Sasuke & Sakura: An Analysis
Chapter 5
Sakura's Reasons for Loving Sasuke
Despite complaints that Sakura has no reason to love Sasuke, Sakura actually had many reasons for why she loves him. While he certainly has many flaws, Sasuke also has many admirable traits. During their Team 7 days, Sasuke was noble, heroic, brave, caring, kind, smart, clever, disciplined, confident, sensitive, thoughtful, introspective, hardworking, determined, perseverant, selfless, patient, and forgiving. He was observant, quick to react, and a quick study. He was the one to cheer her up when she was feeling down, he protected her and Naruto, he saved her life several times, he expressed affection towards her, he was open and honest with her, he thanked her for her presence in his life, and he displayed faith in her abilities. It didn't hurt that he was handsome. Sakura has tons of reasons to like Sasuke; he had many admirable traits, even if he had many undesirable traits as well. But like Naruto, Sakura didn't allow the bad overshadow the good when it came to her best friend Sasuke.
Sasuke was open and honest with Sakura, confiding to her some deep and personal things about his feelings. Sasuke offered her a relationship founded on sincerity, maturity, and seriousness. Sasuke didn't offer her a boring or stagnant relationship, but rather an engaging one that challenged her to grow and learn and develop as a person and a warrior.
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Additionally, Naruto was a public practitioner of sexy jutsu and Kakashi regularly read porn, whereas Sasuke was no such pervert, so that alone would be enough to make Sakura like Sasuke best on the team. As a woman, I can say that if I was thrown on to a team with three guys and I knew two of them were perverts who were super disrespectful towards women and one was not, I would be most interested in striking up a friendship with that non-pervert guy first and I would be disgusted with the other two, no matter how nice they might be otherwise. Not saying that's what Sakura was thinking, but it wins points in Sasuke's favor for why Sakura liked Sasuke the most. After all, Sakura did tell Naruto to stop his abhorrent and indecent behavior whenever he used sexy jutsu, but those requests were repeatedly ignored.
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It was never stated why Sakura started crushing on Sasuke, so that is open to interpretation. Fans have said she was drawn to the young Uchiha boy because he was popular and handsome. While it's probable that Sakura was attracted to Sasuke because of his physical appearance, we know she didn't like him for his popularity, since it's shown to us that Sakura didn't know Sasuke was popular or well-liked when she decided she liked him.
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Sakura announced to her playmates that she's in love with Sasuke, to none of their surprise. Sakura, however, is surprised when they correctly guess she liked Sasuke, an obvious sign that she hadn't known Sasuke was popular or liked by many of the academy girls. That means she wasn't influenced to like Sasuke by her peers; she chose Sasuke particularly for some reason independent of others' input.
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So Sakura either (1) had a crush on him because he was handsome or (2) there was something about his personality/demeanor that made her like him, or likely a mixture of both. Personally, I think Sakura was drawn to Sasuke's boldness, self-confidence, and certainty. The self-assured manner in which he carried himself was a trait she wanted for herself and so she was drawn to his outward confidence in himself and his abilities.