Sakura Haruno is the only known card that does not say "K.O." — the sole "return to the owner's hand" effect, and the sole cost-1 card with DMG 2

Part 19 of our one-card analysis series. Today: Sakura Haruno.

With Naruto Uzumaki (N-004) we finished every known character whose card number is also legible. From here we move on to the four cards whose stats and effect text are readable but whose card number is cut off in the images. This is the first of them.

This card has two pieces of wording that appear on no other card among the 24 known effect texts.

1Known cards that say "return to the owner's hand"Out of the 7 that move an opponent's Character

1Cards with a legible cost and DMG 2Out of 12 with a legible cost

0Cost-2 cards with DMG 2 or moreAll four cost-2 cards have DMG 1

What this article is based on: Sakura Haruno’s card face comes from high-resolution scans of the English demo card handed out at Gen Con 2026 (SAMPLE watermark, NOT FOR SALE marking; posted by an X user). Neither the official site nor the official X accounts have published this card’s face or any Japanese text for it. Because the source is not an officially published image, this article carries no quoted card image. The card number is cut off at the bottom of the images and remains unconfirmed. Counts are drawn from the 38 entries in our card database (24 with readable effect text; 20 characters with readable stats).

1. Reading the card face

Field	Printed
Name	Sakura Haruno
Card number	Unconfirmed (cut off in the images)
Card type	Character
Rarity	R
Chakra cost	1
DMG	2
POW	6
HP	4
Types	Taijutsu / Hidden Leaf Village / Team 7

The effect text runs two lines.

[Support] Cha! [During Your Opponent’s Attack] Choose 1 Character: Return the chosen card to the owner’s hand.

The first line, “Cha!”, is not an effect — it is the name of the Support. As we found when checking that all 12 Supports carry a technique name, only two of the 12 carry a line of dialogue instead of a technique name: Sakura and Karin (N-010). “Cha!” is the English rendering of Sakura’s catchphrase. No Japanese wording has been announced.

2. The one card that does not say “K.O.”

Here is every known card whose effect moves an opponent’s Character off the field.

Six of the seven say “K.O.” Only Sakura says “return”.

Our removal round-up treated all seven together as removal. It turns out one of them sends the card somewhere else entirely.

Other known cards do move cards between zones, but always your own: Sasuke Uchiha Leader (N-012) puts a card from your hand on top of your deck, and EX Naruto (N-003) and Gamabunta (N-005) summon characters from your own deck or trash. Sakura is the only known card that moves an opponent’s card anywhere other than the trash.

3. The difference only matters against EX Characters

The gap between “K.O.” and “return to hand” is widest against the four EX Characters.

Every EX Character’s text opens with “This card cannot be played normally.” They do not pay chakra; they pay [Summon Requirements] by trashing your own Characters.

Sakura’s text carries no restriction at all — no “non-EX”, no “opponent’s”. Read literally, all four of these can be bounced.

From here this is inference: we raised this once before in our August 6 piece on face-down Supports, but it is worth restating. If an EX Character returns to hand, putting it back on the field should mean paying the [Summon Requirements] again — two more Characters trashed for N-003, two including a {Taka} for N-014. Compared with losing one card to a K.O., being bounced could be the heavier outcome. But the official rulebook is unpublished, and nothing official explains what happens to a card returned to hand or whether an EX Character can be summoned from hand at all. We cannot state this as fact.

4. Of the 12 cards with a legible cost, only Sakura has DMG 2

Of the 38 known entries, 12 have a chakra cost number that is legible on the card face. (The four EX Characters have no cost number, nor do the two Leaders, the art-gallery cards or the Chakra cards; the cost box is unreadable in the images for Minato Namikaze N-007, Itachi Uchiha N-013, Ino Yamanaka N-011 and Jugo N-019.)

Their DMG values look like this.

• DMG 1 11cards（92%）
• DMG 2 (Sakura Haruno) 1cards（8%）

Eleven have DMG 1. Sakura is the only one with DMG 2.

And a higher cost does not buy higher DMG. All four cost-2 cards (N-004, N-006, Orochimaru, Chidori Sasuke) have DMG 1 — less than the cost-1 Sakura.

When we laid out the chakra costs on August 16, we found that POW+HP totals are also smaller on the cost-2 cards (10–11 at cost 1, 9–11 at cost 2), and concluded that cost is priced against the jutsu rather than the body.

What is new here is that the same inversion shows up in DMG — the damage side.

All three printed numbers — POW, HP and DMG — fail to track chakra cost, which strengthens that August 16 reading. The caveat has not changed either: only 12 costs are legible, and no card above cost 2 has been confirmed, so expect this to break as more cards appear.

5. Whether it stops the attack is not written anywhere

Sakura fires During Your Opponent’s Attack. Six known cards use that trigger, and they split into three kinds.

Compare the wording with Shikamaru Nara (N-008).

Shikamaru: [During Your Opponent’s Attack] Summon this card and stop that attack. Sakura: [During Your Opponent’s Attack] Choose 1 Character: Return the chosen card to the owner’s hand.

Shikamaru says “stop that attack” in so many words. Sakura does not.

This is unconfirmed: nothing official explains what happens to an attack when the attacking Character itself is returned to hand. Many TCGs resolve this by cancelling the attack when the attacker leaves the field, but that is not something confirmed for this game. The fact that only Shikamaru spells out the cancellation leaves open the possibility that a bounce alone does not stop the attack. We are waiting on the rulebook.

6. Two versions of Sakura Haruno, with different types

Finally, the type line. Sakura also appears in the official site’s ARTWORK gallery — with a different type line.

As our round-up of multiple versions per character showed, the same thing happens with “Naruto Uzumaki” and “Sasuke Uchiha”.

{Taijutsu} remains, as of our type round-up, a type held by only two known cards — the other is Choji Akimichi. {Team 7} is held by six (N-001 Leader, N-003 EX, N-004, N-009 Kakashi, Sakura and the art-version Naruto), and Sakura is the only one who also carries {Taijutsu}.

7. Still unknown

• The card number (the bottom of the card is cut off in the images)
• How a card returned to hand is handled in the rules (including whether an EX Character can be summoned from hand)
• Whether returning an attacking Character stops the attack (no cancellation wording on Sakura’s face)
• The Japanese name, effect text and the Japanese wording for “Cha!” (only the English demo card has been confirmed)
• Whether any card costs 3 or more (only costs 1 and 2 are known)
• Which product she appears in (unannounced)

All of it waits on the official rulebook and card list. We will update her card database page and this article as soon as anything is confirmed.

Summary

• Sakura Haruno is a Character card, rarity R: cost 1 / DMG 2 / POW 6 / HP 4, types {Taijutsu} {Hidden Leaf Village} {Team 7}
• Of the seven known cards that move an opponent’s Character off the field, six say “K.O.” and send it to the trash. Only Sakura says “return to the owner’s hand”
• With no restriction on her target, all four EX Characters can be bounced — which should mean paying their [Summon Requirements] again, though the unpublished rulebook leaves this unsettled
• Of the 12 cards with a legible chakra cost, Sakura is the only one with DMG 2. The other 11 have DMG 1, including all four cost-2 cards
• The August 16 finding that POW+HP totals are smaller on cost-2 cards also holds on the damage side
• On the same trigger, Shikamaru (N-008) says “stop that attack” and Sakura does not

Related

• Naruto Uzumaki (N-004) and Chidori Sasuke share an effect line word for word
• All 12 Supports carry a jutsu name — but only one has its Japanese name confirmed on an official card
• How do you play a card that “cannot be summoned normally”? — deck building lessons from all 4 EX Characters
• 6 of the 7 removal effects in the NARUTO Card Game come from face-down Supports
• Only 4 cards cost 2 — and every one of them kills multiple Characters
• Twenty characters, thirty-four cards — why there are six Naruto Uzumakis, and why their traits do not match