Warning!! Some minor spoilers for Naruto!
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Three names that are highly popular in the manga/anime community. These are the names of three characters from the ever popular series, Naruto. Naruto, the protagonist of the series starts off the oddball kid striving to gain acknowledgment, Sasuke begins as the cool and handsome type who excels at anything he tries, but has a certain darkness about him, and finally, Sakura…well, she likes Sasuke. Harsh, yes, but this is honestly the first thing we, as readers of the manga or viewers of the anime, know about Sakura. Well, that and that Naruto has a crush on her (even though Sakura wouldn’t give Naruto the time of day in the beginning).
But Sakura actually has a lot of potential. Similar to Hermione from Harry Potter, she is the brainiac of the bunch and she’s eager to let you know it, comprehending some concepts before even genius Sasuke figures it out completely. And while she doesn’t have the brute strength or any special skills (initially) like the guys, Sakura has good control over some of the finer, technical points of ninja training like chakra (a type of energy) control. (For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it takes place in a fantasy world filled with modern ninja.) Sakura teaches Naruto and Sasuke a few things, here and there.
Despite this, Sakura sits on standby through much of the first several volumes of manga. There are a few moments of glory (Sakura showing up both Naruto and Sasuke at training then essentially teaching them how she did it being the best one), but mostly, she gawks over Sasuke, snaps at Naruto, participates in some dialogues, and stands on the sidelines.
Sakura isn’t stupid though, as I’ve said. She knows she’s the weakest link and that Naruto and Sasuke end up being the heroes while she does practically nothing comparatively. She’s just along for the ride. In an almost palpable wave of depression, this dawns of Sakura accompanied by symbolic pictures of her watching the backs of her two comrades. Luckily, Sakura isn’t the type to wallow in despair and do nothing to change the situation. She decides to change; no more looking at Naruto and Sasuke’s backs, she’s going to walk beside them from now on and be a real asset!
Finally, after sitting around uncomfortably for so long, her feet tingling with sleep, she moves somewhat awkwardly at first, but then with new-found energy that bursts forth spectacularly. Following these awakenings are beautiful times for Sakura, her real shining moments and the Chunin Exam arc of the Naruto series showcase a number of them. Protecting Naruto and Sasuke in a moment of crisis and taking on an opponet in a heated brawl of brains and brawns is one example. But while these moments are full of Sakura asserting herself, realizing new potentials, and allowing the readers to get to know her better, they are undermined ever so slightly for me. I say that because even though Sakura tries to protect Naruto and Sasuke (and it is truly intense), she ends up being protected. By the end of the Chunin Exam arc, Sakura is forced to play the damsel in distress more than ever before when she’s under the threat of being killed by another young ninja if Sasuke and Naruto don’t beat him. This kind of sequence of events (gaining power, playing a key part, but reverting back to leaving everything to her comrades) has repeated itself at least twice since the second part of the series began. It’s disappointing as a fan, watching her make a breakthrough, but having this remade Sakura yanked away just when I was getting excited.
The other thing that always disappoints me about the Naruto series is that, despite showcasing many times the power of friendship, friendships between females are unfortunately lacking. Sakura’s one female friend that is depicted is her rival in both love and profession and the two constantly fight. It seems their chosen greeting for each other is Ino (the friend) making some jab about Sakura’s forehead (because Sakura believes she has a large one) and Sakura calling Ino a pig. It is revealed that once Ino and Sakura were close friends, but when they realized they both liked the same boy (Sasuke), they changed to rivals. Now as a reader and fan of Naruto I understand that being one’s rival is another way of being a friend in the series, something that is discussed often about Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship, but Naruto also has a lot of normal friends who aren’t rivals, but just plain old friends. It would have been good to see friendship between girls instead of the usual jealousy depicted between girls. I think the other problem is main reason why the two became rivals. Fighting over a guy that doesn’t return either of their feelings just seems a little sad. While Naruto is jealous of Sasuke because he has Sakura’s attention, that is not the main reason the two boys are rivals. It’s true, girls can be mean to each other and fight over guys, but it would be nice if good friendships were shown in fiction because, believe it or not, it does happen.
Both of these scenarios undermine great potential that exists and Naruto isn’t the only manga that does this to its female characters. I’m speaking to women and men both when I say wouldn’t it be more interesting if female characters like Sakura could make that extra leap of faith and not depend so much on the male characters around her or if good relationships were shown between girls? If for no other reason, it would be less expected and provide new scenarios. As I wrote this, it occurred to me that another female character in the series, Temari is a good example. She doesn’t appear as often as Sakura and readers don’t get much of a chance to see Temari interacting with other young women, but she stands on equal footing with her male comrades and is not placed in such weakened positions as other female characters in the series. Sounds like I need to do a piece on her!
first off, thank you for even having these posts! I honestly thought I was the only one that felt this way about anime/manga.
one character I’m surprised you didn’t mention was Ten-Ten. she’s not the overtly stereotypical female, either. she’s a weapons expert that’s more interested in completing a mission than getting hung up on the extras, like relationships.
another point, when it comes to anime/manga (a/m) you notice that the mom is always in the background and usually in the kitchen, at the sink or at the stove? she’s never the “go-to” person for the character (which is usually male) and she always has the smiley face on. it urks me to no end.
Thank you for commenting! You’re absolutely right about Ten-Ten. The only reason I didn’t mention her was because I felt Temari has been featured more and therefore I have more to say about her versus Ten-Ten who we as readers/watchers of Naruto unfortunately don’t get to see very often. (Is it just me or does Ten-Ten show up even less than Temari?)
As for how moms are usually portrayed in anime/manga, it really is pathetic what we see (or don’t see) of them. Your description of manga moms brought Tsuna’s mom (I don’t even remember if her name was ever mentioned) from Reborn to my mind immediately. It seems that Kishimoto is making Naruto’s mom more important though. Also, if you haven’t seen it already, the blog A Feminist Otaku did an interesting piece on moms from shonen manga awhile ago.
Both your post and fishgul69 bring up such good points! Watching Naruto recently, I feel like every few episodes when a character is introduced I would exasperatedly ask aloud, “Yeah, but what about his/her mother?”. I imagine the character background and development of numerous characters like Hinata, Neji, Kakashi, etc. would have been so different if the roles of their mothers were actually dealt with rather than ignored/presumed died at childbirth. If you were Hinata’s mother, would you seriously put up with your husband’s bullshit in showing favouritism towards Hanabi and emotionally abusing your first daughter for her perceived physical weakness? If you were Neji’s mother, would you let him become consumed by hatred? If you were Kakashi’s mother, would you let your husband come to that moment of desperation? I’m not saying that these things don’t happen in real life because mothers prevent them every time, but it just simply doesn’t make sense for these events to happen so frequently in Naruto without any explanation of where the mother is and why she is so powerless. (The only exception to this is perhaps Kiba who only seems to have a mother and older sister, but in some ways, he’s depicted in one of the least human clans like some matriarchal canine family.)
It’s as fishgul69 says, the mother, if shown at all, is always in the background and usually the kitchen. Pretty much the only mums you see are Shikamaru’s and Sasuke’s and they’re either preparing a meal or talking about it. When Shikamaru’s grieving after Asuma’s death, you only see his mum asking him if he wants to eat, but his dad’s the one who steps in and helps him heal through his sage advice.
Have you also noticed how many of the characters look like clones of their fathers? Naruto, Shikamaru, Choji, Ino, Sasori, etc. Sometimes I think maybe the reason why so many people in Narutoverse don’t seem to have mothers is because they don’t actually reproduce the real life way, but all the men in the village just go to a lab and make copies of themselves.
Ten-Ten had so much potential! I loved how at her first meeting with Gai-sensei she says she wants to become a great female ninja like Tsunade as opposed to Sakura’s comment indicating she’s only interested in Sasuke. But then you don’t really see Ten-Ten after that and when you do, she’s usually depicted as pretty useless, especially compared to her male comrades.
I love your theory on why so many of the characters look like clones of their fathers while there is a strange absence of mothers! It would certainly be interesting to see how the world of Naruto as well as a lot of other works of fiction would change (or not change) if there were more of a presence of mothers.
I would recommed you to take a look, and analys of Madokas mother, Junko Kaname then, (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)
Gen Urobuchi himself said that he wanted her to be a example that females characters can be heroic and strong too. While we never actually see her fight, she is the inspiration to why Madoka developes the sense of courage.
I’ve been meaning to go back and rewatch Puella Magi Madoka Magica for the blog so, I’m glad you pointed this out! I’ll take notes on Junko when I do.
Once/If you have gotten a look a PMMM I also suggest you to read the Offical Guidebooks part callled, “STAFF DISCUSSION PART 2 THE ROLE PLAYED BY MADOKA’S FAMILY”
Thanks for the suggestion! I didn’t pay too much attention to Madoka’s family when I first watched PMMM so, I’m really curious now.
Did you ever were disturbed by amount of woman to man violence in anime? For example, in 3rd episode of Naruto girls beat up Naruto for (accidentaly) stealing Sasuke’s first kiss. Men wouldnt get away with something like this. Its a common thing apparently http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale
Actually, I have noticed that and I’m glad you brought it up. I’ve heard sociological discussions about how we tend to accept physical violence in fiction from women that we would find disturbing if a male character were to perform the same action. The classic example is the slap, something we often see female characters doing to male characters, but if a man were to slap a woman like that, most of us would be outraged (as you point out). I think we need a reminder of that fact once in a while. I believe one of the biggest problems is that we as a society don’t perceive that men are physically abused or, if a woman gets violent with him, that it’s non-threatening and humorous since, according to stereotypes, a guy should be able to handle a woman.