Reception
Sakura has been popular within readers from series, having placed second among all the characters in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle in a popularity poll held by Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2005. She took a lower spot in the second poll, but has nevertheless taken high places in other related polls from the series. In the Animage's Anime Grand Prix poll from 2006, Sakura was voted as the fifth most popular female anime character. The next year, she remained as the seventh most popular female character. In the Animedia "2006 Animedia Character Awards", Sakura took high ranks in various of its categories. Her biggest rank was second in the categories "Most Beautiful / Loveliest Character Award" and "Most Heroic Character Award". Singer Maaya Sakamoto wrote the anime's insert song "Spica" based on Sakura's character pointing to how she moves forward across the series, but also shows weakness at times. Various types of merchandising have also been made based on her appearance such as plushes and keychains.
Sakura's character has been well received by publications for manga, anime and other media. While commenting on the series' protagonists, Ed Sizemore from Comics Worth Reading stated that Sakura had "natural grace and charm", with comments also pointing to how she changes as the series continues. Comparing her with her Cardcaptor Sakura counterpart, Carl Kimlinger from Anime News Network found Sakura as a likeable female lead character based on her personality and how she cares for others. Animefringe writer Lesley Smith commented that Sakura was "becoming a much larger character" the more feathers she recovered, but still found a crux due to how her relation with Syaoran in the series' start changed. Sakura's change in the second half from the manga has also received various comments with Carlo Santos calling it a large improvement due to how she starts manipulating events from the series in order to obtain what she wants. On the other hand, Mania Entertainment's Sakura Eries had mixed feelings about this, stating that while it is not surprising how she volunteers to get involved in dangerous task, the outcome was "unbelievable" due to how she ended facing the creatures from Tokyo. Megan Lavey from the same site found Sakura's death in a later volume as unexpected and the revelation of her being a clone like Syaoran made her feel "cheated" as the two of them were the series' initial protagonists.
Her relationship with Syaoran has often been described as one of the series' strongest points due to how Sakura starts caring for him despite having lost all of her memories involving him. Carlo Santos stated that such relationship even makes up for the issues found in the TV series from Tsubasa, while Active Anime's Christopher Seaman found such romantical relationship between as one of the most mature parts from the series. IGN's N.S. Davidson mentioned that while some people may not like romances, it would still appeal to them, because of the situation from the two characters. Megan Lavey initially called "pretty simple love story", while liking their personalities.
Read more about this topic: Sakura (Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle)
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