YMMV / Naruto the Movie: Road to Ninja

• Broken Base: Fans are split over whether this has one of the best plots of any Naruto movie or is an overhyped, Plot Hole-ridden mess that fails to deliver on its premise.
• Cliché Storm: This movie checks all the Alternate Universe story cliches: Characters who act the opposite of canon? Check. Characters who were dead are now alive and vice versa? Check. The villains are good guys? Check. An evil version of The Hero is the Big Bad? Check.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The AU counterparts for the characters have a lot of fanart, especially Sasuke, Ino and Hinata.
• Evil Is Cool: A lot of people consider the Akatsuki to be so as is... and in this movie's AU, they are the good guys.
• Fandom Rivalry: In a predictable case of intra-fandom rivalry, towards The Last: Naruto the Movie (which came out two years after this movie) by the Naruto/Sakura shippers, due to the fact that Road to Ninja has a lot of Ship Tease moments for the Naruto/Sakura pairing but it is explicitly non-canon, while the latter movie is Canon and deals with the official pairing of Naruto/Hinata.
• Fan Nickname: "Road to NaruSaku", by the Naruto/Sakura shippers.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • A lot of the promotional material puts heavy emphasis on teasing the Naruto/Hinata and Sasuke/Sakura shippers. Apparently turned out be Subverted because Hinata disappears completely after the first act and the Sasuke of the alternate world is revealed to be a womanizer who moves on to flirting with more girls. Ultimately Double Subverted, because considering the pairing's flop, this was played straight for the Naruto/Sakura shippers.
  • Also, it shows Sakura's parents. However, they have never appeared in the manga nor in any other canon material, and have only made subsequent appearances in the Shippuden anime filler. According to Kishimoto in this 2014 Fuji TV Kobayashi interview, despite that he did create her parents, he explains that Sakura's unpopularity and his own antipathy towards her are the reasons why her parents are not canon.
• The Scrappy: AU!Kushina, whose canon counterpart was an Ensemble Dark Horse, unfortunately falls under this due to her Hair-Trigger Temper getting flanderized into making her an abusive mother. She strikes Naruto when he expresses confusion over why she and Minato are alive, shows no concern over him when he is clearly distressed by threatening him to come to dinner, and can easily be blamed for Menma's rebellious behavior.
• Squick: Rock Lee in a bra and panties.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Given how prominently the AU!Konoha 11 are portrayed in advertisements contrasted with their overall limited role in the actual film, many fans feel they should have had more involvement.

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