Sakura Minamoto

""I can be kind of a klutz most of the time, and there are days when it feels like I don’t really have it together. But, luckily, it’s not gonna be like that anymore, I’m gonna be the girl I’ve always wanted to be! If I follow my dreams, I know my future will be full of happiness and excitement.""

Sakura Minamoto (源 さくら Minamoto Sakura) is the main protagonist of Zombieland Saga. She is the center of the idol group Franchouchou, with no legendary title as of yet, and is only known as Number 1 (1号 Ichi-gō).

Human
Sakura has straight pink hair in a dark shade that extends past her shoulders as well as a blue and pink ribbon, her eyes are a crystal blue color and she sports a very well-endowed and curvaceous figure that is proportionally identical to those of Tae Yamada with only slight differences by sheer numbers mostly due to their different height.

She normally wears her school uniform which consists of a blue dress with white socks and brown shoes.

Zombie
Like the other zombies, Sakura's skin color is grayish blue, she has a large scar on her face that reflects the how she died (Run over by a truck) some bandages that cover part of both legs, she also has a bandage on the left hand, keeps her usual school uniform but this is more disorganized.

The marks that the truck left on her body are quite clear, before hitting her, she looks directly at the truck and her forehead collides with the windshield following the left side of her body leaving some bandage marks in those areas

Idol
Sakura's idol outfit changes throughout the series: On the first 6 episodes she wore a dress with a pink t-shirt with the inscription of "number 1" in Japanese, a short pink padded skirt and blue tennis shoes with white knee-high stockings.

After Saga Rock, her outfit changed to a red vest and plaid decoration with a pink bow and a pink padded skirt, and black knee-high boots.

Personality
Before she died, Sakura's attitude was similar to post-death Sakura with amnesia, but due to the misfortunes of her life she adopted a rather pessimistic attitude to the point that all her social interactions disappeared because she only focused on herself. She thought that whatever she pursued would fail no matter how hard she tried, but seeing the idol group Iron Frill perform renewed her hopes. However she was hit by a truck immediately upon leaving her house after vowing to give her aspirations another shot.

Sakura is shown as an energetic young woman when she was still alive. However, that spirit seemed to turn to confusion, worry, and slight fear after she regained her consciousness as a zombie. However, she becomes very passionate when she sings like an idol.

Just because she's nice and somewhat naive doesn't mean she's a punching bag either. In Episode 2, after getting tired of Saki Nikaido, Ai Mizuno and Junko Konno's behavior during their performance, she doesn't hesitate to knock Tae Yamada's head out of Saki's hands and verbally assault them in a rap form. In Episode 10, Sakura finally loses her patience with Kotaro Tatsumi's crazy ideas and blows up at him after her encounter with a wild boar in the snow outdoors and then towards her groupmates for seemingly fooling around. Then on episodes 11 and 12, after she regains her pre-mortem memories at the expense of her post-mortem memories, she develops a pessimistic personality where her depression makes her so moody that she yells at Lily and Tae for trying to help her when she just wants to go.

Sakura serves as the emotional anchor that holds the group together, such as convincing the rebellious Saki to stay aboard Kotaro's plans despite their shared misgivings, inspiring Ai and Junko to restart their careers after seeing her determination, to succeed despite your inexperience and helps Lily Hoshikawa reconcile with Takeo Go after her death. Yugiri explicitly mentions it on Episode 12, stating that without Sakura the strong wills of the others would have caused the group to fall apart much earlier.

During the second season, it is shown that now she is a fundamental part of the group, and that thanks to her actions of taking care of the rest of the group, they have been able to spend this month working to pay the great debt of their failure. In addition to taking it into her own hands to help Kotaro with depression and trying to talk to him to get him back with the girls.

Skillset

 * Wide Intellect - Despite her outward naivety and general lack of sharpness, Sakura immediately recognizes Kotaro Tatsumi as a shady guy who has her wrapped around his finger, only following his ridiculous demands as a way to regain her memories. She also scored an 85 or higher on a mock exam at one of the prefecture's prestigious schools (also a high score that beats the average score of other aspiring students by 10 points or more in each subject).
 * Athleticism - Sakura was selected as a relay player for the third year in a row, each of which set the best time in the grade due to her training.
 * Acting - Sakura demonstrates an excellent ability to act during the practice for her school play.
 * Musical Talent - After being inspired by Iron Frill, Sakura gains a love for becoming a pop idol and has naturally acquired musical talent. According to the director, Sakura's potential is unleashed when she is between at a pressure point.
 * Dancing - Alongside acquiring her musical talent, Sakura has also naturally mastered the art of dancing after discovering Iron Frill.
 * Rapping - As shown in the second episode, Sakura is able to dish out lines against Saki in a spur of the moment attempt.
 * Hula Hooping - Sakura and the rest of the girls are able to perform while twirling hoops made of electricity during their performance in "Episode 16".

Natural Abilities

 * Non-senescence - As a zombie, Sakura is granted the ability to remain the age at which she died forever without any physical change after the resurrection process, as well as immunity against death. As she, along with the other girls, is able to endure circumstances that human bodies normally cannot handle, like the lightning bolt in the seventh episode, and instead of suffering a third degree burn, the girls end up becoming luminous and self-possessed - tuned voices.
 * Detachable Limbs - As a zombie, Sakura is given the ability to detach and re-attach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, whether it's intentionally or accidentally.
 * Phosphorescent Vision - Sakura gains dark red eyes that are able to glow in the dark after she is resurrected into a zombie.
 * Element Absorption - Their zombie bodies can speed up the process of absorbing chemicals like those seen in Episode 4 by instantly absorbing the medicinal patches causing their muscles to relax and not be as stiff, in addition to their subsequent concerts and practices continue to use the patches. In Episode 7, their bodies demonstrate a similar capacity to batteries by receiving an electrical discharge from lightning and glow a pale blue, as well as releasing laser beams with their fingers.
 * Muscle Memory - They actually still remember their traumas and the way they died, reflecting them in their post-life. The reason why their bodies have this behavior is that since their death was such a tragic event, it was etched in their muscle memory and now that they have consciousness within their bodies, this behavior remains in the background and only active if there is a stimulus. This is partially demonstrated with Sakura in episode 12 recalling the choreography after losing her memories.

Unique Abilities

 * Bad Luck - Whenever Sakura focuses on a goal, she forget to control her pace and lose track of her surroundings. Her impatience in Episode 10 develops due to a desire to regain her memories, causing her to rush to practice and come into conflict with the rest of Franchouchou when Kotaro Tatsumi sends them up the mountain to clear their minds. Her memory of her life in the following episode reveals that she was staying up practicing late, both for the school play and for the relay team, only because of the health consequences of going weeks without getting enough sleep to invalidate her efforts:
 * Being selected as the protagonist in the elementary school arts festival → On the day of the play, she was absent with a cold despite being vaccinated.
 * Selected as a Relay Player in Grades 4, 5 and 6 → Every year she was incapacitated by a cramp. (She may have forgotten to stretch or injured herself from stretching too hard. The bandage wrapped around her lower leg in a zombie shape seems to be the clue to this.)
 * High school freshman studying hard to get into the school she wants → On the day of the test, she encountered elderly people in trouble, arriving late for the test where she lost focus and failed.
 * Aspiring to be an idol, admired by the success of Iron Frill's Ai Mizuno → In April of her sophomore year of high school, as soon as she left home to submit her application form, she was hit by a van that suddenly appeared. (Episode 1)




 * Afterlife Misfortune - Sakura's bad luck follows her even to her afterlife. Instances include:
 * Her participating in Death Metal Live as Death Musume → Since only Sakura was awake, the other zombies started attacking customers and the live was canceled. (Episode 1)
 * Participating in the concert at Karatsu Castle as Green Musume → Tae Yamada lost her head and Saki almost gave them away. The impromptu rap battle was a huge success, but the idol concert failed. (Episode 2)
 * Performing at a live guerrilla in the square of the Karatsu station → she forget the lyrics. (Episode 3)
 * Unaware that she was revived as a zombie, a police officer shot her in the chest
 * Trying to stop Ai Mizuno and Junko Konno who tried to escape, but she went out into a busy area and was almost shot again by the same officer.
 * She attempts to fetch Ai’s hat before it flies off any further but ends up falling into the shore.
 * When she was in Ureshino Onsen, the public relations manager of the pharmacy came, because of a mistake they ended up scaring her so much that she forgot everything about her relationship with Franchouchou.
 * At Gatalympics, she launch herself from the rope as expected, but fell short.

Etymology

 * The name Sakura means "cherry blossom" (さくら).
 * Sakura's surname Minamoto means "source, origin" (源).
 * Minamoto is also one of the three most prominent clans in Japanese history. It is listed in the Shinsen shojiroku.

Trivia

 * According to Sakura's designer, Kasumi Fukagawa, she said that her vision for Sakura was that everyone loved her and would be the "ideal girl for a boy."
 * Sakura’s primary cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, and the truck was speeding on a residential street. It is later revealed in the post-credits scene of “Episode 19” that the driver who hit her took himself in and reported that the reason he ended up hitting her was because he was blinded by a brief flash of light, that was, at the time, not visible to the audience.
 * Sakura's forehead scar was caused by her apparent cause of death, a head concussion.
 * This is also the reason why she had acquired amnesia of her memories when she was alive.
 * With Sakura’s birthday being on April 2nd, this makes her an Aries.
 * It is revealed in the eleventh episode that, right before her death, and before acquiring amnesia in her afterlife, she suffered from severe depression to the point wherein she shows suicidal tendencies throughout the episode.
 * Sakura died five days after her seventeenth birthday.
 * Sakura is the only member of Franchouchou to not have a "Legendary" title.
 * Despite not having a similar title, her backstory shows that she was "legendary" too, in her own way. Sakura is a legendary Jinx, a talented, intelligent, and driving girl who never succeeds at what she counts due to her bad luck. This supposed bad luck may actually be the effects of the Saga curse preventing her from bringing glory to Saga, meaning she could have been a legendary actor, runner, or idol if the curse hadn't interfered.
 * For this very reason Kotaro never called her legendary, he knew that if he told her that and she remembered who he was, she would have recognized him.
 * Sakura is one of four with most curvaceous figures in group. Sharing same cup size and body type with Tae Yamada and beaten only by Yugiri and Maimai Yuzuriha.
 * In episode 10 there appears a paper with the choreography of the next song that reveals the plot of Sakura's past an episode before. It's basically a song where Sakura takes almost all the spotlight, and Tae just wonders in the back and doesn't move to the front of the group at all, and there's an incredibly wild mix of all the different dance types.


 * It is possible that the parents' house where she lived is in an area about a 40-minute walk from the mansion in the series, which has been identified by a Japanese viewer.
 * A search has been made and it was found that she lived near Mount Kagamiyama in Karatsu, within a radius of 300-500 meters.


 * And the main point of the song is that Sakura says, "I will not succumb to my fate, no matter how many misfortunes and adversities I have to face."


 * As of “Episode 13”, she and Tae Yamada work part-time as caretakers of a local pasture farm.
 * It is revealed in “Episode 18” that her family’s gravestones are positioned right next to the Yamada family’s gravestones.