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 as a zombie
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.

Saki Nikaido
After regaining her consciousness, her first conversation turned to the training her was receiving and her future as an idol group.

After that, the event was at Saga Castle, after a rap battle, Sakura earns Saki's respect and after that she was motivated and it became a good relationship. It seems that she is fond of Sakura, since she invited her to the hot springs and she accepted.

Saki affectionately calls her "Egg" because of the shape of her face and because it reminds her of her tamagotchi

Ai Mizuno
As mentioned above, she was the person who inspired Sakura to move on, but because she had lost her memory, it remained "somewhat familiar". Even being an omen for the final arc

Junko Konno
As a former idol, she trusts her as an experienced person.

Also, it seems that there are many parts that suit his personality, Junko had problems with the fan sections that Sakura was the one who tried to help him when he separated from the group.

Yūgiri
TBA

Lily Hoshikawa
She is quite sincere, and has the appearance of saying things clearly, but unlike the twisted Saki, Sakura does not tease her constantly, in episode 8 Sakura was the one who helped her after she remembered that her "Pappy" still missed her.

Tae Yamada
Since she was attacked immediately after regaining her consciousness, she has taken the lead in the role of a guard dog who always pays attention to Sakura when she is in trouble.

After that, it was possible as a member of Franchouchou because Sakura was educating her and making her a companion recognized by other members, teaching her to behave like a normal person gaining the appreciation of Tae. When Sakura, who regained lost her memories, rejected her, she was openly depressed, but after Arpino's act she looks happy because she finally remembered her.

Romero
When Sakura is run over in the same situation as the cause of death. At that moment, he violently barked at the driver and showed that she was worried about Sakura.

Kotaro Tatsumi
Even though the other members judged that Kotaro's plan seemed crazy, it seems that the reason why he obediently followed the lesson was because she longed to regain the memories of her past life.

At the end of the season, after regaining her memory, Kotaro tries to make her return to Franchouchou for good, seeing that this does not work she has no choice but to resort to yelling and force her back.

Trivia

 * 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.
 * 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

Gallery
Image gallery


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