Manga 87866 Naruto Gaiden Nanadaime Hokage To Akairo No Hanatsuzuki

I felt Gaiden is more for the fans who wants a slice of the nostalgia from the naruto universe than an actual story with good development. I read it wanting to see the characters and how they were 12 years after the ending of Naruto and it was a nice trip down memory-lane. Plot-wise, I do think some aspects were drawn out for the sake of a storyline but overall, it's a good read.

Story: 6
The plot was very predictable, nothing was suspenseful. The basic "a new villian appears but somehow the main character, in this case it's Sarada, somehow defeats them with the power ... of love for her family and her village. I'm a sucker for those storylines and the moments were very endearing. Some parts were really unnecessary in my opinion but without them, we will not have any drama LOL.

Art: 9
It's still the same style, which I know now that I should be grateful for after looking at Boruto. I love how Sarada is a blend of both Sasuke and Sakura.

Character: 7
It's more focused on the children and I do love these little munchinks very much. Chocho is hilarious with her remarks and giving a bag of chips to Sasuke so he can make up with Sarada. And Naruto being the uncle who tries too hard to be cool, who would have thought the day would come so soon, haha.

***SPOILERS***
I'm not a fan of how aloof Sasuke is now, even to his own child and wife...considering how he's disappeared for so many years and he knows it affected Sarada so I docked a star. I love the mother-child moment between Sakura and Sarada though :)

Enjoyment: 9
I'm a sucker for Naruto because it's one of my first anime so it did have an impact on my childhood and was a positive impact on my life. This story is basically bringing all the cute essence of Naruto (family, friends, believing in yourself, etc) into a nice, compact 10 chapters (minus Sasuke leaving for so long) so it's a nice re-read.

Overall: 8
When reading this, you gotta know what you're looking for. If you're looking for a great plot with character development then please turn away. If you're looking for a short read to quench those Naruto feels then please do go ahead and read this. It's nice seeing all the characters again and their new life now and seeing how little ninjas are and the potential for them in the future.

My Review from Japanator:

It’s been a few months since I published my review for Boruto: Naruto The Movie, so make sure to check that out as well. It is important to note that Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring is the prequel to the movie so obviously you don’t need to watch the movie to enjoy it, but you definitely need to be familiar with the main series. Taking place after Chapter 700, this chapter focuses on the new generation, mostly Sasuke and Sakura Uchiha's daughter—Sarada.

Although meant as a prologue for the movie, and just a side story, this Gaiden ... wasn’t really enjoyable for many reasons. To address the elephant in the room, I feel like Cho-cho’s role felt rather forced and added no substance to story. While I understand that she was added for comedic relief, sometimes it was just executed at the wrong times and it just felt rather annoying more than anything.

Another big issue was the main antagonist of this Gaiden—Shin Uchiha, who easily is one of the most forgettable villains in the series with a lackluster motive, probably a lot worse than Obito Uchiha. His goal is to erase peace as he thinks it’s detrimental to human evolution. The only memorable things about the character are some of his attacks, like his Kamui-like jutsu and his Weapon Manipulation Technique, which I thought it was cool.

I always thought that Kishimoto was great when it came to delivering fights, especially near the end of the series, as well as other fights such as Sasuke vs. Itachi. Aside from seeing Shin’s Weapon Manipulation Technique, Sakura in action, and some Naruto and Sasuke Teamwork, just like the antagonist, this fight was hardly enjoyable as well.

However, this Gaiden does have its highlights that made reading this tolerable, such as seeing Orochimaru, and the jokes that revolve his new body, the early interactions between Boruto and Naruto, the new generation and of course, Sarada reuniting with Sasuke and learning the truth about her family. Like I stated, in my Boruto: Naruto The Movie review, I really like that Sarada wants to follow the path of Hokage, as opposed to Boruto who wants to be more like Sasuke.

While I wasn’t expecting too much out of this Gaiden, it was still overall disappointing. I felt like I was reading it for the sake of reading it every time a new chapter came up. I really thought that reading the entire Gaiden in one sitting would make it more enjoyable, but I was wrong. I was really hoping to see something feature the new generation but maybe next time.

I just read Naruto Gaiden again and I want to say that this 10 Chapter manga is the worst story Kishimoto has put out yet. Yes. Worse than early Part 2 Naruto and Final Arc Naruto. Kishi had all the time in the world to make a great story like with The Last and the Boruto movie but for some reason he decided to take inspiration from Keeping up with the Kardashians for Naruto Gaiden.

Sarada is a Mary Sue. She gets all the power ups in the world without proper training and Chouchou just reminds me of Jar Jar Bings. The "comedy" in this is ... just the worst. None of the new characters most of us were interested in, like Mirai, Metal Lee or even Himawari got some lines to make this story better.
Naruto and Sasuke also have been nerved for this arc to make Sakura look good AGAIN. Onion Boy is probably the most forgettable villain since Gateau and the whole "who's your mommy" conflict could have been resolved in one chapter without this stupid melodrama.

It's also amazing how many plotholes have been condensed into this one story like why would Sarada claim that her father left her when she was a baby but then remember a time that she held hand with her parents when she was a little kid. Why does she know how to use her mother's punching skills when it took Sakura one year to master them. Why would Sasuke write a letter to Naruto but never bother to write a letter to his family? Why did Sasuke take on this mission to look for a villain for the Boruto movie and never bother to visit his own family? He didn't have a problem to eat some dinner with them at the end of the manga. While we're at it. Sasuke's mission that he got when Naruto was already the hokage became entirely pointless because the villain of the Boruto movie still attacked Konoha and kidnapped Naruto. Why couldn't Onion boy see Sakura even though he had Sharingan eyes all over his body? I could go on and on.

Sakura became even more unlikeable than she already was in this story. Yes she took care of Sarada and put on a few moe faces here and there(she even stole Hinata's Ch.700 design lol) but why the fuck did she paste her own image over a friend like Karin that helped giving birth to Sarada? What kind of asshole friend would do something like this? Why didn't Sakura just answer to Sarada instead of destroying her own house and bringing her daughter to tears?

Taka, Yamato and Orochimaru were entirely pointless to the plot and I wonder why Kishi even bothered to write them into the story.

Naruto Gaiden is bad. Almost nothing works in this 10 chapter abomination. While Sarada is likeable at times, she still is a complete Mary Sue and her story crumbles apart near the end and the action bits are some of the worst in all of Naruto. The Uchiha cancer also took over the story again even though 90% of the Naruto fandom was already sick and tired of it.

What bothers me the most about Naruto Gaiden is that this whole manga feels insincere, like Kishi didn't want to put any effort into the plot. He always had a few hickups throughout the story of the Naruto manga but this could have been justified because he was always pressured to produce a new chapter every week for multiple years. Naruto Gaiden had months to get a half decent story but it still turned into shit.