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. Before becoming a zombie she was an ordinary girl who faced various misfortunes due to bad luck and physical and mental effort. She died in 2008 when she was hit by a truck on her way to an idol audition earlier than usual. She wakes up without knowing who she is and what she does in the group but blindly follows Kotaro's orders to be able to recover her memories. She is also a member and the center of the idol group Franchouchou, with no legendary title as of yet, is known as Number 1 (1号 Ichi-gō).

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. Refusing to go with her compares because she thought that everything she would do would fail no matter how hard she tried, but Iron frill shone on her making her regain her hopes, however the truck did not think the same and her life ended in a tragic accident.

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.

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.

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 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.

Natural Abilities

 * Wide Intellect - 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. 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 - She 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 - She also demonstrates an excellent ability to act during the practice for her school play.
 * Musical Talent - After being inspired by Iron Frill, she 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, she has also naturally mastered the art of dancing after discovering Iron Frill.
 * Rapping - As shown in the second episode, she is able to dish out lines against Saki in a spur of the moment attempt.

Unique Abilities

 * Immortality - 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, she is also given the ability to detach and re-attach parts of her body from their sockets with little to no effort, whether it be intentionally or accidentally.
 * Phosphorescent Vision - She gains dark red eyes that are able to glow in the dark after she is resurrected into a zombie.
 * No human needs - As zombies it is not necessary for girls to sleep, eat, go to the bathroom or any basic human needs, however there seems to be a limit in which this works against them.
 * 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.

Weaknesses

 * Bad Luck - 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)




 * Afterlife Misfortune - Her 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 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 and Junko 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 (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 designer, Kasumi Fukagawa, she said that her vision for Sakura was that everyone loved her and would be the "ideal girl for a boy."
 * With Sakura’s birthday being on April 2nd, this makes her an Aries.
 * She constantly maintains visions or memories of her past life (which she does not remember after reviving as a zombie)
 * 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'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 house where she lived in is about a 40-minute walk from the mansion, which has been identified by a fan.
 * A search has been made and it was found that she lived near Mount Kagamiyama in Karatsu, within a radius of 300-500 meters.
 * 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.
 * 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."
 * Sakura's backstory shows that she was "legendary" too, at least in her own school and neighborhood. Sakura is a legendary Jinx, a talented, intelligent, and driving girl who never succeeds at what she counts due to her bad luck.
 * For this very reason Kotaro never called her legendary, he knew that if she told her that and she remembered who he was, she would have recognized him.