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sasorikigai · 4 years

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100 days of headcanons:

Day 32: Death

He is the only dead mortal even before the inception of Mortal Kombat, as Scorpion, the Spectre of the Netherrealm, previously Hanzo Hasashi, who was once a member of the Japanese Shirai Ryu ninja clan (a General, the second-in-command next to the Grandmaster in my headcanon). Given the name Scorpion for his blindingly fast and deadly fighting skill, his life was blessed with glorious kombat in the name of his Grandmaster. But when he, his family and his clan were brutally exterminated by Sub-Zero and the Lin Kuei, Scorpion's existence became eternal torment (the first Shirai Ryu extinction).

Resurrected by the malevolent necromancer Quan Chi, he entered the Mortal Kombat tournament to slay Sub-Zero and avenge the murders of his kin. Even after taking in the survivors of the Netherrealm War (which had him, as Scorpion, killed once again by Sindel), not only he would continuously relive the deaths of his family and his clan, but he would of his own as well when Forrest Fox gets corrupted by the Kamidogu blade, then poisons Hanzo with one of his own mixtures and bounds him by his own spear and chain, forcing him to relive his worst moments while Fox kills a majority of the Shirai Ryu (the second Shirai Ryu extinction). Hanzo hallucinates of his past during the Lin Kuei's massacre of the Shirai Ryu. Though he fights through the Lin Kuei with ease, Hanzo falls to his knees in grief when he happens upon the frozen bodies of his wife Harumi holding their infant son Satoshi.

Throughout this ordeal, Hanzo Hasashi fights with both desperation and sole paternal protectiveness towards Takeda, even subduing and overpowering Raiden in the process to steal the dagger and pursue the tracks of the culprit. Once Chaosrealm’s cleric Havik reveals that he was the one who corrupted Raiden, Sub-Zero, and Forrest Fox, and states Scorpion is the next to be corrupted without Takeda around to save him, Hanzo is Infuriated that Havik killed his clan simply to provoke him, He gives into his Scorpion persona and ruthlessly attacks the chaos cleric with hellfire covered kicks and punches, culminating in breaking Havik's neck before punching his head into bits of bone and burning flesh.

His vengeance fulfilled, Scorpion begins to walk away when he whirls around in shock to see Havik staggering back up, burning and smoking but regenerating from his wounds before launching a counterattack that sends Scorpion flying through the chamber doors. Havik then reveals Takeda in a possessed Shujinko's grip, the Chaosrealm Kamidogu held at his throat as Havik threatens to make Hanzo's apprentice his slave. Havik reveals he desires Scorpion's "friendship" so that fire and blood will "liberate" the realms from order under the Elder Gods rule, saying he only wanted Takeda as leverage, not caring what Hanzo does with the boy once he gives into his true nature.

Hanzo hesitates to act, allowing Havik to begin ruthlessly attacking him, unable to fight back without risking Takeda's life. As Havik demands to know how much farther he has to push Hanzo before Scorpion takes over, Hanzo tells him "All...the way", much to Havik's delight. Havik then begins ripping Hanzo's arms from their sockets, and while the Shirai Ryu nearly gives into his hellfire, he refuses, looking to Takeda with a single tear in his eye as he tells his apprentice that he will always have a choice. With that, Havik punches Hanzo in the chest with enough force to puncture his flesh and collapse both of his lungs. Hanzo collapse in a pool of his own blood, and Takeda rushes to his teacher's side. As Havik eagerly awaits Scorpion's rebirth, Hanzo uses the last of his strength to tell Takeda to run, before succumbing to his wounds, dying in his student's arms. To Havik's disappointment, Takeda reveals that Scorpion was never another personality within Hanzo and as such, the hellspawn will not be reborn. Hellfire may dwell within him, but his life is more than the infernal destruction of the Netherrealm’s essence as Hanzo refutes, for the fire is his heart beating. Proclaiming that he has something to live for,

This is one of many recounts of such intimate relationship Hanzo has with death, also excruciatingly struggling with his own anger, residing in the demonic form of Scorpion, as there are recurrent thoughts that take over his subconscious. In MKX story ending, Hanzo wanted to commit hara-kiri because of his complicit role in resurrecting Shinnok with his vengeance and wrath. Guilt-driven anger has always been Hanzo’s pitfall ever since he was resurrected back to life in MKX, just before the events of the comics. Even as he has significantly matured and developed in MK11, it’s something he has to purposefully and consciously be mindful, because he knows his temperament will always gravitate towards plunging in the depths of infernal, everburning embers of Netherrealm’s hellfire.

Once again, when Scorpion later arrives to confront his present counterpart (Grandmaster Hasashi), who was restored to his human form, after the latter defeats D'Vorah, who was torturing Kharon for refusing to assist Kronika. Scorpion believes that Kronika can restore the Shirai Ryu to their true potential and original bloodline, viewing the present Hanzo's Shirai Ryu as tainted and imperfect. The two Scorpions clash, resulting in the victory of the present Hanzo, who knows that his past self only sides with Kronika just to restore their wife Harumi, and their son Satoshi, not including other original Shirai-Ryu clansmen. Hanzo tells Scorpion that one of Kronika's goals would be to resurrect Shinnok, the very being responsible for their family and clan's demise. When Hanzo is ambushed by D'Vorah, who poisons him with her venom, Scorpion, convinced by Hanzo's words, slices off her pincers and forces her to retreat. Scorpion's poisoned counterpart tells him that the Shirai Ryu are defined by their heart, not blood, before dying in Scorpion's arms.

Death isn’t something Hanzo Hasashi fears, lest he feels the excruciating torment of pain and suffering. He knows, as long as the Netherrealm exists and the fire in his heart burns, he will always resurrect back. Scorpion (the inner demon inside him) had been long been defeated, and all he has to do is to let the eternal glow of his magnanimous sun bask the world as he would see the evil and darkness burn ablaze.

In the past, Kuai Liang took on his brother's colors and codename, Sub-Zero, and fought his killer, Scorpion, in Shao Kahn's tournament in Outworld. Sub-Zero defeated Scorpion and was ordered by Shao Kahn to finish him. Kuai made it clear he would not kill for him, but for his brother and prepared to finish Scorpion when a group of cyborg Lin Kuei appeared around him. Sub-Zero screamed in defiance that he would not be turned but was captured and put through the cyborg process without his volition. Kuai eventually regained control of himself but was shortly killed there after by Sindel. When he next regained consciousness, he was in the Netherrealm before the arch-sorcerer Quan Chi.

Sub-Zero was confused by the fact his friend Smoke was restraining him along with Jax Briggs and Quan Chi explained their souls belonged to the Netherrealm, as Kuai's now did as well. Quan Chi told Kuai his army needed resilient souls for the coming war, and while he defiantly declared he would not be his slave, Quan Chi retorted he would be his puppet and used his magic to lift Kuai into the air before destroying his cyborg body, freeing what little remained of his organic body and making him back to a mortal being, using his dark sorcery to regrow Kuai's human body, reviving him as one of his revenants and forcing him to serve the Netherrealm.

In the final hours of the Netherrealm War, Sub-Zero fought alongside fellow revenants Scorpion and Jax Briggs against a squad of Special Forces soldiers in Quan Chi's fortress. Sub-Zero was ordered by Scorpion to protect Quan Chi but was too late as Sonya Blade defeated the sorcerer, allowing Raiden to finish his incantation, knocking Kuai unconscious. He would awaken months later, confused and believing himself in another hell. When a voice called out to him, he lashed out in anger with an ice blast, but Raiden easily deflected it, telling Kuai he was safe in the Sky Temple. He was confused about being truly alive again and Raiden explained his restoration to life was due to his power combining with Quan Chi's and the thunder god welcomes Kuai back. Kuai expresses his deep remorse over the actions he committed under Quan Chi's control, asking Raiden how he could live with himself.

Shortly after this, Sub-Zero gets possessed by the Kamidogu, Kuai pleads his innocence to Hanzo in desperation as they battle for inevitable death of one another, but Scorpion refuses to listen, only kicking Sub-Zero back while following up with his swords, all the while mocking Kuai for blaming his actions on the Kamidogu before shattering his kori blades. Kuai declares that the dagger possessed him while firing an ice blast at Scorpion and kicking him over with a slide. Kuai promises to return with Scorpion to Raiden to explain his actions but Scorpion only rages about how Kuai's brother denied the Lin Kuei's involvement with the destruction of the Shirai Ryu. Angered by Hanzo's inability to let go of the past, Kuai shouts at him to move on and proclaims that there are no more Lin Kuei, revealing the cyborgs killed all those who would not convert, with Kuai claiming he is all that is left of his clan.

Scorpion summons two demonic minions to hold an off-guard Sub-Zero in place, declaring they will finish their feud before impaling Kuai Liang with both of his swords. Spitting blood, Kuai weakly tells Hanzo he is not a monster and pleads with him to remember the horrible things they both did in Quan Chi's service and asks him to remember the agony of being controlled by an evil spirit. Left for dead by Hanzo, Kuai futilely tried to struggle to his feet when a voice called out to him, telling him to stop or he would bleed out faster while telling him to ask himself what his life has meant up to this point. The stranger then treats Kuai's wounds as Kuai explains his story up to that point, and tells the man who saved his life, Bo' Rai Cho, that he will never be free, saying he will always be forced to kneel before sorcerers and demigods. As Bo' Rai Cho helps Sub-Zero up, the cryomancer contemplates hara-kiri, but Bo' Rai Cho laughs this off and tells him Raiden owes him a favor, which confuses Kuai.

The honorable death is something he had sought after, specifically after the Kamidogu endeavor, but he continues and trudges on, eventually taking over the role of the Grandmaster and reforming the clan to get rid of the criminality and being complicit in involving themselves to bring about the Earthrealm’s extinction. His role always had been to make amends for his unwilling service, bidding evil’s deeds by serving as the solemn protector of the Earthrealm and reform the Lin Kuei. He relentlessly fights against the forces of evil, as in the events of MK11, never putting off his duties and responsibilities as Sub-Zero and his allies immediately goes to Netherrealm where Kronika’s Keep is, guided by Kharon, and joined by Earthrealm’s surviving armies of the Special Forces, the Shaolin and Kitana’s reformed Outworld army to thwart Kronika’s schemes.

Numerous deaths Kuai Liang experienced only made him strong and optimistic, as his cryomancy burned hotter than the sun as he vowed as his enemies will fall like snow. Even as a half-human who has seen and threatened to be consumed under the mortality and rigidity of death multiple times against evil, Sub-Zero has always fought to ensure the Earthrealm’s safety and sustenance, and fight until his last breath.

#✗ obsessive cathartic (headcanon)#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ bone-deep chill of despair (sub-zero)#✗ seeking reconciliation with his own humanity (iii)#✗ you are an equal amongst deceivers (iii)#(whoa this got long but if you are not familiar with mk and would like to know more about hanzo and kuai's history)#(HERE. HAVE THIS WORD VOMIT)

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rhetoricandlogic · 7 years

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What The Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies At The End #3) - David Wong

David Wong—the pseudonym of Jason Pargin, executive editor of the popular comedy site Cracked.com—burst onto the literary scene with John Dies at the End (2007). A surprise indie blockbuster that was later reissued by a mainstream publisher, the title was also adapted for film by Don Coscarelli and is largely considered to be a cult classic. A sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders, followed in 2012, as did an award-winning standalone novel, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (2015). Now, after much anticipation, the author returns with What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror—the third book in his informally named John Dies at the End series.

As the story opens, readers are reacquainted with David (“Dave,” aka the author)—best friend of the notorious John—who shares an apartment over a sex toy shop in an unnamed Midwest town with his girlfriend, Amy. Dave is frequently inundated with unsolicited packages from those who are familiar with the trio’s otherworldly exploits in eradicating evil and wish to rid themselves of their “weird bullshit”; in fact, he frequently sleepwalks only to find himself among these collectibles in his storage (“junk”) room the next morning. Despite a shared reputation for being hilariously inept in paranormal endeavors, Dave possesses a sharp self-awareness that results in the pop culture savvy that punctuates his storytelling:

“Let me tell you what’s bullshit about every supernatural horror movie. Whenever the monster or angry ghost lady turns up, everybody is skeptical for at least the first third of the running time. It’s usually between forty and fifty minutes in that the protagonists begrudgingly admit that the ominous Latin chants emanating from the walls aren’t a plumbing issue. In real life, the very second Mom sees something red oozing from the ceiling, she thinks “blood” not “water from a rusty old pipe.” I wish people were as skeptical as they are in the movies”.

When Dave is awoken by a phone call from John, he immediately recognizes that this could signify one of three things: a) a drunken misdial; b) an emergency; or c) an “emergency.” And while those drunken misdials account for approximately 70% of their telecommunications, this particular call falls into the much rarer non-quotation, and thereby true, emergency category.

Said emergency is the disappearance of a young girl, Maggie, at the hands of an enigmatic shapeshifter known only as “Mister Nymph.” Maggie’s father, Ted, is an irascible war veteran who understands that the circumstances of his daughter’s kidnapping are far beyond the scope of the local authorities; consequently, he enlists John and Co. in getting her back.

Their arrival upon the scene only serves to amplify a longstanding rift with local police (John is currently up on a public indecency charge), who deride their abilities but remain derelict in duty. For example, upon reintroduction, Dave is met with, “I remember you from your involvement in every single horrible thing that has happened in this town for the last several years.”

Not surprisingly, Maggie’s disappearance quickly proves to rank among the very worst of those horrible things. To say much more would risk ruining the unabashed lunacy of the plot, but what can be revealed is that more children go missing, Dave is (falsely?) implicated, and the very fate of the world may just be at stake. Also, there’s a BATMANTIS??? on the loose. And a reality TV doctor. And a shady group of agents from a mysterious organization called NON.

Needless to say, Dave and John must risk going back on the “Soy Sauce”—a drug that causes its users to drift between dimensions before dying particularly gruesome deaths (Dave and John are among its only known survivors)—to figure it all out.

Despite the more outlandish aspects of the story, there are serious undertones that resonate in real-world ways. Dave, who is unemployed and possesses no discernible vocational skills, is struggling with depression. Amy, the sole wage earner, is struggling with Dave’s inability to deal with his depression; this puts a subtle-yet-significant strain on their relationship. John is not immune to human weakness, either; he is dependent on both drugs and alcohol and remains perpetually immature. In an otherwise satirical saga, this is a poignant reminder that the monsters that dwell within are often more difficult to recognize and defeat than the ones that exist outside ourselves.

Much of this depth is achieved through the use of multiple viewpoints. While Dave narrates in the first person (as “Me”), his reflections are offset by his counterparts’ (which are presented in the third person); John is unsurprisingly grandiose but big-hearted, and Amy is both pragmatic and principled. This variance allows for a “big picture” landscape that negates the inevitable biases of its individual tellers. Excerpts from Dr. Albert Marconi’s fictitious book, Fear: Hell’s Parasite, are also interspersed throughout and provide some absolute gems that address the power of perspective (among other topical considerations):

“All of this is to say that our sight is very limited, precisely because it is skewed to serve a few specific functions, all of which are geared toward one singular goal: Survival … Whether you ‘see’ the universe as pure or corrupt, peaceful or violent, just or unjust, is largely determined by what you need to believe in order to motivate yourself to continue living for another day.”

Ultimately, What the Hell Did I Just Read transcends the gags, the gore, the gadgets (remember that sex shop?), and the gratuity—while still reveling wholeheartedly in it—to tell a story of survival that, despite its manyabsurdities, is one we’re all living.

#David Wong #What The Hell Did I Just Read #mahreviews

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xb-squaredx · 7 years

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Sakura Haruno: Naruto’s Worst Missed Opportunity

The Naruto manga and anime may be over, but there’s still plenty to talk about in regards to the series. One of the series’ greatest strengths was its large cast of interesting characters, but one character in particular stands out as a massive missed opportunity. I’d like to go over in-depth why I believe that the author, Masashi Kishimoto, really dropped the ball in regards to the main heroine of the series, Sakura Haruno. I’ll assume anyone reading this has read/watched the series in full, but even so, here’s your spoiler warning. See you below the break.

I can break things down into about three key points that flow into each other, at each turn revealing that Kishimoto makes Sakura feel like more and more of an afterthought as time goes on. Let’s begin.

I. Plot Impact

Sakura is a main character in the story, but oddly she rarely has much impact on the plot. More often than not, Sakura feels like a wallflower who is content to be in the background while everyone else is doing something to drive either the plot or their own arcs forward. Look at the rest of her teammates and how they drive the plot forward, for instance.

Naruto, being the title character, has a huge impact on the plot. His goal to become Hokage is what makes the story. Outside of that, having the Nine Tailed Fox sealed within him results in the main antagonists taking personal interest in him later on. Almost every story arc in the series is about him growing stronger or developing in some way, and as the story goes on, we see his lineage is also pretty important, and he is eventually cast as a “Child of Prophecy” whose actions will shape the world for generations to come.

As for Sasuke, being the main rival and deuteuragonist of the series, he’s also a pretty big deal. The sole survivor of the Uchia Clan Massacre, his drive for revenge fuels his overall character arc, and as time goes on, the Uchiha Clan’s significance to the overall mythology of the show becomes incredibly important. Throughout the plot Sasuke is used as a pawn by several villains, and his own actions in the climax of the series are arguably the only thing that keeps the villains from winning. Throughout the series, his rivalry with Naruto is often compared to several infamous rivalries in-universe, their ultimate clash being built up constantly.

Onto their mentor, Kakashi Hatake. The son of a famous shinobi, and seen by many as one of the Leaf Village’s best, Kakashi is a constant source of strength throughout the series, as an ally or mentor. As time goes on, we learn more of Kakashi’s past and how much it ties into the present, namely the death of his teammate Rin and Kakashi’s own relationship with Obito Uchiha, who is eventually revealed to be one of the main antagonists. In the end of the series, his relationship with Obito carries as much weight as Naruto and Sasuke’s rivalry and his actions influence the climax in a very tangible way.

Sakura…had no real outstanding goals at the start of the series to drive her, and her own family has next to no impact in the plot itself. Her parents are never seen in the manga proper, only popping up in an anime movie, but the “Haruno clan” if it exists, is never shown to be that important to the Leaf Village, and thus the story. She is absent from many arcs in the series, and though she later learns medical ninjutsu under Tsunade and becomes quite proficient at it, it doesn’t really drive her goals forward. Her backstory, unlike the rest of her teammates, is largely “normal” and free from any real tragedy. Naruto was isolated his entire life, an orphan that everyone hated. Sasuke lives with intense survivor’s guilt and the trauma of seeing his beloved older brother murdering his clan. Kakashi, over time, lost everyone he ever cared about, while seeing countless deaths throughout the last great ninja war before the series began. Sakura…was bullied because she had a big forehead. One of these things doesn’t look like the other~

Kishimoto has mentioned in interviews here or there that Sakura, alongside Rock Lee, was meant to be a representative of “human weakness.” Now, there are tons of ways to read into that, but I think Kishimoto just intended for her to be the “normal” one of the group. The one that wasn’t weighed down by emotional baggage or superpowerful genetics that dive their every action. She could have been a character the audience could more easily relate to, but the sad fact is her character feels more like an afterthought compared to her team mates. She’s boring, barely a character and at least at the start she’s quite one-dimentional; the love-struck tween who can only think about boys.

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Of course, that doesn’t mean she couldn’t affect the plot as it moves forward, and in an action-heavy series like Naruto that basically means that as long as she participates in fights, she has some kind of tangible effect on the plot…except Kishimoto often seems to forget she’s there. If we count the times she engages in actual important conflicts, they fit on one hand and the gaps between them are massive. Her first real fights occur in the Chunin Exams, first against the Sound Ninja trio in the Forest of Death, then her tournament match with Ino Yamanaka. From that point, we wait until after the first “half” of the series ends and enters into a timeskip of almost three years (when the anime started calling itself Naruto Shippuden). Her fight with Sasori at the beginning of Part II is a big deal, admittedly, as she not only takes out a significant antagonist, but also gains useful intel from him. However, she then sits out the vast majority of the show’s conflicts until the final arc of the series, and at that point it feels like she’s there only out of some obligation on Kishimoto’s part, and it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, narratively. At that point she had fallen so far down the power creep scale, she shouldn’t have made any actual difference in the fight, and yet there she was…

That is not to say there aren’t some reasons for why she doesn’t participate in some plotlines, to be fair. Eventually studying to become a medical ninja, she takes on more of a support role, and in a military setting like the ninja world, the medic is extremely important. She doesn’t get to do much in the Invasion of Pain arc because she’s too busy trying to care for the countless wounded, for example. Storylines like the Search for Tsunade arc also don’t quite need her, though it would have been nice to at least imply she was training or something in the meantime. But on the whole, you could cut her out of the show and not really change much of anything. And a lot of this is due to supposed character development that never really materializes.

II. Character Development

I want to preface this by saying that Sakura DOES receive development as the series goes on, and the Sakura we see at the end isn’t the one we see at the beginning of the story. The problem comes in how inconsistently she develops, and as a result there are several huge character moments that never really get the payoff they promise.

The two biggest moments where Sakura is given the shaft by Kishimoto occur with some pretty big gaps in-between each other. The first, and arguably most iconic scene for Sakura, comes during her fight with the three Sound ninjas in the Chunin Exams. Forced to care for a comatose Naruto and Sasuke, she’s already got the deck stacked against her. She’s easily restrained by one of the enemy ninja, who grabs her hair. Mocking Sakura for putting more time into her appearance than her ninja training, Sakura realizes just how far she’s fallen behind her teammates and with regained resolve, she makes a final stand. Chopping her hair off, she puts up the best fight she can, and while it’s a powerful moment, the impact is lessened when, for the next few arcs, she’s content to stay in the background once more. She’s knocked out of the Chunin Exams after the Double KO with Ino, and despite Naruto and Sasuke being shown training afterward, she never seems to make good on her efforts to get stronger. And it’s not like she didn’t have several opportunities to showcase improved strength, but she remains a wallflower…at least until the timeskip. At that point, it does seem like she’s grown stronger and more mature. She gets along far better with Naruto, and freely speaks her mind now, no longer relying on that “Inner Sakura” running gag of saying one thing and thinking another. Her third major fight, teaming up with the Sand Elder Chiyo against Sasori seems to deliver on her promise to get stronger…only for her to be sidelined again for several arcs.

In the aftermath of the Five Kage Summit arc, Sakura’s second moment of potential growth occurs as her and Naruto attempt to track down Sasuke once again. Here Sakura finally becomes aware not only of Naruto’s own feelings for her, but of the burden she’s placed on him by asking him to bring Sasuke back to the village. She attempts to make things right by proclaiming her love for Naruto, and that she feels nothing for Sasuke anymore, but he easily sees through the lie. She then decides that she must take Sasuke out before he can hurt anyone else, going so far as to knock out her friends when they attempt to stop her. But when she has ample opportunity to take Sasuke out, she hesitates. That alone is frustrating, if somewhat understandable, but following this she’s easily overpowered by him, despite Sasuke being severely weakened and nearly blind at this point. She proceeds to be rescued not once but twice by Kakashi and Naruto.

What could have been a cathartic moment where she calls Sasuke out on his actions and moves past her feelings for him instead is a moment where all of her actions accomplished nothing and she becomes another damsel to be saved. It feels like she takes a few steps forward and then several steps backward at any given moment. Of course, this moment ties into the final area where Kishimoto fails Sakura as a writer: her “relationship” with Sasuke.

III. Sakura and Sasuke

(NOTE: This is an edit, but still pretty apt description of their relationship)

One of the first things we learn about Sakura as a character is that she loves Sasuke, and for a good while, “Sasuke-kun!” is about half of her dialogue. That said, she’s not alone here; almost every female in the series not named Hinata show at least some interest in Sasuke, so as far as a defining feature, it’s hardly unique. Throughout the series Sakura’s feelings grow in intensity, influencing her actions later on. However throughout the hundreds of chapters, the countless episodes of the anime and all the various multimedia installments, I don’t think there’s ever been a concrete reason why Sakura loves Sasuke. It’s clear she finds him attractive, but that’s about it. In fact, the early chapters make it clear that she knows next to nothing about Sasuke and he in return finds her annoying. Throughout the series he is aloof at best and downright cruel at worst, never doing anything that should inspire any fondness in her heart. Perhaps if Kishimoto established this as an unhealthy relationship this would be deliberate, we could have Sakura eventually coming to terms with that, but this realization never comes. Considering they have a happily-ever-after ending in the series’ epilogue, it doesn’t seem to be the author’s intent to show the relationship as invalid, unhealthy or unrealistic.

(So...that’s supposed to be endearing....?)

So many female characters fall into a trapping of becoming nothing but a love interest, their sole relevance being that of a trophy, an object to be fought over. Naruto likes Sakura, and that at least somewhat fuels his rivalry with Sasuke and, maybe subconsciously, his desire to be Hokage, as an example, though I’d say Sakura does pull away from that a bit. She is more than just a love interest for Naruto or Sasuke (or Rock Lee….); overtime, she becomes a confident, talented medical ninja and accomplishes a goal of becoming stronger. But the problem here is that all of her accomplishments and goals seem to be, more or less, to build up to the goal of getting Sasuke’s heart. She wants to get stronger so he’ll notice her, and later on, so she can bring him back to the Leaf Village when he defects. When she was younger she grew her hair out because she had heard that Sasuke liked girls with long hair. Half the time when she gets involved in the plot, it’s for Sasuke’s sake. It’s all about Sasuke, but the series is unable to make this love feel genuine. In a series rife with flashbacks, there isn’t ONE moment that shows us why Sasuke is so deserving of her love, nor do we get any real indication that Sasuke likes her all that much compared to all the other girls who fawn over him. It’s saying something that someone like Karin, a woman who takes her love for Sasuke to creepy, obsessive lengths, actually got a flashback later on that established just when she fell for him. Sakura didn’t get that and she married the guy!

I rag on this so much because it feels like this one-sided “romance” stole away such potential for Sakura as a character. Her ultimate fate in the story’s epilogue is playing housewife while Sasuke is out wandering the world, keeping it safe from unforeseen threats as a way of redemption, while Naruto has ascended to the role of Hokage. Sakura ends up in the background, even as an adult. She attained her goal, to marry a man who shows no affection towards her and is always gone, and despite undergoing training from one of the most respected ninja in the world, what does Sakura have to show for it in the end? With her own skills she could easily become a high-ranked ninja or medic of the highest caliber, but we don’t get to see any of that. I’m aware there are a large amount of side-stories that have been written/animated after the series ended, intended to fill in some gaps between the series’ climax and epilogue, but from what I’ve dug through, Sakura doesn’t do much of note.

That sums up Sakura’s journey pretty nicely, really. While there are a handful of strong moments and hints of true potential, Sakura feels like a secondary character awkwardly attached to major events every so often. Her effect on the plot is minimal in comparison to the other three main characters, with several large gaps between the small amounts of action she’s allowed to take part in, her development is in constant flux, and her relationship with Sasuke is a plot tumor that overshadows many other possible plotlines she could have gone down. I wouldn’t call Sakura the worst written character in Naruto, or the most forgettable one, but she is by far the biggest disappointment for me overall. With the Boruto manga and anime now hitting it big, I can only hope her daughter Sarada doesn’t share the same fate.

#naruto #sakura #sasuke #sasusaku #ninja #masashi kishimoto #manga

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