As an anime about friendship and teamwork, Naruto has its fair share of competition or friendships turned rivalries. Some of them, like Naruto and Sasuke’s rivalry, are meant to pave the way to character growth. While others, like Might Guy and Kakashi’s rivalry, serve as friendly and somewhat comedic relationships in an otherwise bleak world. But one Naruto rivalry is agreed by fans to be the worst of them all even after multiple decades: the rivalry between Ino Yamanaka and Sakura Haruno.
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Ino and Sakura’s rivalry is frequently criticized for being shallow and revolving around a boy who (at least at the time) wasn’t even interested in them. But while Sasuke played a major role in the two’s rivalry, the underlying theme is a fight to show the other up in both love and ninja skills. Had the story focused more on this element of the two’s relationship, their friendship and rivalry would have been much less frustrating to watch, and might have even paralleled Naruto and Sasuke’s iconic rivalry.
The Background Behind Naruto’s Worst Rivalry
One of Naruto’s most hated rivalries, Ino and Sakura’s relationship is often criticized for being one-dimensional, with the two former friends seemingly only fighting to impress Sasuke. But that’s not all there is to it. While the two’s feelings for the last Uchiha were the overt reason given for their competitiveness, their actual dynamic is far more complex.
Ino and Sakura first became friends after the former found a young Sakura crying from being bullied for her large forehead. Ino told her to embrace her forehead to stop the teasing and tied her hair back for her with a red ribbon. This set the tone for their relationship: Sakura was the shy, timid girl who often got bullied, and Ino was the confident girl who defended and supported her.
While Ino’s support helped Sakura slowly become more confident, her inner insecurity remained. She compared herself to Ino and found herself lacking. This can be seen in Naruto Episode 41, when the two young girls made flower arrangements and Sakura asked Ino if the latter was a beautiful Cosmos and the former just a common Thoroughwort. Ino was quick to reassure Sakura that she was still a flower bud and could bloom into a flower even more beautiful than the Cosmos. But while her words inspired Sakura, they weren’t enough to erase her insecurity.
The Easy Change That Could Fix It All
This is where Sasuke comes in. Sakura’s feelings for Sasuke were strong enough that when she learned Ino also liked him, she didn’t automatically back down thinking she didn’t have a chance. Her feelings for him brought out her inner competitiveness and pushed her to improve to the point that she could finally view herself as Ino’s equal.
This focus on Sasuke also makes Sakura’s otherwise significant character arc feel remarkably childish and shallow. So, how could this have been fixed? The easiest way would have been to simply substitute the catalyst of liking Sasuke with something else. In the context of the story, the obvious choice would have been a rivalry over becoming the better Kunoichi. Kunoichi, or female ninjas, are already a minority among the Konoha 11, with their growth being largely overlooked until Naruto Shippuden, and Tenten being practically ignored by the end. Given Sakura’s growth under Tsunade following the time skip, putting this development into focus in Part 1 could have been far more compelling.
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This is already a major part of Ino and Sakura’s relationship, so the story would not need to be altered significantly for it to work. To a young Sakura, Ino symbolized the kind of person and ninja she wanted to become. As such, even without their mutual crush on Sasuke, Sakura’s feeling of not being Ino’s equal and desire to grow out of the other girl’s shadow would have eventually led her to turn their friendship into a rivalry.
But without the love rivals angle, the two girls could perhaps become rivals without ending their friendship, leading to a relationship of constant improvement reminiscent of Kakashi and Might Guy. As acknowledged by Sakura herself during her Chunin Exam fight against Ino, the latter’s support and rivalry was a major reason she was able to even come as far as she did. Both of them could get much stronger if they pushed each other as friends and regularly trained together.
It also helps that the story does see the two girls eventually redefine their rivalry as not just being over Sasuke during the Chunin Exam Arc, although this gets overshadowed by their continued infatuation with him. When Sakura cuts her hair to free herself from the Sound ninja Kin, she shows she values fighting for her teammates more than Sasuke potentially liking her long hair. Ino does the same when she cuts her own hair off during her fight against Sakura. These scenes could have been much more powerful if they served as physical proof of the two moving past their childhood crushes on an uninterested Sasuke.
How Sakura and Ino Mirror Naruto and Sasuke
Despite everything, Sakura and Ino’s rivalry is, in a way, a parallel to Naruto and Sasuke’s rivalry. Sakura starts the rivalry out of a desire to become Ino’s equal. Much like how Naruto initiates his rivalry with Sasuke over being envious of the Uchiha’s popularity and wanting to become his equal.
The two also share the same underlying hard work vs. talent angle as Naruto and Sasuke, with Ino coming from a prestigious ninja clan while Sakura comes from a civilian family. There is the difference that, unlike Sasuke, Ino seems to have always believed in Sakura’s potential. But Sakura still needed to stand up to her in an actual fight to believe in herself, hence the need for their rivalry.
