Sakura was introduced to us as our third main character.
Pre-Time Skip, she wasn’t. She barely had a couple of good fights.
Post-Time Skip, she wasn’t either.
This is not surprising for shounens, just disappointing.
Hey, remember the three central characters of Naruto? That’s right, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke and— Uhh… Who was that third again? We’re fairly certain that ninja teams are all supposed to consist of three people, but we’re kinda drawing blank. Kakashi? No, he was the mentor of the group. Ah, right, it was Sai— no, wait, he was added after time skip in Shippuden. Huh, was Team 7 always one person short?
Third Wheeling SasuNaru
Sakura was introduced to the series alongside Sasuke as Naruto’s teammate. The initial dynamic was simple — our blonde boy disliked Sasuke for how popular the guy was, and liked Sakura because she was a pretty girl — and he also wanted to become Hokage from day 1. Sasuke had a cold distaste for Naruto and zero interest in Sakura — and he was also training and biding his time until he could kill his brother Itachi. Sakura thought Naruto was gross, and pined after Sasuke — and she also pined after Sasuke.
One of the three is not like the others.
Sakura was introduced into the group as The Girl — she did not have the talent or dedication to training either of the boys possessed, and her only goal was to be as close to Sasuke as possible. This, of course, meant she was kinda useless in a fight from day 1. Pre-time skip, she’s had a couple of cool moments here and there in cutting off her hair in one fight, and resisting body snatching in another through sheer willpower during Chunin exams, and… Uhh… No, that’s pretty much it. She was just vaguely there, while her teammates had this hot, passionate rivalry that culminated in a drawn-out superpowered fisticuffs once Sasuke turned heel.
Time Skip didn’t fix anything
Then came the time skip, and Sakura got an upgrade. Thanks to learning under a powerful Sage and current Hokage Tsunade, she was now able to pulverize anything in a single punch, and knew plenty of medical techniques — and once again, she was only allowed a handful of cool moments despite this power up, as the scale of what the boys from her team were capable of vastly outpaced anything Sakura was able to accomplish.
Yep. Sakura was supposed to be, at the very least, comparable to Naruto and Sasuke in relevancy and power — and yet, at no point of the story she ever was, somehow relegated to either occasionally useful secondary role, or just being an outright background character.
Of course, Sakura is not the only such example in shounen. Not even just in Naruto — Hinata, Tenten, Tsunade and many other girls up to and including the Boruto continuity were either useless, or plot devices (or both!) — except, unlike them, Sakura was supposed to be our third main character. We would’ve said shounens got better since then, except we still see things like this happening. You know, like Rukia or Orihime in Bleach. Or like Uraraka in My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia). Or like Nobara in Jujutsu Kaisen. And the fact that this happens at all? Is pretty disappointing.
Otherwise, why make teams of three?
Summary:
Sakura was introduced to us as our third main character.
Pre-Time Skip, she wasn’t. She barely had a couple of good fights.
Post-Time Skip, she wasn’t either.
This is not surprising for shounens, just disappointing.
Hey, remember the three central characters of Naruto? That’s right, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke and— Uhh… Who was that third again? We’re fairly certain that ninja teams are all supposed to consist of three people, but we’re kinda drawing blank. Kakashi? No, he was the mentor of the group. Ah, right, it was Sai— no, wait, he was added after time skip in Shippuden. Huh, was Team 7 always one person short?
Third Wheeling SasuNaru
Sakura was introduced to the series alongside Sasuke as Naruto’s teammate. The initial dynamic was simple — our blonde boy disliked Sasuke for how popular the guy was, and liked Sakura because she was a pretty girl — and he also wanted to become Hokage from day 1. Sasuke had a cold distaste for Naruto and zero interest in Sakura — and he was also training and biding his time until he could kill his brother Itachi. Sakura thought Naruto was gross, and pined after Sasuke — and she also pined after Sasuke.
One of the three is not like the others.
Sakura was introduced into the group as The Girl — she did not have the talent or dedication to training either of the boys possessed, and her only goal was to be as close to Sasuke as possible. This, of course, meant she was kinda useless in a fight from day 1. Pre-time skip, she’s had a couple of cool moments here and there in cutting off her hair in one fight, and resisting body snatching in another through sheer willpower during Chunin exams, and… Uhh… No, that’s pretty much it. She was just vaguely there, while her teammates had this hot, passionate rivalry that culminated in a drawn-out superpowered fisticuffs once Sasuke turned heel.
Time Skip didn’t fix anything
Then came the time skip, and Sakura got an upgrade. Thanks to learning under a powerful Sage and current Hokage Tsunade, she was now able to pulverize anything in a single punch, and knew plenty of medical techniques — and once again, she was only allowed a handful of cool moments despite this power up, as the scale of what the boys from her team were capable of vastly outpaced anything Sakura was able to accomplish.
Yep. Sakura was supposed to be, at the very least, comparable to Naruto and Sasuke in relevancy and power — and yet, at no point of the story she ever was, somehow relegated to either occasionally useful secondary role, or just being an outright background character.
Of course, Sakura is not the only such example in shounen. Not even just in Naruto — Hinata, Tenten, Tsunade and many other girls up to and including the Boruto continuity were either useless, or plot devices (or both!) — except, unlike them, Sakura was supposed to be our third main character. We would’ve said shounens got better since then, except we still see things like this happening. You know, like Rukia or Orihime in Bleach. Or like Uraraka in My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia). Or like Nobara in Jujutsu Kaisen. And the fact that this happens at all? Is pretty disappointing.
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