'Boruto' Art Reimagines Sarada With More Sakura

Boruto has made its next generation of ninjas-in-training stars in their own right, and one of the most popular characters in the series is no doubt Sarada Uchiha. The daughter of Sasuke and Sakura has gone from being reserved bookworm to an ambitious young genin hoping to one day become the new Hokage of Hidden Leaf, and is a perfect stern and logical foil for Boruto's devil-may-care antics.

However, while fans have grown to love Sarada's combination of Sakura's physical prowess and Sasuke's Sharingan powers, there has been a consistent souce of discussion and/or criticism amongst fans: How Boruto's animators have chosen to depict Sarada.

It's been a topic of fan chat threads ever since Sarada's got her own multi-episode arc in the anime: the character looks so much like Sasuke and so little like Sakura that it's downright distracting. As a corrective measure, some fans have produced fan art that gives Sarada a Sakura-themed makeover, and today we're sharing one of the best ones we've seen to date:

This image above definitely works some Sakura facial features into Sarada's appearance, but the effect makes certain decisions about the character's appearance much clearer.

As you can probably tell, this version of Sarada has more of a 'head cheerleader' vibe than an intense, honor student vibe. It makes one wonder if there weren't extensive internal discussions about that very subject during the design process; the Sarada we know in the series functions as an intellectual challenger to Boruto, as the young man comes to respect her prowess as both a student and a ninja. Given Sarada's lineage and ambition, it wouldn't be all that surprising if she indeed ends up becoming one of the most powerful and cunning Shinobi to have ever existed, with the combination of her parents' skills allowing her to surpass Sasuke. That growth would put her in a perfect position of shared values with Boruto, who also wishes to become a Shinobi powerful enough to surpass his own father. Their eventual relationship as two of Hidden Leaf's most powerful figures would then make so much sense - the epitome of the term "Power Couple."

In the modern era of female heroes, another wide-eyed beauty queen is not something we need in anime; the Sarada we have is (in our opinion) perfect, as her unshakable attitude and badass displays of power at key moments have kept us in her cheering section, regardless. Props to Boruto for introducing a true female equal to the male protagonist, and let's hope this little ninja love story ends the way we all hope it does!

Boruto airs new episodes Wednesdays on streaming services like Hulu. Next up will be the Chunin Exam arc, which ties back to the original Boruto movie.

Header Image Credit: Reddit