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Narutois a franchise with amazing world-building, amazing fights and great storylines. However, when it comes to female characters, many fans feel that the franchise could do a little bit better — and they’re not wrong.
Sakura Haruno is a good example of a character that could have been great inNaruto, but ended up being poorly written. However, it seems that when Kishimoto created Sarada Uchiha, he took into account his experience in writing Sakura. What could he have learned in all those years?
Kishimoto Probably Didn’t Want Sarada to Get So Much Hate
While it wasgreat that there was a female lead inNaruto, Kishimoto often neglected Sakura as a character. Even though he wanted her to be more realistic, he clearly had a lot of trouble dealing with female characters, and Sakura doesn’t feel that realistic at all. Not only that, but Sakura also doesn’t get as much backstory as Naruto and Sasuke.
Even though Sakura grows a lot during her training with Tsunade, it seems like she just stops getting the spotlight at some point. Also, many fans think that Kishimoto didn’t do her justice bymaking Naruto and Hinata a couple at the end of the story— honestly, her relationship with Sasuke is very complicated, and it’s actually refreshing thatBorutoaddresses how much pain Sasuke causes to her and their children.
Sakura Never Deserved The Hate She Got
While it is true that Sakura lacks a lot as a character, it is also true thatshe has always been the target of disproportionate hate from fans. Yes, it is annoying that much of her personality revolves around the boy she likes for a good portion of the series, but she does have a lot of qualities.
For example, even though we don’t know much about her family, as far as we know, the Haruno clan is not as special as the Uchiha or Uzumaki clans. Sakuradoesn’t have any of the “lucky genetics” that both Sasuke and Naruto have as descendants of the Otsutsukiclan (or at least, if she has some, it hasn’t been revealed yet). Yet, without any “genetic privileges”, Sakura becomes one of the best medical-nin out there, and she is even able to surpass Tsunade, who has Otsutsuki ancestry as a Senju.
From this perspective, Sakura is the character with the best chakra control, while also beingthe only one in Team 7 who can’t count on “bloodline nepotism"in the series. So, even though her character arc is lacking in many ways, Sakura becomes a very strong ninja through her own efforts — and with such refined chakra control, she would probably be hard to beat had she trained genjutsu instead of medical ninjutsu.
Sarada Is Good, But Maybe Too Overpowered
Kishimoto, Kodachi and Ikemotoprobably looked at Sakura as an example of how not to develop a female characterin order to prevent Sarada from getting the same level of hate from the audience.
While Sarada did get some hate in the beginning, mostly due to her design, she is not lacking anything in battle. She isa mix of prodigy and a try-hard, but she has had her fair share of battles and pain before awakening powers such as the Sharingan and the Mangekyo Sharingan. And she does that while still being a regular teenager.
Mama… some boys are sooo… stupid. Well, he is… kinda similar to me in some ways too…
— Sarada Uchiha
InBoruto Two Blue Vortex, Sarada proves to be even stronger than we could have ever imagined, especially after the Ohirume jutsu is introduced. While Sarada’s development is not exactly unrealistic as a character, sheseems to be becoming so overpoweredthat it feels a bit like they’re trying too hard to make up for the mistakes they made with Sakura.
Can Sarada Become The Most Powerful Ninja Ever?
Sarada has already proven her strength in battle, but she is still growing as a character, which means that she willprobably learn even more powerful techniques— yes, she could learn jutsu evenmore powerful than creating black holes and controlling gravity. Some fans think that she will unleash the Byakugo Seal at some point, but she could develop unimaginable powers.
Of course, the series has yet to show the drawbacks of all her new powers, and she will probably still face many challenges (and perhaps will end the story blind due to the Mangekyo Sharingan). While it would be hard to say that she will be the most powerful ninja ever, she has probably already become one of thestrongest shinobi shown in the series.
One of the cool things about Sarada is that although she has tremendous potential, she doesn’t want power for power’s sake. She is always trying to protect those she loves and that’s the reason why, instead of dreaming of becoming a strong shinobi or surpassing her father, her real goal is to become Hokage.
Boruto Two Blue Vortexisavailable to read on MANGA Plus, in English and other languages.
Naruto
A popular shonen anime based on Masashi Kishimoto’s manga, Naruto follows its eponymous shinobi’s journey as he goes from his town’s outsider to its hero.
