You have to realize that Kishimoto is not a talentless hack like Kubo. He has some pride and when the story is done he's not going to pull arcs out of his ass to make it keep going for years like Bleach. The bad guy for this is THE MAIN VILLAIN FINAL ENEMY. He's the most powerful character in the entire universe and his goal is like the end of FMA and END OF WORLD if he wins. Naruto is in his FINAL FORM to get ready to beat him. Sasuke is ABOUT TO APPEAR. Everything is pretty much point towards a final climax. I think Kishimoto will pull off a really cool finale that wraps all the remaining subplots together into a nice epic finish. I think Naruto will end in the next 2 years.
yeah, but this current final boss is actually pretty recent. Initially Pain was shown as the Akatsuki leader, and then suddenly this goofball became the real final boss. It's not like it was even hinted at.
The one reason I'd agree with you is because Naruto has already tackled every cliche and wrapped up everything hinted at earlier in the manga. There's possibly the world outside of the hidden ninja villages, like with the samurai, and that could be a new arc. It could even be delayed if Naruto isn't suddenly hokage after this. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if a new arc was pulled out of Kishimoto's ass.
And I disagree that Kishimoto has a lot of pride in his work after the entire zombie versus scrubs thing. Naruto was sub-Bleach at that point.
In general that's the problem with establishing a finite goal at the start of a manga. There's never a satisfying conclusion and a lot of times it feels like the series is being stretched to avoid reaching that point. Hajime no Ippo is the absolute worst at it, followed by Bakuman. So much inanity in both of them.
It's another reason why Hunter X Hunter is great. Gon's end goal wasn't really to meet his father, but to understand what it meant to be a hunter and realize why his father chose it over him. It's open ground for adventuring.
