Sakura Haruno

by Лала Сасуки Пон Фев 15, 2010 9:58 am

Sakura Haruno (春野サクラ, Haruno Sakura) is one of the main characters in the anime and manga series Naruto. She is a Chūnin-level kunoichi of Konohagakure, a medical-nin, and a member of Team Kakashi.

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Background

Sakura as a child.

During her early years in the Ninja Academy,
Sakura was frequently bullied by others due to her large forehead. To
try and combat this, Sakura used her bangs to hide her forehead,
fueling the other kids' teasing by indicating she was sensitive about
it. Ino Yamanaka,
realizing this, helped Sakura by giving her a ribbon that she used as a
way of drawing attention to the cuter features of her forehead, which
helped Sakura overcome her insecurity.^[4]
The two became good friends and Sakura grew more confident, developing
her own unique personality under Ino's guidance. Despite this, Sakura
felt that she was living in Ino's shadow and longed to prove herself as
Ino's equal. Later, when the two girls eventually realized that they
were both infatuated with Sasuke, Sakura ended their friendship so that
they could properly compete for Sasuke's love, thus beginning a bitter
rivalry between the two.^[5]

Personality

At the start of the series, Sakura had a deep infatuation for Sasuke Uchiha,
rooted primarily in his good looks, cunning, cool attitude, and
prodigious talents. For that reason, many of Sakura's early appearances
are dedicated to her continuing efforts to win his affection. As the
story progresses, she begins to recognize that Sasuke is a real person
with imperfections, and develops a more sincere desire to be there for
him. Sakura also becomes concerned that Sasuke will someday abandon her
and the rest of Konoha in his quest for power. When her fears come true
at the end of Part I, Sakura does all that she can to stop Sasuke from
leaving, such as professing her love for him and offering to join him.
Though touched by her words, they do not stop Sasuke from leaving from
Konoha.
Since then, Sakura has made her personal goal to bring Sasuke
home, which becomes a recurring component of her role in Part II.
Although she still worries about his well-being, Sakura is willing to
attack him if it means returning him to Konoha. As time goes on and
Sasuke becomes an increasingly more dangerous criminal, Sakura
recognizes that Sasuke must be stopped at all costs. She also tells
Naruto that she no longer has any feelings for Sasuke since he just
keeps breaking her heart. However, Sai and Kakashi suspect that she
does still love Sasuke, and that she wants to stop him only so that he
does not sink any lower.^[6]
Sakura's relationship with Naruto Uzumaki,
like with Sasuke, also changes throughout the series. When first teamed
up together, Sakura viewed Naruto as a talentless idiot who
deliberately tried to ruin her life, the result of Naruto's efforts to
win her heart interfering with her similar efforts with Sasuke.
However, as the story progresses and Naruto continuously shows his
worth as a ninja as well as his dedication to his teammates, Sakura
realizes that her initial perceptions of him were wrong. After Sasuke
defects from Konoha, Sakura pleads to Naruto, believing him to be the
only one capable of bringing Sasuke back. Although Naruto fails and is
left in the hospital afterwards, he vows to someday complete the task
she has given him. Realizing the lengths Naruto will go to for her,
Sakura spends the next three years training with Tsunade so that in the future she can join Naruto in his quest to bring Sasuke back.
In Part II, Sakura learns of the various hardships Naruto faces: the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox and Akatsuki.^[7]
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 develops a deep friendship with
Naruto, due to their spending a lot of time together. After Sai
tells her about Naruto's love for her and the pain that trying to
fulfill his promise causes, Sakura is filled with guilt. Soon
afterwards she tells Naruto that she loves him and tries to get him to
give up on his promise, but he does not believe her and tells her she
is lying to herself. Sai seems to confirm this, telling Naruto that
Sakura's confession was an attempt to release him from his promise, and
possibly distract him while she hunts down Sasuke. Despite this, Yamato has suggested that Sakura's feelings for Naruto are more than mere friendship.^[8]
Unlike the rest of Team 7,
Sakura is the only one of the four members who has not suffered any
heavy losses. Therefore, things that her teammates desire, such as
family and friends, Sakura took for granted. Also, Sakura is quite
outspoken, as when she doesn't understand something or if it bothers
her, she tends to practically yell out in questioning or complaining to
someone. However, all of this seemed to change by Part II, as she
becomes more knowledgeable towards Naruto and Sasuke's sufferings, and
tries to ease them. As her personality matures, she also shouts less,
but still questions unknown situations plenty.

Inner Sakura.

Within Sakura resides "Inner Sakura" (内なるサクラ, Uchi Naru 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. Inner Sakura's appearances are
typically marked by an exclamation of "Shānnarō!" (しゃーんなろー). The phrase has no literal meaning, but is usually translated as "Hell yeah!", "Hell no!", or "Damn it!", depending on the situation. The English anime, for censorship reasons, replaced the aforementioned phrases with a forceful "Cha!". Inner Sakura is unique as it is in a way a second will within Sakura's mind. When Ino used the Mind Body Switch Technique
on her, Inner Sakura was able to repel the user from her body,
suggesting that Inner Sakura is a split personality. Although she
appears quite frequently at the start of the series, Inner Sakura all
but disappears midway through Part I, her only other subsequent
appearance being at the start of Part II. Sakura, likewise, now
performs the emotional, violent outbursts she once relied on Inner
Sakura for, much to the dismay of those who are around her at the time.

Appearance

Sakura in her leisure outfit.

Sakura has bright pink hair, green eyes, and fair skin. In Part I, Sakura wore a red qipao dress with white circular designs, tight dark green shorts, and a forehead protector which she used to accent her face. Sakura was often bullied due to her rather large forehead hence her nickname off Ino Yamanaka "Billboard Brow". In Part II, Sakura, now a Chūnin,
has acquired a new outfit consisting of the same basic red top as in
Part I, with black gloves, black high-heeled boots, black shorts, short
pink apron-like skirt, and pink elbow protectors.
Sakura is now also armed with a Chūnin's Tantō (along with Shikamaru Nara and Ino, which she wears above her Medical Pouch,
but she has never been seen using it in combat). The cloth of her
forehead protector has also changed to red in color. When she's not on
a mission, she wears her regular red shirt, with a light yellow shirt
under it, and a navy-colored skirt. In this outfit, she still wears her
sandals.
Another notable trait of Sakura's appearance is her hair. At
the series' beginning, Sakura's hair was very long (when she was young,
there was a rumor that Sasuke was attracted to girls with long hair).^[9] After Sakura was forced to protect the unconscious bodies of Sasuke and Naruto after their battle with Orochimaru, Kin Tsuchi
grabbed Sakura's hair and taunted her for paying more attention to her
appearance than practicing her jutsu. Kin kept Sakura captive, holding
her tightly by the hair and forcing her to watch Zaku Abumi attack Lee. This caused Sakura to cut her hair to release Kin's hold on her, and determinedly attacking Team Dosu
with a new goal of surpassing her teammates. Sakura has kept her new,
shoulder-length hairstyle for the rest of the series. Later, during the
time skip, she grows her hair again, as shown in a flashback, but later
cuts it.

Abilities

At the start of the series, Sakura's only defining characteristic
was her intelligence, largely due to her interest in memorizing things
and her success with taking quizzes while in the Academy. Because of
this, Sakura was shown to have very keen talent for observation and
analyzing. Through this, she could easily see through most basic
deceptions an opponent may use on her.
Because she had focused so much on her book studies, it greatly
affected her physical performance. While in the Academy, she excelled
in basic practice of ninjutsu and kunoichi training, but her prowess in
combat was much weaker. Her stamina and fighting skills were below
average, making her not very helpful during battles. However, in Part
II, after receiving two and a half years of training from Tsunade, Sakura's abilities have greatly increased, to the point where she was able to hold her own against powerful enemies such as Sasori.
She was able to find Kakashi during the second bell training quickly,
while Naruto could not. Sakura was also able to tell how dangerous an
opponent (ex. Sasori) is by the first encounter. Sakura was able to
outsmart Sai, Kiba and Rock Lee, putting them to sleep with a gas
without them noticing, especially Sai, who is a member of root.
Sakura has been noted to have a natural affinity for genjutsu, though her only experience with genjutsu is dispelling it.

Chakra Control

Soon after the start of her first mission, Sakura discovered that
she had an excellent control over her chakra, and as such she had an
innate ability to use jutsu to their maximum efficiency without wasting
any chakra. Kakashi pointed out about Sakura Haruno, " The ability to
gather chakra from every part of the body and then using it with great
timing. In just that, she's above Sasuke." While this particular
ability was never put to great use in Part I, her chakra control became
a focal point of Sakura's fighting style in Part II, as it helped her to concentrate chakra to her fists to reduce things to rubble by a simple punch.

Medical-nin

Sakura utilizing her healing jutsu.

Sakura's natural control of her chakra had been taken to new heights
over the time skip, an ability utilized to its fullest by the training
she had done with Tsunade. With her excellent chakra control, Sakura had turned into an excellent combat medical-nin,
and had shown herself to be able to heal fatal injuries with relatively
little effort, even when more experienced medics would deem it a lost
cause. She also has shown extensive knowledge of poisons and herbal
medicine, surpassing even the knowledge of Chiyo.
Her knowledge was great enough to withdraw Sasori's advanced poison
directly from Kankurō's body, and create multiple antidotes
immediately.
In her training to become a medic-nin, Sakura had also acquired
the ability to pick up on an enemy's movements in a short period of
time, as a good field medic needs to be able to do to survive a battle
and avoid injury if he or she is to fulfill his or her purpose and heal
other members of his or her team. This ability allowed her to predict
what attack an opponent would use seconds before an attack and then
dodge it quickly and easily.

Taijutsu

Sakura's super strength.

In close combat, Sakura's taijutsu skills have seen tremendous
growth thanks to Tsunade's constant battle drills to better protect
herself should she find it impossible to avoid battle. To further aid
her in that situation, she can rely on the super strength taught to her
by Tsunade. Sakura's skill has reached the point where she can handle
multiple opponents, such as Sasori's puppets with ease.
By building up and releasing her chakra with precise timing,
Sakura could easily decimate any obstacle and turn it to rubble. An
opponent struck by her full strength could suffer from anything ranging
from instant death, broken bones, ruptured organs, or any other wound
associated with intense blunt force trauma. It should also be noted,
that even without this augmented strength, Sakura has shown a great
deal of raw strength, as seen when she was able to pull Sasori and
destroy his body in a single punch before he could react. Over time and through repeated use, Sakura had become able to
use this strength instinctively and did not need to put any effort into
using it. Her strength, coupled with her medical expertise and the
beauty she gained over the time skip, had caused many to see Sakura as
a younger version of Tsunade, or someone who could even surpass
Tsunade.