Sakura

"Training is fun if you set your mind to a specific goal to work toward!"

- Sakura

"Pleased to meet you! (よろしくお願いします！)"

- Sakura (Street Fighter IV series)

Sakura Kasugano (春日野 さくら) is a character in the Street Fighter series who made her debut in Street Fighter Alpha 2. She is a Japanese schoolgirl who has an intense fascination with Ryu. She has managed to copy and learn some of Ryu's techniques, but really wants him to train her personally.

She is the fourth female fighter in the series (after Chun-Li, Cammy and Rose). She has a friend named Kei Chitose, who attends the same high school, Tamagawa Minami High, and sometimes goes along with Sakura on her street fight tour.

Appearance
Sakura typically fights in her school's uniform, a short-skirted sailor uniform (seifuku) with the collar popped and red bloomers underneath. She also wears red Converse-esque shoes, a red top under her uniform, red boxing gloves, a yellow bola tie, and a white headband (given by Ryu before Street Fighter Alpha 2). She has short brown hair.

Personality
In many aspects, Sakura is very outgoing and respectful in personality, as she is most of the time happy, energetic, cheerful, positive, hard-working and focused in combat. She has a noble spirit and a very determined attitude, either in studies or in martial arts training. She sees Ryu as an idol and teacher, rather than an opponent, since she always watches him fight and mirrors herself on his philosophies in battle.

Although her techniques may seem somewhat "rustic" in comparison to Ryu and Ken, she manages to balance her school work with her trainings in hopes of being accepted as Ryu's student and prove herself by fighting worthy adversaries. In a clean match, Sakura is a very patient and disciplined warrior. She is the embodiment of innocence, and is acknowledged by many fighters to have great potential that may one day match Ryu and Ken in strength when she gets older.

Pre-Street Fighter
Chronologically, Sakura first appeared in Rival Schools, where she had begun to participate in street fighting after watching Ryu win the first World Warrior tournament. Sakura was involved in various adventures within her school and various others in Aoharu City. Fighting in it, she realized how much it meant to her to protect something she cared about.

Street Fighter Alpha 3
At age 16, she was still fighting, and decided to travel the world to find Ryu. She started off in her native Japan and fought the sumo wrestler E. Honda, who mentioned Ryu was going off to such places as India and Thailand. She also fought a rematch with her rival Karin Kanzuki, and though Karin won the fight, she admitted Sakura was better and she had learned winning was not everything. Thereafter traveling with her sensei, Dan, she met his friend Blanka along the way and was promised a match with him.

She continued to search the world for Ryu, eventually ditching Dan and finding Ryu's friend and rival Ken. She commented to him how she loved to fight to better herself, and finding inspiration in those words himself, Ken and Sakura eventually found Ryu in Thailand, where he was actually being brainwashed by M. Bison. Sagat had come by this time to find the scene as well, and as Sagat took on Ryu, both Ken and Sakura took on Bison. A combination of Sakura screaming for Ryu and Sagat's urgings finally snapped Ryu out of the mind control and he defeated Bison, destroying him temporarily. He told Sakura then he was not ready to train her and fight a rematch with her yet, and walked off, with Sakura watching him go. She then realized that there was something really special about Ryu, but she didn't know what.

Super Street Fighter IV
Sakura returns to fight again, still searching for Ryu. This time, it is heavily implied that her admiration toward Ryu has developed into a full-on crush. Her win quote against Sagat has her admitting that she understands his obsession with Ryu, adding "Isn't he just dreamy?". Some time after the end of the second World Warrior tournament, she confronts Dan about whether he knows anything about where Ryu might be. Dan, not wanting to appear out of the loop, says that a new tournament is rumored to be about to start, and that Ken will be participating, speculating that Ryu will also be there. Ecstatic, Sakura immediately runs off to enter. She, Dan and Blanka depart on a cruise ship on which she endures a grueling self-imposed training regime.

During the tournament, she actively seeks out Ryu, eventually finding him in the S.I.N. building in the midst of destroying the BLECE project. The force of the struggle knocks Sakura unconscious, and she awakes to see a triumphant Ryu standing over her. The two escape from the S.I.N. building in the midst of explosions - which were probably Vega's doing - and run into Dan and Blanka along the way. After the tournament, Sakura and Ryu exchange goodbyes and she leaves for home on the ship, she also realizes that it was love that she felt for Ryu. In her ending, a slightly older-looking Sakura is shown walking with her dog in an area near the Overpass when she sees Ryu approaching.

Marvel vs. Capcom series
Sakura appeared as a playable character in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix
Sakura appeared as a playable character in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix.

SNK vs. Capcom series
Sakura appeared playable in Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000, Capcom vs. SNK 2 and SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium. Like several other Street Fighter characters, she has also appeared as a card in the SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash games.

Capcom Fighting Evolution
Sakura appeared as a playable character in Capcom Fighting Evolution.

Street Fighter X Tekken
Sakura appears as one of the DLC characters in Street Fighter X Tekken, with Blanka as her tag partner. Sakura and Blanka hear the news about Pandora located in the South Pole. A few months pass, leaving Sakura and Blanka to wonder where Dan has gone ever since he left and never came back, so Sakura and Blanka head out to the South Pole to find Dan and check out the Pandora Box.

Continuing their journey to the South Pole, Sakura and Blanka run into Lars and Alisa thinking that Lars is a TV star known as Red Warrior Bakori Man, to which Blanka agrees. Lars gets confused as to who this TV star is, and Alisa explains to him, after which Sakura and Blanka challenge them to a fight.

After defeating Ogre, Sakura and Blanka feel excited, as they got to fight many fighters searching for Pandora. Soon, they remember that Dan is missing, so Sakura calls out his name. Afterwards, Pandora opens, prompting them to check inside. Looking inside, they find Dan freezing and beaten up, prompting Sakura and Blanka to help Dan out of the box.

UDON comics
Sakura appears in several of UDON's Street Fighter comics, like in Street Fighter Legends: Sakura (in which she is the main protagonist), Super Street Fighter and Street Fighter Unlimited.

Sakura appeared in UDON's Street Fighter comics as a main character where she and Karin are rivals in high school, she meets Ryu in a fight againest Akuma in hopes that he would train her, she tries to prove her worth by attacking Akuma, only to be attacked by Akuma as he hits her in the head to a tree, she begins to loose concsicusess as her eyes close. She eventually wakes up asks Ryu to train her, Ryu tells her that he himself is far from a master, thought she still follows him dispite his doughts about himself.

At somepoint on her summer vacation, she eventally meets Adon, only to find out that Sagat had left his honor for his art behind in order to seek revgence on Ryu, she tries to perform a Hadoken on Adon for insulting Ryu, however, the attack did not work out as no surge of ki did not come out. She went to Ken's weeding as he was getting ready for the party, he was attacked by a group of Shadaloo spies being lead by Vega, he attacked Ken without any remorse while keeping him, while Ryu has his battle with Balrog, Sakura defeat many of the spies of Shadaloo and using a blue Hadoken, before Guile could help Ken, Vega fights Guile in order to keep him from helping him. As the cops came in to help Guile, Vega and the remaining Shadaloo spies retreated back to Bison.

Before Sakura left to the airport on her way back to Japan, she told Ryu that she would continue to train until he returned back to Japan, at some point at her school, she and Karin had a fight over who could eat more hot dogs, although Sakura was losing, Karin was actually cheating. Honda new that interfearing would not be the right thing to do, Sakura's friends then took out many of the emplomers that were working for Karin throughout the contest, she begins to realized that Sakura is a better girl then her.

During the Street Fighter tournment that was being hosted by Shadoloo, Sakura, Dan, and Blanka had entered it, only Blanka was able to make it to the next round.

After Shadaloo was stoped, Sakura went to become a full time student of Ryu in hopes that she would gain more knowledge over Ansatsuken to become stronger, Bison and a group of tropes have come to bring Ryu back to their boss, Sakura takes out the tropes while Ryu fights Bison, Urine comes out of the Holicopter in an effort to bring Ryu back with him, Sakura was be theartend by Bison, with Ryu now foucsing on Bison holding Sakura, Urine used that to his adventvene and knocked Ryu out. Bison droped Sakura and left her in the ground as he and Urine left, as Dan saw everything that happened, he followed them to their base, he went back to Sakura and told everything that they plained to do, Sakura wanted to save him herself, as she started to think about serceting using the Dark Hado in order to help him (knowing that using this power is dangerous), Akuma appears behine her and motivataving her to use the power, she regected his way on using this power.

Akuma however tells her that she has the potential to use supassed him if she harness this power, she uses it for a breef moment and fires a Metsu Hadoken at Akuma in a burst of anger, only for him to shoot it back at her and knocks her down, he teleports away, leavng Sakura to feel the power that she just used,  she soon finds Bison and begins ruthlessly beat him by using the Satsui no Hado, she started to go for a lethal blow, Dan tries to convince not to let vengence comsume her as he himself knows from experience, Sakura begins to push back him back due to the Dark Hado starting to affect her mind, and tries to destroy Bison, Ryu breaks free of his impresonment and tries to stop her from destroying him, she begins to aruge with him on why he would let a person like him alive everything he's done, her eyes glowed even reder as she tears off her headband.

The Satsui no Hado continues to affect her sanity as she starts to fight Ryu.

Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind
Sakura is first shown when she defeats Ken's security guards who wouldn't let her in his home. She is still on the hunt for Ryu and asks Ken if he's seen him. Ken tells her that he hasn't seen him and Sakura tells Ken about the missing fighters, since he never heard about that. Later, she was able to snap Ryu out of the control of the Satsui no Hado after the latter was about to kill two security guards.

She helps out Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li as S.I.N. tries to capture Ryu to complete the BLECE project after C. Viper's report about Ryu and the Satsui no Hado. She helps Chun-Li get rid of most of the guards while Ken rescues Eliza while Ryu searches for Seth. At the end, she tells Ken that she's leaving because of the prices for plane tickets have gone down and she couldn't miss the chance to get them since she has to go back to Japan.

Gameplay and Fighting Style
Sakura fights using an emulated (and thus comparatively weaker) version of Ryu's fighting style; her applications of the moves lead to a unique approach to the "Shotokan" fighting style, with a different gameplay style from that of Ryu's. Sakura's moveset contains many "unorthodox" variants of existing 'Shotokan' moves, including a 'running' Shoryuken, a jumping Tatsumaki, and a less-powerful Hadoken that she can charge, though at the cost of distance.

Her moves and combos have high potential to stun opponents and also provide many an opportunity for mix-ups. However, her somewhat low stamina and her lack of other available approaches (particularly her weak projectile) require a certain amount of finesse, leaving little room for error; this ultimately makes Sakura a high-risk, high-reward character. Sakura's combo-heavy playstyle, when supplemented by her normals and special, make her a devastating fighter once she gets an opening.

She can successfully manipulate ki, and is subsequently able to perform the Hadoken energy attack; however, due to her lack of training, she cannot throw it the full length of the arena like Ken or Ryu can. Unlike Ryu and other fighters from the same style, however, she can control the size of her Hadoken and throw larger Hadoken projectiles that sacrifice range and execution speed for size and power (up to 3 times larger). In the Marvel vs. Capcom series, she throws her Hadokens diagonally upwards, though her "Hiyakeshita" (literally "Sunburned") version still throws them horizontally. In Capcom vs. SNK, she is given an energy spark instead of a traditional projectile (called the "Hadoushou") that hits 3 times, but is limited to the area in front of her hands (though her EX version lets her use her special version of the Hadoken).

Her other attacks include "Shunpukyaku", a short version of the "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku" attack that, instead of sailing through the air, rises and falls in an arcing pattern and traditionally only goes about 60% of the screen at its longest range; and "Shouoken", a version of the "Shoryuken". She performs it by running and throwing body blows ending the combination with an uppercut.

Her Super Combos include her own interpretations of the Shinku Hadoken (which, like her regular projectile, will not cover the full length of the screen) and Shoryureppa ("Midare Zakura"). Her third Super Combo is a ground-based spinning leg attack (called the "Haru Ichiban", literally translated as "first one of the spring") that ends with a side kick that knocks her opponent away. In the Marvel vs. Capcom series, the Street Fighter EX series and Rival Schools, she also gains the Raging Demon in her sunburned form, although it has no canonical reference on the Street Fighter series.

In her appearance in Street Fighter EX3, she gains two unique Meteor Combos: first is the "Nekketsu Hadoken", in which she fires a massive, pink Hadoken, which is several times her size, exceptionally fast, and does more damage than any other projectile attack in the game; the second is "Genki Ichiban", which can deal about 80% damage to an opponent but is widely telegraphed (she tiptoes toward her opponent and points & laughs; the pointing is unblockable and causes a great deal of knockback).

Quotes
See: Sakura/Quotes

Pop Culture
Sakura/Pop Culture

Trivia

 * Sakura is one of two fighters who learned their fighting styles from two of the main characters in the Street Fighter series, Ryu and Ken. The other is Sean.


 * She remains as the only Street Fighter character with a vocal theme song, "I Just Want You to Know". It is first found in the arrange soundtrack of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. The song is an arrangement of her theme song first heard in Street Fighter Alpha 2, and is once again used in Super Street Fighter IV.


 * Sakura is the only female to have used the Satsui no Hado (as "Sunburned Sakura", also known as "Dark Sakura"), although it has no canonical reference on the Street Fighter series.
 * In Udon's Super Street Fighter comics, Sakura actually falls to the Satsui no Hado while fighting Akuma, in order to tap into the strength necessary to find Ryu, who had been kidnapped by the Illuminati.


 * Sakura is always touted as the youngest fighter of the Street Fighter franchise.
 * However, like most fighting game series that featured teenage participants, Capcom dropped any references to birth years to avoid controversies. It is however speculated that Sakura should be at least in her late teens or early twenties as of Super Street Fighter IV.


 * In the Street Fighter manga Sakura Ganbaru! (Fight on, Sakura!), Sakura's potential, contradictory to her usual status as low-tier, was believed to be so immense that if properly trained, she would be able to match Ryu blow for blow.
 * In the same series, Ken also mistakes her for being either Ryu's daughter or sister.
 * Additionally, the quotes between Sakura and Cammy (especially in Cammy's quote) in Super Street Fighter IV could be a reference to the Sakura Ganbaru! manga, where she and Cammy formed a friendship.
 * Sakura's downloadable track jacket outfit in Super Street Fighter IV is a reference to the final scenes of the manga, where Sakura wears the same outfit as P.E. teacher at Tamagawa-Minami High, hinting that she probably became a teacher herself in her alma mater.


 * In the non-canonical game of Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Sakura is seen as an adult and as a mother with a son in her ending.


 * Sakura's winquote towards Evil Ryu in the Arcade Edition of Super Street Fighter IV is a reference to the animated movie, Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind, when he almost kills her for getting in his way from killing an S.I.N. agent.


 * Not counting Evil Ryu, Sakura is the only character introduced in the Street Fighter Alpha series to appear in the Street Fighter EX series, in this case, the console port of the first game and also the third game.


 * It is widely speculated that Sakura may have had knowledge of the English language, which would enable her to travel the world for fights without inconveniences. This is a trait that is uncommon to Japanese students in the game's timeline.

Gallery
Street Fighter series={{#tag:tabber| Alpha =

Street Fighter Alpha series
EX =

Street Fighter EX series
IV =

Street Fighter IV series
MvC =
 * -|Crossover Games={{#tag:tabber|

Marvel vs. Capcom series
CvS =

SNK vs. Capcom series
Namco's X Games=

Namco's X series
}}