Lover

When it comes to romantic relationships, what do we look for in a partner? What core values do we seek when it comes to building a healthy and loving relationship? For this topic, we will be discussing some of our favorite couples in pop culture and what they have taught us about love and relationships, the good and the bad.

Please be sure to read Scott’s OWLS post from yesterday titled A Duck and a Knight.

*May contain spoilers for Naruto

A lover can be a fan

What’s it like to have a lover? A lover is someone who has romantic feelings for someone. We see this a lot in places we go or sometimes we have that one lover in your life that makes you feel really good inside. I like to think of lover has someone who, no matter what they see in you despite having flaws, they see nothing but the positive aspects. I think of lovers has a special fan who is willing to devote their time for others. They are the ones who cheer for their admirer even if they are only one supporting them. In anime, lovers are usually the ones that are willing to help a character or protagonist. Despite risking everything, that lover will find peace and comfort with that person they love the most. The world means everything is as long they have that person. In this post, I am going to talk about Naruto and his lover and not so secret admirer Hinata. But I do that, I am going to give you a brief description on what Naruto is about and a movie I will use.

Background

What’s Naruto about?

Naruto tells the story of a young shinobi named Naruto Uzamaki who wishes to be Hokage, a strong Ninja leader for Village Hidden of Leaves. Naruto had a troubled childhood because he lost his parents after sacrificing their lives to stopping a the Nine Tailed Fox that almost destroyed the lands. Now that the Nine Tails is sealed away in Naruto, the village is afraid of Naruto and won’t even give him any attention and they blame him for something he didn’t do. Naruto hopes to use this curse as a blessing in order to protect his village and bring peace to the world from ninjas who seek global domination.

~Fast Forward to this part of the story~

The Last: Naruto the Movie

Taking place place two years after Fourth Shinobi World War, everything is at peace for Naruto and his friends. However, when someone is threatening to destroy the Earth with the power of the moon, it’s up to Naruto and his friends to stop this destructive threat and save the world. Along the way and joining Naruto is his friend and ally Hinata Hyuga. As Naruto and Hinata work together, Naruto finally sees how much Hinata cares about him. It’s up to him to not only save the world, but also his choice to return the love Hinata gave him.

Now that you get the main idea for these titles, I can now talk about the topic of lover.

Hinata – Naruto’s Eternal Lover

As a Naruto fan, I grew up watching and reading Narutp from the start of his adventures. This kid has been through a lot from being an outcast to being a hero to being Hokage. He didn’t do this alone, because he his friends to give him the strength to push forward to his goal. However, there was one person who secretly stood in the sidelines supporting Naruto when others gave him. Her name is Hinata Hyuga. Hinata has a a huge crush on Naruto from beginning when they were kids to all the way to adults. Even though she was shy, she did her best to give Naruto support. In a way, she was Naruto’s secret fan, someone who was rooting for her without him ever realizing it. I am not going to cover every single Naruto-Hinata moment, but I am going to cover some major moments.

Chunin Exams

In one of her acts of kindness, Hinata was willing to help Naruto cheat in a writing test during the Chunin Exam

At first you might be asking, why cheat? Well, during the Chunin Exams, all the students had to take a written test where the questions was harder than the SATs and to make matters worse, if you failed the test, your whole team fails. This test was so hard that everyone did their own style to cheat. Naruto, not having the intelligence like the others, struggle to get any answers. Hinata notices him and was willing to let him copy her answers; however, Naruto refuses in order to make she doesn’t get in trouble.

During the Chunin Exam fights, Naruto is pitted against Hinata’s teammate Kiba. Hinata struggles because she wants to cheer for Naruto but she also doesn’t want to betray Kiba’s loyalty. In the end of the match, Naruto does win and Hinata quickly goes to him and offers to heal him with ointment. She does the same for Kiba but he doesn’t want it and wants her to keep for herself.

In a month later, as Naruto prepares to fight Neji, Hinata privately tells Naruto that he strong. This helps Naruto as he was beginning to have doubts when observing Neji’s style of fighting. Hinata tells Naruto regardless of strength, it’s his determination and perseverance that makes him incredible.

Shippuden

Saving Naruto’s life from Pain

Skipping ahead into Shippuden, Naruto learned how to use Senjutsu Chakra from his late master Jiraiya’s mentors. They taught him to use nature to give him incredible powers and strength. Naruto would later learn how to use Sage Mode and use it to fight off against the leader of the Akastuki named Pain. At first, Naruto seems to be doing well but as soon as he fights the leader of the six, he struggles. Pain then questions Naruto’s motives on how can he achieve peace if what he is doing is wrong in his eyes. This makes Naruto doubt himself and he questions himself if can he really find peace. Fortunately, there was one person who came to save him and it was Hinata. Even though she was outclass and no where near as strong as Naruto, she fought to protect him. Even if she could get killed, Hinata was willing to risk her life for Naruto because the love she has for him.

The Last – Naruto eternal lover

In The Last – Naruto the Movie, Hinata decides that it is time to finally express her feelings to Naruto. She fixes an old scarf that belong to Naruto as a kid after he tried to help Hinata from bullies. However, after she sees Naruto with a different scarf, she thinks her gift is useless. If you refer back to the section where I briefly talk about the movie’s plot, I mentioned that Naruto and his friends has to stop a threat that could destroy the Earth. The mastermind behind it is Toneri Otsutsuki and his goal to destroy the Earth for making chakra as a weapn and he wants to take Hinata as a bride. Throughout the mission, Hinata and Naruto get close to each other and Naruto how Hinata values him; it took him this long to see that Hinata has feelings for him. However, plans doesn’t go well with Naruto when Toneri takes Hinata to be his wife and threatens the Earth. Hinata agree to marry him if it means protecting the Earth and Naruto. However, we see that she still loves Naruto and will do anything to be with him. Despite the challenges, Naruto fights Toneri to save the world and Hinata. With the combined two, Naruto and Hinata saves the world and Naruto finally understand Hinata’s love and devotion to him. He sees that throughout the years they spent from childhood to adulthood, Hinata was always there for him. In result, Naruto weds Hinata and the two would later a start a family.

Overall Conclusion

So what do we know about lover? Being lover is like being a fan of someone. A lover will love someone despite having flaws and always sticking around with them. It’s also almost like having a best friend. Hinata started off as a friend of Naruto growing up. Even though she wasn’t close to him like Sakura and Sasuke, she did her best to support him in his trials. She was willing to risk her honor with her team to make sure Naruto keep going in his ninja way. In life and death situations, Hinata wasn’t afraid to die in order for Naruto to live and save the world. In situations like The Last, Hinata was not going to let any enemy to stop her from loving Naruto. Hinata had her heart set on Naruto and she didn’t care what anyone said about him. All she wanted was to be with Naruto and see him being happy. Thanks to Naruto. she also learned how to be strong in life. She went from being a shy girl to a strong independent kunoichi.

I hope you enjoyed this post and I hope you understand what is a lover. Please check out tomorrow’s blog posts featuring Hikari from Hikari Otaku Station and Rai from Rai’s Anime Blog.