----- ADS-----
Under the surface of Naruto are many bubbling contradictions, and these characters reveal them. Taken at face value, Naruto‘s world is fairly black and white. Although Naruto makes plenty of time for tragic stories and unfortunate backstories that can elicit a little empathy in the heat of the moment, at the end of the day, the series always reverts to pushing a very hard line in favor of the shinobi world’s political structure.
Naturally, though, it’s impossible for a writer―even one as skilled and thoughtful as Kishimoto―to outrun the implications of the world they create. Naruto is a shining example of a fatally interesting phenomenon: how, despite their best efforts to push a certain vantage, a writer can leave behind enough stray narrative strands overtime that eventually overpower the story they wanted to build. These are ten Naruto characters you weren’t supposed to think too hard about.
1) Neji
As a member of the Hyuga Branch family, Neji is branded with a curse mark that allows members of the main bloodline to punish or even kill him at will. By way of this mark, members of the Branch family are essentially enslaved to the Main family. While growing up with that burden would obviously disillusion you, he’s eventually talked out of his ardent belief in faith by Naruto (go figure). While Neji becomes more egalitarian after the fact, that doesn’t change the fact that the mark is still there.
In a sense, Neji’s mark feels like a metaphor for a lot of how Naruto tries to approach problems of discrimination and hierarchy: it doesn’t matter if the mark is there if everybody can be talked out of using it. But one question only Naruto‘s villains ever seem to ask is why the mark has to be there at all. It’s also through this that Naruto manages to insert an insidious preoccupation with bloodlines and a game of “touch-and-go” with genetic fate where Kishimoto seems to want at once to say “you’re born with a certain hand” and “the hand you’re born with doesn’t matter.”
2) Sai
Charming and awkward, Sai is one of Naruto Shippuden‘s best additions. It’s compelling to see him try to learn how to operate in society and make friends. He lost those abilities, of course, because of ANBU’s brutal methods of brainwashing and reprogramming. Through intensive programming, Sai becomes a perfect robot, even having his memories of his brother entirely erased.
Once you learn the full story behind Sai, he becomes incredibly painful to watch. He’s a plain example of how far the shinobi world will go in order to erase individuality and identity in the name of rote obedience. It also leaves open the question of a relationship between these obvious, overt methods of brainwashing and enforcing loyalty and the more subtle, manipulative ways that ninja society ensures its bodies for the battlefields are docile and loyal. Sai’s story rewrites Naruto‘s entire emphasis on loyalty, even if it’s subtle.
3) Danzo
While there’s a contingent of fans who see Danzo as a compelling character, there’s more or less unanimous agreement that, at the end of the day, he was a “bad guy”. In reality, although Danzo does occasionally act out of brazen self-interest, the majority of his actions are motivated by a sincere devotion to Konoha. We also shouldn’t forget that Root was established precisely so that Danzo could lift up the village from the shadows as a concession when Sarutobi takes his desired spot as Hokage.
Root becomes a full-on arm of Konoha’s enforcement and stranglehold over Naruto‘s world, and it shouldn’t come as any surprise that a great deal of his directives were given with full support on the part of the village. Perhaps Danzo was already a bit of a secretive, shady, and opportunist character―but that doesn’t mean those aren’t the perfect qualities for exactly the job that Konoha asked him to perform. As the saying goes, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
4) Kabuto
Much like Naruto, Kabuto was one of Konoha’s orphaned children. Much like Sai, Kabuto later joins Root, where he’s extensively gaslit. The breadth of this effort is baffling: Danzo systematically made both Kabuto and Nonou forget one another’s faces so that they, Root’s two most knowledgeable shinobi, would take one another out. Over the years, Kabuto would be gaslit and renamed so extensively that he would lose his sense of identity. After being effectively discarded, he went under Orochimaru’s wing.
Although Sai and Kabuto both show how far the shinobi order will go with their shinobi’s identities and individually, they represent two radically different directions. Sai was introduced back into shinobi society and thus was cemented as being on the “good side”. Kabuto, discarded, later lost his sense of self entirely and decided to forge a new identity by amassing power―leading to his extremely destructive role in the Fourth Great Ninja War. Kabuto became shinobi society’s greatest villain, and shinobi society was the one that fabricated him.
5) Konan
Konan, of course, is one of the three Amegakure orphans who were briefly fostered by Jiraiya and who later formed the core of Akatsuki, initially a self-defense organization formed for protection in the face of Amegakure’s constant feature as a proxy battleground. All along, she was anchored solely by her love for Nagato and Yahiko, as well as for her sincere desire for peace in her home village.
It’s a testament to the emptiness of shinobi idealism that when Naruto promises her to help bring peace to Amegakure, no form of support ever materializes―not even after the village is raided by Obito, who came seeking Nagato’s Rinnegan in one of Naruto Shippuden‘s best episodes. Despite the smiley faces and good vibes of promised support, Amegakure’s later appearance in Boruto makes it clear that the shinobi world depends on the interplay of cosmopolitan centers of wealth like Konoha with destitute villages left in its trails.
[RELATED: Nearly All of Naruto’s Villains Share One Thing in Common]
6) Tsunade
In many ways, Tsunade was dealt an unfair hand during her tenure as shinobi. She’s constantly facing exterior threats in the form of Akatsuki or inter-village conflicts, and she has to take over a ship that was only halfway competently steered by Sarutobi. But the problems go even deeper. Every difficulty that Tsunade faces as Hokage is more or less the direct result of the ruthless politics of the Hokage who preceded her.
It’s impossible to bring up Tsunade without bringing up her particularly “epicurean” lifestyle. But if the pivot of a hedonistic lifestyle is to be free from pain and maximize pleasure, you have to admit that Tsunade has plenty of reason to want to be free from pain―reasons like the passing of her brother and fiance, which themselves link back to the shinobi order’s need for a constant supply of warm bodies to fill gaps, fight whatever battles it deems worthwhile, and above all to consistently bring in the cash. The fact she’s hauled back in to lead that same system is salt in the wound.
7) Rock Lee
If there’s one mantra in the ninja world, it’s that discipline pays off. Rock Lee proves otherwise. In so doing, he also exposes a whole foundation of war- and bloodline-obsessed ideology. In the face of an innate lack of chakra, Rock Lee wants more than anything to become a respected and venerable shinobi. He tries and tries, but ultimately―like his mentor and leader, Might Guy―his power ceiling is correlated with his willingness to literally die in a world.
Okay, whatever―call it bad luck. At the very least, you can’t fault Rock Lee’s willingness and dedication, nor can you fault his power, since he does end up incredibly strong. Rock Lee is a favorite of countless Naruto fans because of his positive attitude and relentless determination. However, the way he’s sidelined after his fan-favorite fight with Gaara definitely makes it feel like the shinobi world never fully took him seriously despite obviously being more than capable.
8) Haku
Naruto fans love Haku. Many see Haku as one of the few examples in the series of a character being permitted to die with honor and dignity, and they also see him as a pillar of loyalty in the series. If you’ve picked up on something already, it’s that the word “loyalty” hasn’t been the friendliest so far. Haku was an orphan who Zabuzu picked up to take advantage of his latent potential and his Ice Release power, openly asking if Haku would become his weapon.
A weapon he became: the sense of purpose led Haku to feel a deep sense of loyalty and devotion to Zabuzu, and he would spend the rest of his life as a beautiful tool. Zabuzu molded Haku into a perfect, deadly shinobi. You could say it’s a reciprocal relationship, but the reality is that Haku never had the opportunity to live an independent life, always being fully devoted to being a tool for someone else to use. His life is cut short dying for his master, and the series permits Zabuzu to cry in Haku’s memory―but it never permits questioning why Haku was compelled and manipulated into following a path shinobi society practically mandated.
9) Kakuzu
In Naruto‘s second half (covered by Shippuden) where Kakuzu features, the role of economics in Naruto slowly but surely fades into the background. Early in Narutothough, it’s made clear that Naruto‘s world has a richly defined international economy―and that, just like our own world, money is the most valuable resource of all at the end of the day.
On his face, Kakuzu seems exceptionally cruel: he’s willing to do heinous things in the name of a paycheck, truly living out Akatsuki’s then-mission as outlaw mercenaries to the letter. But the reality is that, if you think Kakuzu is cruel, you also have to think the shinobi of the Five Great Nations are cruel too. In Narutoeven if it’s in the background, money rules the world, and if you can grant Kakuzu anything, it’s that he doesn’t paper over his desire for paper with flowery ideas like honor and loyalty.
10) Karin
It’s hard to miss just how horrifying Karin’s story is, and but it’s easy to miss what it means for the broader shinobi society. Taken in as a child with her mother by Kusagakure in exchange for healing the village’s wounded, it’s affecting to see how Zousui doesn’t bat an eye when her mother exhausts all her chakra and forces Karin to take over her duties immediately. It’s also awful to see how, because of her Uzumaki heritage, she’s kidnapped, almost sold off, and minimized to being little more than a useful tool by everyone who takes her side.
The worst part, however, is that she’s not exactly special in that regard. She eventually walks free, but awash in trauma from her tumultuous life. Systematically disregarded and hardly ever shown an ounce of genuine kindness, Karin is emblematic of the way that shinobi are more often than not just means to an end, especially when they’re not considered part of a given village’s in-group.
It’s no surprise that a lot of Naruto‘s best villains show the dark side of the shinobi world, but the reality is that the same factors hit characters in every direction of the franchise’s moral compass. What do you think? Are there any characters we missed who you think belong here? Let us know below!
