FEBRUARY 28TH, 2013 · 62 NOTES 362Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0hjWCaGdWM
SASUKARIN TEAM TAKA SUIGETSU UZUMAKI KARIN JUUGO UCHIHA SASUKE FYSK: LAP FYSK: POINTERS MISCONCEPTIONS
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I’m sure some of you must have, at least once, come across someone diminishing any importance from Taka’s role by claiming that “Kishi’s editors forced him to create Team Taka”. Their source? A supposed interview that they’re never able to quote.
I’ve addressed this in the SasuKarin FC a couple of times, but I finally gathered everything together in a LAP and figured it wouldn’t hurt to share here, for Taka fans like myself.
So, here we go:
Did Kishimoto once say in an interview that his editors forced him to create Team Taka?
No, he didn’t.
This supposed interview is brought up remarkably often when it comes to Team Taka, and the misconception above mentioned is extremely widespread. When, in fact, there isn’t such an interview. Or rather, it does exist - Kishi’s words were just twisted around so much that what he actually said became something else entirely.
This is the quote this whole business originated from:
Jump Festa 2008
7. Are you gonna write the battle of each member of Hebi?
Kishi: Actually I didn’t want to. But Shueisha ordered me to do with something about them.
source: HERE
As you can see, the subject is not Hebi’s creation: just Hebi getting one-on-one fights or some action, period. That is what Kishi did not intend to write (back then, aka December 2007). Anything else is just fans’ jumping the gun and reading too much into his words (example: Kishi doesn’t want to draw them fighting = he has no interest in these characters = doesn’t intend to give them any development = is planning to kill them off! -> this was literally the thought-process followed by some people in the thread I linked to).
It’s also worth mentioning that this happened around the time of the Sasuke vs Itachi fight; aka, before Taka’s fight against Killerbee and before the short skirmishes that took place during the Kage Summit. Up to the moment the interview took place (end of 2007) Hebi had indeed not done much aside from assisting Sasuke here and there, since the whole point was to get Sasuke to Itachi and pronto, so it’s no wonder that Kishi wasn’t planning anything Hebi relevant yet and that the editors wanted him to at least deliver some fighting (this is a shounen, after all).
Now, aside from that interview up there, Kishi (at least on the available records) has only brought up Taka again in Jump Festa 2010 (according to the fan accounts, nothing relevant was said about Sasuke in 2009 one). This is what was said:
Posted and translated by Sho @ NF
[…]
・サスケは鷹ともなんかある
Something will happen with Sasuke and Taka as well
ダンゾウ戦が終わってサスケの今後の展開（行動というか意志というか）が決まる」
“The ending of the Danzou fight will determine Sasuke’s coming development (whether it be his movement or his intentions)”
「鷹のメンバーも方向性が決まる」
“As will the course of those in Taka”
[…]
杉山「ダンゾウ戦の結果はここでは言えないかもしれませんがその後鷹はどうなるのか？」
Sugiyama: “You probably can’t speak of the outcome of the Danzou fight, but what happens with Taka after?”
岸本「ダンゾウ戦の結果は言えませんが、鷹の内部で色々ある(もめる？)サスケの眼つきもどんどん悪くなる、つい最近ここいらへんの話が決まった」（サスケ関連があまり決まって もいないような発言があったのでこんへんはあやふや）
Kishimoto: “I can’t speak to what happens with the Danzou fight, but there’ll be some things happening within Taka (dissent?) and the look in Sasuke’s eyes will grow eviler and eviler. I’ve just recently decided on such a course of the story” (these words make it seem as if the Sasuke-related part isn’t really decided upon, so take this part with a grain of salt).
It was nice of Nontan (Sasuke’s voice actor) to ask about Taka, and what Kishi replied was telling enough: Sasuke’s course (obviously) determines Taka’s. They’re entwined. And this is something Kishi planned years ago (Jump Festa 2010 took place in December 2009). So it’s no surprise that, 2 years later, Suigetsu and Juugo were given a scroll meant to aid Sasuke on his new quest and are currently with him, and that Karin was first seen, after two years, the very moment the manga shifted its focus to Sasuke. Plus, that Sasuke found out about her Uzumaki lineage the very moment us readers’ did.
Moreover, SasuKarin wise, it’s interesting to remark how at that point in time, Taka had already ‘dissolved’, so to speak, into a Suigetsu-Juugo / Sasuke-Karin mini cell. So when he says “there’ll be some things happening within Taka and the look in Sasuke’s eyes will grow more and more evil” he is pretty much hinting, specifically, at Sasuke’s betrayal of Karin.
tl;dr Kishi never said his editors forced him to create Team Taka. All he said was that he had not planned to give them individual fights (December 2007).
Regardless, even if in the future Kishi were to reveal that his editors were the ones to give him the idea of creating Taka, that wouldn’t make them 'fodder’. You know why?
Posted by Yami No Princess@ NF
It was one of Kishi’s editors that suggested Naruto should have a rival (Sasuke) and a love interest (Sakura), originally Naruto was the only main character as evidenced by Kishi’s pilot one-shot published in another magazine.
[…]
Also, the idea to make it about ninjas came from one of Kishi’s editors. =P
When two of the main characters themselves, not to mention the very setting of the manga, were suggested by his editors, the attempt to claim Taka and SK as meaningless due to this becomes quite the moot point :P
Some extra content (a quote by Kishi about his editors and the creation process) can be found in the original post, HERE.
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