watching naruto in the present day with someone who has never watched it beforehand is so refreshing, especially when it comes to sakura's character.
because instead of the usual "sakura is so useless omg" comments that ive heard for over a decade, my friend recognizes that she is 12 and is commenting on how "kakashi should have trained her. shes underprepared and its all the adults fault."
because she is neglected and she is not taken seriously by kakashi. even though she is the weakest member up until she meets tsunade. she shouldnt have to be weak if he helped her.
why does she have to find a different trainer besides her own just to become strong? just to have her abilities and potential to be acknowledged?
This post contains S*susaku criticisms so if you're a fan of the couple I would recommend to not go any further.
Sakura haters don't interact, this post is for her fans or people that want better for her, not you!
Sakura will be forever a wasted potential to me and I always try to figure out things that would make her better as a female lead. In terms of personality she's pretty nice! Sakura is intelligent, gentle, strong, brave and compassionate. But sadly, having a good personality isn't enough to be a good lead, so to make it actually happen I would:
Make her an equal member in team 7
She's close to Naruto which already is a good start, we see her developing trust and care for him, during the entire manga, but with Sasuke it felt hollow (I will elaborate this later), which consequently makes Sakura kinda lost and out of place in the Sasuke and Naruto relationship, which supposedly is about their team falling apart, but she's like an afterthought on it, even in Sasuke mind. I think it would be nice to Sakura know more about Naruto and Sasuke relationship, because her knowledge about it is so shallow, especially towards Sasuke feelings. Also regarding her powers..., she's just a girl between two demi gods I mean it makes sense to Sakura character be like that, she's kinda like Rock Lee an average girl in the world of powerful clans and crazy justus, but since she's the main character, in a battle shounen it feels underwhelming putting her next to super powerful characters and try to pretend they're on the same level because everyone is on the same team. Sakura SHOULD have demi god powers, she SHOULD be powerful as Naruto and Sasuke, again it's like she's an afterthought, just someone who is in the team for it to have three. Imagine how amazing it would be, having a female character that comes from an irrelevant and weak clan, with no hereditary habilities became a fucking godess reincarnation? Kishimoto when I catch you...
Make her closer to Kakashi
Jesus Christ he's her sensei and they barely interacted! It doesn't make any sense! Plus, he could've helped Sakura more to increase her offensive and defensive tecniques, since she obviously had some trouble with it and Kakashi have seen Sakura potential.
Let Sakura use genjutsu!
This is so forgotten! Even Kishimoto probably doesn't remember it! But it would be so nice to Sakura have something by her own! Poor girl is the only one who didn't have a signature jutsu (most of them are Tsunade jutsus) and this would be a perfect opportunity to her and Kakashi be even more close! Since he could help her to make perfect genjutsus.Show more of her training. We have so much being shown for Naruto and Sasuke trainings, but for her it's just a few scenes! I wanted to see Sakura going afternight studying medicine, summoning and dividing Katsuyu, training taijutsu, genjutsu and the list goes on. Especially because her transition to part 1 to part 2 happened so fast, and since we don't see how her evolution happened it feels like something is missing.
Give her more fights
I know, i know, she's a medical ninja which only could fight in the last circumstance! But this is a battle shounen manga, where male characters have tons of amazing fights let Sakura eat the slice of cake too! Just let her go in missions that fighting are necessary and done, this girl is amazingly Strong and it should be showed more! I wouldn't mind her not fighting if Naruto and Sasuke weren't freaking demi gods, or if other female characters had plenty of solo fights.
Give her more relationships!
She talks with everyone, but it would be cool to Sakura have more close people to her besides team 7, especially because Naruto and Sasuke have it, so why can't her? This would be a great opportunity to develop more of Sakura friendship with Ino! Since we barely had it after the first part. It would be cool to have her interact with Rock Lee and other female characters as well!
Develop her family
In the last talks about Sakura, Kishimoto said he regrets not showing her parents, and the bond with her family (as he should). And I mean Sakura is the main character and we don't know anything about her family? Like how was her life on home? How's Sakura relationship with her parents? Also how do they feel about Sakura being a ninja? I mean it's not like she's the strongest or most skilled (in the beginning), wouldn't they fear their daughter getting in danger? It might be amazing to have contrast between a character with both parents and two orphans; if it was shown it would be way more impactful both to story and comparing with other team 7 members.
Give her an arc
Sakura only had one arc where she's in the spotlight and that's it (and still needed to share with someone else), meanwhile I don't even have to point out how many arcs Naruto and Sasuke have... Sakura could go to missions with Tsunade to get better with her medical abilities or lead missions herself making Sakura increase her leadership sense, show how was her life before Naruto come back to the village, show her training (as I already pointed out) and the list goes on!
Her relationship with Sasuke
Now to biggest section of this post, since this one of her biggest flaws in her character, and no it's not the fact she's in love with Sasuke, but how it's written.
Her crush on him do a 180° in her character in minutes! It seems she can't act normal in front of him and always end up showing her worst self when Saske is involved..., like Sakura gets so fragile and submissive when it cames to him? We all know she's stubborn and headstrong, if someone hits or insults her they will pay the price, but when it comes to Saske? She just got sad and when he throw the apples on the floor, when he almost killed her, when he told her to shut up in war, when used a violent genjutsu on her, just accepted, not even insulted back, contested it, why? If it was literally someone else she wouldn't act that way, "oh but she loves him", and that's exactly the problem just because she fall for him Sakura needs to act submissive, because God forbid she hurts Saske feelings.
And it's frutrating because she always prioritize Saske almost putting him in a pedestal, but it's reciprocal? No! Saske has zero problems hurting her and her feelings, which makes you think why does she submits herself to this? Not to mention, the amount of times she cries everytime she thinks of Saske in Shippuden, like is that love really good for her? Even when he's not present she's still suffering. The worst part is that she isn't allowed to move on, because Kishimoto thinks it would make her a bad woman, how terrible is that? Sakura needs to stay loving Saske until the end, independent of what he does to her, because that's what a good woman do, and folks have the nerve to say Kishimoto isn't misogynystic. Now what could make it better? First would be allow Sakura to move on, it doesn't need to be to someone else, just get over him for noticing he doesn't make good for her. Option two is take away submissive behaviour when it comes to Saske, let her respond him back and call him out. And last but no least make them bond stronger, let Saske care more for her, appear more in his mind, talk about her, and since they're supposed to be a couple make he more hesitant when it comes to hurt her both physically and emotionally (no going to dive that much into it since this isn't exactly about their romantic relationship).
This isn't a meta or any deep analysis just some changes that I personally find helpful when it comes to making Sakura a better female lead and use her full potential as character.
