Many prominent Shonen manga creators, like Akira Toriyama, Eiichiro Oda, Tite Kubo, and Masashi Kishimoto, have shared the blame for not doing justice to their female characters in their respective series. While some have been blamed for overly sexualizing their female characters, others are tagged because they did not give much importance to them.
However, some of these female characters were saved during the modifications done for the anime. One such example was Caulifla, the Saiyan from Universe 6, who participated in Zeno’s Tournament of Power. Fans believe that although Caulifla was underdeveloped in the Dragon Ball manga by Toriyama, Toei Animation saved her character in the anime.
While Caulifla was one of the lucky ones, that’s not always the case, as seen with Sakura Haruno from Naruto, who was drawn to be a better character than what Studio Pierrot portrayed in the Naruto anime. She received so much hate because of this that it made Kishimoto regret his decision.
Toei Animation Saved Caulifla in Dragon Ball Anime
The character Caulifla was introduced in Dragon Ball Super during the Tournament of Power as the leader of a gang of Saiyans in Universe 6. Although she was portrayed as brash and bold, she never shied away from learning new things, even from her enemies. She was one of the more profound characters in the tournament.
However, this was not always the case, as according to a discussion on Kazenshuu by Tai Lung, Akira Toriyama’s portrayal of Caulifla in the manga was not liked by many fans. She was clumsy and could not do much to prove herself as a worthy character. She was pretty much ignored in the manga as she could not live up to her full potential as a Saiyan warrior, who is considered to be one of the most legendary races.
When Toei Animation decided to animate Caulilfa, they decided to modify her character’s personality and make her more important to the Dragon Ball narrative. This evidently worked in the favor of the series, as it was the first time that a female Saiyan was able to transform into Super Saiyan.
Sakura Did Not Share Caulifla’s Luck
When the Tournament of Power saga started, fans were excited to see the clash of Saiyans from different universes, and Caulifla and Kale certainly lived up to these expectations. She demonstrated herself to be a magnificent warrior who understood the power and importance of the Super Saiyan transformation.
Thus, she was highly appreciated by the fans, even if her role was short-lived. However, her luck was not shared by the female characters from other series. The biggest example of this is Sakura, who is considered to be one of the most hated characters in the entire anime history, and Masashi Kishimoto is not the one to blame for it.
Kishimoto has admitted multiple times that he tried to portray Sakura as realistically as possible, and while manga fans were still fine with her as a character, anime fans hated her to the core because Studio Pierrot made a lot of modifications that made her look desperate, clingy, and overall annoying, despite being a major character.
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