Sakura Character Analysis

[Guest Serenanna]

Given the recent negativity towards only one character, I am starting this thread as a character debate and analysis. Everything presented here is what I’ve learned after revisiting the first 30 chapters of the fan-scanilations of the Naruto manga and not going by the anime, and is also my opinion with canon-supported arguement.

I am doing this because I messed up and opened my mouth before mounting a proper treatment of the subject in question.

Haruno Sakura.

Everyone either seems to love her or hate her. I probably am biased because I, at the moment, love her, but it wasn’t always that way. But what I cannot understand is blatant hatred without a canon-based reason that’ll stand up under scrutiny. Like Kakashi said, you have to see underneath the underneath, and understand that there’s more to the characters of Naruto than what you read or see them doing. You also have to treat it like any other piece of literature. Naruto is after all, a story of a journey.

There are a reason characters are the way they are at the beginning of a journey, especially long journeys, because they need room to grow or else they’re believable characters.

It’s called character development. All fictional characters go through it. Sakura is no different, and neither are the boys. If they remained static characters without having change evoked on them, then they truly would be one-dimensional.

In all honesty, at the start of the manga and anime, I didn’t like anyone. Not Naruto, not Sasuke, and not Sakura either to be very clear. They each had flaws that stuck out like sore thumbs from a mile away, Naruto’s idiocy, Sasuke’s bastard-ness, and Sakura’s tunnel vision. Hatake was the only character I liked from the get go because he was the adult and he is just plain cool. And yet, by the end of Kakashi’s bell test, I liked Team Seven at least enough to have faith that it was just the beginning of something big.

This leads me to believe that it was the mangaka’s intention that no one was supposed to love everyone from the very beginning. So I guess then it worked on me at least. And yet there are still fallacies that exist when it comes to understanding these opening chapters.

First off, Sakura and Naruto were and never are friends from the very beginning. It isn’t until Wave Country that she starts to get along with him. Why is this important? Because if she was his friend in the very beginning, her behavior towards him would be unacceptable, but she isn’t. Remember, Mizuki said Naruto was shunned since birth, so it’s a fair assumption to say that no one in his class was ever his friend. Using the reason that she’s supposed to be his friend to judge Sakura’s attitude towards him is wrong. Her first conversation even proved that she didn’t like him, and never was friends with him. Afterwards, she then changes gears to try to be nice to him, and does so in her own way.

The bell test and the Wave Country mission were about teamwork, and the three of them learning to work around each other. This is why is it significant in her development as a character when at the end of battle with Haku and Zabuza that she first was relieved that Naruto was alright BEFORE asking about Sasuke. If she truly didn’t care about Naruto at all, and only thought of Sasuke, then why was she revealed that he was alright?

This brings of the second fallicy. Sakura’s treatment afterwards and for most of the rest of the first half is out of more brotherly affection than malicious hate and anger on her point. This starts as soon as they’re back in Konoha. No matter how angry, annoyed, or bent out of shape she gets by his antics, she doesn’t get malicious, snide, or seriously angry, nor does she ignore him completely. What would hurt more, being smacked for being stupid, or being ignored by someone who just doesn’t care?

She cares enough it seems to not ignore him like she did before, and elevates it to just goofing off. She even admits when Kankuro picks up Konahamaru after chasing him and Naruto around that she was just playing around. If she truly was a bitch, and didn’t care for him in the least, then why would she bother at all?

Thirdly, Sakura is not as heartless or narrow-minded as she is portrayed. In Wave Country, who first recognizes the poverty level? Sakura. Who gives out candy to a bunch of street kids? Sakura. If she truly was as self-center, selfish, and cold as thought to be, why would she acknowledge these things, and do an act of kindness to ease the suffering of a few?

Fourthly, her relationship with Ino is never explained in the first couple of chapters of the manga. Only the anime showed their rivalry in the beginning, so, strictly going by manga canon, any consideration of this in relevance to her supposed attitude is putting the cart before the horse.

Fifthly, Sakura’s supposed ‘bitchiness’ does not exist because it is a matter of opinion. To understand this, you would have to define what exactly a bitch is and be able to get a whole fandom to agree on it. This word is thrown around so often that tacking down to one succinct phrase isn’t going to happen. A few years ago, being called a bitch was almost a compliment, the mark of a woman who wouldn’t let others opinions squash her self-esteem.

Webster’s defines a bitch as “a : a lewd or immoral woman b : a malicious, spiteful, or overbearing woman -- sometimes used as a generalized term of abuse”

The former is untrue in the Sakura’s case, and thus doesn’t fit. The second is probably the definition most seek to label her as, but if that really was the extent of her character, then why has she done some of things I’ve pointed out? By that definition, I’m a bitch for being overbearing at time, so is my mother, so is my brother, my dad, my best friend, and every other friend I know. People have moments when all three of those qualities can come out. No real person is ever 100% of the time an angel, expect perhaps a saint.

Last I checked also, no one in Naruto were real people. It is anime/manga after all, and bringing in real life into an argument for the basis of making assumptions about characters doesn’t cut it. Naruto isn’t real life. Their world isn’t even our world, but readers and fanfiction authors alike try to paint it still based on what we know. That’s why our perceptions skew the canon into what we want to believe. If anyone reading this still wants to call Sakura a bitch or whatever, they are entitled to their opinion, and I am entitled to mine.

I believe that out of the Naruto characters that Sakura’s character growth out of all of them was the most significant. She went from being an ordinary-esque twelve year old girl with a head full of love and dreams to being abruptly put to the test to sink or swim. She swam, fumbled on the way, but she succeeded and matured mentally and emotionally faster than her teammates, who were too obsessed with power and their rivalry to truly try to grow up. She learned, on her own, to accept people, and to be a better person than when she started. She tried to become the glue for her team when it fell apart, and failed, and coming out of it, she realized that she still needed to grow, on her own.

It is for these reasons that I like Sakura, because she grew up.

[redsliver]

That was the most sensible depiction of Sakura I have ever read. I still don't like her, but I like what's being done with her and how she affects those she comes in contact with.

My main reason I dislike her is actually selfish and almost unrelated to the canon, it comes from Kakashi pointing out she was an illusionist type, to which my reaction was, "Sweet a lead female who's not a white mage!" but then later becoming Tsunade's apprentice and filling her standard lead female RPG role.

[Guest Masatar_Torlyl]

Fifthly, Sakura’s supposed ‘bitchiness’ does not exist because it is a matter of opinion. To understand this, you would have to define what exactly a bitch is and be able to get a whole fandom to agree on it. This word is thrown around so often that tacking down to one succinct phrase isn’t going to happen. A few years ago, being called a bitch was almost a compliment, the mark of a woman who wouldn’t let others opinions squash her self-esteem.

A bitch is a woman I admire the most (and even I wear that so-called insult as a badge of honor from time-to-time). Wether Sakura's "bitchiness" is an exaggeration of the "angry anime girl" deal or it's just her natural level of reaction to aggrevating issues, she really takes care of business and doesn't let things get to her much (except real tough moment where she has to examine her own character).

To think in the beggining I didn't really like her because wasn't truly looking at her and was baffled by what she saw in Sasuke (no offense). Plus her English VA didn't help much.... but I've come to like her a lot more (pre and post time skip).

[bookworm51485]

Given the recent negativity towards only one character, I am starting this thread as a character debate and analysis. Everything presented here is what I’ve learned after revisiting the first 30 chapters of the fan-scanilations of the Naruto manga and not going by the anime, and is also my opinion with canon-supported arguement.....

When I ask about how a person could possibly like her, I mean pre-time skip. There are a ton of people who loved her character to death before she, as you put it, "grew up". And I don't get it. She was a lousy person, plain and simple. And I just don't understand how anyone can like someone like that. But I guess it all goes back to the whole "nice guys finish last thing". For someone reason people in general seem to like horrible people.

[HimeRose]

I didn't like Sakura in the beginning because she came across as useless when saddled up along side her male contemporary. I didn't fault her for having a fangirl crush on sasuke because in truth she was acting out on adolescent impulse like most young girls her age. So why fault her for doing what most women have done at one stage or another in their life? She was naive then, incapable of seeing Naruto (becuase the show is about naruto) for who and what he was/is But she has grown in leaps and bounds since we first met her. She's humbled and that is a beautiful thing. and so, i can honestly say I like her now. I'm just waiting for she and Naruto to finally realize what's right there infront of them. I'm such a romantic.