The one thing that made Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto popular among fans is the fact that almost every major character in the story has a character arc that solely focuses on their growth, especially the members of Team 7. And while the paths of Naruto and Sasuke were deeply focused, Sakura’s journey was not given much attention, which became one of the reasons why fans could not connect with her.
Sakura was one of the most hated characters in Naruto. Her narrative felt annoying to fans, and no matter what she did, fans could not get themselves to like her. Many even blamed Kishimoto for dropping the ball while writing the character of Sakura. Not only that, Kishimoto himself once confessed that he might have made a disastrous mistake with Sakura’s origin story.
The manga creator once revealed that his mistake forced him to add extra plotlines to Sakura’s character arc to raise her popularity and make her worthy of being a member of Team 7.
The One Mistake That Masashi Kishimoto Made with Sakura
Kishimoto once gave an interview with Japanese comedian and actor Kobayashi Kendo in 2015, which was later summarized by KirinNOTKarin98 on Naruto fandom. During this interview, Kishimoto was asked about Sakura and her family and why they were never properly introduced in the Naruto series.
Kishimoto revealed that at the time Sakura’s popularity was taking a huge blow, and even if he had expanded her character by introducing her parents, it wouldn’t have worked for her because her parents were not from a Shinobi background. This was a huge mistake by Kishimoto, as it affected Sakura’s character deeply.
Almost every Shinobi student had Shinobi parents, and in some way or another, it helped in developing their story further in Naruto. Sakura being the only one with normal parents affected her character’s growth as she had to rely on other characters (like Sasuke and Tsunade) for the development of her story as the narrative evolved.
Masashi Kishimoto had to Raise Sakura’s Popularity
If Masashi Kishimoto had given Shinobi parents to Sakura, who were from some prominent ninja clan, Sakura wouldn’t have struggled this much with her popularity. The manga creator also revealed that, because of his mistake, he had to add other scenes and plotlines that would help with Sakura’s overall popularity among the fans.
He mentioned that on one of the cover pages, Kishimoto drew Sakura with Katsuyu, the personal summon of Tsunade.
The summary revealed:
Kobayashi asks if it was too late to drop her, and Kishimoto says that he just had to persevere with her, and thought about how to raise her popularity. In the 4th volume, a cover page shows her with Katsuyu, so this was the direction he tried to work in. In later volumes, he tries to draw her more beautifully.
This gave him the idea to write her character in a similar way, as it might help people notice Sakura as a worthy character and recognize her talent as a Shinobi and a member of Team 7.
Not only that, Kishimoto also revealed that, because of her decreasing popularity, the mangaka started drawing her more beautifully, but even that didn’t work with Naruto fans. He even used source materials as guides to focus on Sakura’s character, but nothing worked. However, while Sakura’s popularity was going down, Hinata was getting more and more popular among the fanbase.
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