Sakura Haruno
Sakura Uchiha
Sakura is depicted as an innocent girl who does not share the same tragic backstories as her teammates, though she was bullied throughout her youth. She initially has an infatuation for Sasuke, and she is not ambitious. Her only ambition at this point was becoming Sasuke's girlfriend. By contrast, she is dismissive to her less-skilled teammate Naruto Uzumaki despite being Naruto's initial love interest. Over the course of the series, as Sasuke eventually leaves the village, Sakura begins to adopt a singularly-driven persona. She asked Naruto to find Sasuke and thought only about Sasuke. She becomes a medical ninja while apprenticed under the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade, and she eventually becomes friendly and even protective of Naruto as his life becomes increasingly at risk.
Sakura serves as the series' female lead, although she was not immediately intended for the role. Kishimoto had difficulty drawing her character, resulting in Kishimoto inadvertently emphasizing certain parts of her appearance, including her large forehead which was written into her character. In order to make the character more appealing in the second part of the series, Kishimoto designed her costume in a way that makes her look more like a martial artist as well as more beautiful during later chapters. Chie Nakamura voices the character in the animated adaptations of the series, while Kate Higgins plays her in the English dub.
Numerous anime and manga publications have praised and criticized Sakura's character. She was initially noted to be a stereotypical shōnen character, representing a love interest for the protagonist, and was said to serve little purpose at the beginning of the series beyond being comic relief. Her emergence from this stereotype as the series progressed, thanks to her training with Tsunade, which leads her to develop her medical and combat skills, has been celebrated by many reviewers. Amongst the Naruto reader base, Sakura has been popular, placing high in some polls. Several pieces of merchandise have been released in Sakura's likeness, such as action figures and key chains.
Creation and conception
Although Sakura Haruno is the most recurring female character in Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto did not originally intend for Sakura to be the heroine of the series. Kishimoto attributed this to him being unable to draw good heroine characters and fashioned Sakura as a girl who could not understand men, the best example of a heroine he could come up with. Sakura's creation is a result of Kishimoto's desire to make a somewhat irritating character who was well-intentioned. Despite these elements, Kishimoto is fond of Sakura, as he feels that many of her personality traits are common among all people, thus giving her a sense of real humanity. When asked in an interview if there was something about Sakura's background that had not been revealed, Kishimoto explained that he had never thought of that as Sakura is a "normal girl". Kishimoto has often been asked by readers about why he did not show Sakura's parents until the film Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie. In response, he said this would not be entertaining as Sakura did not belong to any clan unlike other characters so her parents were civilians.When designing Sakura, Kishimoto focused on her silhouette and created a costume as simple as possible. This is a divergence from the other main characters of the series, whose costumes are very detailed. The leggings are the most notable aspect of her design, as they are meant to show that she is very active. At the start of the series, her leggings extended below her knees and closely resembled trousers. As Part I progressed, the leggings became increasingly shorter and tighter. Similar to his inexperience in drawing heroines, Kishimoto lacked the experience needed to make Sakura "cute" when he first began drawing her; although he implied that her appearance had become cuter since then, Kishimoto and much of the Naruto manga staff agreed that Sakura had been "far from cute" at the start of the series. In retrospective, he found Sakura one of the hardest characters to draw, alongside Sasuke Uchiha. Kishimoto first planned Sasuke and Sakura's romance in the early production of Naruto. In regards to Sakura's feelings for Sasuke, Kishimoto tried to write them as realistic as possible but ended up getting complaints from young girls about her.
Sakura's most well-known physical characteristic is her broad forehead. Consequently, because of this Kishimoto at times focuses too much on drawing it in scenes or promotional artwork where Sakura is featured prominently. This results in her forehead appearing too large. When designing Sakura in her Part II appearance, Kishimoto decided to change her clothes to a more lively karate suit style. The upper part, though, still had a Chinaesque feeling to it, so as to make her more feminine. During Part II's last story arc, Kishimoto tried making Sakura look more beautiful, most notably when she joins Naruto and Sasuke in the final fight against the creature Ten-Tails. Due to Sakura having little popularity within readers, Kishimoto decided that Hinata Hyuga, whom he acknowledged had more popularity, would take a more active role and become a heroine. Despite deciding that Naruto and Hinata would end up together since the early stages of the manga, Kishimoto thought it would be interesting to throw Sakura in the middle to form "a messy love triangle." Nevertheless, Kishimoto said romance was not what he wanted his series to focus on. In the middle of the manga's final arc, Sakura is given a love letter. The real reasons for this is that Kishimoto wanted to give the anime studio material to create animated only episodes.
In the animated versions of Naruto, Sakura was voiced by Chie Nakamura. Early in the first series, the actors were told by Kishimoto that Sakura would end up marrying Sasuke. Nonetheless, most of them started having doubts as during the first anime, Sasuke abandoned his teammates. As a result, by the second series, Nakamura was often asked by other people if her character would instead end up with Naruto. When Sakura married Sasuke in the end, Nakamura was happy because Sakura stayed true to her feelings. In an interview, Kate Higgins, who does the voice acting for Sakura in the English dub, remarked the development of Sakura in the series, stating that she turned into a more complex character as she became more sensitive and caring.
Appearances
In ''Naruto''
Sakura is a young ninja who is a part of Team 7 alongside Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha under the leadership of their sensei Kakashi Hatake. Within Sakura resides "Inner Sakura", a manifestation of her inner emotions; in addition to comic relief, Inner Sakura represents Sakura's actual opinion on things when she outwardly displays something opposite. As Sakura has a deep infatuation for Sasuke, many of her earlier appearances are dedicated to her continued effort to win his affection. She accompanies the rest of Team 7 during all of its early missions, though she does little to contribute to the battles that take place. Sakura lacks any unique traits that would set her apart from the rest of Team 7, although Kakashi notes that she has an excellent control over her chakra early in Part I. As a result, Sakura stays on the sidelines, content in allowing her teammates to protect her and defeat their opponents. During the Chunin Exams, when the rest of Team 7 is left in need of her protection, Sakura realizes that relying on others to fight her battles has been unwise. She resolves to better her ninja abilities from that point further, and she takes a more active role in Team 7's battles throughout the rest of the series. After Sasuke's defection from Konohagakure at the end of Part I, Naruto's failure to bring him back, and Sakura's inability to help either of them, she becomes Tsunade's apprentice so that she can do more for her teammates in the future. Since then, Sakura makes it her personal goal to bring Sasuke home.After training under Tsunade for two-and-a-half years, Sakura acquires the ability to heal wounds, becoming one of the most experienced medical ninjas. In order to secure her survival to heal others, Sakura also develops superhuman strength by building up chakra in her fists; by storing a vast amount of Chakra in her body over 3 years, she awakens the Byakugō Seal, a jutsu considered to be the pinnacle of chakra control. Thanks to this, Sakura joins Team 7 as a medical ninja to save their ally Gaara from the criminal group Akatsuki. With help from the elder Chiyo, Sakura defeats the Akatsuki member Sasori, who gives her hints of Sasuke's whereabouts. The new member of Team 7, Sai, uses his intelligence to track Sasuke down, but once again they are unable to prevent him from escaping. While disappointed in their failure, Team 7 tries once again to find Sasuke, although after almost apprehending him they lose his trail and are forced to return home. As they search for Sasuke, Sakura learns of the various hardships Naruto faces because of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox creature sealed inside him, which is being pursued by the Akatsuki. Saddened by the impact both forces have had on his life, Sakura becomes protective of Naruto and tries to do whatever she can to help him overcome these obstacles. Sakura later resolves to kill Sasuke after understanding he is becoming a menace to the villages. However, when she fails to do it, Naruto decides to settle things with Sasuke himself. When a war against the remaining Akatsuki is announced, Sakura participates as a medical ninja. She later moves to the fighting side when the Ten-Tails creature is released, and she battles it alongside Naruto and Sasuke. After Sasuke is pardoned for his crimes, Sakura sees him off as he decides to travel the world in search for redemption and shows signs that he finally accepts her feelings for him; he pokes her forehead and thanks her right before his departure. In the epilogue, set years after the end of the Fourth Ninja War, it is shown that Sakura and Sasuke had married and had a daughter, Sarada Uchiha.