Naruto: Why Kishimoto Forgot His Side Characters In Shippuden

gamerant.com:

Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto series is considered to be one of the best shonen manga series of all time, having enjoyed quite an incredible run up to 2014. Naruto focuses on the story of Naruto Uzumaki, a young boy in a village called Konoha who aims to become the greatest ninja, called the Hokage, and earn everyone's acknowledgment. Through Naruto, Kishimoto managed to show the fans some incredible character writing and it is safe to say that the protagonist of the story is arguably his very best.

At the same time, Naruto also has a very rich cast, filled with some wonderful characters who all have their own dreams and motivations. As seen in the first part of the story, every character to be introduced received special care from Kishimoto and fans could connect with them on a special level, which was nothing short of incredible. Expectedly, this built expectations for the characters going forward in the story, however, with Naruto Shippuden, the side characters started to become less relevant and didn't receive as much attention from the author. This has been one of the most glaring weaknesses of the Naruto series as a whole and there's certainly a reason behind it.

Naruto: How Strong Was The 4th Hokage Minato Namikaze?

As Kishimoto's story moved forward, the series started to focus more on the main characters, and very little time was given to the side characters. For Kishimoto, focusing on Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha was much more important than giving the likes of Rock Lee or Tenten, or even Sakura to some extent, attention. Looking at how Naruto Shippuden dealt with the stories of Naruto and Sasuke, it is quite clear that the two paralleled each other throughout its run and eventually, fought each other. While