Recently I thought a bit about Sakura not as a main character in the series Naruto but rather as a shinobi living in the ninja world. I tried to reenact all of her actions and experiences to try and understand the character Kishi created. At first I thought "I'm a guy, there's no way I could understand a young girl who's becoming a ninja." But then I realized Kishi had to do the exact same thing!
Anyways...
Sakura was raised by a goofy father and a strict mother. Sakura's "odd couple" parents gave her a complex personality. Her best friend, Ino, became her rival after they both developed a crush on Sasuke. Sakura's rivalry was based off of love, and therefor to compete with Ino in she tried to impress Sasuke. Naruto, whom at the time had a crush on her, ended up getting in the way of her competition with Ino via his pursuits towards her. Sakura saw Naruto as an annoying idiot who likes watching her struggle. Though Sakura tried everything she could, Sasuke simply wasn't interested in her. Her continuous failures to impress Sasuke led to a lack of self confidence. She also became insecure about her body. She didn't think she had any notable traits except for a large forehead. She hated her forehead.
At this point it became clear to me that Sakura was more or less a normal civilian girl who wasn't at all prepared for the horrors and hardships that being a shinobi entailed. Her career as a shinobi was far from normal. In her first real mission, she took part in several life or death battles during which she learned that the very enemies she fought were nothing more than victims of the world she lived in. She watched as they died for what they believed in. She had already taken part in an A rank mission far before any normal genin ever should have, and to add to the pressure she was also going to be taking part in the chunin exams. Sakura and her teamates hadn't even a year of experience when they were put into the chunin exams. They had almost no combat training with their sensei and had to rely on prior knowledge alone to compete. While Naruto and Sasuke may have had a few tricks up their sleeve, Sakura was still practically the same person who graduated from the academy. She was ill prepared and surrounded by enemies far stronger than her.
I'm going to stop here because I think now I can ask a few meaningful questions that I've never given much thought to.
But first, a request if I may. I'd like to know how many of you have actually thought about these questions before. Please be honest, I want to know how people will react when they first think about this.
Have you ever considered how extreme the events that happened to Sakura were?
Given that normally genin are treated as apprentices and taught by jounin, do you think it's unfair that Sakura never had a chance to be trained before she was forced into combat?
Can you sympathize with Sakura and all she's been through?
Do you now appreciate Sakura more as a character? I do.
If you're wondering what inspired me to make this post, it's simple. I was of the opinion that Sakura is a disappointing character and had a lot of flaws, most notably her feelings for Sasuke. Despite this, I always got greatly offended whenever somebody hated Sakura. I couldn't figure out why, so I decided to back to square 1 and reanalyze Sakura as a character.
Wow...wow just wow....T_T
The way kishi is handling sakura is flawless in my opinion, hes still developing her, so I wont judge till the mangas gives me its approval.
This topic is locked
