@Kareem:
I was actually thinking if Kishi did it right it could've been the Naruto Universe equivalent to Blackest Night. Boy was I wrong, Kishi is nowhere near the writer Geoff Johns is. I mean Johns' writing does sometimes feel like fanfiction but he at least gets an emotional reaction out of me. The last time Kishi made me feel really emotional was somewhere in the Pain Invasion arc (before it turned crappy).
I was genuinely moved by Hinata's confession and near-death and that was nearly two years ago and there's been no reaction from Naruto about it. We don't even know how Naruto feels about someone professing undying love to him, we're almost led to believe he doesn't care. He hasn't even bothered to say thank you to someone for almost dying to save him. This makes our protagonist look like a colossal asshole.
I was also genuinely moved by Jiraiya's death and Naruto's reaction to it, so if Kishi brings back Jiraiya that honestly might be the stupidest thing he's ever done, no small feat either I assure you. It would ruin one of the only good things in Part 2 and would destroy the theme he's been working on in Part 2. I may not like this "cycle of hatred" BS he's cooked up but we don't want the story and themes of Naruto to be even more of a shattered mess than they already are.
I just want people to think about one more thing and I'll be done with this rant. Masashi Kishimoto tried to spread a message about pacifism in a comic about FUCKING NINJAS! Am I the only one who sees how stupid that is. I get that Naruto was never realistic in its portrayal of ninjas, that's actually not one of my complaints. But people don't want to see messages about pacifism in Shonen Battle manga, especially not ones about ninjas. I'm not saying Shonen manga can't be deeper than just action but I still think this is really stupid.
Anyway I'm still holding out a small bit of hope that this war will suddenly get good, the art will become good again, the ending will be satisfying and the love I had for this series before the timeskip will be rekindled. But it seems really futile at this point.
Like Choperman I wish Part 2 was as good as Part 1 but there's no point complaining about what we should have gotten, we got what we got. Kishi became lazy, or tired or whatever and a great manga turned into a crappy manga and as a whole it became an average manga at best.
Yeah , naruto had a lot of wasted potential. I did not like Hinata's confession because I felt it sorta came out of nowhere from the "darkness". We barely saw her for 5 to 6 panels in part 2. Basically, things did not build up correctly but I guess most of us liked this moment because of part 1. The whole confession thing was only fanservice to the fangirls.
I liked Jman but I think he deserved more development.
Since the end of the pain arc, Kishi overdoes the symbolic stuff. I am thinking about the rainbow or bridge. Messages are not necessarily bad as long as you tell it brillantly whic his not the case anymore.
As for me, I lost hope and Kishi is obviously extending the story artificially (for the money) to sell cards of different characters, action figures, video games. Kishi wanted to outdo Oda but it is obvious he knows he already lost.
If you are dissapointed the Rock Lee spin off is here and the SHippuden movie 3 as well.