Well. I-am-dis-pleased.

I was looking forward to the confrontation between Sakura and Naruto from the minute it became evident that it would happen. I was hoping it would be Sakura's admirable moment, like Hinata's when she defended Naruto in spite of sure-fail.

But perhaps I should have known better given Kishimoto's history with her character, because every time I think I'm going to get a proud moment it turns into a shitfest of some kind.

I love this manga, but really, as of this chapter I've pretty much given up hope on her character, and I no longer wish to cheer her on.

It has nothing to do with whether or not she loves Sasuke. I prefer Sakura/Naruto over Sakura/Sasuke any day because it feels so much more natural, but I honestly would be fine if nothing ever happened between them. This has nothing to do with whether or not she actually loves Naruto, either.

This is about the fact that who Sakura loves is not the point. The bottom line has nothing to do with that. The bottom line is that Sasuke has become a threat to good people, or at least people no worse than him, and regardless of their friendship/love for the guy, they have to stop him by whatever means necessary.

That's what she needs to tell Naruto. She could even say, “I love Sasuke, I want to save him if we can, but we need to recognize that such a thing might not be possible, and the next time we see him, we cannot act foolishly. Other people's lives are at stake now. The ninja world, peace, everything is at stake.”

If she said that, in my eyes, it would redeem the foolishness and uselessness of her character altogether. If it turns out that she, for some reason I cannot conjure, is still in love with Sasuke, so be it, so long as she is willing to recognize and say the above.

In a way, lying to Naruto (if indeed she is) and saying that she loves him and not Sasuke could be seen as an attempt to do the above. She's realizing that Sasuke, as much as she may loves him, is a threat to other things that matter. I can admire that much, but what *headdesk* this whole fiasco turned out to be. Because, you see, not only is she possibly lying to Naruto, but she completely fails to convey the important thing to him, even if she herself understands it. How she and Naruto feel about Sasuke is important, but it is not as important as everything they are risking with those feelings. Both of them are being selfish, maybe one more than the other, and it's time to grow up. They can continue to hope, but they cannot continue to operate as though a happy future where he is redeemed is probable.

Instead, of course, the conversation comes off as: "I don't love Sasuke romantically anymore, but I love you now because you do what I want and he never did. So, you can go ahead and defeat him now. See, it's okay! Since everything you've done has nothing to do with your relationship with him anyway, if I say I don't care about him anymore, then you won't either!" When the raging fans say Sakura is being cruel and manipulative, they're right.

Like, really? Is Sakura that stupid? Even if Naruto couldn't detect her lie (assuming, again, she is lying), he has not been chasing after Sasuke simply for her sake. Sasuke is important to Naruto as well, for reasons that having nothing to do with her. If she can't see that, (and I really never pinned her as that stupid, so this is completely out-of-character) she really doesn't deserve him. Telling him she no longer loves Sasuke may ease the burden on Naruto (in which case lying is understandable), but it doesn't change that he is going after Sasuke for his own reasons too, and that what both of them really need is to recognize what is more important than their selfishness over one person. She completely failed to address this issue—and I have little hope that the next chapter will reveal “Ha! It was part of her cl3v3r plan all along!!!” It could happen, but I do not anticipate it.

What really annoys me is that Sakura, if she has matured at all since part 1, knows better. There's no reason that she should behave this stupidly. It seems completely OOC--in which case I think this is a chapter is hardly a disaster because I hate the in-character story so much as I'm frustrated with what Kishimoto has done.



What Kishimoto has done here, of course, relates in greater part to my other broader vein of frustration about women in fiction.

I have given up hope on Sakura's character at this point, and I've given up hope on Kishimoto as well. The guy has crafted a brilliant story, with brilliant characters, brilliant art—brilliant so many things, but in this one basic thing he continues to fail time and again. I know it's a shounen manga, but that doesn't mean the female characters can't be portrayed admirably and respectably, even if they are not given the spotlight.

Every single female character with significant mention, except maybe Temari, has a story which revolves around matters of love/their relationship with a male character:

Hinata was motivated to do something beautiful because of it, but in the end her glory moment was still created out of her romantic interest in a male character.

Konan gave up the minute Pein was gone, stating that he and Yahiko were everything to her, and she no longer holds an interest in Akatsuki without them—meaning that, she was basically doing whatever they would do, and held very little motivation or desires or initiative of her own.

Tsunade was heartbroken over the loss of her lover and brother—but she may be the rare exception that recovered from this nonsense and got her head on straight in her old age.

The new Mizukage seems to have some dramatic love history, which in and of itself is fine, but one can only hope it won't interfere with her future initiative somehow—and really, clumped together with everyone else, it's one more thing to make me sigh in general.

I'd rather not talk about Ino.

It's not that these female characters are unbelievable, but rather it is unbelievable that every single one has the same story. It's always about the relationship to the male characters, and I'm so over it.

Of course, in Sakura's case it has gone a step further.

Sakura, I had hoped, got over the Sasuke-obsession, at least enough to set her priorities straight as of this chapter, but her way of handling this situation with Naruto—Kishimoto's way of having her handle the situation with Naruto—infuriates me. Love is not the bottom line. There are some things more important than love. But once again, Sakura is defined by it, and given everything she's been through, she shouldn't be. This should not have happened.

Sakura hasn't had a character-oriented WIN since chopping off her hair as a kid. She's gained a lot of skills and become more battle-confident, but I feel that, in terms of maturity, she's hasn't really been given a chance to shine and teach someone else something. I was hoping this would be it; she can finally do something for Naruto, but instead it turned into Naruto calling her out on how silly she is.

I guess it's kind of like watching someone with so much potential being constantly told "Wrong!Wrong!" every time they do something. And it's not that they aren't doing anything wrong, but rather you want to see them do something right for once. Sai's only been with us for a short while and Shikamaru isn't as central a character, but of the both of them got it "right" when they called Sakura on the mess she's made with Naruto. I was hoping Sakura would finally get it and tell Naruto what he needs to hear, only we've discovered that she seems to have completely missed the point.

I want Kishimoto to finally let her win. After everything that's happened, I feel this should have been it, which is why the moment just feels full of character!fail to me. It is utter logic-fail that this is how things should play out, even for a character such as Sakura.

It may be that fated_bliss said it better, so read that too.

–

In other news, Kisame is a crazy bad-ass, but I'm still hoping he loses because I wanna see Hachibi-Kyuubi team-up (and I really love Hachibi ♥ ).

Some spoilers ahead.
Links provided for those unfamiliar with Green Lantern characters.

A couple days ago I finally picked up the paper-back trades of The Sinestro Corps War from Barnes & Noble. I wanted to read them for ages after picking up the first issue, but I decided to wait for the trades because the ads tend to break up the story.

I have to say, Geoff Johns really wrote a brilliant saga, and I can't wait until Rage of the Red Lanterns becomes available in paperback as well (started reading the hardback at the bookstore, and I was hooked after two pages, but I had to grind my teeth when I saw the cover price). He did an excellent job jostling a soap opera-size cast of characters while maintaining action and story movement. Truly, the guy should be writing plot for movies and TV series like Heroes.

I knew months ago how the tale unfolded, but it is worth every penny to actually watch it play out. I mean, holy cow: in chapter five when Hal, John and Guy return to Earth, and Guy suddenly looks up at the sky and says, “Hey, guys,” you flip the page and turn the book vertical, and there's this beautiful shot of the night sky where yellow swirls are gathering to announce the arrival of the Sinestro Corps on Earth. And I felt it. The sudden silence, awe, and realization of what had happened, and the enormous miscalculation [read:epic blunder] on the part of the Guardians of the Universe. I might as well have picked up the book not knowing a thing!

So, props to Johns. I'm already craving more, and I'm sad I may not be able to touch any more comics for the next year while I'm in Japan. Hopefully this will mean all the trades will be out when I get back.

I have to say, John Stewart is definitely my Green Lantern. I love Kyle Rayner because of his youth and little quirky things such as his paintings, to which I can totally relate, but as far as holding the Green Lantern title, John Stewart definitely beats out all the others for me.

Look, I haven't read all the comics with Stewart, but from what I have read, and his attitude, appearance and contribution in these books, plus the consistency with Justice League and Justice League Ulimited TV series, John Stewart is that guy. I mean, he seems the steadiest and most reliable of all the Green Lanterns [from Earth], and of course he has his faults and goes through his drama, but he isn't sexing with women left and right like Hal, he isn't shooting the crap around all the time like Guy, and he's got a more mature demeanor than Kyle. He is humble, he is serious, he is kind, but he will fight like hell if he has too. He is everything I want to see in a cop or soldier. This the guy I count on, even if he isn't the best; and he damn well makes me feel safe.

That is my impression of John Stewart. I really wish he would get more panel-time.

And none of this means I don't like the other Green Lanterns, though I have to say Hal Jordan is probably my least favorite (blasphemy?).

Okay, but, in spite of all this praise I did find myself a bit annoyed while I was reading the book. The first thing that caught my attention was Arisia's Green Lantern uniform: seriously guys? In more than one panel I thought, “Does she hook the uniform on to her nipples or something?” I mean, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal if her breasts didn't look like they might pop out at any second, or if that miniskirt covered more than fold between her butt and thighs.

The uniform might have been overlooked and all, except that I felt like as a character she just kept coming across pretty lame as well. Even this would have been fine—simply dismissed as “her personality”, except that there were really no other prominent female characters in the book other than Soranik Natu, and she didn't have much panel-time.

Granted, Soranik had that fight with Sinestro, but that fight was in its own way a disappointment because obviously he was going to win. Other than that, everything was a group fight and she didn't have much of a role (although I did love her medical constructs in the middle of the battlefield—that was really cool). I just wish that such an awesome character would have had more of an opportunity to hand someone their ass.

I don't know that much about Soranik, but I like that she's not such a huge sex symbol walking. Some artists try to sex her up by having her uniform reveal more cleavage (I cringed at several points in the story), but really everything about her screams practical. She's got a one-peace body suit for a uniform like the majority of male Green Lanterns, and her hair is cut short. It's the kind of haircut I actually love on men, actually. All this together with her just plain stable personality makes me find her stunningly beautiful. Probably one of the most beautiful women in comics. [Okay, she's an alien...]

I guess I'm just sort of bummed that there are so few women having epic battles and glory moments. I certainly don't choose my favorite characters based on gender, but I do feel a bit shafted as a woman reading comics to find that all the woman portrayed are lacking in Glory Moments, or have these personalities that keep them from doing anything especially noteworthy. The latter is in reference to Arisia, because all throughout the battle on Mogo she kept deferring to the rookie Sodam Yat rather than taking charge of the situation. Like, she was following him around as if she was his nurse or something; kind of like Sharona or Natalie from Monk, although those characters really maintain their dignity. And, okay, I don't mind if once or twice she decides to trust in him and follow his orders (like she ultimately did when they destroyed Ranx), because hey, Johns wants to introduce a new character. That's cool, but for goodness sake she could have asserted her authority a little bit more—or else why was she assigned to protect and keep him alive in the first place?

See, I'm fine if female characters like Arisia exist. They do in real life; I've met them. Not every woman is walking army or has the personality of bull dog. Some people really do follow orders better and exhibit a more passive personality. That's fine. The problem is when those type of people are the only women that seem to make it into comics on a regular basis.

The one scene that really made me go “WHAT?” was when Arisia tried to help Stel shut down Ranx in order to save Mogo. People who don't know much about comics—I won't go into the details, but basically after the panel where Arisia tells Stel to program her power ring and use it to help, Sodam Yat pops up in the next panel and receives the programming instead, and he tells Arisia to get out of there. Arisia tells him it's suicide, and he suddenly looks at her in this really dramatic panel between them and says, confidently and heroically, “I'm not going to die today.”

It's not that I don't like Sodam Yat or the fact that he has this personality; but it killed me how Arisia didn't do it instead, even knowing her job was to protect Yat, even knowing that he was a rookie. I mean, a good rookie, but she is still higher ranked than he is, and she didn't take the responsibility of blowing that thing up and possibly not surviving in his place. And she barely argued. She just agreed. It's like a stereotypical handsome-man saves the day and gives his life, telling the woman to leave, and she does.

And hey, I agree that Arisia doesn't seem like the kind of character (and this is operating off of very little knowledge of her) that would be able to survive something like that as Sodam Yat did. But all the female characters tend to be like Arisia, or they are never in heroic circumstances. Female characters receive virtually no spotlight, and are often the characters who are made to “take the orders” or appear passive in order to bolster the men in the story.

It wouldn't be so bad, except that in one of the best stories in comics there are no women getting Glory Moments or exhibiting take-charge personalities like the men (and actually have people listen to them). It sucks. At the very end, when one of the Guardians takes on Superboy-Prime, it could have been any one of them (half are female), but instead it was a male one that died epically and heroically. Yes, he appeared to be the acting leader of the Guardians, but, again, we see that women just aren't in the circumstances to do anything cool most of the time.

To the book's credit, at the very least we had Hal Jordan's niece getting the spotlight in his family. She was the one who looked up to him all excitedly and thought he was so cool as a Green Lantern, even though she had a brother who could have just as easily been idolizing Hal. It was nice to see, especially the way Jim Gordon's daughter got shafted in The Dark Knight in favor of the son, even though in comics Gordon's daughter was freakin' Batgirl.