Which author is better with women? Toriyama or Kishimoto?

[Doctor.]

Women make half of the population, yet they are barely recognised in fiction, made background extras or (when you have a larger cast that begs for female) given one generic Smurfette. We are as different as males, with different experiences, background- etc. Yet you lumped us as unnamed mass you are uncomfortable with describing. You probably had no bad intentions, but as I said- suddenly elves and aliens are more comfortable to describe than females.

They're barely recognized in certain genres, in a medium almost entirely dominated by men, there's a reason why most of a cast is white, too, it's not because writer x or y dislikes women or certain races. Japanese manga authors who write more realistic or slice-of-life manga usually make their characters japanese, do they hate foreigners? Most likely not. It's about familiarity, both from the writer's and the audience's perspective.

Female characters usually have more depth in romance and drama than male characters, and usually women appreciate those genres far more than men. In a genre geared towards young boys, action-adventure, the male characters are obviously going to be more important. The audience is what most authors have in mind when they write, and they write what may appeal to the biggest group that enjoys that genre. Dragon Ball and Naruto are the perfect fantasy for young boys. Your criticism would have much more weight if they were realistic manga that try to appeal to a broad audience, but have one-dimensional female characters that only serve as baby-makers, and in which case I'd agree with you.

You can open up another point, however: do Dragon Ball and Naruto alienate female audiences? You can discuss about whether or not they do, and whether or not it should really matter. I say yes and no, respectively.

[Sayo-chan]

Female characters usually have more depth in romance and drama than male characters

I think this is far more of a generalization than an average. Even in Sailor Moon the male characters have just as much depth as the female characters. On occasion something really shitty gets popular, like Twilight, where the male characters are kind of just there for the sake of being there. But typically in those scenarios the female characters amount to nothing more than a stereotypical piece of cardboard. 50 Shades of Grey also falls prey to this, where all the main characters, regardless of their gender/sex, are poorly written. As a whole, I don't believe male or female characters hold more depth than one another in either of those genres, simply because of how large they are.

[Mystic Tien]

Didn't really watch much of Shippuuden, but from what I saw Kishimoto handled women better than Dragon Ball did. I mean the only important female (who is also the one of the most important characters in the whole franchise, no arguments here) was Bulma. The only important thing that Chi-Chi did was giving a birth to Gohan, and frankly any other girl (including Bulma) could do that. It is also arguable if Chichi's concern with Gohan studying helped him, or on the contrary, seeing how Gohan ended to be now. Android 18 was not needed in major scheme of things (I mean besides her being absorbed by Cell of course). Android 17 could defeat everyone alone, and he was the one to fight with Piccolo anyway. Her marrying Krillin also is not important for the Buu saga plot (besides her letting Satan win ) Videl? Well, she would have been important if she was the reason why Gohan defeated Buu (or Beerus), but she wasn't, and Pan so far plays no role in the new material besides that God ritual. In GT Pan helped though, but it wasn't Toriyama. Well, who is left? Gine? Everything in Dragon Ball Minus was made by Bardock. She barely played any role. Whoever is that attendant of Champa? We don't know yet, too early to tell. So far only Bulma and Future Bulma seem to be very important in the series.

Now, if we are speaking about Oda, then he managed to do it well, yet in the recent/new material, he does it pretty horrible. Before someone starts accusing me, no, I don't dislike Dressrosa, neither do I dislike any (besides Nami and probably Robin) further-mentioned characters, I am just disappointed with how Oda handles them. Let's start with Punk Hazard. Here we have a very important spy, named Monet. Not only she is an assistant of Caesar Clown, she is the subordinate of first Corazon (the most trusted and apparently the strongest person in Donquixote Family with awesome usage of Haki (seeing as he used full-body haki mode more than 10 years prior of Punk Hazard's events), and the sole logia in the whole Donquixote Family. Sounds like a very important person, right? But how an arc handles her? Very easily. Not only she doesn't kill Luffy (when she has a chance to, after him falling in some kind of dump), or any other people (heck, it is just like she didn't even try), while being superior in abilities to much of them, she doesn't even try to put as much an effort as she did against Luffy, against Zoro. Doesn't make much sense for me. It is if she was majorly weakened and dumbed down for the sake of the plot. Moreover she stopped attacking Nami and Robin, and Chopper right before them escaping and started fighting Zoro, who she just seconds later admitted she never had a chance to defeat him to begin with. Now we go further, Zoro doesn't hurt her, for some reasons Monet thinks, that Zoro can't fight women (while she studied him, and other Straw Hats prior them even arriving there), and completely lets her guard down. Then Zoro cuts her in the cheek, Monet is suddenly frightened and is in the state of panic (personal spy of Doflamingo, as well as executive of Donquihote Family, who was working for who knows how many years under Corazon for gods sake) After which Tashigi (who worths mentioning was earlier completely unable to hurt Monet, besides catching her off-guard, and was mocked by Zoro as well) with Monet being unable to do anything, because of her sudden fear, one-shots her. Sexist as hell, and yes, I love One Piece, but for me it was really stupid. I didn't see this kind of drivel in Dragon Ball.

Now we go for Sugar who is coincidentally revealed to be Monet's sister in SBS. She is probably the most important (besides Vergo) person in Donquixote Family, she is the one who keeps Dressrosa in check after turning every rebel or person who could threaten Doflamingo into a toy. The whole thing holds on her, if Sugar is killed/taken out, all toys turn into humans, everyone remembers them, and the whole idea/plan of Doflamingo, which he was executing all these years, is ruined in a matter of seconds. Yet what exactly happens? Right. Sugar gets unconscious because of... Usopp's stupid face. Right. The member of criminal organization of one of the strongest Shichibukai, who also has the Haoshoku Haki, is taken down by a stupid face. It is just stupid. And Oda seems on the way of doing this drivel starting with time-skip. Besides saying that Nami and Robin are nothing more than fan-service dolls (as they did nothing much of importance both in manga and anime starting with time-skip, while Robin at least tried to do it, though failing horribly to stop Sugar), none of the females introduced post-timeskip do anything particularly important, and get taken down quite fast. Monet gets one-shotted by a person much weaker than her (worths noting that the girl who taken her down, while catching her off-guard, also is mocked and treated as a garbage by Law, Zoro, Vergo and everyone else during the whole arc). Sugar doesn't even get one-shotted, she is just scared of a stupid face. Baby 5 is a really odd example, as she gets fodderized by Franky, yet later keeps up with Sai somehow, but of course because she is a girl, everything ends in a marriage. While other executives (who were not girls) got a pretty good victories or something close to that. Vergo destroyed Sanji in his own game while being specialized in Bamboo Stick, Diamante destroyed Rebecca(speaking of females' treatement), Gladius destroyed Hakuba, Lao G lent a couple of good hits on Chinjao, Dellinger fodderized Bellamy, Pika was able to give a fight to all Gladiators at once, Senior Pink was fighting equal with Franky (this guy who fodderized Baby 5), even Machevise was able to get a few hits on likes of Ideo. Now females? Nah, nothing at all, just humiliated.

It doesn't get much better as Rebecca literally does nothing important besides bringing a key to Law, and even in that she fails miserably being unable to defeat/hold off or even escape from Diamante without her daddy's Kyros help (kind of reminds me of the Gohan from the new material, lol)

Viola? While presenting some valuable knowledge is useless in completely everything else. And of course she also gets to be saved by Luffy. Because there is no way otherwise.

Before time-skip, while also having a lot of problems with females' treatment (Kalifa being weakened and dumbed down for the sake of winning, Miss Valentine being fodderized, Miss Doublefinger being dumbed down in the fight against Nami, Perona being scared by Usopp, albeit in a much more understandable and better way, and probably some else I forgot) we had characters like Vivi who went from a little princess to a pair of Number 9 in the criminal organization under lead of Crododile in amount of few years. She also was quite valuable in everything she did, and she was even able to stop bomb from being unleashed in the country (too bad, that it was set on timer anyway). We had Boa Hancock who was literally one of the strongest females in the series, was shown to be stronger than the main character, had Haoshoku Haki, and very strong physical power. We had Bellemere who dared to attack Arlong, and died to protect her kids. We had Nico Olvia who was for years studing the information which could help against the World Government. We had Nico Robin (do I even need to say anything there), and heck, even Nami was useful (besides all this obvious navigational thing for which she only worths now). We also had Vice-Admiral Tsuru who was of the age of Garp, were said about Big Mom (who worths noting was introduced only after time-skip, yet we didn't know much of her strength yet) who is one of the 4 Younko, 4 strongest pirates in One Piece, got Catarina Devon, who is supposed to be very strong, got Bonney, the pirate-girl being strong enough to become a Supernova, Etc, etc.

After time-skip we got only Shirahoshi who is a Poseidon, and Koala (who doesn't do shit in the whole arc and only hides from Sabo's opponents) which says a lot.

It is like all new females can only fight using their fruit. Monet? Nothing without a logia. Sugar? Nothing without her fruit. Rebecca? Nothing at all Baby 5? Nothing without a fruit. Viola? The same.

And nah, I don't hate them, I like all of them, yet they are all handled poorly IMO. I also don't hate One Piece. It is my favorite anime, or at least was before time-skip.

This all said, as for now, I think that DB treats females better than One Piece, while earlier (before time-skip) I think that One Piece treated them better. We also have a hope in this female attendant of Champa, or whoever she is, if she would be as strong as Whis or heck, even Beerus, this is one point in favor of Toriyama compared to modern Oda.

Sorry, if it sounds a bit off-topic, I just don't have much knowledge about Naruto, so I thought that I could share something quite related.

I don't know how you can use Oda as an example. His female characters are designed with humongous breasts and large hips as to be used as fanservice for young boys, and they're usually needy and are more common than not rescued by Luffy and his crew. Even Nami and Robin, which most will agree are the strongest females (personality-wise, of course) in the cast, served as damsels-in-distress in their own arcs, a role no other Straw Hat member had to be put through.

This. It wasn't the case before time-skip, but now apparently it is.

I also don't think that Nami and Robin are that strong in personality now, after time-skip. Nami was trying to escape from Monet, and a lot of other guys, constantly got scared, and Robin didn't have guts to kill, heck, even defeat Sugar, as we know, that her clutching doesn't kill anyone, because plot.

I personally still see Bellmere, Otohime (yeah, someone good from timeskip, don't belive that I say this), Nico Olvia, maybe Koala as well as the characters who have the strong will Koala maybe is even strong physically... But at this point I am not sure anymore. . The characters who were shown to be strong in will only to be greatly reduced: Monet, Robin (is there even difference between them?), Nami. Monet was really great before her sudden, unneeded and stupid fear of Zoro, which came out of nowhere. And she still was great when sacrificed (or at least tried to) her life for Doflamingo. I was greatly surprised. Nami is really pathetic compared to pretty much anyone else now. Heck, Rebecca is more admirable than her, and she doesn't even fight properly, besides all this evading stuff, etc.

[Bullza]

The correct answer is Oda.

Meh every female character he does is so overly specialised it's ridiculous same with Fairy Tail. At least Kishimoto doesn't really push that so much.

[funrush]

Probably Kishimoto. Even though his women play second fiddle at least they get to do things. Toriyama shelves most of his female characters into mom roles after their first arc. Only exceptions I can think of are Bulma and Launch but even they weren't really useful around Z.

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Both mangakas are equally good with Women.

This maybe is beside the topic but when i heard the words "This shonen mangaka sucks at writing females" i only see people complaining that either the females are not badass amazonians with warrior personallity kicking ass like their male counterparts or if a female is cute, innocent and friendly personallity girl with the male it equalls as bad writen female.

[FortuneSSJ]

Toriyama is no good with women (literally), but Kishimoto is just terrible.
Sorachi easily wins this one.

[The Monkey King]

I don't know how you can use Oda as an example. His female characters are designed with humongous breasts and large hips as to be used as fanservice for young boys, and they're usually needy and are more common than not rescued by Luffy and his crew. Even Nami and Robin, which most will agree are the strongest females (personality-wise, of course) in the cast, served as damsels-in-distress in their own arcs, a role no other Straw Hat member had to be put through.

Luffy had to save Zoro from execution when they first met.

Zoro had to save Brooke and get his shadow back for him as he was too weak to do it himself.

When it happens to male characters it's fine but when you do it to female characters you must be sexist.

Or what about the time Robin saved Luffy's life?

What about the fact that the whole crew would've died multiple times if it wasn't for Nami's navigational skills.

Oh what am I saying? All of Nami and Robin's positive contributions to the crew are all null and void because their boobs are too big. Let's forget their tragic fleshed out back stories and personalities.

I honestly hate topics like this. We're talking about action comic books written to appeal to young boys. Of course most of the cast are going to be male, I don't see anyone complaining as to why shoujo mangas don't have more male characters in important roles or complaining about none of the sailor senshi being male.

Anyway Most of the male characters aren't written too well or are one note characters (such as Brooke from One Piece) in shounen, so I don't understand why people feel that the author of a boys action comic book must hate all women everywhere just because they suffer from his imperfect writing also.

[Mystic Tien]

Both mangakas are equally good with Women.

This maybe is beside the topic but when i heard the words "This shonen mangaka sucks at writing females" i only see people complaining that either the females are not badass amazonians with warrior personallity kicking ass like their male counterparts or if a female is cute, innocent and friendly personallity girl with the male it equalls as bad writen female.

All I want is for females to be treated as humans, and them actually having a role in the story, besides being fan service dolls. I don't mind them having different personalities, as long as they are not tossed for other males, or are not constantly used as damsels in distress in the worst meaning of this word. In overall I didn't have any problems with females in Naruto, from what I watched, all of them were interesting, all of them had a role, some - smaller one, some - larger, and no one (as far as I am concerned) was used for fan-service sake. I also quite admired this Sakura's fight with Sasori in Shippuuden, heck they even made granny useful, interesting and strong. Now this is IMO a great achievement.

[Doctor.]

Luffy had to save Zoro from execution when they first met.

Zoro had to save Brooke and get his shadow back for him as he was too weak to do it himself.

When it happens to male characters it's fine but when you do it to female characters you must be sexist.

Or what about the time Robin saved Luffy's life?

What about the fact that the whole crew would've died multiple times if it wasn't for Nami's navigational skills.

Oh what am I saying? All of Nami and Robin's positive contributions to the crew are all null and void because their boobs are too big. Let's forget their tragic fleshed out back stories and personalities.

I honestly hate topics like this. We're talking about action comic books written to appeal to young boys. Of course most of the cast are going to be male, I don't see anyone complaining as to why shoujo mangas don't have more male characters in important roles or complaining about none of the sailor senshi being male.

Anyway Most of the male characters aren't written too well or are one note characters (such as Brooke from One Piece) in shounen, so I don't understand why people feel that the author of a boys action comic book feel that the author must hate all women everywhere just because they suffer from his imperfect writing also.

I honestly forgot about Zoro, but Brook's case is a bit different. He at least helped during his arc. Nami did nothing besides standing in the sidelines (though that's understandable considering she wouldn't gain any utility fighting wise until the Grand Line) and Robin was the damsel-in-distress in her arc.

I'm sorry if you interpreted my post as me saying that Oda was sexist, because that was definitely not the point. Nor was I trying to undermine Nami, Robin's, or any other female character's usefulness by calling out their design. The point was that Oda doesn't treat his female characters any better than Toriyama or Kishimoto (well, maybe not so much Kishimoto), in a general sense, because that wasn't their intention in the first place. Their intention was to appeal to young boys, and so they'll use male characters because young boys can relate better. Their treatment of female characters is usually the same.

[Mystic Tien]

I honestly hate topics like this. We're talking about action comic books written to appeal to young boys. Of course most of the cast are going to be male, I don't see anyone complaining as to why shoujo mangas don't have more male characters in important roles or complaining about none of the sailor senshi being male.

Anyway Most of the male characters aren't written too well or are one note characters (such as Brooke from One Piece) in shounen, so I don't understand why people feel that the author of a boys action comic book must hate all women everywhere just because they suffer from his imperfect writing also.

In shoujo (or at least macho shoujos) most of the villains are men or boys, so there is no problem IMO Like half of the villains in Sailor Moon are men, and they are really strong, outmatched mostly just by Usagi (at least in the very season they appear). From what I watched of Pretty Cure, it is the same. In Magic Knight Rayearth there are really strong men. Heck, the main villain of the first season is a man. In Tokyo Mew Mew the main villain seemed to be the man as well, from what I've watched, really in macho shoujo men play important roles, even with girls being main characters. This is not like that with most of shounen. Speaking about simple shoujos alone, I belive I watched only Fushigi Yuugi and Escaflone, in both of them not only villains are men, but main characters are also men. In fact Miaka has a whole team of men, which serves to her It most likely helps that there is romantic in shoujo, which tends to keep men relevant, while there is close to none romance in shounen besides some odd examples (such as Inuyasha for example or Ranma, speaking of Ranma, the main character ends to be both a girl and a boy ) Oh, and Ouran High School Host Club, it is not a fighting anime, but it has the males being important, even the main character (while being a girl) likes to pretend that she is a male, lol.

This is the problem of One Piece specifically IMO, especially those last sagas. They don't have particularly interesting characters IMO, most or even all of them are quite one-note. I just feel like females get the awful treatment, especially in One Piece, some other series I've watched gave them better treatment, such as Gash Bell, where the main opponent of the main hero is a girl, Hitman Reborn, with one girl being Arcaboleno and very important fighter, as well one of the main characters (Chrome) being a girl. Saint Seiya Omega, not original one, because quite honestly, original Saint Seiya handled females quite poorly, they were quite interesting and strong at first, but became irrelevant quite fast. In Saint Seiya Omega on the other hand we had Aquilla Yuna, the main character, reaching the level of Gods, Gemini Paradox, the golden saint (the Gemini saint was also deemed to be the strongest Gold Saint in several sources!), Gemini Integra, Hornet Sonia, Holy Sword Gallia (reaching the power of Gods, or being quite close to it), Pallas (who is literally a Goddess), Athena herself (oddly for once, she actually fought), etc. We still have a hope of getting a decent and important female character in the current Saint Seiya manga: Next Dimension, if Kurumada ever goes with Shaina becoming Ophiuchus Gold saint. Aforementioned Inuyasha has Kagome, being literally the second main character. She is the only one who can sense Shinkoin Jewel's shards, and she is also the reincarnation of priestess Kikyo which gives her the power to destroy the strongest demons and break most powerfull spells. The most of it can be said for her past incarnation Kikyo as well, who is also presented in series. There is also Sango, who is quite a great fighter, and is one of the main characters. Now, Ranma... Heck, it has more female characters than male ones... And even the main character is oddly (kind of) girl, while being a boy as well. I don't know how relevant are they to the plot, as I didn't watch the whole thing, but most of episodes center around them, or at least Akane/female Ranma. Out of most recent ones, Nanatsu no Taizai has the giant girl in the group, who is absurdly strong, stronger than some Holy Knights. It has Elizabeth Lyones, who has literally ability to heal anyone around her and dispel evil, two Holy Knights (name of which I don't remember), who gave Ban and Meliodas quite good fight, it also has a powerful mage girl, etc. It is very possible to make females interesting, strong and relevant, it is just that not many mangakas actually bother with it.

[EXBadguy]

Definitely Toriyama. For Kishimoto, the only good females that fight for a good cause are Hinata, Konan, and Tsunade. All of the other females in Naruto are ridiculous, Sakura's still standing and cryin', Ino and TenTen gets butchered most of the time, and Karin is always wanting Sasuke's dick. In DB, you have Bulma who's a strategist, Chichi(in the earlier days), #18, Videl, and Pan(both Toriyama's and GT). All these women in DB played a major role without no cryin', nothing.

[Mystic Tien]

Definitely Toriyama. For Kishimoto, the only good females that fight for a good cause are Hinata, Konan, and Tsunade. All of the other females in Naruto are ridiculous, Sakura's still standing and cryin', Ino and TenTen gets butchered most of the time, and Karin is always wanting Sasuke's dick. In DB, you have Bulma who's a strategist, Chichi(in the earlier days), #18, Videl, and Pan(both Toriyama's and GT). All these women in DB played a major role without no cryin', nothing.

Pan in DBZ did pretty much nothing, though.

[funrush]

I honestly hate topics like this. We're talking about action comic books written to appeal to young boys. Of course most of the cast are going to be male, I don't see anyone complaining as to why shoujo mangas don't have more male characters in important roles or complaining about none of the sailor senshi being male.

Anyway Most of the male characters aren't written too well or are one note characters (such as Brooke from One Piece) in shounen, so I don't understand why people feel that the author of a boys action comic book must hate all women everywhere just because they suffer from his imperfect writing also.

I don't necessarily agree with your first point because you can make shows for boys with relevant females in the cast. (The early to mid 2000s Teen Titan show comes to mind) I do agree that in lots of shonens characters aren't given great treatment or writing, but I think the case with Dragon Ball is that no females are given the attention and development characters like Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, or Piccolo get. Android 18 was close, but she gets shelved to minor character status too soon.

[FoolsGil]

You can say a lot of negative things about Toriyama's way of writing dragonball, but you can say this positively: He is equal opportunity when it comes to not fulfilling a character's full potential. But Kishimoto took Sakura, put her on the slot as main character, and wouldn't grow her as a ninja or a person and we had to endure that for the entire series.

[Saiga]

I'd have to say Toriyama. While he has problems with his female characters, including a lack of representation, Kishimoto has some of the worst handling of female characters I have seen in Shonen. Claiming he can't write females isn't an excuse, because he still chooses to write them with no signs of improvement in over ten years of doing so. If you don't know something, either learn, or stay the fuck away from it. I don't mean he shouldn't write at all, but he should at least avoid including so many prominent females if he's going to mess up their characters so badly.

I feel like a lot the problems with Dragon Ball's females don't necessarily lie with Toriyama, either. It seems like smaller problems in the manga were exacerbated by adaptations and subsequent works which has made things look even worse for Toriyama. Since Toshirshima made a disparaging comment on the Android arc for having a female fighter, it's easy to see that he might have been influenced not to include prominent females do to the potential reactions to them at the time.

But then, modern Toriyama really hasn't shown anything decent for his female characters.

She's the strongest female in the series and is far stronger than any human in the series yet serves no role other than to be a trophy wife for Krillin. Toriyama even admits that's the whole reason he introduced her.

Do you have a source for this?

[Dbzfan94]

Well after Kishimoto destroyed Sakura, almost pathetically so, I say Toriyama

[Cure Dragon 255]

The correct answer is Oda.

Meh every female character he does is so overly specialised it's ridiculous same with Fairy Tail. At least Kishimoto doesn't really push that so much.

This so much. And I freaking adore One Piece. Even the "Hideous anime". And Nami is one of my fave characters. But no. Oda is...bad at writing women.

And Toriyama. Say whatever about how sexualized they are and how little they get to fight. They arent as pathetic as Sakura. Bulma mops the floor with that Prop of a character. And I know Dragon Ball is hardly feminist or all that well written when it comes to women.

[JulieYBM]

I like how comically horrible Toriyama Akira makes Blooma early on in the original Dragon Ball comic but after a while she winds up becoming the voice of reason and that just about drains her of anything interesting. Kishimoto Masashi does a better job of keeping more interesting characters who just so happen to be female on the radar in the original Naruto comic series. The female lead Haruno Sakura begins as a normal girl to the point of being a brownnose and spoiled. When the popular boy she has a crush on tells her off for insulting Naruto behind his back it really shocks Sakura. At this point she isn't even aware all that well of what she did wrong, even though she lets Sasuke's verbal slap upside the head dictate her next action: trying to make friendly with Naruto. Of course, Naruto's a bit of an idiot and messes that up, too. During their first major mission Sasuke is forced to sit on the sidelines and realize a few things: she doesn't take being a shinobi seriously, she sucks at being a shinobi because she doesn't take it seriously, Naruto and Sasuke take being a shinobi seriously, and Sasuke isn't indestructible just because he's the most popular kid in class. This doesn't even begin to cover Sasuke's development up to this point, either.

The next arc has Sakura depressed by what she's learned about herself. Sasuke is the only one to notice this and despite politely rebuffing her offer for a date after the Land of Waves mission takes advantage of the first scenario he can to make Sakura recognize her worth as a genjutsu-specialist. When Naruto and Sasuke are knocked out of action Sakura during the second part of the Chuunin Exams Sakura uses every basic lesson from her shinobi training to defend them as long as she can. She even cuts off the hair she grew out just because of a stupid rumor she heard about Sasuke liking girls with long hair. As Sasuke deals with his curse mark infection planted by Orochimaru Sakura also becomes his sole confidant. Sakura and Sasuke form a strange, stronger bond throughout the Chuunin Exams that neither share with another character as Sasuke's soul is overcome by his fears and self-shame. When Sasuke leaves Sakura seeks the training of the Fifth Hokage herself and in just two and a half years becomes both a powerful physical attacker and medical shinobi. What's really interesting about Sakura after this point is her guilt.

When Naruto left the village to retrieve Sasuke from the Sound Four Naruto promised Sakura he would bring Sasuke back. Sakura begged with tears for this to happen. Seeing Naruto's body break down as he continues his intense training or use of the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra begins to build massive guilt and anxiety in Sakura. The battle on the bridge, the use of the Rasen-Shuriken, Pain's invasion of Konoha, and Kumogakure's manhunt for Sasuke all lead Sakura to finally decide to do something, however irrational and desperate it is. Sakura professes love to Naruto, who has comically tried stealing her attention from Sasuke over the course of the series, with hopes that he will give up on hurting himself to retrieve Sasuke. Naruto is no fool, however, and knows Sakura’s just lying to herself and him. Angry that Naruto won’t play away along, Sakura leaves and hunts down Sasuke herself. She’ll kill him, or so she thinks, but ultimately is unable to stab him with her poisoned kunai. Naruto arrives on the scene and saves Sakura from a potentially fatal attack from Sasuke. I say potentially, of course, because there’s really no telling whether Sasuke would’ve actually done it given how heavy the series relied on double meanings for every little thing.

Naruto convinces Sasuke that if they fight on the spot they’ll both die. Sasuke retreats to heal his injuries from his two prior battles and Sakura apologizes for giving up hope.

During the next arc Sakura acts as a medical shinobi during the war with Tobi’s army. Later on Sasuke joins Naruto and Sasuke in battle against Tobi’s forces and the recently resurrected Ootsutsuki Kaguya. Finally, the war ends…but Sasuke is not yet finished. Naruto and Sasuke do battle; Sasuke uses genjutsu to knock Sakura unconscious. Sakura awakens after the battle and tends to their injuries. Later, Sasuke is given pardon for protecting the planet from Ootsutsuki Kaguya and allowed to travel the world. Sakura asks to join Sasuke but is once again rebuffed, only to be tapped on the forehead just like Itachi used to tap Sasuke “Maybe next time” he tells her and Sakura finally gets what she wants from Sasuke. Years later they are married with a daughter, Sarada.

Sakura is one of my favorite characters in Naruto for the same reason Blooma is one of my favorite characters in early Dragon Ball. Blooma isn’t perfect; she’s selfish and uses her womanly wiles to get what she wants. Sakura starts out much the same way but has a clear arc of seeing her stupid immaturity broken down and replaced with self-awareness. Even when she grows up she still winds up making mistakes for the right reasons, like with trying to unburden Naruto or kill Sasuke herself.

Naruto is more of a character and story-driven series than Dragon Ball ever was, so to a degree I think it’s pretty silly to compare the two in the first place. Dragon Ball’s lack of character and story isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it’s simply a different thing.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I always love your opinions Jacob. They are really insightful and compelling.

I dont hate Sakura, but I'm bitterly dissapointed in her and Kishimoto. I agree with EXBadGuy (I'm agreeing with him a lot lately) that Tsunade and Hinata are better.