She could be given a legit reason to love Sasuke, I never said that in my post. I said that Sakura NOT loving Sasuke is not Sakura.
I'll give you that. It's hard to separate Sakura from her deep affection for Sasuke. I took your post to mean that nothing about Sakura can be improved or remedied. That being said, don't you think it would be a lot more interesting if there was some history behind her feelings? The reason why SasuSaku is cringey is due to its apparent shallowness (imo). Change that and it would be received a lot better. I would say the reason it's underdeveloped was because Kishi never imagined the series to explode in popularity and didn't prioritize it early on. His goal was to simulate "dumb puppy love" that is generalized for young school girls so they could relate to her and he admits that it backfired.
Because she has no story beyond romance, unlike Hinata, who at least had the Hyuga/Ootsutsuki stuff going on with her. Sakura from beginning to finish is all romance.
Disagree, her potrayal with Sasori gets way too overhyped imo. She was used as a puppet most of the time, and when she found out about Sasori being connected to Orochimaru, all she did was yell at him and get saved by Chiyo. Maybe you'd be right if we were talking of a side character, but for a main character, that's weak. Only good thing in that arc was her medical feats.
Granted, I'm also on the boat that thinks Naruto himself was an underwhelming main character, so to convince me Sakura ever had any good portrayal is near impossible :lol
She's not pure romance, it's just that her other traits were either abandoned or poorly maintained. Part I Sakura sucks, I won't really argue with that. Her past self is actually made that way to show a strong contrast between her Part I and Part II counterparts.
I also argue that during that first arc of Part II, she played the most vital role of the main characters. If we list the achievements of each Team 7 member for that arc, we have:
Naruto: Got the "last laugh" for the bell test with a clever trick, showing some genjutsu defense (not enough but it's something), tag-teamed Kakashi to beat the 30% Itachi clone, foreshadowed some Kyuubi powers by growing the 2nd Kyuubi tail, made a heartwarming speech for Gaara
Sasuke: Completely absent this arc
Kakashi: Led the bell test, tag-teamed Naruto to beat the 30% Itachi clone, revealed Kamui and took off Deidara's arm, stopped Naruto from advancing the Kyuubi's control with Jiraiya's tag
Sakura: Had a "cunning" moment for finding Kakashi underground during the bell test, saved Kankuro's life when Chiyo couldn't do anything and made antidotes from the poison, tag-teamed Chiyo to beat Sasori
I want to point out a few things alongside this. How many people beside Tsunade and Sasori himself could have surpassed the Sand Village's legendary war medic to not only save Kankuro's life, but use that to counter Sasori via antidotes? Even Kakashi was helpless in that scenario, and Kakashi was hyped a lot in the early-mid portions of the series. As for the Sasori fight, I don't believe there was any other Konoha rookie (bar Sasuke and maybe Naruto) that could have helped Chiyo pull off the victory. Not Neji, not Shino, not Kiba... Her strength and antidotes were both essential in that fight.
I don't want to turn this into a VS thread, just trying to emphasize her contributions to that battle. Remember that Sasori's peer Akatsuki member not long ago had waltzed right into the Sand Village, kidnapped their leader in a gruesome fight in front of the entire village, nearly nuked them to shreds, and smugly walked away. Chiyo obviously played a huge part in the fight, but it's still worth mentioning that being a part of a fight against one of these powerful ninja gives Sakura a very relevant role in the story.
If she had that level of quality throughout Part II, wouldn't she qualify as a decent main character? Obviously that's not what happened, it's just a thought.
She could get genjutsu, but tbh, it would ultimately be made pointless by the Sharingan, just like her healing was made pointless by Naruto. A theoretical Slug Sage Mode is the only sensible power up for her imo.
I'm afraid I don't understand this point. She's not beating Sasuke or Naruto with said genjutsu, hell naw. But I'm sure you debate against Sakura on a lot of VS threads, and don't you think you would have more trouble arguing against her if she had access to weapons like genjutsu or enhanced healing?
