Haruno Sakura

Haruno Sakura is the lead female character of the Naruto series and the only female member of Team 7. She has a crush on Uchiha Sasuke and is crushed on by Uzumaki Naruto. While Hatake Kakashi is her sensei as part of Team 7, Sakura received her main training under the legendary healer Tsunade and became a medic.
== Fan Reaction ==
=== Criticisms and Misogyny ===
Naruto fandom is abounding with misogyny, and most of that sentiment is taken out on Sakura in fierce criticism. She also has her own fanbase who will defend her as just as fiercely. 
Reasons for criticism of her character include:
* She's supposedly useless.
* She's too powerful post time-skip.
* She's mean toward Naruto.
* She's too clingy toward Sasuke.
People who defend her will point out that she has matured over the course of the series: 
* She has become stronger.
* She has become a specialist in medical ninjutsu, which makes her important in her own way. 
* She has learnt to appreciate Naruto.
* Her childish crush for Sasuke has turned into a deep concern for him. 
While some people turn their criticism directly against Sakura, others instead direct it toward author Kishimoto Masashi for making her weak, not giving her enough character development, or curtailing her screen time. Such arguments often lead into discussion of sexism in Naruto.
Criticism of Sakura has waned as the fandom has aged, so it can be difficult to understand just how pervasive hatred of Sakura was at one time and how deeply it was woven into the general fandom. For example, one fan's comment on the extremely popular SI OC fic Dreaming of Sunshine in 2014 couldn't seem to praise the fic's main character, Nara Shikako, without taking a swipe at Sakura: say that Shikako was "so much better and more interesting than Sakura", who the fan noted to be "an abusive fangirl", prone to showing "favoritism among her teammates", not selfless enough, and not ambitious enough.Relevant review excerpt: "Wow, an OC self-insert fiction that doesn't fall apart at the seams. I congrats you on building this amazing character who has great character growth and amazing potential. She's so much better and more interesting than Sakura, in my opinion, since one, she's not an abusive fangirl and shows no favoritism among her teammates; two, she's a selfless mother-hen; three, she has great ambitions to succeed beyond the difficult or impossible challenges. [...]" and then it goes on for a good while longer about other things, including fanon about Naruto's treatment by the villagers. (Moonstone-blaze, Dreaming-of-Sunshine by Silver Queen - Review for chapter 73 Posted 23 April 2014.) The mention of Sakura not being ambitious enough is particularly strange because Dreaming of Sunshine definitely established Sakura as an extremely ambitious person as early as Chapter 7.
===Wood release===
A common wish for Sakura fans is that she'd been given wood release, a type of ninjutsu using trees. Listed reasons include that it would have put her more on level with the other members of Team 7,lolandhugs, Should Kishi have made Sakura as strong as Naruto & Sasuke? (2018 Edition) #1 Archived link Posted 19 June 2018 (Accessed 12 July 2018) it would have tied in with her character arc, and it would have given her a closer connection to Tsunade and Yamato. Fans point out that according to data books she had all of the chakra natures seemingly required for wood releasetiredgaykakashi, OP post Archived link (Accessed 12 July 2018) and that canon information about how Hashirama even came to have wood release and if it was really a hereditary skill is fuzzy at bestraendown, post reblogged by math-is-magic Archived link (Accessed 12 July 2018). 
Other fans feel that giving Sakura power upgrades wouldn't actually fix Kishimoto's problems with writing her, and that narrative choices took away her agency and independence which made her unlikeable at any power level because she'd ceased to be important to the narrative.Rifulofthewest, Should Kishi have made Sakura as strong as Naruto & Sasuke? (2018 Edition) #3 Archived link Posted 19 June 2018 (Accessed 12 July 2018) Some fans speak very negatively about what Kishimoto tried to do with Sakura ("Remember the quote of Kishi's when he said he developed Sakura by making her 'beautiful' ?" one fan asks.Arthas, Should Kishi have made Sakura as strong as Naruto & Sasuke? (2018 Edition) #10 Archived link Posted 20 June 2018 (Accessed 12 July 2018)) and essentially argue that it's not power level that matters, but her effectiveness in a fight, which they feel was sorely lacking:
==Relationships==
===Gen===
*Team 7
*Sakura & Naruto
*Sakura & Ino
*Sakura & Tsunade
*Sakura & Sarada
===Pairings===
Sakura is most popularly paired with her love interest Uchiha Sasuke (Sasuke x Sakura), which is the most popular het pairing in fandom.https://phantomstatistician.tumblr.com/post/162909807856/fandom-naruto-character-sakura-sample-size Naruto x Sakura and Kakashi x Sakura also have strong fanbases. The pairing between Sakura and her best friend/rival Yamanaka Ino might be the most prevalent femslash pairing in fandom; additionally, most femslash includes Sakura.
*Sakura x Sasuke (SasuSaku)
*Sakura x Naruto (NaruSaku)
*Sakura x Kakashi (KakaSaku)
*Sakura x Ino (InoSaku)
*Sakura x Lee (LeeSaku)
*Sakura x Itachi (ItaSaku)
*Nara Shikamaru x Haruno Sakura (ShikaSaku)
*Sasori x Sakura (Sasosaku)
== Popular tropes ==
=== BAMF Sakura / Strong!Sakura ===
In recent work, there was a new interest for BAMF Sakura or Strong!Sakura. In AO3 in october 2022, there is over 1600 fics with the tag BAMF Haruno Sakura AO3 search with the tag "BAMF Haruno Sakura" , but only 350 posted before january 2019. 
These works usually include more growth opportunities for Sakura, or a wider reconnaissance of her skills. In the lenghtier fic, she is often recruiting in ANBU or Root at some point. 
=== GenjutsuMaster!Sakura ===
In canon, Hatake Kakashi state that Sakura was a genjutsu type. This fact is often reuse in fann to justify Sakura's propension with genjutsu. 
==Fanworks==
=== Meta ===
* List of Essays and Meta at NarutoFan's Sakura fanclub
* Gender, Feminism, and Naruto: A Closer Look by Sub_Textual (sexism and Naruto)
* Kishimoto's Kunoichi Issue and Konan by Autoschismatic/Helicopini (Deleted; it was regarding Konan but had some good points about Sakura and all female characters in the series.)
* It’s funny bc sakuras name is literally a flower name and yet ino assigned her another flower for her flower metaphor archived
===Cosplay===
Image:7 Jul 2020 kiiingkrystal Haruno Sakura cosplay.jpg|kiiingkrystal (2020)
===Fan art===
* kind and strong by baasamas, 2019
*https://hanyouda.tumblr.com/post/114709113511/drew-a-genderbent-jounin-sakura-what-have-i 
=== Fan fic ===
* Sakura-centric Fanfic Recommendation List at the NarutoFan Sakura fanclub
* SasuSaku Fanfic Recommendation List at the SasuSaku LJ community
* Knockout by rilina
* Five people Sakura punches in the face by mercurial-wit
* And through a crack the truth seeps through like acid by kittu (deleted)
* Pulling My Weight by itsthechocopuff
* Masks by madstoryteller999 [BAMF Haruno Sakura / ANBU]
* Otokage (Published 2013) - by Writer168
* Stumble (Published 2013) - by Writer168
* Darkest Before Dawn (Published 2013) - by Writer168
== Fan communities and archives==
=== LJ Communities ===
* Sakura_Chyan - main Sakura community
* SasuSaku - Sasuke x Sakura
* NaruxSaku - Naruto x Sakura
* KakaSaku - Kakashi/Sakura
* PinkCrack - for various Sakura crack pairings
* PigxForhead & SakuraxIno - Ino x Sakura
* SakuHina - Hinata x Sakura
* Temari_Sakura - Temari x Sakura
* SaiSaku - Sai x Sakura
* YamaSaku - Yamato x Sakura
* NejiSaku - Neji x Sakura
* ShikaSaku - Shikamaru x Sakura
* CherrySquirrelz Rock Lee x Sakura
* Lethal_Empathy - Gaara x Sakura
* InoKibaSaku - Ino x Kiba x Sakura
* TaintedBlossom - Akatsuki x Sakura
* Ita_Saku - Itachi x Sakura
* KisaSaku - Kisame x Sakura
* DeiSaku - Deidara x Sakura
* TobiSaku - Tobi x Sakura
===FanFiction.Net (FFN)===
===DeviantArt (DA)===
===Archive of Our Own (AO3)===
===Pixiv===
===Tumblr===
=== Forums ===
* The Haruno Sakura Fanclub at the NarutoFan forums
== See Also ==
* Sakura Haruno entry at Narutopedia
* Sakura Haruno entry at Wikipedia
==References==
Category:Naruto Characters