and surprisingly had more development than all the others,same applies with ShikaTema! So ya.
Double Standards Fail!!!!!!!!!!
How can you say SasuSaku is crap and then go on and say NaruSaku makes sense? What's the difference between NaruSaku and SasuSaku? Or are females given special preference to be douchebags/*****es and guys are supposed to suck it up like robots?
Sakura has treated Naruto exactly the same way Sasuke treated her. The only thing she didn't do was try to kill Naruto, oh but wait a minute, wasn't it self defense when Sasuke tried to kill Sakura!? After all, she is the one who attacked first. Sure Sasuke threw the first blow, but that was only because he clearly saw through her deception and merely struck before she did. He realised she was deceiving him and struck first plain and simple. The second time was clear self defense as well, this was is much more clear (even tho the first incident is too).
So there it is.
1) Sakura treats Naruto like crap, Sasuke treats Sakura like crap.
2) Sakura ignores and belittles Naruto's feelings for her, Sasuke does the same to Sakura.
3) Sakura treats Naruto like a naïve and foolish (playing with his emotions and tryna manipulate him with that fake confession and hiding the truth about Sasuke from him because she thot he couldn't handle it even tho she the one who actually couldn't), Sasuke brushes her feelings off a childish and naïve.
4) Finally, NaruSaku would have been the most foolish thing on Naruto's part because I SERIOUSLY doubt, no actually I KNOW Sakura would open her legs immediately if Sasuke asked regardless of who he or she was married to. Shit like this happens in real life too, many guys married to women who love someone else and that ***** willingly opens her legs for that ***** whenever he around, blame those guys for being idiots tho, wouldn't have felt sorry for Naruto too if he'd ignored the obvious facts and married that chick.
Finally, I think Kishi is actually depicting real life situations here. There are many ****ed up relationships in the real world. The problem is that the Naruto audience is too young to accept this cause most of them are obvious very young and aint lived long enough to see the world, and humans in general (men and women are the same, don't get it confused. Both sexes lie and cheat in equal abundance, men are more naïve to realise when they being played) for what they really are.
Fact is. All these pairings are crap. Everybody loves somone who don't love them. Hinata loves Naruto, but Naruto loves Sakura, but Sakura loves Sasuke, but Sasuke loves no one but Itachi. NaruHina is crap coz Naruto don't deserve Hinata for the way he's treated her (ignored her very existence and even her confession), but NaruSaku is crap coz Sakura don't deserve Naruto (no need to explain), and SasuSaku is crap coz Sasuke don't deserve Sakura (no need to explain). Sasu-anyone is crap coz he only cares bwt himself and Itachi.