Japanese actor Yui Itō, best known for playing Sakura Haruno in Live Spectacle Naruto: Song of the Akatsuki, reportedly had a close encounter with a troublesome individual at Jump Festa 2024.
Shared by social media user X (formerly Twitter) @/uchihassasusaku, Itō uploaded an Instagram story of her talking about being chased at this year’s Jump Festa convention. Itō was there to attend a talk event about the live-action Naruto play, along with Masaki Nakao, who plays Naruto Uzumaki. Based on the translation, security footage failed to capture the incident, causing Itō to fall asleep and cry with feelings of disappointment and depression. Pictures of bamboo forests were posted on Instagram to help calm her nerves.
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Currently, Instagram is the only social networking site where Itō shares her story of being followed. The intentions of the individual in question remain unknown. Due to the polarized reception of Sakura in the Naruto franchise, this person may have wanted to harass Itō simply for playing the character. It’s also possible that they are fans of Itō and have taken their feelings for her too far. Neither scenario justifies what happened, and both could have resulted in tragedy had Itō not escaped.
Online Naruto fans are expressing sympathy for Itō, while also criticizing the toxic and sexist attitudes of those who hold a grudge against a fictional character like Sakura. As mentioned in the uchihassasusaku thread, women who play Sakura around the world are regularly harassed in one form or another. This includes Japanese voice actor Chie Nakamura, who fans say Sakura is weak and useless during encounter events. Yeo Min-jeong, the Korean voice actress for Sakura, talked about how annoying it was to hear so many fans use curse words about Sakura. Even Katharina von Keller, the German voice actress for Sakura, has been harassed online on TikTok for playing the character.
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Character-related online harassment also extended to those involved in the official production of Naruto material, including series creator Masashi Kishimoto. While Sakura’s role in the story has been divisive since the original anime series, that doesn’t justify any harmful actions towards those associated with her work. Unfortunately, horrific experiences like these are becoming more and more common among pop culture fans.
The Naruto and Boruto anime series are now available to stream on Crunchyroll.
Source: Instagram, X (formerly Twitter)
