Sakura Haruno

Sakura Haruno (春野サクラ, Haruno Sakura) is one of the main characters in the series. She is a chūnin-level kunoichi of Konohagakure, a talented medical-nin, and a member of Team Kakashi. 

Source: http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Sakura_Haruno

Background

Sakura as a child.

During her early years in the Academy, Sakura was frequently bullied by others due to her large forehead. To try and combat this, Sakura used her bangs to hide her forehead, fuelling the other kids' teasing by indicating she was sensitive about it. Ino Yamanaka, realising this, helped Sakura by giving her a red ribbon that she used as a way of drawing attention to the cuter features of her forehead, which helped Sakura overcome her insecurity. The two became best friends and Sakura grew more confident, developing her own unique personality under Ino's guidance. In the anime, one day about five years ago while searching for Ino to have lunch with, she spotted her, along with Shikamaru Nara and Chōji Akimichi stealing bits of food from others. Curious as to what they were doing, she followed them, discovering that they were bringing the food to a mysterious young child named Yota. Later, despite her genuine appreciation for Ino's friendship, Sakura felt that she was living in Ino's shadow and longed to prove herself as Ino's equal. Later, when Sakura found out that Ino also had a crush on Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura ended their friendship so that they could compete for Sasuke's love, thus beginning a bitter rivalry between the two.

Personality

As a child, Sakura lacked self-confidence and was highly self-conscious about her large forehead. As such, she would cover her forehead with her bangs. It was not until she met Ino Yamanaka who would later defend her against her bullies and tell her that if she hid her forehead, it would only make it stand out more. It was after this that the two became inseparable friends and Sakura started to become more bold and self-confident.As a student, Sakura was noted to be an honour student, and even to this day, Sakura's scholastic intelligence is hardly rivalled by any of her peers. Despite this, however, just like most preteen girls, Sakura was more interested in her looks as opposed to practising her ninja skills, something that she was scolded for by Kin. As such, she became a selfish individual and even developed a rivalry with her best friend Ino, referring to her as "Ino-pig".
In the beginning of Part I, Sakura was self-centred, vain and was solely focused on herself and developing a relationship with Sasuke Uchiha. Due to this, Naruto's advances and attempts to gain her attention as well as his antics would generally irk her as she saw them as nothing more than childish and foolish. Sasuke pointed out that because Sakura had not experienced loss in her life, she could not understand Naruto nor him, prompting Sakura to start looking at things from Naruto's perspective in an attempt to understand her team-mate. This caused them to develop a mutual friendship which endured even when Naruto had left the village for two years. In Part II, Sakura becomes more mature and no more self-centred, though she still has a bad habit of being critical, specifically with Naruto. She also learnt of the various hardships Naruto faced with the Nine-Tails and Akatsuki. Saddened by the impact both forces have had on his life, Sakura becomes protective of Naruto and tries to do whatever she can to help him overcome these obstacles and eventually, due to their time spent together as Team 7, develop a deep friendship that mirrors their masters, though Naruto's feelings towards Sakura are unreciprocated due to her being in love with Sasuke instead.
At her core, Sakura is extremely compassionate, strong-willed, determined, and courageous, witnessed during the Chūnin Exams when her team-mates were incapacitated and it was left up to her to defend her team-mates from Team Dosu. This was also witnessed through her spurring Sasuke on to act when they were confronted by a disguised Orochimaru. Not one to lose or give up in a fight, when it came down to it, held captive by her hair which Kin Tsuchi mocked for being lustrous, she willingly cut her hair off and then confronted Zaku Abumi head on, despite her disadvantage. This was also prominently seen during her fight with Sasori where despite being told to run by Chiyo, she stayed and fought, noting that she had inherited her master's contempt for losing. Her courage, along with her care and deep understanding of Naruto appeared to have increased through time. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, she raised the morale of the Shinobi Alliance while healing Naruto by telling them that he was protecting them because he saw them all as his comrades.

Sakura's motivation to get stronger.

At the start of the series, Sakura had a deep infatuation for Sasuke Uchiha, rooted in his good looks, cunning, cool attitude, and prodigious talents. For that reason, many of Sakura's early appearances were dedicated to her continuing efforts to win his affection. As the story progressed, she began to recognise Sasuke as a real person with imperfections, and developed a more sincere desire to be there for him, and later fell in love with him. Sakura also became concerned that Sasuke would someday abandon her and the rest of Konoha in his quest for power. When her fears came true at the end of Part I, Sakura did all that she could to stop Sasuke from leaving, such as professing her love for him and even offering to join him. Despite thanking her and sounding grateful, Sasuke knocked Sakura unconscious and left the village.

Sakura emotionally shattered upon agreeing to stop Sasuke at all costs.

Sakura cursed her own uselessness at first, therefore she decided to take matters into her own hands and help Naruto to being Sasuke back home. Although she still worries about his well-being, Sakura is willing to attack him if it means returning him to Konoha, however, as time went on and Sasuke became an increasingly more dangerous criminal, Sakura recognised that Sasuke must be stopped at all costs. Despite agreeing that they had no choice but to kill Sasuke themselves to prevent Konoha from being involved in a war by his criminal actions or his death at a foreign country's hand, Sakura was immensely saddened and distraught at the notion nonetheless to the point where it drove her to trying to take care of the Sasuke situation by herself, though in the end she couldn't bring herself to do it, being brought to tears as she remembered her most cherished moments with him. Sakura even went as far as to attempt to have Naruto abandon his effort to save Sasuke when she realised how much suffering it had brought to Naruto. Ultimately, while still in love with Sasuke,Sakura has decided that the only option left for her is to have faith in both Naruto and Sasuke.

Inner Sakura

Inner Sakura.

Another detail of Sakura's personality is her brashness. In Part I, these were turned inwardly, in the form of "Inner Sakura" (内なるサクラ, Uchi Naru Sakura) — a manifestation of her inner emotions. In addition to comic relief, Inner Sakura represents Sakura's actual opinion on things when she outwardly remains calm, collected, or reserved. Inner Sakura's appearances are typically marked by an exclamation of "Shānnarō!" (しゃーんなろー) — a phrase which has no literal meaning, but is usually translated as "Hell yeah!", "Hell no!", or "Damn it!", depending on the situation. The English anime, for censorship reasons, replaced the aforementioned phrases with a forceful "Cha!". Inner Sakura is unique as it is in a way a second will within Sakura's mind. When Ino used the Mind Body Switch Technique on her, Inner Sakura was able to repel the user from her body, suggesting that Sakura has a split personality, consisting of the "Inner Sakura" and her normal personality. Although she appears quite frequently at the start of the series, after her apprenticeship started with Tsunade, and Sakura began to subconsciously adopt some of her master's mannerisms, these feelings would actually manifest through Sakura herself, in violent outbursts that would result in Naruto usually being hit for his foolish, or perverted actions.Despite this, however, Inner Sakura will still manifest in some cases such as when Naruto mouthed off to Tsunade. She disciplined him before Tsunade could, noting how fearsome Tsunade could be in cases such as those.

Appearance

Sakura with long hair.

Sakura has bright pink hair, large green eyes, and fair skin. Sakura was often bullied due to her rather large forehead hence her nickname of "Billboard Brow", due to this she wore her bangs over her forehead in an attempt to cover it, though Ino encouraged her to wear her hair back. In Part I, Sakura wore a red qipao dress with white circular designs, with or without short sleeves, with a zipper, tight dark green shorts, and a forehead protector which she used to accentuate her face.

Sakura's appearance during the Fourth Shinobi World War.

In Part II, Sakura, now a chūnin, has donned a new attire consisting of a red top with the same design as the upper-half of her Part I outfit, with black gloves, black boots, black shorts, short pink apron skirt, and pink elbow protectors and forehead protector which is now on a red cloth. Her skirt and elbow protectors are also pink in the anime. Sakura is now also armed with a tantō which she wears above her medical pouch. When she's not on a mission, she wears her regular red shirt, with a light yellow shirt under it, and a navy-coloured skirt. In this outfit, she still wears her boots. She later dons the uniform of the Allied Shinobi Forces inclusive of a Konohagakure flak jacket, albeit opting to wear a skirt instead of pants and her regular boots. She later changes her skirt to pants to assist the medic unit. During the battle against the Ten-Tails, having stored up chakra for over three years, Sakura obtained a rhombus mark on her forehead similar Tsunade's, known as the Strength of a Hundred Seal. Another notable trait of Sakura's appearance is her hair. At the series' beginning, Sakura's hair was very long (when she was young, there was a rumour that Sasuke was attracted to girls with long hair).After Sakura began to protect the unconscious bodies of Sasuke and Naruto after their battle with Orochimaru, Kin Tsuchi grabbed Sakura's hair and taunted her for paying more attention to her appearance than practising her technique. Kin kept Sakura captive, holding her tightly by the hair and forcing her to watch Zaku Abumi attack Lee. This caused Sakura to cut her hair to release Kin's hold on her, and determinedly attacking Team Dosu with a new goal of surpassing her team-mates. Her hair was very short and messy that time. After the battle, Ino cuts Sakura's hair to make it neater. During the time she trained with Tsunade after the Chūnin Exams, she had let her hair grow back but has since then cut it again in favour of her new, shoulder-length hairstyle. Like Shizune, she also has the tendency to pin her hair up in a ponytail when working.

Abilities

At the start of the series, Sakura's overall abilities as a ninja were considerably less than those of her team-mates; Sasuke and Naruto, with her greatest strength being her intelligence. After two-and-a-half years of training with Tsunade however, Sakura's abilities greatly increased to the point that she could hold her own against powerful enemies such as Sasori. Her skills in other areas have also increased, such as being able to locate Kakashi during the second bell test something Naruto could not do as well as tricking Sai, Kiba, and Lee into fighting each other so that she could put them all to sleep. Along with physical abilities, Sakura has also inherited her master's resilience and contempt for losing. This was best displayed after she had been surrounded by a cloud of poison, and used an explosive tag to dispel the cloud of smoke without sustaining much damage herself.