Sakura Haruno is one of the main protagonists of Naruto and Tsunade's successor as one of the greatest medical ninja in the world. Unfortunately, she's also one of the most reviled characters in the series. Many fans have piled on the pink-haired kunoichi for her weak battle capabilities; treating Naruto like trash and following Sasuke like a lapdog. But much of this can be blamed on creator, Masashi Kishimoto, who is pretty sexist in his treatment of all of Naruto's female characters -- relegating most of them to support or healing roles.

While Boruto has done much to fix her character, fans didn't get to see Sakura's growth during her teenage years, which severely stunted her personality. What's doubly frustrating is that Sakura had the potential for a fantastic character arc and having that snatched away makes fans hate her even more. She is one of the few ninja who came from a civilian family and she was able to gain worldwide renown without any powerful bloodlines or ninjutsu secrets.

So, let's pause the Sakura hate train for a moment in order to appreciate her better qualities and explore how she could've been an amazing character to root for in Naruto.

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Sakura has been noted since the beginning of Naruto to be highly intelligent. As a Genin, she passed an exam meant for Chuunin, earning her a spot on Team 7 to help her more physically gifted teammates with her smarts. Even though she developed brute strength later, her battles revolved around deceiving an opponent into letting their guard down. The best example of her intelligence comes from her amazing battle with Sasori where she outsmarted the seasoned ninja at almost every turn.

It's hard to believe people didn't forgive Sakura for her useless "Naruto-kun" and "Sasuke-kun" shrieks pre-Shippuden after seeing her pure badassery. We needed more moments like this -- like when she flushed Kakashi from his hiding place in the bell test, or when she discovered the white Zetsu clone during the Fourth Shinobi World War. Kishimoto should have made her the tactician of Team 7 so that we could see Sakura's strengths besides her weaknesses. She had incredible analytical skills, made insightful comments and possessed sound battle judgment (when the plot didn't require her to mess up). Allowing those talents to shine would've made the Team 7 relationships much more interesting.

Along with her intelligence, Sakura also has impressive chakra control that is better than Naruto and Sasuke's. However, rather than hone those skills further, Kishimoto used her natural gifts as a way to deny her an opportunity to grow. We never got concentrated episodes focusing on Sakura's struggles or how she improved. Instead, Kakashi, who is one of the worst teachers ever, decided to use the time to train Naruto and Sasuke further and left Sakura to her own devices. He taught Sasuke the Chidori and helped Naruto develop his Rasenshruiken but he never offered to train Sakura further. We should actually applaud her initiative in seeking out Tsunade and developing as much as she did after Kakashi's lax tutelage.

Sakura's abilities opened the door for all sorts of techniques as she was noted to have a genjutsu affinity but again, her ninja development fell to the wayside. Sure, she had chakra-enhanced strength and medical abilities but we never saw her use those abilities in creative ways and she never developed a unique technique. Had she used her affinity for genjutsu alongside her super-powered fists and intelligence, we could have seen some truly epic moments.

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Whether some fans like to admit it or not, Sakura's stubbornness has positives. In fact, she is actually extremely tenacious. As one of the few ninja who comes from a civilian family, it is no small feat for her to end up as one of the greatest medical ninja in the world without a powerful bloodline. We see her determination in one poignant moment where she cuts off her long pink hair to save her friends, casting her previous weakness aside. That should have been the point where we saw her develop into a well-rounded character as she finally discarded her superficial focus on beauty and truly committed to being a ninja.

However, Kishimoto dropped the ball (again) and fed us pieces of her potential before deciding to throw Sakura to the side. We should've followed Sakura's growth after this character-defining change for an underdog story that, at minimum, could have been just as inspiring as Rock Lee's.

So yes, Sakura is an irritating character but it's because her worst traits are brought to the surface while her strengths are pushed to the side. Kishimoto has gone on record saying he tried to counteract the Sakura hate by drawing her prettier during the Fourth Shinobi War, which clearly didn't work. In fact, his move backfired as it revealed how little he understood Sakura and his general inexperience with writing nuanced female characters.

With Sakura, Kishimoto planted the seeds for a fantastic character but failed to nurture them to their fullest potential. Sakura was, and still is, highly intelligent, fierce and talented and it's bittersweet to imagine how much richer the story would've been had she become a fully-developed ninja. Hopefully, future anime creators will realize that simply making female characters attractive, at best, only appeals to a small demographic. At worse, it damages the character's long-run popularity.

KEEP READING: Naruto: 5 Characters Sakura Can Defeat (& 5 She Can't)