Until the time-skip..

Then she was left in the shadows honestly.

 

I think your forgetting that she could regenerate like Tsunade and she had mastered super strength by the end of the story. She wasn't in Naruto and Sasuke's league no one was, but she was definitely a top tier shinobi.

 

As everyone already stated, that is the problem with Sakura fictions: bashing. Especially Sasuke bashing. I have seen it time and time again, which is why her fictions and the authors just put me off. It becomes a struggle to read through their works and make sense of all the senseless, idiotic bashing and butchering of canon facts just so that she can shine.

This is not the way you make characters relevant; it is the way you make them off-putting, caricatural and nonsensical in characterization. Because if people believe that Sakura was irksome in the manga, then boy do they not have a clue how insufferable and revolting she comes across in most of the fictions dedicated to her.

Someone already recommended it above: Loyalty by A True Radical Dreamer.

She wasn't. Not even close. In fact, her specialty is chakra control and she's not even close in talent to Naruto even, let alone Sasuke whose control was directly compared to Sage of the Six Paths in canon by Kurama.

Let me explain: her good chakra control is a result of small chakra reserves. People really need to read the Viz translation of the manga to get the better picture of dialogues. Kakashi states so quite explicitly that the reason she climbed the tree is because she had such a small amount to manage. And Sasuke and Naruto couldn't, because their chakra was "unthinkably" larger by comparison.

How long did it take her to fill up the seal despite her 'tiny' reserves allowing her good chakra control? Three years! That is a very long time to learn one ability! More than three if you count the two and a half period of training between part I and Shippuden. But even if I exclude that, by the time she filled up the seal, Sasuke was way past the point of mastering so many of his abilities; he's the most versatile shinobi in the entire manga. Naruto had mastered Kurama's chakra by then, Sage Mode and Rasengan variants.

Not only that, how long did it take Sasuke to reverse Sage of the Six Path's best feat (Creation of all Things) with which he created the Bijuus, use advanced Spatial and Elemental recomposition onto that entire chakra (and turn it into Raiton and then create various weapons out of it) that is well beyond anything Sakura focused onto her forehead in three damn years in potency and volume? A few seconds?

So, basically, Sasuke mastered several things and the best the Sage had to offer in seconds, whilst Sakura did nothing much in comparison, and still, she took three years to do so? Furthermore, her Byakugou and strength are just an extension of her medical ninjutsu (as stated by the databook and all medical ninjutsu requires good chakra control, so she isn't some special snowflake here), which makes her single feat even more pointless given how sluggish her progress was in the manga.

People really should read the manga because Sakura is considered some kind of queen in chakra control and Ninjutsu by her fangirls, when she isn't. Not even close. They believe Kishimoto shafted her by not giving her the Genjutsu casting ability, when Orochimaru is also a Genjutsu expert and he never possessed the ability to cast it. A Genjutsu expert is simply someone who can get around the genjutsu. It is not set in stone that they would have the ability to cast it as well.

 

cooladoola I'll basically repeat what I said before people confuse having a huge chakra pool for being competent. No Sakura wasn't as powerful as Sasuke or Naruto and no she didn't have their reserves of chakra, but she was intelligent and was able to become a top tier shinobi comparable to Tsunade.

Her small reserves of chakra are pointed out when she was twelve years old and just starting out. In what three or four years of training she definitely increased her reserves to a decent level.

 

Peter North

I never claimed that she isn't a good Shinobi nor did I claim that she's stupid. Though, she's not in Sasuke's league on that front even. My point is that she only learnt one ability in a span of five years. So, she is nowhere near as talented as people claim her to be as she invented nothing on her own.

Nothing in the manga shows that her natural reserves grew exponentially. Nothing in the manga shows that people with tiny reserves suddenly grow pits of them later on. Bar the seal, her reserves remain small and her battles in the manga prove so.

It's that odd mumbo-jumbo they cook up so that no one can ask them that what the heck does that even mean. It's basically done to handwave any criticism away.

 

We can all agree that it is a manga and the feats and skills of the characters do not match what common sense should dictate.

The anime and manga, especially towards the end, had the perceivable strenght of the characters completely convoluted. If we go along the idea that Sakura is as strong as Tsunade, then she should be comparable to Gaara. However, in the Shinobi War Arc she was nothing impressive whereas Gaara was battling some of the baddest people around.

Fast forwards to when Kaguya is revived and she is somehow much more powerful and able to help Naruto and Sasuke at the end, despite being mostly useless against much weaker opponents.

An ungifted 17 year-old-girl, no matter how prodigious, should not be able to quickly bridge the gap between the increidlby powerful genius like Orochimaru, Sasori, Tsunade and co. It's an manga and trying to reason through the apparent strengths of the characters is both tiresome and pointless.

 

I think you guys forget something. There is boatload of "writers" who has never seen the source material in the first place. Some of them even admits it.

So being surprised when they go so fanon on the characters is pretty funny.

 

Kishimoto created a great world, but his writing broke my suspension of disbelief after shippuuden. Part of that is how poorly he handled female characters.

Sakura is, at best, a weak jounin at the end of the series with one ability that could let her contend briefly with Kage level opponents.

She was never well written or properly developed. Nor were any of the females honestly.

Which is why the best pairing is Naruto/FemSasuke or Sasuke/Femnaru.

 

You don't have to turn one of them into a girl if you ship the Naruto Sasuke dynamic. I mean, the manga admittedly really went hard for it and just never had the guts to actually pull off.

As to the power stuff, with her perfect chakra control Sakura has one of the best advantages one can have in the Naruto world. She's lacking in amount of chakra, but honestly, that makes her more interesting in a way, if properly utilized. She can't spam techniques but instead can chose from many, theoretically and has to make the right choice.

 

Might be because I'm straight, so have an inherent difficulty enjoying gay romance for my own entertainment , but actually I primarily ship it in two ways.

The Naru/fem Sasuke just works better. The same traits that make Sasuke an asshole as a dude make him sexy as a female. Also...Menace needs to update written in reverse.

SasuFemnaru is more a love redemption story.

*shrug*

 

Now, I don't get two things on this page: how is Sasuke and Naruto's bond even remotely sexual and why is Sasuke an asshole? Makes no sense to me.

Seylliani

Any version of Gaara pulverizes Sakura. She was never in his league, I'm afraid. As part one and early Shippuden Gaara is a Jinnchurichi and the war arc one has some lame protection from his mother.

At least, they have the courtesy to admit that. People like Evil with a Relative blatantly flaunt appalling canon manga knowledge and term it canon.

 

It would have been really easy to turn Naruto's quest to bring Sasuke back to Konoha into an Epic Romance. Expected, even, if Sasuke had been female.

You've read the manga, right?

 

Really? Them being brothers (or siblings even) makes no sense? Bizarre.

Yes, intimately. Sorry, don't see it. It's a rather overly simplistic evaluation of the only complex character in the entire manga.

 

The 'sibling' revelation came very late in the game--we got a whole lot of buildup, and comparatively little "oh wait they're 'related'".

A character can be complex and still an arsehole. A lot of actions taken by Sasuke, justified or not, still fall under that category.

 

I am pretty sure the Senju and Uchiha conflict was highlighted immediately after the Uchiha sibling battle (alluded to during the final battle between Naruto and Sasuke at the Valley of the End) and Naruto did state that he never had a family, and he considered Sasuke his brother. Really, I see nothing romantic about Naruto's quest.

Pretty subjective, but fair enough in the light of subjectivity as I don't consider Individualists with self-controlled preferences and controlled and self-fulfilling goals to be arseholes.

As I have repeatedly mentioned: Sakura's perfect chakra control is due to her low reserves. She is not the odd one out when it comes to medics. In fact, excellent chakra control is a prerequisite for medical ninjutsu. It is mentioned quite explicitly in the manga and her strength and the seal are an extension of the same Jutsu.

However, Sakura has displayed no talent for chakra control for the physical manifestation of chakra beyond creating a simple scalpel. So, to assume that she's talented in spatially and elementally controlling chakra like others' falls completely beyond the context of the manga.

Furthermore, control has gradations. Sasuke and Sage of the Six paths also have perfect control. So did Itachi and Madara as they had reached the fourth level of Susanoo (Perfect Susanoo is nothing more than level four Susanoo's chakra stabilized even further; there is no category above level four Susanoo), and again, as Itachi and Madara mention, it requires pretty impressive and heavy-duty chakra control and stabilization. So did Hinata for her Twin Lion Fists. So did Naruto when he converted the chakra kneaded by Kurama and passed it on to all by moulding it to their elemental natures.

But, is Hinata's control as good as Naruto? No, it isn't. Is Itachi's control anywhere near Sasuke's or the Sage's? No. Gradations matter in the manga, and Sakura's talent is not out of the world, really. It's passable, to be honest, compared to others that do have good control over their chakra.

 

Sasuke's my favorite character in the series. His motivations and character development are the most realistic out of the setting (barring his marriage to Sakura). It was great seeing his character grow and change over time even as he spiraled further into insanity...and then his redemption.

His devotion to training and it's goals is admirable. His intelligence and techniques are prolly my favorite in the series.

He is easily my favorite character.

Still an asshole.

 

I disagree, folks! I disagree.

 

Was Sakura really Top Tier though?

What did she really do?

 

Yeah, but Gaara and the Five Kage get destroyed by Edo-Madara who is significantly weaker than S6P Madara who is about as strong as Kaguya (maybe) who Sakura was a key part in beating. She even landed a punch that actually hurt Kaguya which, even in Kaguya's circumstances, is insane and shouldn't realistically happen.

 

Sakura can provide Kage level support while being unable to fight at the level herself. Jounin is the best I can rank her even at the end of the series.