Sakura Haruno vs. Usefulness: Still Loading…

Sakura Haruno may be the most “powerful” character who got outshined by literally everyone else. From yelling “Sasuke-kun!” to cutting her hair mid-fight like it was a makeover show, her early usefulness was...well, pending. Sure, she trained under Tsunade and can now punch mountains and heal like a champ, but let’s be honest—most fans still remember her for crying and standing in the background while Naruto and Sasuke rewrote ninja history. Is she really that bad? Maybe not. But fandom jokes? Oh, they’re eternal.

Sakura: Team 7’s Punching Bag

Sakura Haruno has long been Naruto fandom’s favorite punching bag. Memes and message boards have dubbed her “one of the most useless characters” in the anime, and even Kotaku quips she’s the “punching bag of the fandom”. In Part I, Sakura didn’t have a nine-tailed monster or laser eyes – Naruto literally had a demon fox, Sasuke had fancy eye jutsu, and their sensei Kakashi was the laid-back veteran. Meanwhile, Sakura’s big moves were mostly screaming for help and flexing her forehead strength. As one Sportskeeda article notes, even after she trained with Tsunade, “she was still far from [Naruto and Sasuke’s] level”. So when Sakura brags she’s caught up to those guys, fans know exactly what meme to make.Image: When Sakura declares “I’ve finally caught up with these two,” Naruto and Sasuke’s reactions in this meme say it all. Even that war scene is meme gold. Sakura’s deadpan line “I’ve caught up to you guys” in the Fourth Shinobi War had fans rolling their eyes because the show itself made clear she was “far from [Naruto and Sasuke’s] level”. In other words, Naruto and Sasuke immediately gave her the side-eye pictured above.

Chunin Exam Fiasco: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

One of Sakura’s most infamous blunders is from the Chunin Exams. She gets grabbed by a huge enemy ninja, and what does she do? She panics and snips off her own ponytail instead of attacking! Fans still laugh about it: as Sportskeeda puts it, the meme “aptly highlights all the vulnerable areas that she could have struck but chose to just cut her hair.”. In other words, Sakura literally solved her problem by going from ponytail to bald. It’s a running joke now that Sakura’s battle strategy is to style her way out of trouble.

Help! Sakura’s Go-To Jutsu

Another frequent complaint: Sakura’s default move was to yell for backup. Whenever Team 7 was in trouble, her big contribution seemed to be shouting, “Help me, Naruto! Sasuke!”. One fan commentary wryly notes that at one point “all she did was call out for help when the going got tough, and she never really did much in terms of helping her teammates.”. In short, early Naruto had Sakura spending far more time needing her teammates than actually saving anyone. It’s almost like she invented a “whine jutsu” – wave your arms and hope the big guns show up. Not exactly shinobi discipline, but hey, it became her signature move.

Sakura vs. the Kunoichi Guild

Fans don’t just compare her to the boys; they size her up against every other girl in Naruto – and she usually comes up short. Even minor kunoichi like Tenten or Hinata got more props. As Sportskeeda notes, Sakura “hardly brings much to the table” in battle compared to the other ladies – “almost every female character was considered more reliable” than Sakura in the early episodes. Remember Hinata bravely stepping in against Pain, or Temari single-handedly destroying Gaara’s sand-golem? Sakura’s biggest early win was… a math test. In fan debates, that usually gets the biggest laugh of all.

Even the Anime Joins the Roast

The running joke got so big that even the show seems to wink at Sakura’s helpless image. Just watch the opening animations: almost every intro shows Sakura clasping her hands and looking desperate or panicked. As one write-up notes, “almost every opening shows Sakura in a sort of helpless state… as if the animators were well aware of just how useless [she] had been.”. Those stills of Sakura praying or wide-eyed have themselves become meme material – as if even Naruto’s creators are in on the running joke.

Image: Sakura wears many looks – confusion, frustration, shock – perfectly capturing a fan’s reaction to each “Sakura is useless” joke. By the time you’ve seen her pleading or frozen in panic across four different openings, you can’t help but feel the series is grinning along with every meme.

Is Sakura Really Useless… or Just Unlucky?

To be fair, Sakura does eventually grow into a real powerhouse. By Shippuden she can one-shot villains (Sasori’s puppet, anyone?) and by Boruto she’s the Hokage’s right-hand medic. Even Kishimoto gave her moments to shine. But for many fans, the damage was done early: Sakura’s first impression was “annoying useless girl,” and that stuck (even some Sakura fans admit it). That’s why the jokes linger: Kotaku even reported that in a recent Naruto poll Sakura shockingly got more than twice the votes of Naruto and Sasuke combined. (Take that, haters!) Finally, maybe the fandom will admit she’s not totally worthless – but let’s be honest, some memes never die.