In the anime and manga world, there are very few female characters who are hated as much as Sakura Haruno from Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto. Her actions before the time skip were a little mean and obsessive, which led to fans developing hateful emotions towards one of the important members of Team 7.
However, most of the credit for this hatred went to Kishimoto, as he was the one who created Sakura the way she was. On top of that, Kishimoto has confessed multiple times that he is not good at drawing female characters. This led to Naruto fans believing that he intentionally made Sakura mean and hateful towards Naruto when he had romantic feelings for her.
However, what many anime fans don’t know is that Studio Pierrot, the animation studio that created Naruto, modified many scenes of Sakura and made her look bad. They somewhat changed the narrative, which made fans sympathize with Naruto and hate Sakura. And all the blame for this went to the manga creator.
Naruto Fans’ Hatred Towards Sakura
Despite being one of the strongest Shinobis and probably the strongest medical ninjas in the Narutoverse, Sakura has been a victim of constant hate from fans. Most of the hate stemmed from the pre-time skip behavior of Sakura, where she was constantly mean to Naruto and obsessed over Sasuke, so much so that she was ready to leave Konoha for him.
Although, after the time skip, Sakura matured emotionally and became more considerate towards Naruto, she still had feelings for Sasuke, even though he ignored her existence entirely. As the series progressed, the hate towards Sakura remained constant, and the factor of overall strength was added to it.
Sakura was one of the members of Team 7, and although she became quite strong, she couldn’t match the level of Sasuke and Naruto. But she acted like she could have easily competed with both of them. Therefore, fans’ hatred for Sakura doubled, and it went to a point where they started calling her a “trash” character.
Studio Pierrot May Be Responsible For Sakura’s Downfall
A Reddit user, u/The_weeb282, once pointed out that although Masashi Kishimoto was the one who created Sakura, the main culprit behind making Sakura unlikable was Studio Pierrot.
Reminder that Studio Pierrot HATED Sakura and butchered her in the anime
byu/The_Weeb282 inNaruto
The Naruto fan compared a few scenes from the anime and manga series, only to find out that maybe the hatred of fans towards Sakura and Kishimoto is unjustified.
According to the post, Sakura’s comments, where she compared the strength of Sasuke with Naruto and called Naruto weak during a battle, were a modified statement that made Sakura look bad. There are similar narratives in other chapters and episodes, too. Even Boruto featured one of such scenes where the translation of Sakura’s statement was changed.
While Sakura was mean towards Naruto, it was mostly for the comedic element of the story, but Studio Pierrot extended it even to the filler arcs to make Sakura look bad as a character. Nonetheless, she matured and grew up to be one of the most important characters of the Naruto series, and the hatred died down as time passed.
You can watch Naruto on Hulu.
