You know in 632, people thought Sakura would kick ass. Then whether we admit it or not, she was put to the sidelines again. She is healing and yes that is very useful, but I think especially boys(which the mangaka aimes for) roots for action and combat type characters. She's healing fodder, but I don't know how much it matters did not see many praising Karin who healed Tsunade, an important and useful character. We'll see the reactions when Sakura saves Shikamaru(avoid them if she doesn't 
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She's healing fodder, she's also the "human" compnent to the three main characters. Naruto is a sort of god-like figure always guided by his heart, Sasuke's a demon-like figure always guided by his desire to protect himself, Sakura's the human tempted to some extent by both sides.
She's also an individual who unlike her teammates isn't destined for someting big (not in the way Naruto and Sasuke are), she's also not genetically advanced in the way Naruto and Sasuke are. Of Team 7, she's the biggest representation of a major part 1 theme, the notion that one can be great by working hard and by fostering one's personal strengths while also working to improve one's weaknesses. She'll never be as powerful as Naruto and Sasuke, she should never be as powerful as them (granted, I wish that Naruto and Sasuke weren't as powerful as they are, haha) regardless she is their teammate, she's finally their teammate not just in name, but in action. She can't do the things that they can, but let's not forget they can't do the things that she can, they can't learn the things that's she's worked hard to learn to do. Think about it, Naruto and Sasuke's abilities are based on their ability to work with what their genetic material/families' legacy provided to them, they take what they have and do things that others can't do. Sakura's abilities are based on taking outside information/tactics, understanding them, and training her body to use them. It's quite remarkable that someone who is nobody in terms of clan/heritage was able to learn and perform a Senju-Uzumaki technique (and at such a young age).
@Question22
Or maybe he just does not know how to properly write females or accurately depict situations/feelings concerning them without making them look "weak." Sexist is a pretty big label to put on someone. I do not think he is sexist. Sakura, Temari, and Tsunade are all strong females to name a few. He gives Sakura a lot of panel time and attention to help demonstrate her emotions as well as what she's going through, he gives her her shining moments when the time is right, he makes her play a big role in the story. Nowhere in his story does he degrade women or show them as useless wastes of space. He does not show men to be superior to women although some may think so because men seem to have a more "active" role in the story or because none of the females are as strong as Sasuke and Naruto. None of them are stronger than Naruto or Sasuke because this story is about Naruto and Sasuke so it's expected that they become the strongest regardless of gender. If he was sexist, he would've never made a female the head of a village and he would've never shown Sakura getting such a huge and useful power-up as well as playing a big role in the war (and the story as a whole). Could he have depicted women better than he has? Probably, yes, but just because he has not does not mean he's necessarily sexist. He most likely cannot write them as well as others can and that's ok. Sometimes it can be hard to write for the opposite gender.
I think therea are a lot of interesting and strong females in the Naruto-verse, but the problem often is in the way they're presented. Kushina, for example, no doubt that she's strong but we barely got to see it. I know that Kishimoto had a purpose in explaining Minato-Kushina's love story, it showed us what sort of love he prefers, and was essentially a reallllly simplified version of Naruto and Sakura's love story, but I wish we got to learn more about her, what her techniques were (other than chakra chains), what she did during the 3rd Shinobi War, why she decided she was happy marrying the 4th Hokage and decided she no longer wanted to be the first female Hokage. But, I think a large problem isn't just that Kishi has problems writing characters who are female (I think he isn't great at it, I think he'd improve if he thought of charcters who are female as characters who happen to be female, rather than female characters) but also that in this point of the story (and really, this was the case from the very beginning) it's so Naruto and Sasuke-centric, so MALE-centric that it's almost inevitable that all the females will somehow be defined by the males in their life. Earlier on, maybe up till te Pain arc the male-centricness of the manga could have been changed (if the Ame-team's gender makeup had been reversed), but at this point it's too late. I do think Kishi is affected by the gendered nature of human society --everyone is, and it takes quite a bit of effort to try to overcome such programming-- but, I don't know that I see him as sexist necessarily. I do think though that the Naruto-verse is not only male-centric in terms of how it was presented to us, but that it is a pretty gendered-society (which is why Tsunade and Sakura had to mention that their gender doesn't make them "less than"). If anything, I think I'd suggest that in future projects Kishi write characters as "character first" rather than writing female characters as "gender first" (not that I am an authority, not that I have the right to offer someone like Kishi advice), but I don't see him as sexist (though, I have noticed that in some cases some of the greatest "loudest" critics claiming that Kishi is sexist, are also some of the same people who are fasted to use sexist/misogynistic language to criticize/describe female characters, isn't that interesting?)
morgaine4,
I think I'm in love with like every single one of your posts. You're so logical and concise! 
Oh *blush* thanks! I'm always worried that I come off as so biased, haha. I'm actually quite surprised at how unbiased people here are H&E are. Not saying that there isn't bias, that's inevitable, but there's so much effort to try to be objective, I guess H&E isn't just for NS-love, but is a haven for us "unpopular kids" who happen to like an unpopular character and ship (among other things). I know as a Sakura fan, it's hard for me to particpate elsewhere because of the major hatred for the character.
Maybe we can remove the health care for the people that say she "can only heal" and ask them what they say then 
Honestly, what's the point of 'winning' a war if the population of the winner's side is nearly decimated? Defeating the enemy is only half the battle, the other half is keeping as many of one's "brothers in arms" alive.
I think Kishi did quite well with female characters considering that this manga is first and foremost about brotherhood.
He could've developed them better, but useless they are not..at all.
Maybe it's just my bias, but I like to think that I adore Sakura because of the way I've always read her. I honestly think that Sakura, Sakura's subtle and continuous changes, Sakura's attempts to change herself, the fact that Sakura is prone to failure but still tries to do something etc etc is one of the greatest strengths of the manga. Sakura is ever changing, she wasn't the same person at the beginning of chapter three, that she was at the end of chapter three and she has continued to change, to grow, to fall back a couple steps, then surge ahead since then. Sakura is a well-intentioned, but flawed character, but it is her flaws, her human struggles that I love about her and her journey throughout the manga is IMO something that Kishimoto has done exceptionally well.
I mean yeah Nagato's revival could have saved her but did they seriously want Hinata to have died for something pointless? That would have essentially made the whole pain ordeal even more overblown. I mean Gaara was revived but his development after this bridged so many more things later on.
Could Nagato have saved Hinata though? People say that, but if one examines manga facts technically that wouldn't have been possible as Hinata wasn't dead yet --Nagato wasn't healing anyone, he was returning the lives he had taken. Had Sakura been late, and had Hinata died after Nagato returned those lives, Hinata would not have been "saved."
