Well...in truth it died long before 2014...
With this blog and following blogs I'm going to do less bashing and more construction criticism. As some people have criticize my introduction blog for rightfully mocking Shippuden(aka Asspull). So I'm going to tune it down and not refers to Shippuden as Asspull for now on. However, I'm still going to pan this series, starting with a major flaw that has been present since before the time-skip, Sakura Haruno. Whom I think Kishi hates as he has a rock randomly smack her in the face for no reason in chapter 613. Anyway, here are the reasons why she is one of the worst characters in the series up there with Obito, Kaguya, and Hagoromo:
She's a Faux Main Character
One of the biggest problems with Sakura is that she is given the title of major character, when she is actually a side-character. As she is less fleshed than not only Naruto and Sasuke, but also side-characters. As we know nothing about her family and her parents have never appeared in the manga. But we know and have seen Ino's, Shikamaru's, Choji's, Kiba's, Shino's, and Hinata/Neji's family and parents. All who are side-characters, which should not happen if she is the female lead. Even Teten is more more developed than her in terms of career goals. Which was be a ninja like Tsunade, while Sakura states that she doesn't know. Her background is almost a complete blank-slate, that only consists of her relationship with Ino.
She is also underdeveloped battle-wise as she's only played a major role in one battle throughout the entire series which was the Sasori fight. She also didn't live up to her up. While her teammates developed their skills and abilities outside of their Sanin training and surpassed their mentors, Sakura is nothing more than a Tsunade knock-off. Her mentor was able to fully heal Shikamaru with ease, while she couldn't even with kyuubi chakra at the time. After her power-up Hashirama compared her to Tsunade, saying she "might" be stronger, but she was a child the last time he saw her, so Sakura is not even close to Tsunade in her prime. Kishi didn't even capitalized on her genjutsu skills which was hyped in part 1. She has never even won a fight on her own. Sakura got trolled.
As someone who is suppose to be one of the main characters she adds another to the story. There isn't even a story arc centered around her. While even side characters like Shikamaru, Tsunade, and Gaara had an arc focused on them, even Hinata got one in The Last. For a main character Sakura is shockingly pointless and it feels that she is just there for pairings' sake.
The fact that she gets compared to characters that get little panel time like Hinata so often is evidence of her failure as a main character. It means people even see her as an irrelevant side character just like Hinata. As a matter of fact, Kishi originally didn't want Sakura in the story but editors convinced him to. So Sakura really is something that has been forced and shoehorned since the beginning.
I strongly believe that Hinata would have been a better choice for the female member of Team 7. She has a dojutsu similar to Kakashi's. An underdog story like Naruto. Her father paid more attention to her sibling similar to Sasuke. Had great chakra control like the rest of her clan, so can learn everything Tsunade taught Sakura. Sakura also had a talent for Genjutsu which Kurenai was a specialist of, so her and Hinata would have been perfect on opposite teams.
A Failure Of A Heroine
The negatives just greatly overshadow the positives when it comes to Sakura being a heroine. She was pretty useless in battle and a damsel in distress in part 1. However, Kishi tries to make Sakura relevant in battle by having her be trained by Tsunade and promising to help Naruto bring Sasuke back instead of being on the sidelines like before. She puts up quite a fight against Sasori. But she reverts back to her part 1 status after that, as she is on sidelines in every other fight with her only saving grace being medical ninjutsu. But it gets really bad in the Kage Summit arc, where she knocks out her team (leaving them in the middle of nowhere with the Akastsuki memebers lurking around) to try to kill Sasuke herself and fails because she chokes, becoming a damsel in distress in the process(twice). After which she gives up on her promise and just cries, leaving it all up to Naruto to bring Sasuke back. Sakura got troll again.
If you look at the underlined words in the image above, you'll notice that Kishi states that Sakura had slipped his mind(lol). So Kishi tries to make up for his neglect of Sakura in the War Saga such ask founding out about the Zetsus' shape-shifting abilities. But Kishi humiliates her far more than he does throwing bones at her. Such as he has playing the damsel in distress yet again, with Kakashi having to save her from a wooden spike due to her being too slow to react. Gets pwned by a flying rock to the face in chapter 613, which is just embarrassing. And last but not least, Sakura stood there trembling at thought of stabbing Madara's eye which led to the Moon's Eye Plan being completed and she had about 8 chapters to destroy that eye. Ouch.
Her other positive moments are pretty much asspulls, such as her power up. So she have been storing chakra for three years to make the Yin Seal. Okay Tsunade did this, but the thing here is that she hadn't be in a fight at the time of making the seal like Sakura has. So this means Sakura was holding back against her fight against Sasori, making it harder for herself and Chiyo. And it means that she was holding back when Pain attacked the village where she choose to cry out for Naruto whom Pain is after, instead of going all out. There was no foreshadowing to this at all and it makes her look inconsiderate.
Even after this power-up she then says that she caught up with Naruto and Sasuke, no longer needing them to shield her, only to be rescue by them soon after. She goes back to the sidelines again and later becomes amazed by their Six Paths power-ups later. She utterly failed to achieve her goal to catch up to these two and it goes really against the idea that hard work can beat natural talent anytime. That's pretty humiliating.
What is also nonsensenial is her plot armor. For example: Sakura should have died when she blindly charged at Madara and becoming a damsel in distress yet again. As she was stabbed by his Yin/Yang rod. Which she shouldn't be able to regenerate from that with her medical ninjutsu since that thing negates ninjutsu as shown by Minato not being able to grow back his arms. However, she does heal from it due to the plot.
Another example of a nonsensenial plot armor moment was how she escaped getting by the Infinite Tsukuyomi. First off, why would Sasuke think that Naruto would be affected by Infinite Tsukuyomi? He's seen/told first hand that genjutsu doesn't affect Jinchuuriki and there is no logical way for him to know that his Susanoo can block the genjutsu as even Black Zetsu didn't know that himself. Sasuke shouldn't even know about the moonlight as Naruto didn't, so Hagoromo didn't tell him. This was just a contrived way to get the original Team 7 to save the world because they are the main characters. If Kishi had used logic Sakura would have been caught in the Genjutsu along with the rest of the world. At least her dream would have ended the pairing wars early because we would know who's D she truly wanted(lol).
The Plot Induced Stupidity surrounding Sakura continues in the Kaguya fight. Where she is mostly just a damsel in distress on the sidelines as usual and gets wet over Sexy Jutsu in the middle of a fight for the fate of the world which is just pitiful. Even her moments of shine are pathetic as they make no sense at all, such as her having enough chakra to make Obito travel through Kaguya's dimensions. The problem with this is that traveling through said dimensions eats away a large amount of Kaguya's chakra, which is basically the entire planet's population and the tailed beast, with natural energy that boosts her chakra level at least 10 fold...So how can Sakura who couldn't even replenish Shikamaru's chakra reserves and said herself that she was running out of chakra not too long ago, have enough chakra to make Obito be able to travel through these dimensions multiply times? This is just an incrediblely forced way to make Sakura look good.
Kishi does this again by getting a Sakura involved in the fight at the last second. As Sakura is able to punch Kaguya's horn off and damage her face, making her left cheek swell up...First off this woman tanked nine tailed beast Rasenshuriken without much damage and took a punch from Six Paths Naruto in the face in chapter 682 with only a little bruise, while Sakura was useless against Spiral Zetsu. Not to mention Kaguya was using yin/yang release at the time so her ninjutsu negation ability (which affects both her truth seeking ball and body as shown by Obito) should have been active. Sakura's "super strength" is actually nin-taijutsu(when ninjutsu and taijutsu are combined) where she releases chakra from her fist on contact just like Body Flicker does with the feet which is ninjutsu. So that's another reason why Sakura's punch should have been totally useless.
These plot shields and illogical attempts at making Sakura look good instead make her look like a joke. As these feats are not accomplished by her skill but sloppy writing. Like when Kakashi ran through heavy gravity that was strong enough to hold down people of god tier strength(Naruto and Kaguya) with literally no explanation. Kishi has written Sakura to be so pathetic and weak that he had to resort to plot holes in order make her useful. These are not admirable feats for a heroine.
But in end Kishi takes a giant dump on her, as she ultimately fails to help Naruto bring Sasuke back like she promised. Naruto is the one that does all the heavy lifting while Sakura just cries and calls herself pathetic. Sakura got trolled once again.
Unrealistic Obession With Sasuke
This is the main reason why many readers hate her as her love for Sasuke surpasses Twilight levels of garbage. This what truly hurts her status as a heroine.
Sakura puts her obsession for Sasuke above everyone else including friends and family, and Kishi even said that her love for him was selfish. First she breaks her friendship Ino who protected her from bullies because she also had a crush on Sasuke. When Sasuke leaves the villages Sakura wants to come with him, leaving her friends and family behind, same thing happens at the end of Shippuden.
In Shippuden her obsession with Sasuke is still there with her punching Sai for calling him a traitor which is a fact. But it gets worse, as chaper 459 states that she would seek vengeance against the Cloud village if they killed Sasuke which would lead to a war. Sasuke Uchiha, whom was a missing-nin and international criminal at the time working with terrorist that plan on killing Naruto. The last time they met Sasuke tried to kill Naruto. Is this guy really worth all of that?
This obession even clouds her mind in battle. As When Sasuke tries to kill Team 7 and declares that he will destroy the village, Sakura doesn't kill him when she gets the chance. And in the 4th Great Ninja War she thinks about Sasuke's opinion of her when they are fighting Madara to save the world, wondering if he cares. And this is the killer: Sakura heals Sasuke before even knowing he gave up on his "revolution". The last time she saw him Sasuke declared that he'll kill Naruto and Tsunade. So why is she rushing to have him be able to move again? The answer is that her obession with Sasuke clouded her mind yet again and she could have put her friends at risk.
This unconditional love also doesn't make any sense. She had a crush on him because he was a nice guy to her for like 5 moments in the course of less than half a year. This isn't enough to make her love for Sasuke believable and realistically it should have ended after Sasuke's actions at the hospital fight. It just makes her look like immature woman that can't get over her early adolescent crush to many people.
Kishi tries to do some damage control in the Kage Summit Arc by having Sakura say that she wants Team 7 to laugh together again. But this was never shown and it feels like Kishi is insulting the reader's intelligence. But it seems like he just flat out gave up later, as chapter 693 has Sasuke saying that there is no reason for Sakura to love him and no character gives a counter-argument to this.
Now Heroes and heroines having flaws isn't a bad thing but this isn't acknowledge as a flaw in story. As Kakashi calls her "sweet girl" for it. And according to spoilers this is what Sakura says in The Last: “I know that feeling.Once you love someone as a little girl,you can never let go of that feeling." Really? Even if they tried to kill you, your friends, and your family like Sasuke tried to do with you? If I was a woman I would be offended by this character as Kishi considers her "realistic".
She just sends the worst moral message to readers I have ever seen in a manga. Just latch on to the pretty boy and endure abuse, because one day he'll stop and you'll finally have him to yourself. That's why Sakura is one of the worse character in this series in my book.
That's pretty much all I have to say about Sakura Haruno. See you next time onAsspull Naruto Shippuden with The Oostusuki Family!
She is also underdeveloped battle-wise as she's only played a major role in one battle throughout the entire series which was the Sasori fight. She also didn't live up to her up. While her teammates developed their skills and abilities outside of their Sanin training and surpassed their mentors, Sakura is nothing more than a Tsunade knock-off. Her mentor was able to fully heal Shikamaru with ease, while she couldn't even with kyuubi chakra at the time. After her power-up Hashirama compared her to Tsunade, saying she "might" be stronger, but she was a child the last time he saw her, so Sakura is not even close to Tsunade in her prime. Kishi didn't even capitalized on her genjutsu skills which was hyped in part 1. She has never even won a fight on her own. Sakura got trolled.
As someone who is suppose to be one of the main characters she adds another to the story. There isn't even a story arc centered around her. While even side characters like Shikamaru, Tsunade, and Gaara had an arc focused on them, even Hinata got one in The Last. For a main character Sakura is shockingly pointless and it feels that she is just there for pairings' sake.
The fact that she gets compared to characters that get little panel time like Hinata so often is evidence of her failure as a main character. It means people even see her as an irrelevant side character just like Hinata. As a matter of fact, Kishi originally didn't want Sakura in the story but editors convinced him to. So Sakura really is something that has been forced and shoehorned since the beginning.
I strongly believe that Hinata would have been a better choice for the female member of Team 7. She has a dojutsu similar to Kakashi's. An underdog story like Naruto. Her father paid more attention to her sibling similar to Sasuke. Had great chakra control like the rest of her clan, so can learn everything Tsunade taught Sakura. Sakura also had a talent for Genjutsu which Kurenai was a specialist of, so her and Hinata would have been perfect on opposite teams.
A Failure Of A Heroine
The negatives just greatly overshadow the positives when it comes to Sakura being a heroine. She was pretty useless in battle and a damsel in distress in part 1. However, Kishi tries to make Sakura relevant in battle by having her be trained by Tsunade and promising to help Naruto bring Sasuke back instead of being on the sidelines like before. She puts up quite a fight against Sasori. But she reverts back to her part 1 status after that, as she is on sidelines in every other fight with her only saving grace being medical ninjutsu. But it gets really bad in the Kage Summit arc, where she knocks out her team (leaving them in the middle of nowhere with the Akastsuki memebers lurking around) to try to kill Sasuke herself and fails because she chokes, becoming a damsel in distress in the process(twice). After which she gives up on her promise and just cries, leaving it all up to Naruto to bring Sasuke back. Sakura got troll again.
If you look at the underlined words in the image above, you'll notice that Kishi states that Sakura had slipped his mind(lol). So Kishi tries to make up for his neglect of Sakura in the War Saga such ask founding out about the Zetsus' shape-shifting abilities. But Kishi humiliates her far more than he does throwing bones at her. Such as he has playing the damsel in distress yet again, with Kakashi having to save her from a wooden spike due to her being too slow to react. Gets pwned by a flying rock to the face in chapter 613, which is just embarrassing. And last but not least, Sakura stood there trembling at thought of stabbing Madara's eye which led to the Moon's Eye Plan being completed and she had about 8 chapters to destroy that eye. Ouch.
Her other positive moments are pretty much asspulls, such as her power up. So she have been storing chakra for three years to make the Yin Seal. Okay Tsunade did this, but the thing here is that she hadn't be in a fight at the time of making the seal like Sakura has. So this means Sakura was holding back against her fight against Sasori, making it harder for herself and Chiyo. And it means that she was holding back when Pain attacked the village where she choose to cry out for Naruto whom Pain is after, instead of going all out. There was no foreshadowing to this at all and it makes her look inconsiderate.
Even after this power-up she then says that she caught up with Naruto and Sasuke, no longer needing them to shield her, only to be rescue by them soon after. She goes back to the sidelines again and later becomes amazed by their Six Paths power-ups later. She utterly failed to achieve her goal to catch up to these two and it goes really against the idea that hard work can beat natural talent anytime. That's pretty humiliating.
What is also nonsensenial is her plot armor. For example: Sakura should have died when she blindly charged at Madara and becoming a damsel in distress yet again. As she was stabbed by his Yin/Yang rod. Which she shouldn't be able to regenerate from that with her medical ninjutsu since that thing negates ninjutsu as shown by Minato not being able to grow back his arms. However, she does heal from it due to the plot.
Another example of a nonsensenial plot armor moment was how she escaped getting by the Infinite Tsukuyomi. First off, why would Sasuke think that Naruto would be affected by Infinite Tsukuyomi? He's seen/told first hand that genjutsu doesn't affect Jinchuuriki and there is no logical way for him to know that his Susanoo can block the genjutsu as even Black Zetsu didn't know that himself. Sasuke shouldn't even know about the moonlight as Naruto didn't, so Hagoromo didn't tell him. This was just a contrived way to get the original Team 7 to save the world because they are the main characters. If Kishi had used logic Sakura would have been caught in the Genjutsu along with the rest of the world. At least her dream would have ended the pairing wars early because we would know who's D she truly wanted(lol).
The Plot Induced Stupidity surrounding Sakura continues in the Kaguya fight. Where she is mostly just a damsel in distress on the sidelines as usual and gets wet over Sexy Jutsu in the middle of a fight for the fate of the world which is just pitiful. Even her moments of shine are pathetic as they make no sense at all, such as her having enough chakra to make Obito travel through Kaguya's dimensions. The problem with this is that traveling through said dimensions eats away a large amount of Kaguya's chakra, which is basically the entire planet's population and the tailed beast, with natural energy that boosts her chakra level at least 10 fold...So how can Sakura who couldn't even replenish Shikamaru's chakra reserves and said herself that she was running out of chakra not too long ago, have enough chakra to make Obito be able to travel through these dimensions multiply times? This is just an incrediblely forced way to make Sakura look good.
Kishi does this again by getting a Sakura involved in the fight at the last second. As Sakura is able to punch Kaguya's horn off and damage her face, making her left cheek swell up...First off this woman tanked nine tailed beast Rasenshuriken without much damage and took a punch from Six Paths Naruto in the face in chapter 682 with only a little bruise, while Sakura was useless against Spiral Zetsu. Not to mention Kaguya was using yin/yang release at the time so her ninjutsu negation ability (which affects both her truth seeking ball and body as shown by Obito) should have been active. Sakura's "super strength" is actually nin-taijutsu(when ninjutsu and taijutsu are combined) where she releases chakra from her fist on contact just like Body Flicker does with the feet which is ninjutsu. So that's another reason why Sakura's punch should have been totally useless.
These plot shields and illogical attempts at making Sakura look good instead make her look like a joke. As these feats are not accomplished by her skill but sloppy writing. Like when Kakashi ran through heavy gravity that was strong enough to hold down people of god tier strength(Naruto and Kaguya) with literally no explanation. Kishi has written Sakura to be so pathetic and weak that he had to resort to plot holes in order make her useful. These are not admirable feats for a heroine.
But in end Kishi takes a giant dump on her, as she ultimately fails to help Naruto bring Sasuke back like she promised. Naruto is the one that does all the heavy lifting while Sakura just cries and calls herself pathetic. Sakura got trolled once again.
Unrealistic Obession With Sasuke
This is the main reason why many readers hate her as her love for Sasuke surpasses Twilight levels of garbage. This what truly hurts her status as a heroine.
Sakura puts her obsession for Sasuke above everyone else including friends and family, and Kishi even said that her love for him was selfish. First she breaks her friendship Ino who protected her from bullies because she also had a crush on Sasuke. When Sasuke leaves the villages Sakura wants to come with him, leaving her friends and family behind, same thing happens at the end of Shippuden.
In Shippuden her obsession with Sasuke is still there with her punching Sai for calling him a traitor which is a fact. But it gets worse, as chaper 459 states that she would seek vengeance against the Cloud village if they killed Sasuke which would lead to a war. Sasuke Uchiha, whom was a missing-nin and international criminal at the time working with terrorist that plan on killing Naruto. The last time they met Sasuke tried to kill Naruto. Is this guy really worth all of that?
This obession even clouds her mind in battle. As When Sasuke tries to kill Team 7 and declares that he will destroy the village, Sakura doesn't kill him when she gets the chance. And in the 4th Great Ninja War she thinks about Sasuke's opinion of her when they are fighting Madara to save the world, wondering if he cares. And this is the killer: Sakura heals Sasuke before even knowing he gave up on his "revolution". The last time she saw him Sasuke declared that he'll kill Naruto and Tsunade. So why is she rushing to have him be able to move again? The answer is that her obession with Sasuke clouded her mind yet again and she could have put her friends at risk.
This unconditional love also doesn't make any sense. She had a crush on him because he was a nice guy to her for like 5 moments in the course of less than half a year. This isn't enough to make her love for Sasuke believable and realistically it should have ended after Sasuke's actions at the hospital fight. It just makes her look like immature woman that can't get over her early adolescent crush to many people.
Kishi tries to do some damage control in the Kage Summit Arc by having Sakura say that she wants Team 7 to laugh together again. But this was never shown and it feels like Kishi is insulting the reader's intelligence. But it seems like he just flat out gave up later, as chapter 693 has Sasuke saying that there is no reason for Sakura to love him and no character gives a counter-argument to this.
Now Heroes and heroines having flaws isn't a bad thing but this isn't acknowledge as a flaw in story. As Kakashi calls her "sweet girl" for it. And according to spoilers this is what Sakura says in The Last: “I know that feeling.Once you love someone as a little girl,you can never let go of that feeling." Really? Even if they tried to kill you, your friends, and your family like Sasuke tried to do with you? If I was a woman I would be offended by this character as Kishi considers her "realistic".
She just sends the worst moral message to readers I have ever seen in a manga. Just latch on to the pretty boy and endure abuse, because one day he'll stop and you'll finally have him to yourself. That's why Sakura is one of the worse character in this series in my book.
That's pretty much all I have to say about Sakura Haruno. See you next time on
Kill yourself, pathetic NarSark loser.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more. Sakura is a terrible representation of how a woman should value herself. I could go on about her short comings but the most prominent is with her self sacrificing unjustified thirst for unrequited love from a man who tried to KILL her (just like Karin). By the end I honestly didn't care if she died
ReplyDeleteIt would've been a fitting end to a trifling self loathing character who misrepresents women globally.