The anime company Studio Pierrot has been often recognized for the many instances where they take the manga of a creator and then change around certain details or even whole characters or plot points to suit their purposes. More importantly, Studio Pierrot's changes produce very different reactions from creators and fans alike.
With Sailor Moon for instance, while some fans appreciated the extended filler episodes meant to make the one-dimensional villains like the Specter Sisters be more sympathetic and have them survive to be redeemed instead of being killed off like in the Sailor Moon manga; the creator herself though, Naoko Takeuchi, decried the changes made by Studio Pierrot as going against her manga's characters by sexualizing the Sailor senshi as fan-service and altering their personalities to be less serious.
In the case of Masashi Kishimoto, on the other hand, he not only embraced the changes Studio Pierrot made to his manga Naruto, he even wrote out future chapters to have the characters Hinata Hyuga and Naruto Uzumaki become a couple; but because the changes made went against the previously established story, some Naruto fans ended up rejecting the manga along with the Studio Pierrot fan-service this time around.
Therefore, given these conflicting opinions, should Studio Pierrot's changes be trusted or valued at all, even if they may be at odds with the original creators' intent or fan approval potentially?
It's important to consider the merits that justify a studio's license for artistic originality when it takes over a work and creates an anime adaptation. Even as a personal detractor of Studio Pierrot, I think additions or changes made by them should be taken as is because as a newly introduced part of a franchise or series, they have the authority now to take the IP in whatever direction they see fit. Fans and viewers just need to become educated on who did what for what reason, give credit where credit is due, and criticism where necessary. What is 'better' or 'original' is irrelevant; the fact is that whatever changes made are now part of the franchise and it's up to the fans to determine what is good or not. – Austin9 years ago
As with any Anime article speaking of the author's original intent, sources are very important. For example, saying Kishimoto had Naruto and Hinata be a couple because of the Anime is not only news to me, but it goes against some contradictory things I've heard, like Studio Pierrot raising Naruto/Sakura hype instead. In the Kobayashi interview, Kishimoto actually admitted to seriousl consider making Hinata heroine. I'm not saying this to contract anything but to point to how important sources are when attributing a quote to an author. – SpectreWriter9 years ago
The part about Naruto/Hinata being largely Studio Pierrot's idea is from an (English translation of) interview from around 9 months ago with Kishimoto. But you're right, perhaps I should've listed it as a source since I was under the impression that more people knew: http://falconia.tumblr.com/post/104920253714/recent-interview-with-kishimoto-sensei – dsoumilas9 years ago
Important to bear in mind the purpose of adaptation and the audience the changes, and the show in the first place, are targeted to. Also be careful of skewing the 'audience' into purely netizens. I've always noted source material 'true fans' to be marginal in their extremes of distrust of change in adaptations. There's also a bandwagon-ish quality to their opinions. – JekoJeko9 years ago
This may be late, I just saw this again, I previously forgot about my gripe with this. Regarding Studio Pierrot having the idea of Naruto/Hinata getting together, the source given to me is in context of the movie, not the ending of the manga, which is what sort of settled this shipping issue. I'm not bashing the existence of this, but I don't think Naruto is a fair example, especially in terms of who Naruto ends up with. – SpectreWriter9 years ago