Summary
- Naruto’s characters are flawed, realistic, and often go against their own beliefs, mirroring real-world behavior.
- Zabuza values his relationship with Haku despite appearing indifferent, shown through his actions and protective nature.
- Characters like Kakashi, Obito, Nagato, and Naruto exhibit hypocrisy and flaws, making the series more complex and compelling.
Naruto is a shonen anime about perseverance, the importance of friendship, cool ninjas, and high-octane action with interesting powers. The show has a mix of blood-pumping action, training arcs, interpersonal dialogues and relationships, and lots of cool world building.
One thing that the show does quite well is the characters. The people populating the world of Naruto feel flawed and imperfect, but real for their imperfections. Many characters in the show go against the things that they preach, but that’s exactly how people in the real world behave as well.
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8
Momichi Zabuza
A Sweetheart In Disguise
Momichi Zabuza is one of the first villains that the viewers are introduced to in Naruto, and he had a lot of mystique and terror about him at first. He was a member of the legendary swordsmen of Bloody Mist who murdered his entire graduating class, a missing ninja who did anything for money, and a lean, mean, ninja killing machine.
However, the ruthless killer ninja actually had a “tool” that followed him around and tended to his every need. On the surface, Zabuza didn’t care about his “tool” (i.e., Haku), but in reality, he valued Haku as a student, close friend, and confidant. This can be seen when Zabuza goes berserk at the end of his arc when he fights an entire mob of small-time villains for disrespecting Haku, even though he’s already on his deathbed.
7
Hatake Kakashi
The Negligent Teacher
The story of Hatake Kakashi is one of pain and strife. A gentle, albeit socially awkward child, Kakashi encountered his first tragedy in the form of his father’s death. When he started to come out of his stupor with the help of Minato and his teammates, Obito died. Then his second teammate, Rin, died. Finally, even his teacher died.
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He changes his worldview because of his teammates, and decides to prioritize friendship and camaraderie over cold calculation. However, his implementation of this is ridiculous to say the least. Instead of trying to fix the dysfunctional team dynamics of the children he’s put in charge of, he effectively ignores them and pushes them together on missions with no further instructions.
6
Uchiha Obito
King of Misunderstandings
The third-last villain of the series, and the one that had the biggest hype built up around him, is Uchiha Obito. He’s an old teammate of Kakashi who went rogue after he was manipulated by Madara, so that he could help Madara enact his master plan to take over the world.
The hypocrisy of this character comes from the fact that he’s a big proponent of helping others, being a nice person, caring about his friends. But he sees one traumatizing accident, assumes the worst about his teammate, and goes on a murderous rampage, targeting his own village and killing his teacher. He did all this because Madara was manipulating him and the Sharingan is an emotionally destabilizing dojutsu, but hypocrisy is hypocrisy.
5
Nagato/Pein
The Misguided Revolutionary
Nagato is the leader of the infamous criminal organization, Akatsuki, which had the raw power to change the course of nations. It employed the most powerful missing nins across the land, and had enough firepower to send teams of two after Jinchuuriki to collect them. Initially, Nagato wanted to bring peace to the world, but he changed his methods along the way because his friend died for him.
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Instead of carrying on the legacy of his friend, he decided to flip his personality and go with an entirely different, much more sinister plan, which involved gathering all the tailed beasts by force and using their combined power to make an all-powerful nuke that would, supposedly, create a lasting peace. It was a stupid plan if he had stopped to think about it for a little while, though the execution was decent until the entire thing fell apart.
4
Jiraiya
The Missing Godfather
Jiraiya was the teacher and close friend of Naruto’s father, Minato. He was a ninja of the highest caliber, and he was an expert spymaster who supposedly had the social acumen to go undercover for years and gather information from closed safehouses like Amegakure.
However, he didn’t even bother to return to the village to help Naruto for over a decade. He ran from his responsibilities as Naruto’s godfather, choosing to stay away from the village. With his political and personal power, he could have afforded his godchild a better life, but instead he chose to abandon him to the wolves and leave the legacy of his student to grow up alone.
3
Hiruzen Sarutobi
The Incompetent Leader
Another person who had a chance to give Naruto a wonderful life without any worries or issues was Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage. He was the person who told everyone that the Kyuubi was sealed within Naruto, that Naruto shouldn’t be told that he’s a Jinchuuriki, and never told anyone that Naruto was the Fourth Hokage’s own son, leading to a lot of pain for Naruto down the line.
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After telling his dying successor that he would take care of Naruto, Hiruzen proceeded to make the worst possible childhood for the young Jinchuuriki while providing him with little to no help. This led to Naruto’s mistreatment by the general population, which made his childhood a lonely nightmare.
2
Shimura Danzo
A Dictator Among Dictators
Shimura Danzo is a flawed character who believes himself to be in the right no matter the situation. He is a perfect example of the adage, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Danzo started his journey as a shinobi idolizing the Second Hokage, and ended his journey with an arm full of stolen Uchiha eyes because that’s important for helping the village somehow.
Thinking himself some kind of martyr who does the dirty deeds other people don’t want to think about, Danzo acts in the most evil way possible, as often as possible, with almost no results to show for it. The ROOT program? Not very effective, seeing how Sai wasn’t that powerful. The Uchiha Massacre? A collosal waste of resources just to get a cool arm that he used once, and he didn’t even win the fight he used it in. Interference in foreign affairs? It ended up creating a terrorist organization that threatened the entire world at one point, and decimated his entire village.
1
Uzumaki Naruto
The Hypocrisy of a Protagonist
The main protagonist of a shonen series has to be idealistic, hard-working, and pure, and that’s exactly what Uzumaki Naruto is. He’s a child who had a troubled background, rose beyond the limits of his station, and took the world by a storm based purely on his mettle, hard work, and resolve. Except that’s not true at all.
He delivered a speech to Neji about how fate can’t confine anyone, and in Boruto, he disqualified his son for using tools during the Chunin exams that others don’t have access to. But both of these statements were incredibly hypocritical. Not only was he himself a child of prophecy who was destined to greatness by virtue of being the reincarnation of Asura, he was also a nepo-baby who benefited from his dead father’s connection by virtue of teachers like Kakashi, Jiraiya, and Hiruzen. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, he had a literal cheat code chakra god inside of him that he used throughout his career.
