Naruto Gaiden – Naruto x 701 Review: Uchiha Sarada

April 24, 2015 Farid-ul-Haq

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Part three of the Naruto manga has officially debuted, and it focused on the next generation of the Hidden Leaf Village. While we’ve already seen most of the new characters in the Naruto finale, it was good to see them fleshed out a bit more, and I can’t wait for the next installment — especially after the twist at the end!

As the title stated, the whole issue was about Uchiha Sarada, daughter of Sasuke Uchiha. The English version of her name is Salad and that’s the name I’ll use because it’s just too awesome to ignore. I don’t know about you all, but I immediately fell in love with her character. She’s very aware of her surroundings, and her inner monologue at the Ninja Academy showed that she’s quite mature for her age. While her classmates were excited about finally becoming ninjas, she was contemplating what it meant to be a ninja.

I also like her design. She looks a lot like a young Sakura. Being an Uchiha, I don’t know why Kishimoto gave her glasses. Maybe to give him an excuse to draw a panel where Salad throws away her glasses in a very dramatic way when she activates her Sharingan to save someone?

After years of Naruto manga chapters showing the Ninja World War, it was nice to see familiar characters laying back and spending time with their children. With the graduation exam coming up, familiar characters from Naruto were training their kids. It was good to see Naruto finding time to play and train his son Boruto, even though he could only send out a Shadow Clone to keep his kid company while he went about his duties as Hokage.

The panels showing fathers bonding with their children was a sharp contrast to Salad, who had never seen her father, Sasuke.

11188464_381893548661119_334294353809444193_nShe went home and started asking Sakura a lot of questions, especially about her parent’s relationship. This is where Masashi Kishimoto got a bit meta on his readers. There are fans that find Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship unhealthy, and don’t ship them. Having read Naruto for years I know that Kishimoto likes to troll. The hint he added at the end — that Karin could be Salad’s actual mother — is just his way to get fans to talk.

Salad’s character needs an internal conflict to make her arc move forward. Boruto is struggling with his internal conflict to be appreciated by his father, Naruto. In the same vein, Salad’s internal conflict about being unsure about her parent’s real identity will give her a lot of character-developing material as the story progresses.

Being a fan of Sakura Haruno, I was surprised by her role in the issue. She couldn’t give satisfying answers to Salad’s questions about her relationship with Sasuke. She also ended up destroying her house by accident and fainting afterwards. Is it just me or does Sakura look as if she’s under a lot of pressure? She’s definitely hiding something and it’s taking a toll on her. I can’t wait for Sasuke to come back to the village and see how this family drama escalates!

What did you think of Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage – Uchiha Sarada? Anybody have an idea who that blue-haired kid sitting next to Boruto was? Do you think Salad is really Sakura’s daughter? Let us know!

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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13 thoughts on “Naruto Gaiden – Naruto x 701 Review: Uchiha Sarada”

  1. what the f**k, kishi. like. did you listen too much to the SK fans? this is probably the biggest asspull i’ve seen yet, and believe me, after staying with the manga, i’ve seen a lot. sakura’s tsundere tendencies do not give me hope – maybe she’s pregnant? and what happened to her med-nin job? her new outfit is gone. i don’t get it. what was the point of all that official art w/the uchiha family if sarada is questioning her origins?

  2. Um…Sakura can’t be pregnant. Sasuke has been away for, what, 10 years? And all of us know she can’t betray him, she loves him too much for that.

  3. I agree with you! Maybe sasuke and sakura are not yet married and maybe this coming there will be marriage that will going to happen:D

  6. I doubt sasuke ever even touched sakura but did touch Karin….and I believe Karin fought harder for sasuke than sakura did….sakura turned against sasuke once….but Karin was stabbed and later forgave sasuke…so sasuke is Karin’s guy sajura just ended up taking care of his kid

  7. Thats just stupid..how can karin get pregnant when shes not even around..and why wiuld sakura take carevof other people’s child..no matter how she loved the guy if karin is the true mother the kid will be under her care not with sakura..so i pretty think sarada is saku in sasu’s daughter..the author was just making another twist with the story..sarada doesnt even look like karin at all..

  8. it seems obvious that Sarada is Sasuke’s and Karin’s daughter. at some point Karin died, so Sasuke brought the kid to the only woman who was powerful and crazy enough to raise his child

  9. I hate how Boruto is literally such a bullshit character. That ideas been so over done with Konhamaru and Naruto. Literally his existence is irrelevent. Im loving the suspense with Sarada though. Also I think Carlysle you’re right. I feel like karin died and her daughter is in Sakuras care. I do not understand what happened to Sakuras medical ninjutu job. Would’ve made her character so much more 3 dimensional instead of just being a house wife…for someone that hasn’t come home in like 10 yrs. Lastly, they should try to develop new character personalities for each of the kids of the current Jonin. Everyone’s literally copying their parents. Shikadai copies shikamaru, Chou Chou is just fat, and idk thats all i have to say. It’s honestly getting two repetitive. He just needs some more original ideas instead of just going with what works.

  11. Pingback: Naruto Gaiden – Naruto x 702 Review: The Boy With The Sharingan | The Geekiary

  12. Shaking my head….what is everyone thinking. Karin died in the movie and Sakura took her glasses. It is rather obvious that Masashi Kishimoto is trying to toy with our minds. Sakura gave does glasses to Sarada because Karin saved Sakura’s life. And I do not think Sakura and Sasuke are married there is some tension around there and it seems Sakura is going through serious stress. But it is true what happened to her being a top medic or did she turn into a housewife? Sarada is obviously confused right now and the series is going to be crap if it turns out Karin is Sarada’s mum makes no sense if she died way before Sarada was even conceived.

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