Why? D:

[sapphireluna]

Hello, mostly dead community! I don't know how many still use livejournal these days.

I know it was a little while ago, but I only recently saw the episode where Neji dies and wanted somewhere to complain about how disappointing it was in terms of Tenten reactions D:

More here with pictures

Comments

[anat_astarte]

My inner NejiTen fangirl and supporter is very wounded right now! Have I wasted the last few years of my life shipping you

I feel the same way. I always pictured that Tenten and Neji would end up together, but now I think that this is setting up Tenten/Lee to be the canon ship. I suppose that we will find out that although Tenten may have had a crush on Neji while they were younger, it's Lee's passion for life that swayed Tenten to eventually love him more. It also resolves the issue of Sakura not returning Lee's feelings, because if someone else loves Lee then he won't be lonely and then it's ok that Sakura doesn't reciprocate his feelings.

Poor Neji. I do hope he did have a chance for love before he died.
I'm still hoping that he gets resurrected though.

[sapphireluna]

I can live with TentenxLee. It's kind of cute.
What upsets me the most is that Tenten did not act shocked, sad, angry or anything at seeing Neji dead right in front of her! He was your teammate and friend for years! How can you not show any feelings??

[anat_astarte]

What upsets me the most is that Tenten did not act shocked, sad, angry or anything at seeing Neji dead right in front of her! He was your teammate and friend for years! How can you not show any feelings??

I like to think she was all of these off screen and made peace with it because (1) it was his choice to die protecting Hinata and that was most important to him and (2) they're in an active battle zone and she needed to stay focused so she doesn't get killed herself.

Kishi never put any effort into character development for Tenten, and those females he tried to develop did not fare very well. In fact, she and Lee are the best self-made characters in that they developed themselves far beyond their teacher's trainings. No legacies, no special powers, no gimmicks- just focus and hard work.

[toboe_lonewolf]

I refuse to believe Neji is dead until there's a burial with an actual body, and even then I probably still won't believe it because how many times have we had reincarnate-no-jutsu in this manga? A lot

[sapphireluna]

Yeah but....Itachi who died and was revived still ended up going back to the dead.
And I'm not sure I want want zombie Neji hanging around forever. If he is somehow revived, it'll be for a short time and then he will be dead again. I mean, even if they edo-tensei him, that doesn't make him alive again. There's no changing that he died =(

And there's no changing that Tenten showed no feelings to his death D: D:

[toboe_lonewolf]

NEJI ISN'T DEAD HE'S JUST SLEEPING I WILL CONTINUE TO BE IN DENIIAAAAAALLLLLLLLL

I used to have this giant-ass long meta on the same subject with Tenten not being in a panel reacting to Neji's loss to Naruto in the Chuunin match, but the tl;dr version is that Kishimoto has already established Tenten's importance in relation to Neji and therefore the precious panel space was spent showing other relationships instead.

The same can also be said in Neji's death as well: Kishimoto wants to point out the dudebro relationship: Lee < -- > Neji. which let's face it, Kishimoto is always gonna focus on the dudebro relationship in a shonen manga. He spent like five pages with Hinata, that's about all the pages he can stomach on having a girl as the spotlight. There was also a time delay between when we see Neji die and Lee's reaction upon finally reaching Neji's body, and honestly Kishimoto didn't spend all that much time with Lee's reaction either - it wasn't even a full page, just a single panel. For all we know both Lee and Tenten were

[dustbunny105]

I'm not a NejiTen fan, but this scene in the manga really disappointed me as a Team Gai fan and Tenten fan. I've been trying to console myself by headcanoning that Tenten is forcing herself to focus on Lee and his dramatics in order to avoid thinking too much about what Neji's death means to her.

[toboe_lonewolf]

we'll always have NarutoSD

[tao_empress]

Lack of reaction was just as disappointing in the manga, if not even more so. So, dammit, I wrote two fics about it, and didn't even think to post them here.

WELP, LOOKS LIKE I SHOULD CHANGE THAT.