What's going on guys it's Mario and Sonic gamer and today we're going to be talking about everyone's favorite character Sakura Haruno. And by favorite I mean the character that everyone wants to bash on call her useless and pretty much find every reason to hate on her. For real though I find ironic how people call Sakura useless when people like Ochako Uraraka from My Hero Academia and Noelle Silva from Black Clover exists yet nobody is going after them, and contrary to what people believe power wise she's not useless but I will say that I do agree with most people that she has weak character development, as for my opinion I think she's okay but in all honesty she could've been much better. So for today's chapter I'm going to be explaining how I would fix Sakura, I will also compare her to Bronya Zaychik from Honkai Impact 3rd because I think Bronya is a great example on how to write a tritagonist a third most importance outside of the protagonist and deuteragonist plus I think it's another good opportunity to compare Naruto and Honkai Impact 3rd because I love both series. So without further ado let's get started.

Compelling backstory

The first key issue with Sakura is that she doesn't have a compelling backstory and therefore doesn't make her understandable to Naruto and Sasuke. For context to what I'm looking at is that the closest thing to a sad backstory is that she was bullied because of her large forehead, which is sad but compare that to Naruto and Sasuke's backstory and you'll find that Sakura's is a walk in the park. Naruto lost both of his parents on the day he was born and was ostracized by society due to having the Nine Tails sealed inside of him and Sasuke lost his parents because his older brother Itachi slaughtered them along with the entire Uchiha clan and is ostracized because he's an Uchiha who are blamed for the Nine Tails attack. Sakura doesn't have that type of backstory both of her parents are still alive and outside of some few kids she is no ostracized by society and therefore is never able to understand Naruto and Sasuke. When we look at Bronya you'll notice that she doesn't have that issue, Bronya is an orphan as a result of the Second Honkai Eruption she lost both of her parents after her birth and spent 12 years of her life being a child soldier training under a Russian gang and is forced on tasks with carrying out assassinations until Cocolia adopted her, this also makes her understandable to Kiana and Mei, Kiana was a clone created by Otto until she was rescued by Siegfied and after an attack her father left leaving her alone, and Mei was a rich kid who lost her mother and was popular until her father was arrested and was ostracized by society until Kiana stepped in and became her first real friend. What makes this trio understandable to one another is that they have similar experiences of being orphans as a result of the Honkai and being ostracized by society. So how do we fix Sakura's backstory? Well I think in order for this to work we're going to have Sakura lose her parents at a very young age and the best time for this to happen is during the Nine Tails attack which isn't out of the question because you have to remember that Sakura's birthday is March 28th and the attack happened on October 10th so at that time Sakura would be around nearly 7 months old. There are ways to kill of Sakura's parents, let's say here that Sakura's parents are incredibly powerful ninja admired by the village and in this instance and as such they are selected as bodyguards for Kushina giving birth to Naruto and like most bodyguards they are immediately killed by Obito or when the Nine Tails is unleashed on Konoha, Sakura's parents died defending the village. Now we have Sakura an orphan but let's take this a step further let's say that Danzo found a baby Sakura probably in the hospital or at her house where a babysitter died trying to protect or or her parents died trying to protect her, because of how powerful her parents are, Danzo would see a lot of potential in the young Sakura and he would have her placed in the Root to beginning training for the next 6 years Sakura's childhood would being her groomed into a heartless killing machine being forced to kill her friends like Sai was when he underwent that same training and she would be a prodigy at a young age and even at just 5 or 6 years old Sakura would take part in assassination missions and make a name for herself much like Bronya, however Sakura would have hope, one of her trainers who's her instructor who is a female shinobi would apply to Sakura's humanity and teach her the values of kindness, compassion, friendship, and love and her goal is to get Sakura out of the Root so she could raise Sakura as her daughter something that doesn't sit well with Danzo and he would attempt to stop them however the woman would Sakura to the Third Hokage and tell him everything before Danzo could stop her and have her killed. However Sarutobi would order for Danzo to let Sakura and the woman who would now be her adopted mother to live a normal life and Danzo is forced however he would leak the information to the public that Sakura and her adopted mother are Root ninja making Sakura's childhood more difficult than it already is as she and her new mother would have to deal with backlash and bullying from society not just because she has a large forehead but because she was one of Danzo's Root ninja. And we know that Danzo is capable of something like this because as stated in the two Itachi light novels that Danzo leaked the information to the public that Naruto is the Nine Tails Jinchuriki to undermine the Third Hokage thus making Naruto have a much difficult childhood. Now this means Sakura can relate to Naruto and Sasuke in almost every way. All of them are orphans losing their parents due to tragic circumstances thanks to the likes of an Uchiha and Danzo adding more salt to injury. With this type of backstory it can actually help her character it would make moments such as applying to Sai's humanity much more meaningful since she knows what it feels like to be a member of Root, her trying to make the love confession to Naruto as well as Sasuke would be much more meaningful since she would understand how they feel. The only real way for Sakura to truly relate to her teammates is if she had a similar backstory of her own because I do think that much like Naruto and Sasuke it would help Sakura fully grow as a person and development as a character.

Sakura and Ino's relationship

Secondly the issue I have with Sakura is because of her relationship with Ino. For context in the original series both Sakura and Ino used to be best friends as Ino defended her from bullies and helped Sakura embrace her forehead and to never let others beat her down all of that is great until you realize that both girls have a crush on Sasuke which turns their friendship into a rivalry and don't get me started on the fight in the Chunin Exams it's so boring and over dramatic that it makes me want to fall asleep and it gets even worse in the timeskip as outside of the Naruto Shippuden filler content, both of them hardly interacted with each other at all, overall Sakura and Ino's relationship is supposed to be the Naruto and Sasuke 2.0 but it's not only laughable but poorly written and completely shallow. Which once again an issue Bronya doesn't have with her relationship with Seele. Bronya and Seele grew up as orphans in the same orphanage as a result of the Second Eruption with a minor difference is that unlike Bronya, Seele was never raised to be a child solider for the first years of her life, and they were having a good time until Seele vanished in the Sea of Quanta which as a result Bronya vows to save her which she eventually does, and not only is their relationship healthy but they have moments of actual character development like when Seele teams up with her dark counterpart Dark Seele aka Veliona to save Bronya, we have moments where both trained together to get stronger, we have moments of them working together to save the day. Overall Bronya and Seele's relationship is so powerful and impactful that they truly are Kiana and Mei 2.0. So how do we fix this? Well let's start by making them similar by having Ino's parents die on the night on the Nine Tails attack which makes sense because Ino was born on September 23rd which is 17 days before October 10th. Anyways Ino's parents can die fighting the Nine Tails or directly killed by Obito either way Ino is an orphan like Sakura, but unlike Sakura, Ino actually lives a normal childhood from the start as she has other family to raise her weather it'd her aunt, uncle, godparents, grandparents, adult cousins, whatever at least she has 2 parent figures raising her. We'll still have her defend Sakura from bullies despite her popularity but this time it can be actually meaning as both girls would form a bond of their similar experiences and Sakura would be scared that Ino wouldn't like her because Danzo raised her to be a Root ninja but Ino would tell Sakura that she doesn't care where she came from all that matters to her is who she is now she would encourage Sakura to not let her past dictate who she is and not let people bring her down we can also see Ino defending Sakura from other villagers. As for their rivalry sure it can be over Sasuke but that won't be the only reason why their rivalry began, Sakura would feel as though she's in Ino's shadow as Ino was good at everything better than she is and would make her jealous of Ino much like hoe Naruto was jealous of Sasuke because Sasuke was good at everything, so Sakura decides that Ino is her rival and Sakura vows to surpass her, overall their rivalry would be much more meaningful so when we get to the actual Chunin Exams fight it'll be the same but in a way that makes sense let's have the fight to where they both overcome their flaws like this: After Sakura breaks out of Ino's mind transfer jutsu, both girls get into a bloody fist fight with taijutsu not holding anything back and breaking some bones in the process while also seeing flashbacks of their childhood to make the fight much more emotional as we can see a little bit of tears coming out of their eyes as despite their rivalry they actually miss each other when they used to be friends and so when they clash it's emotional impactful except in this scenario Ino is knocked out first and due to take several damage herself Sakura is knocked out too. Now technically this does end in a tie but seeing Sakura being the last girl standing before going out would be enough for both girls to reconcile their relationship. On top or that let's give them so interactions in Part II, like let's say that they train together under Tsunade, let's say that they have some sparing matches to get stronger and they basically motivate each other let's say Sakura comforts Ino after Asuma's death and Ino asks to train with her so she could get stronger let's say both of them learn some incredible ninja skills and to make things more impactful let's say Ino dies saving Sakura's life during the Pain arc and have a heart warming reunion after Nagato revives all the villagers including Ino and when Sasuke officially brands Sasuke a rogue ninja let's have Ino be the one to talk to Sakura instead of Shikamaru as they tearfully comfort each other after learning Sasuke's with the Akatsuki, and have conversation with both remembering them blushing and screaming Sasuke's name during childhood whenever he did something that Ino understands how Sakura is feeling as someone who also has a crush on Sasuke but for the sake of the village he has to be taken out and Ino vows to help Sakura deal with Sasuke. And speaking of Sasuke what I'm going to add is Sakura being determined to put an end to Sasuke's suffering with the help of Konoha 11 all of whom would be much stronger than originally regardless Sakura has this determination because of Ino and it allows Sakura to be a incredible person to fight Sasuke head on with the intent to kill though Sakura would confess her love to Sasuke tearfully and Ino alongside Konoha 11 are there to support her and help her. Of course Sasuke would still defeat them and Kakashi and Naruto individually step in at the last second to save them but regardless, Sakura's character would've been drastically better thanks to Ino and speaking of which I can also add moments when they are fighting together during the Fourth Great Ninja War. Overall with these factors Sakura and Ino would truly be Naruto and Sasuke 2.0. Much better in my opinion than Sakura and Ino butting heads because they whine and complain over a boy who wants nothing to do with them and actually give them moments that makes love them even more rather than them barely interacting at all, had we seen these incredible moments with Sakura and Ino I alongside everyone else would've loved them just as much we did with Bronya and Seele.

Actually catches up to Naruto and Sasuke

Finally the last problem is that despite Sakura saying she's caught up to Naruto and Sasuke in reality she actually didn't. If you guys don't really notice Sakura is by far the weakest member in Team 7, she can't keep up with Naruto and Sasuke as they continuously to grow in power and sure despite having training from Tsunade we never actually see her continue to grow in power sure she has 100 Healings Jutsu but at best is below even Dual Mangekyo Sharingan Kakashi. And once again Bronya doesn't have that problem. Even though Kiana and Mei are Herrschers from the very start with split persona they are in conflict with and grow in power the story, the series does a great job at making sure Bronya catches up to them, they do so by giving her own Herrscher from such as the Herrscher of Reason which makes her one of the most unique Herrschers out there with her being able to create weapons and objects out of thin air simply by using her imagination making her extremely version, with her being able to travel across dimensions at super fast speeds with her being able to hold her own against the best of the best, and going a step further, Bronya eventually awakens her final form Herrscher of Truth which is basically an upgraded version of Reason except she has a spear that can transform into a iron suit which allows her to be on par with Herrscher of Finality Kiana and Herrscher of Origin Mei and even hold her own against Kevin who is using the Herrscher of Fianlity's power. Throughout the story even though Kiana and Mei are the stars, Bronya makes sure that she's never far behind she might not be as strong as Kiana and Mei but Bronya is relatively close. So how do we fix this with Sakura? Well her training under Tsunade is an interesting concept but to make things interesting let's say that during the time skip she has the Strength of a Hundred Seal from the very start she just simply hasn't mastered it yet and since this is a jutsu from the Sage of Six Paths era let's go as far as to say that this is a jutsu that at it's full power can utilize Six Paths chakra but nobody other than Hagaromo that is until Sakura awakens it's full power during the War arc and let's say that the Seal can utilize both Yin and Yang Release for defense and offensive attacks much like they showed in the Naruto Storm 4 video game and going a step further let's say that by using Hundred Seal, Sakura can regenerate even if half her body is destroyed almost near Ten Tails Jinchuriki level unlike Tsunade who can't regenerate her low half of her body whatever something that allows Sakura to be to on par with Six Paths Sage Mode Naruto and Rinnegan Sasuke. Now as far as hax goes this one should be easy, it was mentioned that Sakura was a genjutsu specialist but outside of Part 1 and in the beginning of Part 2 it was never touched on again so here I'm going to have Sakura being a true genjutsu master being able to resist Sharingan level genjutsu and we'll take it a step further and say that combined with the Hundred Seal her genjutsu abilities and resistances increase even further so much so that she could even see Madara's limbo clones. Now narrative Sakura wouldn't be ridiculously OP right a way much like how Naruto and Sasuke weren't but regardless you should make Sakura powerful enough where she could hold her own and be on par with them. She may not be as powerful as Naruto and Sasuke but at least she'd be relatively close

And that's how I would fix Sakura Haruno. Like I said before I don't hate her nor do I dislike I think she's just an average decent character with wasted potential, had Sakura gotten the steps I would give her or had Kishimoto written her better and make her just as important as Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura would've been loved and a fan favorite by the entire fandom much like Bronya was in Honkai. But let me know in the comments below how would you fix Sakura's character and I will see you all next time. Peace.