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How Kishimoto could have made Sakura popular


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#21 harry4e

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 02:40 AM

Well he could have started her off as someone who'se first words were not how much she hates Naruto, specially when the previous two chapters went a long way to explain to us how everyone hated him for what he had sealed in him...I bet many of the people who read it didn't pay too much attention to her reasons for not liking Naruto and just assumed it was the same reason as the adults.

 

They could have shown her interacting more with Naruto, and showed her continuing training, dispite mastering tree walking. Her revelation about her weakness should have come at the end of Wave country when she saw Sasuke died.

 

That said I think her popularity was on the up but it dipped after Jiraiya's death, her interaction with Naruto was greatly reduced after that, we never saw anything new from her, she fought Sasori and then not much. We could have seen her perform some elemental Jutsu's or anything but her charactor stood still for a while. And then she made her confession...and that was just painful to watch. Kishi then went about ruining every single strong point of hers with something stupid. She powered up with that seal, but needed saving next panel, She saved Naruto's life, then a few chapters later attacks Madara and almost gets herself killed.

 

Also not have her turn into a weak fangirl whenever Sasuke comes into play, you couldn't say she had grown into a strong independant woman if she acted like a weak fangirl whenever her biggest flaw came close. Which is what Sasuke was, a flaw, she became someone inferior when he was around, and she never grew out of it.


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#22 rocci

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 02:40 AM

 
This is true. All the same, I don't see why we needed multiple non-main-main characters to fight Kisame when that fight could have just as easily gone to Sakura (or at very least Rock Lee). I also don't understand why Kishi found it necessary to have Chiyo walk Sakura through her fight with Sasori. Kind of cheapens the win.
 
I think Sakura should have at same point faced and beaten (by herself): Sasori, Kabuto, Kisame (seriously, Gai is a side character. Side characters should not get dibs over main characters). That way, we get this:
 
Naruto: Kakuzu, Pein
Sasuke: Deidara, Itachi
Sakura: Sasori, Kisame
 
Each member of team 7 beats two Akatsuki members.

Sakura fight alone and win against sasori will make her a kage level ninja at her base. It will make her stronger than base sasuke, base naruto, and base kakashi.
The problem is, sasori is stronger than sakura and have chiyo to fight sasori along side with her is a good thing. I don't think it will undermine their victory.

Sakura can't fight kisame, he's super strong. Kishi need to nerve him by remove his samehada to make gai win the fight.

I think it would be better if kishi give her byakugo in pein invasion and fight konan. She should learn genjutsu and elemental genjutsu before that.
And in war arc, she learn sm and fight super kabuto.

#23 TouKen4Life3g

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 03:28 AM

Well, in fma the heroine is full support, so she doesn't get fight but great character development.
The one who got action is hero, his west rival and his east rival.

@nar123
Byakugo doesn't give her super strength. It just make punch with full power. She doesn't need to chakra storing.

Kishi could give her genjutsu & elemental ninjutsu.
After that, slug sage mode.

I'm talking about everyone. Everyone got to shine and it didn't take forever to see it. Naruto on the other hand did and that's why we complain about side characters not utilizing well.

#24 rocci

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 03:57 AM

I'm talking about everyone. Everyone got to shine and it didn't take forever to see it. Naruto on the other hand did and that's why we complain about side characters not utilizing well.

There's always fight in fma. While in naruto there are more drama.
Naruto only have one true fight, it happen between beginning of part 2 to pein arc.

#25 TouKen4Life3g

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 04:20 AM

There's always fight in fma. While in naruto there are more drama.
Naruto only have one true fight, it happen between beginning of part 2 to pein arc.

That and one focus on one guy. I mean after Team 10 or more like Shikamaru, everyone is shoved out of there and Sasuke gets triple kill. Then, Kakashi fights and lose. Then, Naruto got a fight, after many chapters ago. Then back to Sasuke. Where are the side characters?

#26 rocci

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 04:37 AM

That and one focus on one guy. I mean after Team 10 or more like Shikamaru, everyone is shoved out of there and Sasuke gets triple kill. Then, Kakashi fights and lose. Then, Naruto got a fight, after many chapters ago. Then back to Sasuke. Where are the side characters?

Where are the main character?
If main character doesn't get good treatment than how could the side character get that?

Edited by rocci, 21 April 2015 - 04:41 AM.


#27 Phantom_999

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 11:05 AM

Move on from Sasuke. That is all.

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#28 Radra

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 11:52 AM

The first thing is that Kishimoto should not have made her so "annoying". I was among the fans that hated sakura in part one.

 

The second and most important thing is that he should not have made Sakura fall in love with Sasuke. Her feelings for sasuke made her seem shallow and it added to her annoying personality.

 

The third thing is he should have made her much stronger in part one. I mean, she becomes a beast at the end of the story but by then, the damage had already been done.  



#29 tricksie

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 01:45 PM

Sakura should have fired her writer. 



#30 pharix

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 02:19 PM

Make her popular in the west? By making her boobs bigger.

and a shy doormat



#31 Hiraishin

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 04:47 PM

He should have made her show up more often, made her a little more relevant, have her actually participate in fights (even if it's only as support). In part one (besides all the things I just mentioned), have her actively try to get stronger, even just a little bit -- since of course the big change needed to come at the end of part one, once Sasuke had left and Naruto was beaten up. In part two (again, besides all the things I mentioned), not have her all but disappear between the Sasuke and Sai arc and the Kage Summit arc. Be at least a little less hung up on Sasuke all the time (esp. in the Kage arc, but everything was terrible in the arc so I'm kind of not counting it.. and everything after lol). All these little things probably could have helped her in the polls.

Of course, there are other, bigger things that could have been done (like getting rid of her feelings for Sasuke, making her less "annoying" in part one, not having her dislike Naruto in early part one) but that would change her character too much. Her own development, and her development and relationships with other characters (namely, Naruto) would have been too different, and I quite like the way it is now (except for the last like hundred chapters ofc, and parts of the Summit arc).

Oh, and Sakura couldn't have beat Sasori alone. She needed Chiyo's help, just as Chiyo needed Sakura. It was a team effort, and without the both of them (esp. Chiyo) the outcome (not talking about win vs. lose, more like the connections that Sasori held, like to his mother and father, plus his emotions etc...) most likely would have been quite different. That fight is great the way it is, I wouldn't ask to change it.

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#32 sushi.

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 07:46 PM

He could've cared about her.


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#33 Pix

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Posted 21 April 2015 - 10:57 PM

You guys are missing something- he should have never written her as an emotionally weak character. That's the main go-to for Sakura haters. They are still able to accuse her as weak and useless in Part 2 because her personality changed whenever Sasuke was brought up. Not to say Naruto's wasn't weak and useless either when it came to Sasuke, but he's the main character. Not only that, but he had a lot of screentime to make up for his emotional state about Sasuke.  

 

Basically both characters were caring way too much about a guy they barely knew about. Both Naruto and Sakura never understood that as time goes by, relationships fade.


Edited by Pix, 21 April 2015 - 10:58 PM.

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#34 Tiller

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 12:31 AM

Sakura should have fired her writer. 

Whoever ends up marrying you is going to be a lucky person. Well said.



 


#35 goldenarms

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 04:01 AM

What are some things Kishi could've done to keep Sakura popular and not allow her to lose her status to Hinata (besides getting rid of Hinata of course)?

 

What are some of the things Masashi could have done to make Sakura popular and be viable as a main character? Understand why Sakura isn't popular in the first place and work on the things that he could change, and not worry over the things he can't.

How much of that he could influence, I don't know, but Sakura's popularity as a main character took near unrecoverable hits with less than 107 chapters under the series belt. 14th is NOT popular, particularly if you're supposed to be one of the MAIN CHARACTERS. And worse, this is AFTER we have revealed stuff about Sakura, demonstrated her kind and caring nature, her ingenuity at work, and her similarities to Naruto. All that stuff out about Sakura, and the readers prefered, in order, a sadistic super pervert (Jiraiya, 10th - 503 votes), a super-androgynous character that died like 80 chapters ago (Haku, 11th - 434 votes), a picture of an unnamed Hokage (The Fourth Hokage/Minato, 12th - 402 votes), and the clear-cut mustache-twirling heel for Naruto to righteously thwart (Neji, 13th - 396 votes) over one of our MAIN characters (Sakura, 14th - 359 votes).

 

At this point, who gives a flying fig about Hinata's popularity? The trouble spot is Sakura and her consistent low showings in the character polls, given her status as a main character. First seven polls, she comes in 5th, 14th, 9th, 10th, 8th, 12th, and 12th (tying with SAI, whom I understand to be pretty unpopular character in Japan -- NOT good). Even more damning -- after the second character poll, the less there is of Sakura in the manga, the higher her positioning is. Whenever she becomes more relevant, and gets more screentime, though...

 

As one saying goes, "Once is a coincidence; twice is a pattern."

 

If I was penning Naruto, and Sakura was ever meant to be his love interest, I sure as hell would be reconsidering that plan, let me tell you, because those polls, with the first six appearing to have been taken yearly, tells me that the readers don't like Sakura very much. Not as a main character, at any rate.

 

So, how does one change all that? Personally, I don't think you could, given the reader response. Not without starting over. Sakura got power-ups galore -- readers don't seem to care. Sakura's "confession" pissed off pretty much everyone, so romance redirection isn't likely going to win them over, either. And while you can drag a horse to water, you can't make him drink, so shoving her into the faces of a readership that doesn't seem to care about her is likely going to make them even more resistant, and Lord knows, no one wants to drive off their reading base.

 

So, my answer is... rewrite her entirely. The Sakura developed is not going to magically become well-loved if you gave her cool powers, or if she gives birth to all one thousand of Naruto's babies, or if the series was retitled SAKURA. Her character is faulty, and while some would say it's because of her Sasuke-centric feelings (which, given how she and Sasuke came about, is fairly justified), I would say it's because she doesn't have a future she identifies with that also ties into being a main character like everyone else. Naruto dreams of becoming Hokage so people will give him proper recognition; Sasuke dreams of killing his brother and restoring his family line; Sakura dreams of Sasuke and... that's about it. A main character absolutely needs a driving goal, force, or objective that propels him or her forward, a task that the character must absolutely do and succeed at or die trying, and that's something Sakura is wholly without.

 

By the time she does get one, it's already too late to utilize it properly -- we just wasted 270+ chapters of development, and now, it's going to be a tougher sell getting people to like the NEW and IMPROVED Sakura with so much baggage attached to her current character.

 

So, instead, she would need to start with some kind of driving goal that makes her a main character -- for example, let's say Sakura wants to be a ninja rock star. =BAM= Now the world is going to open up for our intrepid wannabe future ninja rock star. The obstacles she'll face, the tasks she'll have to overcome, the roles she'll assume, the people that'll cheer her on as well as those she'll have to battle in order to bring about her own dream, presuming that she CAN bring about those dreams. Everything that will culminate into answering the one question that we MUST know -- does she succeed, or does she fail? How does it go for our main charactetr and her dream?

 

In the end, I can but theorize why the Japanese readers aren't down with Sakura. In my opinion, though, Sakura doesn't have something to make her interesting, and that something is a dream to follow, a passion and dedication to something that not easy to obtain. Beccause of that lack of a dream, it's going to much harder for readers to sympathize with her than say Hinata, a introvert, timid girl who might as well be invisble to the guy she likes but dreams of someday being strong and courageous enough (and worthy in some cases) to walk beside that guy. Or Shikamaru, a slacker who dreams of having a peaceful, boring life, a dream which eventually gets dashed in favor of a dream where he serves as protector of Konoha's future, the children of both his sensei and his own.



#36 rocci

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 04:29 AM

@goldenarm
I don't think sakura is great heroine, but she's a unique heroine.
She's more a shoujo heroine than shonen one.

#37 Nar123

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 05:15 AM

 
What are some of the things Masashi could have done to make Sakura popular and be viable as a main character? Understand why Sakura isn't popular in the first place and work on the things that he could change, and not worry over the things he can't.
How much of that he could influence, I don't know, but Sakura's popularity as a main character took near unrecoverable hits with less than 107 chapters under the series belt. 14th is NOT popular, particularly if you're supposed to be one of the MAIN CHARACTERS. And worse, this is AFTER we have revealed stuff about Sakura, demonstrated her kind and caring nature, her ingenuity at work, and her similarities to Naruto. All that stuff out about Sakura, and the readers prefered, in order, a sadistic super pervert (Jiraiya, 10th - 503 votes), a super-androgynous character that died like 80 chapters ago (Haku, 11th - 434 votes), a picture of an unnamed Hokage (The Fourth Hokage/Minato, 12th - 402 votes), and the clear-cut mustache-twirling heel for Naruto to righteously thwart (Neji, 13th - 396 votes) over one of our MAIN characters (Sakura, 14th - 359 votes).
 
At this point, who gives a flying fig about Hinata's popularity? The trouble spot is Sakura and her consistent low showings in the character polls, given her status as a main character. First seven polls, she comes in 5th, 14th, 9th, 10th, 8th, 12th, and 12th (tying with SAI, whom I understand to be pretty unpopular character in Japan -- NOT good). Even more damning -- after the second character poll, the less there is of Sakura in the manga, the higher her positioning is. Whenever she becomes more relevant, and gets more screentime, though...
 
As one saying goes, "Once is a coincidence; twice is a pattern."
 
If I was penning Naruto, and Sakura was ever meant to be his love interest, I sure as hell would be reconsidering that plan, let me tell you, because those polls, with the first six appearing to have been taken yearly, tells me that the readers don't like Sakura very much. Not as a main character, at any rate.
 
So, how does one change all that? Personally, I don't think you could, given the reader response. Not without starting over. Sakura got power-ups galore -- readers don't seem to care. Sakura's "confession" pissed off pretty much everyone, so romance redirection isn't likely going to win them over, either. And while you can drag a horse to water, you can't make him drink, so shoving her into the faces of a readership that doesn't seem to care about her is likely going to make them even more resistant, and Lord knows, no one wants to drive off their reading base.
 
So, my answer is... rewrite her entirely. The Sakura developed is not going to magically become well-loved if you gave her cool powers, or if she gives birth to all one thousand of Naruto's babies, or if the series was retitled SAKURA. Her character is faulty, and while some would say it's because of her Sasuke-centric feelings (which, given how she and Sasuke came about, is fairly justified), I would say it's because she doesn't have a future she identifies with that also ties into being a main character like everyone else. Naruto dreams of becoming Hokage so people will give him proper recognition; Sasuke dreams of killing his brother and restoring his family line; Sakura dreams of Sasuke and... that's about it. A main character absolutely needs a driving goal, force, or objective that propels him or her forward, a task that the character must absolutely do and succeed at or die trying, and that's something Sakura is wholly without.
 
By the time she does get one, it's already too late to utilize it properly -- we just wasted 270+ chapters of development, and now, it's going to be a tougher sell getting people to like the NEW and IMPROVED Sakura with so much baggage attached to her current character.
 
So, instead, she would need to start with some kind of driving goal that makes her a main character -- for example, let's say Sakura wants to be a ninja rock star. =BAM= Now the world is going to open up for our intrepid wannabe future ninja rock star. The obstacles she'll face, the tasks she'll have to overcome, the roles she'll assume, the people that'll cheer her on as well as those she'll have to battle in order to bring about her own dream, presuming that she CAN bring about those dreams. Everything that will culminate into answering the one question that we MUST know -- does she succeed, or does she fail? How does it go for our main charactetr and her dream?
 
In the end, I can but theorize why the Japanese readers aren't down with Sakura. In my opinion, though, Sakura doesn't have something to make her interesting, and that something is a dream to follow, a passion and dedication to something that not easy to obtain. Beccause of that lack of a dream, it's going to much harder for readers to sympathize with her than say Hinata, a introvert, timid girl who might as well be invisble to the guy she likes but dreams of someday being strong and courageous enough (and worthy in some cases) to walk beside that guy. Or Shikamaru, a slacker who dreams of having a peaceful, boring life, a dream which eventually gets dashed in favor of a dream where he serves as protector of Konoha's future, the children of both his sensei and his own.

I think you are being too radical
Sakura's character didnt need to be rewrited from scrap
She just needed to have a constant influx of development towards her...and this only really happened in early part 2
IMO put a good writer on Sakura early part 1 character and she can become a likable char quite easily
I mean not all characters need to begin useful and with estabilished dreams early on in a story

Edited by Nar123, 22 April 2015 - 05:37 AM.

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#38 Aizen-Sama

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 05:37 AM

Whoever ends up marrying you is going to be a lucky person.

 

What about me?! :arg:   I want the compliment of James Bond! <3



#39 rocci

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 05:45 AM

I think you are being too radical
Sakura's character didnt need to be rewrited from scrap
She just needed to have a constant influx of development towards her...and this only really happened in early part 2
IMO put a good writer on Sakura early part 1 character and she can become a likable char quite easily
I mean not all characters need to begin useful and with estabilished dreams early on in a story

Exactly.

If kishi can't write character like sakura, then why he didn't write character like rin. Who I deem as old school heroine.

#40 TouKen4Life3g

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Posted 22 April 2015 - 08:34 AM

Sakura has the potential, but it was too much for Kishi to handle, and that's being generous.




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