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Naruto Fans Think Chiyo And Sakura Deserve More Credit For Defeating Sasori

"Naruto" fans are about as willing to fight it out over the twists and turns of the anime's plotline as they are to grumble over who on the show's team should end up being Hokage. And with passionate debate comes intense opinions about how various characters did during the show's many fraught battles.

Each group of characters has its own stern defenders, and that definitely includes Team Kakashi member Sakura Haruno (Kate Higgins), a trainee ninja whose journey throughout "Naruto" and "Naruto: Shippuden" is arguably as important as Naruto's own, even if she's not the most powerful character in the anime. Granny Chiyo (Barbara Goodson) is powerful in her own right, too. A member of the Sunagakure, she serves as a guardian for Sasori (Johnny Yong Bosch), her grandson, whose powers soon become world-threatening. Sasori learns how to puppeteer others with his magical powers, which leads to a final showdown between the three parties.

Fans of "Naruto" conversing on the show's subreddit have mixed opinions on whether or not Chiyo and Sakura deserve more credit for eventually tackling their tough foe. Those who stand on the positive side of the spectrum think that the fanbase has been underrating the fight for a long time. "This is one of Sakura's best moments, she and Chiyo deserve full credit!" said u/Electronic-Eye-9313. Members on the opposing side feel that Sasori made it easy on both of them by showing mercy, and also that he allowed them to kill him. "Chiyo literally says he let them kill him," u/JohnWicksPenncill pointed out. 

The end result is a solid discussion where each side has a pretty decent point.

Was Sasori seeking death or did Chiyo and Sakura do the impossible?

Fans posting to the "Naruto" subreddit do agree on one thing — Chiyo and Sakura deserve more credit than they've been given for taking out Sasori. But they can't quite agree if Sasori deliberately lets his grandmother and Sakura kill him, or if the twosome simply outmatched him thanks to a showing of skill and knowledge about his personal weaknesses. 

Some want to give more credit to Chiyo than Sakura, a point of view that u/Ziiaaaac points out doesn't work. "Both Sakura and Chiyo deserve equal credit. They don't get to his true form without either of them. They're dead to Third without Sakura's antidote and they're also dead to Third without Chiyo's puppetry," they said. U/KoalaBJJ96 is among those who believe that Chiyo's strategy simply outmatched her grandson's. 

U/BigBadDogIV chalks up the moment's status as an underrated scene to fans' dislike of Sakura. "To a lot of people their Hatred of Sakura is very important to them and they don't want anything to lessen it like having to acknowledge she deserves credit for this fight," they said.

But others such as u/Apprehensive-Tip6432 think that Saori has something of a death wish going on as he enters into battle with Chiyo and Sakura. They also believe that Saori didn't use his full power during the fight, reflecting the thoughts of many fans on the opposite side of the argument. 

U/StrategyAmbitious303 represents yet another part of the audience: Those who think that Saori embraced death so he could die in the arms of his parents, who were never around in his youth. The subreddit's complicated feelings definitely reflect how fans of the property see the argument — and how they've come to embrace the grace of the win.