Sakura Minamoto

Sakura Minamoto (源 さくら,) is the main protagonist of Zombieland Saga. Before becoming a zombie she was an ordinary girl who faced various misfortunes. She died in 2008 getting hit by a pickup truck on her way to an idol audition. She's also a member and the center of the idol group Franchouchou and is known as Number 1 (1号).

Sakura Minamoto
She is the most normal of all zombies, being an ordinary high school student rather than a living legend at the time of her death. The first episode also has her as confused as the audience about the series' ridiculous premise, so she spends time asking lots of questions, before the rest of the girls (without Tae) wake up on Episode 1, she's able to fend for herself by defending herself from the zombies that were in the same mansion.

While Sakura had forgotten her constant bad luck and the details of her death, she remembered being motivated by Ai and was just as cheerful as she was at her presentation. When Sakura regained the memories of her life and found out how it ended, she also lost the memories of later becoming a successful idol with friends who would catch her if she fell, it is also revealed that Sakura aspired to be bigger and made many attempts. But she was plagued by bad luck and had lost motivation at one point in her life. This turned Sakura into a depressed girl. Life was not easy for Sakura before her untimely death. No matter how hard she tried to achieve greatness, she would always be hit with bad luck and her attempts would end in failure.

In her Episode 11 flashbacks, Sakura is shown to have a great potential in sports and academics, having trained enough to be the fastest runner in her age group in preparation for a relay race (one of her friends mentions that she was quite good at sports in general) and managed to score very high grades during mock exams for the best high school in Saga. Unfortunately, her efforts have been spoiled by a series of misfortunes striking at the most inopportune moments, leaving her jaded and apathetic about the possibility of ever realizing her dreams before Iron Frill came along.

Human appearance
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. Sakura sports a very well-endowed and curvaceous figure which 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 appearance
Like the other zombies, her 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.

Idol appearance
Her 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.

Character concept
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."

Personality
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 it's nice and somewhat naive doesn't mean it's a punching bag either. In Episode 2, after getting tired of Saki, Ai, and Junko's behavior during their performance, she doesn't hesitate to knock Tae'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's crazy ideas and attacks 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, 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. helps Lily reconcile with her father 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.

Abilities
Despite her outward naivety and general lack of sharpness, Sakura immediately recognizes Kotaro as a shady guy who has her wrapped around his finger, only following his ridiculous demands as a way to regain her memories.

It is revealed after the series that Kotaro knew how to awaken Sakura's potential, after Arpino's stage collapses on Franchouchou, and she finds herself in a situation of extreme pressure and is able to unleash all her hidden potential.
 * She was selected as a relay player for the third year in a row, each setting the best time in the grade
 * Scored 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)
 * Demonstrate excellent ability to act in small 3

Weaknesses
Whenever she 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 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)

Bad Luck
By the way, her unfortunate bad luck should be called "curse" seems to continue even after turning into a zombie:
 * She participated 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)


 * She participated in the concert at Karatsu Castle as Green Musume → Tae lost her head and Saki almost gave them away. The impromptu rap battle was a huge success, but the idol concert failed. (Episode 2)


 * She performed 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
 * She tried to stop Ai and Junko who tried to escape, but she went out into a busy area and was almost shot again by the same officer.
 * Yugiri attacks Sakura for no particular reason.
 * 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.

Kotaro Tatsumi
Even though the other members judged that Kotaro's idea seemed crazy, it seems that the reason why she obediently follows his plan from the start was because she hoped that doing so would help her regain her memories from when she was alive.

As Yugiri points out in the eleventh episode, she is treated different from the rest of Franchouchou, specifically, how, he is “especially nice” to her. This is evident by how he always consults her for her opinions regarding his plans before asking the rest of Franchouchou.

Though, Sakura seems either intimidated or clueless as to what his motives are most of the time, she occasionally follows his orders with little to no question, respectfully calling him sir and trying to get the rest of the girls to cooperate as to not upset him. She is also often the only one who sees through his unpredictable behavior and knows that deep down, he can and would be of help to them when needed.

Even though Sakura is often intimidated by him, he is not always above her in terms of authority. This is shown in the tenth episode when she finally has had enough of his antics of bringing them to a mountaintop for “no apparent reason”, where she draws the line and reprimands him for doing so.

After Sakura regains her memories after getting hit by another truck, she spirals into a depressive state and decides to avoid Franchouchou alongside Kotaro and Romero. Kotaro later finds her sulking by a swingset, being confronted by the same police officer from before, to which he responds with launching Romero at him which effectively knocks him out a second time and taking her to a cliffside with a view of the prefecture to give her a pep talk. After hearing her side of things, he tells her all of it does not matter and that it does not matter to him if she does not think she herself has what it takes as long as he has what it takes, he promises her that he would never abandon her. This finally gets Sakura to give everything another chance, which brings her back with the girls as Franchouchou.

In the twelfth episode, it is revealed that the two were classmates in high school, though the extent of their relationship is unknown. As Kotaro reminisces over this particular memory, he takes off his visor, looking away from the camera to silently wipe off his tears.

Saki Nikaido (Zombie #2)
After gaining her consciousness in the end of the first episode, she sees Sakura as one of her, if not easiest target to pick on. Threatening to kill her or do worse whenever she feels like Sakura was messing with her, which was never the case.

Sakura finally has enough of playing hot potato with the severed head of Zombie #0, which then culminates a rap battle between the zombie with amnesia and the zombie who was a former biker boss. After dishing out their lines, Sakura earns not only the applause of the retirement home but also Saki’s respect.

In the third episode, Saki tells Sakura to think of their group name because “she told her to”.

In the fourth episode, Saki invites Sakura over to take a quick trip to the baths whilst majority of the hotel was either asleep or doing errands elsewhere. Sakura refuses her offer at first but after a little persuasion, and being beaten 2 to 1 on terms of zombies who wanted to try out the spa, she finally gives in. As they got into the spa, they see the lady of the pharmaceutical also stepping into the water, as Saki orders Sakura and Ai to go underwater, Sakura’s head misses the water by a few centimeters and instead hits a rock which then bowls her head over to where the old lady was. This pisses Saki off as seeing Sakura’s decapitated head started a scene, Saki and Ai quickly grab Sakura’s head and body as they try to run back to their hotel room as the rest of Franchouchou unintentionally scares the living daylights out of the old lady. The following morning, they read a report about a “severed head like a bowling ball” found in the hotel’s hot springs to which Saki exclaims that she would kick the press’ asses for the unnecessary report.

Additionally, Saki also teasingly calls Sakura an egg-head, referring to her as one of her Tamagotchis from back when she was alive.

In the eighth episode, Saki is the first to alert Sakura about the mysterious man, thinking he had malicious intentions with Lily. After clearing up the misunderstanding, Saki and Sakura, alongside the rest of Franchouchou, help Lily write a song for her father.

In the tenth episode, she sarcastically congratulates Kotaro for finally pissing Sakura off.

In the eleventh episode, she starts to get annoyed with Sakura as she had been sulking in her depressive state for quite some time now. She and the rest of Franchouchou try their best to get Sakura back into her senses and into their idol group as well, since she was the most excited about the event, out of the rest of the girls.

In the twelfth episode, Saki and the rest of the girls all huddle close together, surrounding Sakura in their sleep as their way or showing her that they all have their support.

Ai Mizuno (Zombie #3)
Sakura discovers Ai Mizuno from her pop idol group, Iron Frill, from when they were both still alive. At the time, she has spiraled into depression after all her attempts at success has been unluckily thwarted by fate. She hears Ai’s response to an interview, saying how her failures makes her stronger and that that was what pushes her forward to doing better. This inspires Sakura to do the same, which is when she develops her dream of becoming a pop idol similar to Mizuno.

Throughout her time as a zombie, she had always felt something familiar about Mizuno, but since she had amnesia after getting hit by a truck, she can only remember bits of her memories from before. She holds onto what is left of her memories as her driving point of keeping up with Kotaro’s plan to save Saga with the seven undead girls via the power of music.

After the rest of Franchouchou’s awakening in the end of the first episode, she spots Ai and Junko attempting to escape the abandoned mansion, stating how Kotaro’s plan was crazy and how it would never work out. Panicking, Sakura tries to convince them to come back as they would get shot or worse when exposed to the public without their make-up on. This makes Sakura accidentally pull off Ai’s arms from the rest of her body. After her failed attempt at getting the two former idols to get back to the mansion, she follows them in her pajamas, hoping to change their minds, only to be greeted by a group of shady men and the same policeman from before. This experience drives some sense into Ai and Junko, with the three fleeing back to the mansion afterwards.

In the third episode, she suggests Ai to become their group leader before immediately being cut off by her saying there was no way that was happening.

In the sixth episode, she tries to break up Ai and Junko’s fight but to no avail.

In the tenth episode, she worries Ai and the rest of Franchouchou after Sakura gets hit by yet another truck. Franchouchou then proceeds to try their best to cheer her up and bring her memories back.

In the twelfth episode, Ai alongside the rest of Franchouchou, all huddle up close to Sakura, surrounding her in their sleep, showing her that she has all their support.

Junko Konno (Zombie #4)
Despite not knowing much about Junko’s time as an idol, she still has high respects for her. The two are in good terms, despite them not having as much interactions as Sakura does with either Kotaro or Saki.

After the rest of Franchouchou’s awakening at the end of the first episode, she sees Junko and Ai try to escape the abandoned mansion by jumping over the fence. Sakura tried to stop them and get them back but to no avail, this prompts Sakura to follow the former idols into the city in the midst of the night only for the trio to get confronted by a group of shady men and the policeman from before. This incident is what wakes Junko and Ai up regarding their current situation, forcing the two to go back alongside Sakura.

In the fourth episode, Junko overhears how Sakura and Saki were planning to sneak into the baths, which she shyly asks to join in on. After the whole incident involving Sakura’s head coming off, she and Saki quickly grab Sakura’s head and body and quickly head for their hotel room while the rest of Franchouchou unintentionally scare the living daylights out of the old lady.

In the fifth episode, Sakura compliments Junko, saying how she looks great in Drive-In Tori’s chicken costume, to which she responds with “Please, don’t lie to me.”.

In the sixth episode, she tries to mend Ai and Junko’s relationship after their disagreement regarding what their relationship with their fans are supposed to be. After finding Junko to herself by the beach, she attempts to fetch her straw hat for her after the wind sweeps it off her head. This leads the two to have a talk, which is also how Sakura and the audience find out about Junko’s cause of death.

In the seventh episode, Sakura shows her concern for Junko as it has been weeks since Junko has locked herself up in a separate room, away from Kotaro and the rest of Franchouchou. After Junko regains her willpower after being confronted by Kotaro, she decides to join the rest of Franchouchou during the last minute. As a visibly saddened Sakura looks off to the mansion just as the van door closes, Junko runs in front of the van, hoping to make Kotaro step on the breaks, stating how she changed her mind about not joining them for their performance, but instead gets hit by Kotaro, to which Sakura exclaims how this particular moment gives her deja vu somehow.

In the eleventh episode, Junko and the rest of Franchouchou try their best to cheer Sakura up and help her regain her memories from when she was a zombie after Sakura gets hit by another truck.

In the twelfth episode, Junko, alongside the rest of Franchouchou, huddle close to Sakura together, surrounding her in their sleep, showing her that she has all their support.

Yugiri (Zombie #5)
As the mother figure of the group, Yugiri tries to calm Sakura whenever she feels as if any of the other members of Franchouchou are tensed. The two are in good terms, but since Yugiri tends to have her reactions to things be delivered rather late, she often gets into misunderstandings with Franchouchou and Kotaro.

This is first shown in the third episode, as she shamelessly slaps Sakura straight across the face, thinking Sakura was still at the point wherein she still has not thought of practicing harder. This only elicits a confused “okay” from Sakura.

In the tenth episode, Yugiri tries to calm a fussy Sakura down by telling her they have all the time to practice after they gather the things they needed for survival up a mountaintop first. After returning from the snowy mountains, Yugiri pays a visit to Kotaro who is currently at their local cafe terrace. Yugiri talks to Kotaro about their trip, pointing out how she has figured out that the entire trip was his way of helping Sakura snap back into her senses, and comments on how she has a soft spot for people who can not express their feelings straightforwardly. Her tendency to have a late reaction is shown again when she slaps Kotaro across the face, thinking that he does not have any faith in Sakura when he just outright said so. After Sakura comes to her senses and apologizes to the rest of Franchouchou, Yugiri is happy to see the result and tells Kotaro of how she is glad that his plan somehow worked out, to which he responds by acting like he has no clue what she was talking about.

In the twelfth episode, Yugiri and the rest of Franchouchou huddle close together, surrounding Sakura in their sleep, showing that she has all of their support.

Lily Hoshikawa (Zombie #6)
Sakura and Lily are in good terms as Sakura treats her as a younger sister figure, despite the two also having little to no one-on-one interactions.

In the eighth episode, Sakura and the rest of Franchouchou find out about Lily’s past and her cause of death. After confronting Kotaro about it, they all help Lily write a song to her father after they have cleaned up their misunderstanding with the man.

In the eleventh episode, Lily was arguably the most distraught over how Sakura has no recollection of her time with them as a zombie after getting hit by yet another van. She tries to have a one-on-one talk with Sakura, but to no avail as Sakura was already long gone in her depression, which only made Lily feel worse.

In the twelfth episode, Lily and the rest of Franchouchou gather around Sakura and huddle close together as they all fall asleep, showing Sakura that she has their full support.

Tae Yamada (Zombie #0)
Tae is the first zombie Sakura meets as Tae was the one who headbutts her way into the hallway Sakura was in in the first episode, effectively scaring Sakura into running away from the mansion. After she gains consciousness, she once again finds out that she has somehow returned to the mansion. Kotaro then introduces Tae alongside the rest of Franchouchou to her, but after getting to Tae Yamada, Sakura asks Kotaro confusingly as to what made Tae legendary as he had no description for her. This pisses Kotaro off and tells her that Tae is legendary just because she is.

Tae and Sakura are on good terms, since Sakura is the one who pays the most attention to Tae, which helped her gain Tae’s loyalty and affection.

In the first episode, she exclaims how Tae has bitten her at least fifteen times that day only.

In the second episode, she and Saki fight over Tae’s head after it gets dismembered in front of their elderly audience.

In the third episode, she shows her concern for Tae after she sticks her mouth onto the tip of the whiteboard marker, exclaiming how ingesting the ink would be bad for her, forgetting that they were all dead which would be ineffective regardless.

In the fifth episode, Sakura tells Saki to cut it off as Saki demanded Tae to “sing properly”, telling her she knows fully well Tae was incapable of doing so. She instead tells Tae to do the “Cock a doodle doo” at the end of the commercial song. In the second segment of the fifth episode, Sakura helps Tae get her Franchouchou shirt on and was the one who thought of making Tae wear two sets of shirts, hoping she could still help advertise their idol group regardless if she accidentally tears open the first shirt. Unbeknownst to Sakura, she mistakenly got Tae to wear the order of the shirts wrong, making her tear apart the Franchouchou shirt instead, which ended up gaining more traction to Drive-In Tori rather than Franchouchou despite of Tae’s win in the Tarzan Swing activity.

In the eleventh episode, Tae is shown to be one of girls who was heavily affected by Sakura’s depression after once again getting hit by another truck. She and the rest of Franchouchou try their best to cheer her up and bring her memories as a zombie back but to no avail. The rest of the group takes notice on how Tae was “crying” for Sakura, only to realize that the drops of water weren’t her tears, but rather, her overflowing plethora of saliva with the camera panning over showing how Tae has had enough, which sends her to a brief psychotic episode and crashes into the same room Junko locked herself in via the windows. Effectively scaring her, she drags Sakura back to the rest of the team to try and get her back for good.

In the twelfth episode, Tae and the rest of Franchouchou huddle closer to Sakura in their sleep, showing Sakura that she has their full support.

Romero
Sakura was first afraid of Romero as she has seen it morph into its scarier form after she sees it feed on the squid Kotaro rewards him for the first time. Though, as the series goes on the two are shown to have bene on better terms.

This is evident in the tenth episode as she invites Romero to her morning walk when he is normally almost always seen with Kotaro or Tae. After getting hit by another truck, Romero quickly scares off the driver since Sakura did not have her human make-up on when she headed out. With no one else to help, Romero barks up a storm, prompting Sakura to get up as he continues to show his concern by whimpering loudly.

Police Officer
Sakura first meets him during her getaway attempt in the first episode. Not knowing she herself is now a zombie, she approaches the man hoping to get some help from him. As he drags his bike and gets closer to Sakura, he threatens to jail her if she loiters around during that time at night any longer. After taking a good look at her, he drops his bike in fear and shoots her in the chest, he is then knocked out by Kotaro with a shovel.

Not long after, during the second episode, she bumps into him again but this time alongside Ai and Junko. He stops the shady group of men from confronting the girls only to find out that they were zombies. His lousy aim ends up targeting the glass window behind the three, which then scares them enough to run away from the scene.

In the third episode, the policeman confronts Sakura about having a guerrilla concert in the middle of the public train station. She immediately gets nervous after he tells her how she looks familiar, this then prompts Kotaro to get Franchouchou in the van and drives off before things could escalate any further.

In the eleventh episode, he sees a depressed Sakura sulking by a swingset and threatens to jail her for loitering yet again. He doesn’t get too far with this since Kotaro ends up launching Romero at him which then knocks him out a second time.

Etymology

 * The name Sakura means "cherry blossom" (さくら).
 * Sakura's surname Minamoto (源) means "source, origin".
 * Sakura's surname (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 horoscope, she is an Aries.
 * Sakura's forehead scar was caused by her apparent cause of death, a head concussion.
 * This is also the reason why she had an amnesia of her past memories.
 * Sakura died five days after her seventeenth birthday.
 * Sakura is the only member of Franchouchou to not have a "Legendary" title.
 * Sakura is one of three with most curvaceous figures in group. Sharing same cup size and body type with Tae Yamada and beaten only by Yugiri.
 * It is possible that the parents' house where she lived is in an area about a 40-minute walk from the mansion of the series, which has been identified by a Japanese user
 * A search has been made and it was found that she lived near Mount Kagamiyama in Karatsu, within a radius of 300-500 meters

Gallery
Image gallery


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