hokage-sakura

[hokage-sakura]

Hellow... specking as a huge sasusaku fan.. I never understood why sakura never tried to know or ask abt sasuke path towards the Darkness and went rogue (unlike naruto)

Well, that's not exactly true. Sakura did technically ask about it when during Sasuke's defection from the village, she asked him why he never told her anything. There, she wanted him to explain more about why he was doing what he was doing - essentially asking him to explain his path of darkness, but Sasuke wouldn't answer.

Conversely, Naruto didn't ask about Sasuke's path towards the darkness, he was told about it by Obito. Unfortunately for Sakura, she wasn't there when Obito gave the explanation.

[hokage-sakura]

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day! 💝

[hokage-sakura]

I miss them and i miss drawing🥲

[hokage-sakura]

[设计] - reposted w/ permission

[hokage-sakura]

by torii

[hokage-sakura]

he Is my son and he has Never done anything wrong.

[hokage-sakura]

Sakura Art

[hokage-sakura]

Happy Valentine's Day for the romantic goat ✨

*inspired by sasuke Retsuden

[hokage-sakura]

[设计] - reposted w/ permission

[hokage-sakura]

sometimes you can tell when somebody who likes a ship just likes one of the characters and is simply using the other half as a vaguely ooc vehicle to make content for their fave which is whatever. not against the law. until the other half theyre using as a vehicle is YOUR fave. and then you want to explode them with your mind

[hokage-sakura]

🌸Sakura × Sasuke🍅

[hokage-sakura]

Maddy i know it is wrong to feel like this but is it just me or does your blood ever boil knowing you could’ve done a better job at writing some of the characters in naruto(no disrespect to kishimoto)

Well, that's kinda tough to answer.

I wouldn't have changed anything with regards to the characters themselves because I think they were written fine, I just would have changed a few of the things that happened.

Off the top of my head, for Naruto, I would have…

Placed less focus on Naruto and Sasuke - Because they often siphoned attention away from those who would have benefitted much more from it.

Kept Naruto as the loser underdog, and not made him some uber-special child of prophecy - Because it was a lot more interesting that way.

Given Sakura the Jesus no jutsu instead of Naruto - Because it made no sense whatsoever that Naruto was given this ability, despite medical ninjutsu being Sakura’s field of expertise.

Given Sakura more 1 on 1 fights - Because her abilities in Part 2 warranted this, and it would have done wonders to quell the obnoxious “useless” accusations.

Allowed the Konoha rookies to shine more than they did in Pt.2 -Because Naruto and Sasuke completely left them in the dust.

Given the Sharingan less capabilities - Because it essentially became one of the biggest Weapons of Mass Destruction in the series, and the Izanagi is beyond cheap.

Not made it so easy to transplant freaking EYES - Because that allowed for a lot of bullshit to occur.

Given Kaguya more hype prior to her appearance, if she was always gonna be the final “Big Bad” - Because Madara outshined her in every way, thereby leaving fans rather deflated with Kaguya.

Made Naruto vs Sasuke Pt.2 longer - Because as the final fight, it needed to be a little longer.

Made chapters 699-700 MUCH longer - Because nowhere near enough information was given. This was rectified through later material, but still. I’d have extended 699 by 10-15 chapters, and 700 by 5 chapters.

For Boruto, I would have…

Not made Sasuke spend the better part of a friggin’ decade away from his family - Because that was completely unnecessary to relay the message that Kishi wanted to communicate. It was drama for the sake of pointless drama, nothing more.

[hokage-sakura]

Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha by the mangaka Yoko Fujitani.

[hokage-sakura]

[hokage-sakura]

kicchiri-kacchiri:

source

[hokage-sakura]

💤

[hokage-sakura]

You're getting this completely backwards. Sakura is not stunted in development as a character and that's why people (at the time mostly the young male audience which is the target for shounen, as you said) hate her, she is stunted as a character because people hate(d on) her A LOT. At the same time, you're also parroting the same old age misogynistic reading of her character, which is unfortunately completely superficial and depth-less.

Okay, let's unwrap this. At first, all three of the kid-team 7 had shallow personalities, of course they did, they were 12 and still childish (yes, even Sasuke who had that childishness partly ripped from him due to the massacre). They all had points of improvements based on their own trauma and background, and to label Sakura as "her personality is Sasuke" is completely unreasonable and again, a parrot of misogynistic wording from the old timey Naruto fandom.

Sakura was a kid that suffered bullying in her early formative years because of her looks, and (probably) because of her background as well. She was "saved" (protected) by Ino and only through her encouragement she was able to slowly find a sense of self that of course, wouldn't be formed isolated from the society she lives in. As a young teen that barely did get to find her voice, of course she'd still be heavily influenced by her past and by what was socially acceptable. That is why she cared so much about looks, and about presenting herself a certain way, and it's also why she seeks acknowledgement from others by behaving accordingly (to what the majority approved of, for example, in disliking Naruto and finding his lack of propriety annoying).

Other people have explained that part of her characterization far better than I am right now, but in summary her attachment to Sasuke is, at first, entirely derived from that. Just to be clear: Sasuke at that point represented the epitome of desirable: good looking, talented, from a prestigious clan with a powerful kekkei genkai, etc. Desiring him is what she's supposed to do, just like most other girls her age. That also means she's supposed to be desirable for him which again put emphasis on her need to be pretty above all else. This is why you feel like her personality "is Sasuke", when in truth saying that means nothing, but reduces her to being a male character's atachée.

All that said, her development doesn't start immediately (and neither does no other character, btw. It doesn't matter if it's 200 episodes in, Naruto was still behaving the same, yet no one criticizes him about it.), of course not, firstly it was needed to break her rose tinted glasses to make her understand that the way she was thinking/behaving/putting her energy into wasn't right. To break her, multiple instances were necessary, otherwise it'd have been shallow. In my opinion it began with Sasuke pointing out (rudely) that she was wrong about Naruto. Then in the Land of Waves arc, Sasuke's almost-death opened her eyes to the reality of the world she was in: being a ninja wasn't child's play, people she cared about could easily die and so could she. It also serves to show her that her basic training is nothing near the powerful enemies out there in the world.

That same notion was driven home when both Naruto and Sasuke were out in the Forest of Death and she properly realized that if she didn't let go of her current mindset she'd be stuck (never being able to properly be strong as a Shinobi should be), and worse yet, unable to ever help her comrades when they needed her most. In other words, the point of it wasn't that she was protected by others, but that she failed at protecting herself and her team despite trying her very best, and that's the turning point (visually it was represented by her cutting her hair with a kunai).

But then she didn't entirely fail! Because she managed to protect Sasuke from himself and the curse Orochimaru inflicted on him (I'm talking about her stopping him from killing and mauling the Sound ninjas, and at the same time being able to help Sasuke suppress the power of the mark despite it not yet being sealed). I'm only bringing this up to point out my main point here: your entire analysis, same as the usual Naruto fan mindset, is rooted on who's punching more guys and who can claim they have the strongest whatever.

But in truth, Naruto is not only about the typical shounen trope of punching and killing and ugha ugha being the alpha male and thus the hero, but it was supposed to be a well rounded story layered with complexities. This is why it's so interesting and so successful as not only a shounen but as a story, and its own world building is very compelling. If you only ever bother reading it as another generic shounen, of course you'll always claim that Kishimoto is a bad writer. When in fact he's not, he created something quite unique, actually.

Anyway, that brings us to the first paragraph: you're taking it backwards. Because the reading of the fandom is as shallow as can be, and they purposefully ignore some of the most crucial moments and details from part 1 (Genin era), when Kishimoto was writing (while at the same time publishing) part 2 (Shippuden era) he was hugely pressured into limiting Sakura's presence in the story, despite she being a main character. All the misogyny and misplaced criticism towards her turned into such an intense and unwarranted hatred that he could do nothing but butcher his own story and alter all his plannings to focus mostly on Naruto and Sasuke (and their tedious never-ending fighting) because that's what pleased the fandom, that's always sold new volumes and that's what made his editors happy.

Despite everything, and believe me, I also have my reservations about the way Sakura was developed and all the many ways her talents weren't properly shown and/or appreciated, Sakura still ended up as one of the strongest Shinobi in Konoha, surpassing her own master at a very early age. And she did that on her own effort, no cheating by kekkei genkai or by having a demon sealed in her belly as a baby, and she was also able to fight a Goddess without the blessing from another God, who basically nerfed the two main characters far beyond any normal human could reasonably reach. She might not have had her genjutsu prowess developed, but she had her fine character control branched out in many ways: super strength, medical skills, and the ultimate seal that makes her practically unkillable in battle. Also, her intelligence and analytical skills were still subtly incorporated through the few instances she did get to shine (for example in fighting Sasori).

rereading naruto made me notice why the useless sakura even become a thing on the internet and in naruto fandom and is because of kishimoto himself. Sakura in naruto classic is a girl with a talent for genjutsu, is inteligent and really good on the basics, she excells on a lot of things, and do nothing that a teenage boy would think it is interesting (you know, the target audience of naruto and shounen jump itself).

And that's it, even her big moments on classic naruto are nulified by the events that happen after them, more than 200 chapters and Sakura barely had anything meaningful on the story, yeah, she is talented by controling her chakra, she is really good with the basics on ninjutsu (that we barely see being used) and her personality is sasuke and thinking that naruto is annoying, at least in the beginning. During the chuunin exams we see her also develop an insecurity because naruto was already stronger than her, like a lot, it is a major part of her character in this arc and... nothing happen, what happens is that we see her and ino talking about why boys try so hard to get stronger, training and all and they don't understanding why (And she should know why, because it is something that was making her worried before), and that's it.

She do nothing directly on zabuza arc, she is rescued 2 times on chuunin exam arc, she is totally irrelevant on tsunade arc and she also do nothing on sasuke rescue arc, is more than 200 chapters with a character barely doing anything on the story. You know, in the beginning i can't even call her that interesting, because everything about her is sasuke and how she thinks naruto is dumb and annoying (but she does have some interesting qualities) and as we know, Naruto is a battle shounen, characters show themselves as cool and awesome by fighting, a flashy and cool fight and kishimoto refused to give her that with everything he had (no, i don't think Sakura x Ino a good fight, and also, naruto was already beyond 100 chapters by this point, so yeah, the first fight that sakura is actually a protagonist and is not rescued is her fight with Ino).

There is also a lot of just straight up misoginy in Naruto part 1, specially by shikamaru and his father mouths (some really childish way to see woman being said by an adult men), Kishimoto really have some problems with woman, a lot. for god sake, Hinata will literally be naruto's wife in the end of the story, she had a bit of development in her fight against Neji and that's it, nothing is done with her, nothing meaningful will ever be done with her even in shippuden, nothing is done with all the female characters of konoha by the rest of the part 1 of Naruto, literally.

That's why people think Sakura is useless, because kishimoto literally did nothing that he did for his male characters with her, she is on the backstage of all fights of zabuza arc, she had to be rescued 2 times on chuunin exam arc, her solo fight (that all characters had) was not a good fight and then she stop doing anything for the next 2 arcs of classic naruto (she literally becomes a secondary character) and she was supposed to be one of the protagonists of the story.

Also, returning to talk about hinata (because this also piss me off a lot), her arc on chuunin exam is how she wanted to change herself, how everyone keep saying that she was unfit to be a shinobi, that she was too kind, too weak to be a shinobi and to be the heir of Hyuga clan, how she refused to give up against Neji was her trying to prove that she could prove that her father and Neji was wrong about her (and naruto being there for her gave her the strength to fae Neji on that moment), to change the things she didn't like about herself, and we never see this development on screen, of course, we believe that this development happened because she is a bit changed on shippuden, but we never see this development and considering that she ended up married with Naruto, she needed to have more space on the story, but doesn't, because kishimoto have a lot of problems with woman.

And yes, tsunade is an exception of his writting, probably because he didn't work with her as a woman, but a hokage, so her writting is great and she does have the big flashy fighting scenes that all battle shounen fans love and she is allowed to be really powerful than most of the important characters on the story.