Sakura never surpassed Tsunade at anything and was never a prodigy.
Can people stop using this scan and pretending like it means anything?
(Shizune again refers to Sakura’s Chakra Control as delicate, not perfect; she’s literally the only one who ever complimented on her Jutsus; no one else did.)
Hashirama compared Sakura’s Byakugou strength with Tsunade’s natural strength as Tsunade invented the seal in her thirties or forties. Even Orochimaru didn’t know what it was when she released it. Someone who fought wars alongside her:
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This is the Sōzō Saisei!
She created and mastered the Ninpō Sōzō Saisei — Byakugō no Jutsu, as well:
The only difference between the two is that the Byakugou heals a bit faster and doesn’t require seals. The former does. Tsunade created and mastered both.
Hashirama also compared her regular strength to Sakura’s Byakugou strength as Tsunade invented the parent Jutsu in her late thirties or forties. So what did Sakura improve on? Nothing. She’s only a poor copy of the original, Tsunade.
When did she ever surpass Tsunade when Hashirama doesn’t even know much about Tsunade’s technique, and she invented it way into the future, after her brother’s and Dan’s deaths? Can we stop using this scan, please? It’s a wee bit annoying.
As I explained in this post of mine, Sakura has … issues. Big ones. You can write a long essay on her issues and not find a single canon line that gushes about her in the same manner as her fans gush about her. So what is Sakura a victim of, her own stupidity or Sasuke’s aggression? Let’s find out as we go down the deepest rabbit hole that’s constructed out of the Fan-Fictions (and Tumblr armchair feminism) that thickly surround Sakura’s canon character.
Sakura’s status as a heroine bugs a lot of people when she’s made to stand in the same light as her male counter-parts, because … well, she falls ludicrously short in just about all departments; yes, intelligence, too, as she’s got no strategic feats that Sasuke’s don’t absurdly pummel into the ground without remorse. The difference is that big! Somewhat decently talented, she’s embellished by her zealous fan (-atics) with the sort of qualities she doesn’t even remotely possess in canon, qualities she was thought to have been truly robbed of.
Let’s get the most talked one out of the way first. Her infamous chakra control? She has it ’cause her reserves are too small:
Larger chakra reserves are far harder to control as we saw when Madara blew up like a puffer fish when a surge of chakra flowed into his system, allowing him to grow out Kaguya’s female genitalia, and he couldn’t control it. This is further backed by the fact that Sakura couldn’t handle the tiniest bit of Bijuu chakra that leaked into her system:
^ See that scratch? It’s not even a full scratch. It’s more like a shallow nick; and even with her Medic Jutsu, she still couldn’t handle that teeny-tiny bit of Bijuu chakra.
This is further backed by Minato’s statement:
You know, Uchiha have naturally high chakra reserves:
When Sasuke performed his Clan’s Rite of Passage Jutsu that he learned when he was a 6-year-old child, this is what Kakashi had to say:
I’m going elaborate on the “Change in Form” for a bit. It might seem like I’m going off topic, but it’ll make sense in a bit. Bear with me. Change in Form of chakra is an above A-Rank feat (B-Rank is Jonin-Rank, by the way):
People who’re able to combine change in form with their change in chakra nature are exceptionally rare. They’ve got natural talent to do it:
People who change the form of chakra and combine it with change in nature in any manner are very talented:
More detailed accounts of Sasuke’s progress with the Cursed Seal, along with its life-sapping and highly corrosive effects, and Chidori and Lee’s weightless speed (which he learned in mere two weeks) are given here, here, and here.
Coming back to Kakashi’s reaction: This doesn’t come as a surprise because one, Sasuke’s a prodigy and he learned the ability to combine change in form and change in nature (an above A/Jounin Rank feat) at the age of 6, without his father’s tutelage, which I explained in this detailed post; and two, he’s naturally gifted in molding astronomically large volumes of chakra as if it’s child’s play:
The aforementioned post also highlights the fact that how Sasuke invented, re-invented, and improved upon several Jutsus, Rinnegan’s included, without anyone’s aid, without reading the Tablet (which Madara had), and without tutelage.
Keep this in mind that in the images above, Sasuke’s taken chunks of chakra from all Nine Bijuus, and he’s managing, molding, and transforming that together with his own chakra and the Sage’s chakra (which is nothing more than slightly diluted form of Bijuu chakra as his mother was the Jubi, combined with Shinju, you know) the Sage gifted him. That volume being molded into a stabilized Susanoo form (yes, it requires constant stabilization that’s outright shown in the post I talked about; it isn’t automatic) While Naruto … well, he always has had Kurama to help him as I explained in this post. Still, I’d give Naruto some credit as he manages a colossal volume of chakra, with systematic aid from Kurama, that Sakura would outright get crushed under. Heck, her so-called Perfect Chakra Control is actually called “Delicate Chakra Control” in canon; and here’s a real kicker: every Medic has it!
So all the claims about her “chakra control” being some kind of go-to tool for her to magically mold Mokuton (’cause she was robbed), Bijuu chakra (robbed), Senjutsu chakra (robbed) that’s much heavier than regular chakra, any other elemental Jutsu (robbed), for which she possesses no talent whatsoever in canon, etc., doesn’t quite fit in with the canon manga, does it? Throwing it away with a childish statement, “ ’cause she was robbed!” doesn’t mean anything when Sakura’s not only explicitly shown to have decent chakra control–which is out-shined hilariously by Naruto, let alone Sasuke–precisely because of small reserves and small reserves only, but also that she’s utterly incapable of handling anything even slighter heavier or complex (shape and nature transformation and Senjutsu) in nature; so how would she have controlled Bijuu chakra, Senjutsu, and created complex chakra forms in canon, exactly, when she possessed neither the talent nor the body for it? In order to that, you’d have to create a completely different character that isn’t Sakura. The simplest possible explanation! Haven’t we all learned something today?
Then we have the whole Senjutsu thing that if Sakura had gotten it, she’d have aced it … ’cause she was robbed and she’s got perfect chakra control … or something along these lines her fans keep prattling on about endlessly. Well, guess what, Naruto and Sasuke could handle the Sage’s chakra (which is nothing more than diluted Jubi chakra because the Jubi is Kaguya and Shinju, The God Tree, combined) because their bodies are capable of handling it. They’re naturally gifted to handle it!
The Jubi is nothing more than an amalgam of Natural Energy:
Furthermore, Natural Energy not only is very difficult to sense, but it’s also very difficult to handle, as well:
It can also only be mastered by those who’ve got, yes, you guessed it, enormous chakra reserves! Something Sakura doesn’t have. Sasuke was also given Senjutsu by Orochimaru because he wanted to learn Sage Mode after taking over his body; his own body can’t endure the Natural Energy:
Tobirama’s outright lauding Sasuke’s ability to handle large volumes of Senjutsu chakra; he also complimented him on his chakra control (flame control is chakra control as Enton’s, you know, made up of chakra?) when he’s fought Uchiha all his life:
Keep that in mind that he never bothered commenting (let alone complimenting) on anything Sakura did, literally anything; and Tobirama’s a character that understands Chakra intricacies the most. He’s basically the “Mad Scientist” of Naruto-verse (Orochimaru didn’t look up to him for nothing), who invented several Jutsus, including Edo Tensai, Kage Bunshin, and Flying Thunder God. His opinions on Chakra Control, Ninjutsu skill and talent, and Senjutsu matter more than anyone save Kurama who compared Sasuke and Sasuke only to be at the Sage’s level.
Coming back to the Senjutsu argument, the Cursed Seal (CS) is derived from Jugo’s Sage Mode; and Sasuke and Kimimaro were only two boys who were given the best ones, Heaven and Earth respectively:
And Jugo was only impressed with Kimimaro and Sasuke’s Segmental Transformation as it was no easy task, a testament to their talents in controlling Jugo’s volatile Senjutsu:
Orochimaru needed Sasuke’s body for the Sage Mode as Jugo’s CS (which is only mimicked in its perfect form in the Heaven and Earth Seals) is the Sage Mode:
Kabuto confirms the whole story, as well:
I mean, that’s why Orochimaru’s got the Snake Summons, you know. He went there before he ever got Sasuke on his side, which is why he kept working on Senjutsu and finding the best possible host to handle it; and what was a better host than one whose body not only handled the volatile Senjutsu perfectly but also had the added Kekkei Genkai, Sharingan, as well? That’s why Orochimaru attacked Sasuke after seeing him, immediately.
(It’s been shown and proven through several characters such as Orochimaru, Kurama, and Obito that Sasuke’s Sharingan was stronger than Itachi’s; I don’t want to digress, so I’m just going to leave it at that; you know what? I might make a post on this in the near future.)
The chakra of this CS at Stage I even is so heavy that non-sensors like Neji could sense it:
It was heavy enough on release that Ino, a sensor as almost all Yamanaka Clan members are rudimentary sensors, was shocked:
The CS’s Senjutsu was flowing literally outside Sasuke’s body that Dosu was very shocked that Sasuke was not only controlling it, but he’d also mimicked it in such a short time and gotten to his feet:
(And I already explained the highly life-sapping and corrosive effects of the Cursed Seal here.)
(Oh, Sasuke dodged a Super Sonic Jutsu, as well, while he lugged Naruto and Sakura long, but I’m not making a detour to gush about that.)
Even Neji stated that the Chakra Sasuke was controlling so perfectly wasn’t normal:
Keep that in mind Sasuke was under its influence only for a few hours, at best, as Dosu and his partners attacked exactly at dawn:
And Sasuke was attacked by Orochimaru exactly at dusk (both of the scans below come one after another; I didn’t omit anything):
(I haven’t even touched on the facts that the CS was corrosive to Sasuke’s body, shortened his life-span, and he was in constant pain while he used it at its first stage; the second stage still shortened the life-span, by the way, it just mellowed down the painful side-effects). So can we agree that Sakura can’t handle the Senjutsu, Bijuu and Jubi chakra, and the Sage’s chakra in any manner whatsoever as it’s heavy and pretty damned difficult to handle?
It took her three fucking months to heal a single fish:
(And, again, she’s only compared to Shizune, the only other person that complimented her Ninjutsu; Sasori only complimented her ability to make the antidote, which, by the way, is created from the poison in real life, as well.)
How’s that impressive compared to Naruto even who learnt Rasengan (the pinnacle of Shape Transformation) in about 35-ish days? I explained it in this post. How’s it more impressive than anything Naruto did as the aforementioned post highlights? Keeping the whole “Combining the Change in Shape and Change in Nature being an above A/Jonin Rank feat ” argument, Sasuke learnt his clan’s Rite of Passage technique at the tender age of 6 in a week (no one taught him the Spiral Nature of Chakra and the concepts Kakashi explained to Naruto during his Futon-Rasen-Shuriken training); he reinvented Lee’s Taijutsu maneuver in a single day, a feat that’s impossible even with a Sharingan; he learnt and mastered Chidori (a complete Jutsu, unlike the Rasengan) and Lee’s weightless speed in under two weeks; and he’s only 12 in both of these incidents. Not to mention the Phoenix and Dragon Katon Clan Jutsus, along with advanced Shuriken-Jutsus, he learned on his own before he ever joined Cell 7.
He mastered the Cursed Seal (whose mechanics have been explained in detail above) and Susanoo in under an hour; he invented over 9 different forms of Raiton in under 2 years (Orochimaru never taught him a thing on this front as he didn’t even know the Shape of Sasuke’s techniques), three of which (Indra’s Arrow and Spear and Susanoo’s Raiton Senbon) he invented on the battlefield in seconds, actually; he reinvented Sage’s best Ninjutsu save Rinnegan’s, The Creation of all Things, in seconds; he improved upon Rinnegan’s Outer Path by using the Soul Dragons in reverse from his own created Gedo Mezo and Chibaku Tensai (which uses the target as the core unlike other Chibaku Tensais, something even the Sage couldn’t do without his brother’s aid in his youth). No one even taught him these; he improved upon these simply by listening to others! It’s all explained here, here, and here.
Sakura? All of her arsenal hinges upon her smaller reserves, and she can’t handle even the tiniest bit of heavier chakra, both of which I explained above; she took too long to learn the Byakugo (more than three years, actually); it took her three months to heal a mere fish; and she invented nothing in all the time she studied under Tsunade. Her arsenal’s a complete copy-paste of Tsunade, but she remains a better medic (That Shikamaru incident, anyone?).
Her Genjutsu talent? What does that even mean? She never had any Genjutsu-Casting Talent at any point in the manga! Orochimaru’s the perfect Shinobi to end this “Kishimoto ruined her Genjutsu potential!” argument. His Genjutsu is 5 in the databook, but he doesn’t know how to cast a single Genjutsu:
Do you know what happened to him?
Itachi cut his hand off:
Sasuke turned his whole dimension against him; he corroded Orochimaru’s universe from the inside; so this makes Sasuke’s Genjutsu feat far superior:
This is confirmed by the databook, too:
And let’s not try and construct more Fan-Fictions about “Sasuke accomplished that ’cause Orochimaru was weak!” when Orochimaru’s physical health had nothing to do with Sasuke besting him:
Shee’s a Genjutsu Prodigy:
And despite being a prodigy in Genjutsu and Darui breaking him out of Sasuke’s 3 Tomoe Sharingan-Genjutsu, he was still almost paralyzed:
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He cast his best Genjutsu on the 3-Tomoe-using Sasuke, and it did literally nothing!
Sasuke casually broke himself and Jugo out, like Itachi did with Kisame against Kurenai, and moved on with his life.
The reason is that the manga differentiates between Ocular and Non-Ocular Genjutsu:
This is confirmed by Chiyo, as well:
What about Kurenai, another Genjutsu prodigy like Shee?
That’s not Itachi’s Genjutsu she’s breaking out of. That’s her own Genjutsu as any matured 3 Tomoe Sharingan’s capable of “Reflecting” the Genjutsu back at the user; so she’s basically biting her lower lip to release herself from her own Genjutsu as we know for a fact that without the second person present, Sharingan’s most basic Genjutsu remains unaffected by pain, constant chakra flow, and Senjutsu and few other factors:
One) pain:
Manda was hit by the shockwave of Deidara’s 10-kilometer-radius blast, but he was still affected by Genjutsu.
Two) constant chakra flow:
Kisame was holding Samehada against Kurenai and he still fell under Kurenai’s Genjutsu even when Samehada supplies the user with constant chakra; a Sharingan’s Genjutsu is astronomically more powerful.
Three) Senjutsu and Constant Natural Energy Flow:
Jugo’s Sage Mode works on constant Natural Energy Flow, but he still fell under Shee’s Genjutsu; and a perfect Snake Sage like Kabuto, whose Sage Mode works exactly like Jugo’s, kept his eye-lids literally closed during his battle against the Uchiha brothers to combat the Sharingan. Itachi had to move Kabuto’s eyelids up to use his Sharingan and read Kabuto’s memories:
Four) Training your eye:
It didn’t help Deidara at all, even though he’d trained his left eye against Sharingan. He got caught in Sasuke’s creative Genjutsu … twice! He saw whatever Sasuke wanted him to see.
Let’s throw a fifth one in here, too, that the Sharingan doesn’t require direct eye contact as shown against Deidara:
Look at that distance: it’s huge! And Sasuke showed him the effects of Karura after he himself saw it; so he not only cast the Genjutsu by moving at immense speed but also from an immense distance:
And Bee, who was wearing sun-glasses against both Sasuke and Itachi and got caught both times:
What about Kurama?
What about Perfect Jinchurikis (Jin)? Their control doesn’t guard them against the Sharingan perfectly, now does it?
Yagura was controlled for years despite being a Perfect Jin:
Bee didn’t fare any better, either, as he was completely paralyzed for several seconds: Sasuke panted, looked down, and turned from him. Heck, he was paralyzed in mid-air, as well. Had Sasuke wanted to kill him, he would have as he had plenty of time from Bee’s paralysis in mid-air till the moment Gyuki didn’t wake him up while he lay helplessly on the ground; he attacked only when Sasuke turned (Sasuke was till fast enough to turn back to Bee and guard himself, but, let’s face it, even Chakra-Eater Samehada, which came between Kisame and cloaked Bee, couldn’t save Kisame’s chest from being blown to bits):
So after considering all of that, can someone sincerely tell me that Sakura can compete with the Sharingan Genjutsu when the most powerful Tailed-Beast can’t; when Perfect Jins can’t; when Genjutsu prodigies can’t; when users of Natural Energy, Sage Mode, and Chakra-Eating Objects can’t? Because let’s be honest with ourselves, it’s about Sakura not being able to compete with Sasuke (when he blasted her off with his Genjutsu in war, a Genjutsu that single-handedly took down 9 tailed-beasts at a single glance and at the same time; it wasn’t even a direct eye-contact as the Sage stated!). There isn’t any other argument behind this.
And how is any of this about sexism when Shee and Orochimaru fared just about as terribly as Kurenai against 3-Tomoe Sharingan; when Kurama, an entity that powered-up Kamui and augmented Naruto’s Senjutsu and Bijuu Mode in war, fared just as terribly; when Senjutsu-using Summon, Manda, fared just as terribly; when Perfect Jins fared just as terribly? I don’t understand this logic. Is reading Naruto manga, which is aimed at children, that hard? When the Sharingan effects all and sundry, without showing any discrimination towards non-human entities even, then how is any of this about sexism, being robbed, great potential? After a while, this whole shtick get excessively tiresome. In the light of the overwhelming evidence in canon, why’s it so hard to accept that Sakura was never anywhere near as talented as Naruto, let alone Sasuke ’cause the gap between their talents widens too absurdly? That she wasn’t meant to be as talented?
She didn’t heal the whole alliance (post); she made petty blunders in wars (post) and offered nothing of strategic value throughout the course of the entire manga save two incidents in total: her partial Kamui analysis (for which Shino provided the basis) and her quick thinking to outwit a damn Zetsu of all the things. All she did was do her job as a medic. Bravo? That doesn’t make her a prodigy on any front! Sasuke learned, invented, reinvented, and improved Jutsus (his entire damn arsenal) in less than half the time she copied her Jutsus from Tsunade; she brought nothing impressive to the table; and if I count the fact that he invented and reinvented and improved Jutsus on the battlefield in seconds, then … how does Sakura look in comparison, who her fans think to be some kind of prodigy who’s better than Sasuke? Come on! This is … absurd!
Her fans clearly can’t seem to understand one very important thing: Sakura, a character from Naruto, is Kishimoto’s character, not anyone else’s; there’s no such thing as potential save for comical and imaginative and elaborate assumptions created by readers that didn’t come true (which invite their aggression); Sakura’s worth in the plot is what Kishimoto decides, not anyone else; and there’s no Alternate Universe (AU) Sakura that Kishimoto stole and wrote it as his own, an AU in which she was supposedly everything her fans imagined her to be. And that, ladies and gents, is all there’s to it. No matter how much it hurts an average female reader’s feelings, which are far too deeply associated with a horribly written cartoon for it to be considered sensible, Sakura’s value begins and ends with Naruto. Kishimoto didn’t steal Sakura from an average Sakura Fan’s Original Work and use it in his Fan-Fiction; ’cause when you read her fans’ impassioned but vacuous long-essays, that’s the immediate impression you get.
Narratively, Sakura’s character offers no ideological views for her to be considered of even a teeny-tiny bit of value outside the story created by Kishimoto. (She, like her fans, follows no decent ideological beliefs and clings only to Will of Fire’s Fascism, which makes her morally bankrupt from the get go as she knew about Neji’s slavery and Sai’s exploitation, as well; by the way being vapid, loud, and woke about female cartoons in the name of armchair feminism on Tumblr isn’t an ideology. .) Her behavior is so strongly tethered to Sasuke’s person that, if you cut her out of the manga, Sasuke’s own arc loses nothing, not a piece of its value, whilst Sakura … drops out of the Chunin Examinations and is never heard from ever again. You don’t believe me? I explained it in this post: she tried to drop out several times from the Examinations, and unlike Sasuke (who was personally sought out by Orochimaru) and Naruto (who was trained by Jiraiya out of respect for his student, Minato), Sakura actually had to convince Tsunade to take her in as her apprentice; and Sakura only went to Tsunade when Sasuke left for good! In fact, she tried to withdraw from the Bell Test, before the Examinations ever took place! It’s all there in the aforementioned post; I’m not making this up. So if you take Sasuke out of the equation, Sakura with-draws from the Bell Test and disappears from the manga altogether.
In order to counter her unhealthy obsession with Sasuke, her fans comically scramble to shift the blame from the character itself to all manner of things: Sasuke, sexism, Kishimoto’s writing, Kishimoto himself, and God knows what else. They refuse to keep the blame on the character and go down that rabbit hole, often, a hole upon which Kishimoto stumbled and discovered everyone’s favorite Feminist-Icon, Sakura, which he obviously stole and ruined.
Well, guess what, it’s all Sakura! And no matter how many times her fans try to shift the blame to this and that, that’s how she is; but you can’t help but laugh at the fictitious talent Sakura posses when you look at parody posts like these.
Fin!
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