Characters / Naruto - Hidden Sand Village

Naruto Main Character Index
The Hidden Leaf Village
Team 7 (Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, Kakashi Hatake) | Team 8 (Hinata Hyuga) | Team 10 | Team Guy | The Legendary Sannin | Hokages | The Uchiha Clan | Other Leaf Village Members (Danzo Shimura)
Other Great Villages
Hidden Sand Village (Gaara) | Hidden Mist Village | Hidden Cloud Village | Hidden Stone Village
Antagonists
Hidden Sound Village (Orochimaru, Kabuto Yakushi) | Akatsuki (Itachi Uchiha, Tobi, Pain/Nagato) | Madara Uchiha
Recurring Characters
Other Characters | Hebi/Taka | Tailed Beasts and Their Hosts | Otsutsuki Clan
Others
Anime-Only Characters | Movie-Only Characters | Novel-Only Characters | Game-Only Characters | The New Era

Here be spoilers. Any thing that has not been aired on the free version^note one week after the paid version of Crunchyroll should be spoiler-tagged.

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General

Hidden Sand Village provides examples of:

• Blow You Away: They are the main village of Wind Country, after all. Temari, Gaara, and Baki are all confirmed to have wind-nature chakra.
• Cast Speciation: Subverted. The Sand Siblings were the only team in the Chunin Exams that broke the Geodesic Cast template of a physical fighter, a tactical genius, and a token girl; instead, they featured two tactical geniuses (both Kankuro and Temari matched up the respective thinkers of two other teams in Shino and Shikamaru), no physical fighter at all (the three were long-range specialists) and a girl who wasn't quite a token (Temari was the only kunoichi in the entire exam who passed the preliminary fights).
• The Clan: Mostly averted. Gaara Hiden: A Sandstorm Mirage explains that, unlike the Leaf and almost all the other ninja settlements, the Sand Village families don't constitute clans officially speaking. The only known exceptions are the Hōki Clan, the Kazekage's family, or at least Rasa's direct lineage, who is referred as the Kazekage Clan, and the non-canon Shirogane Clan from Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2.
• Curse: Since all five of their Kazekage are assassinated before they leave office (although Gaara gets better), many in Sunagakure believe that the position is cursed.
• Darker and Edgier: Suna sometimes is portrayed as this towards Konoha, with both still being on the side of good. The fans sometimes take it further.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: In the Chunin Exams arc, the Sand Siblings had the most exotic weaponry of all, and not only because they carried large equipment in their backs as opposed to the lightly-armed rest of participants: when their respective bundles were revealed, they all showed a previously unheard degree of either power or complexity in their jutsus.
• Easily Forgiven: Suna ninjas (particularly Gaara and company) start off as murderers conspiring with the current Big Bad to try and overthrow and destroy Konoha. The plan fails, but the Third Hokage still ends up dead in no small part thanks to the Sand Village's assistance and at least tacit approval. Later on, Sunagakure as a whole, and Gaara, Temari and Kankuro specifically, are close allies with Konohagakure and friends of the protagonists, since Orochimaru was revealed to be a common enemy when he killed the Fourth Kazekage. It's implied that Konoha, weakened after the conflict and shorthanded, decided not to hold Suna responsible in order to get a chance to recover and wanted to preserve their peace treaty. It worked out well for both sides as the Sand would become perhaps Konoha's most stalwart ally in the years to follow thanks to Tsunade's willingness to assist them in various ways (in particular helping them reform their shinobi education system) and Gaara's friendship with Naruto.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Gaara is the Mage because his sand protects him, but he isn't strong at actual physical combat. Kankuro is the Thief, with his techniques being centered around deception and strategy instead of raw power. Temari is the Fighter, as her powerful wind-style jutsu are more physically active than Gaara's sand.
• Honor Before Reason: Suna Shinobi believe that the accomplishment of a mission predominates the lives of the ninja trying to accomplish it. As such, they ruthlessly pursue victory in battle, and even if failure is inevitable they will still try to achieve any success against their enemy that they can. This has worked against them especially when Orochimaru used this trait to make them loyal unwitting pawns during the Konoha invasion.
• Knight of Cerebus: The Chunin Exams only got super-serious when we started seeing what Gaara and his siblings could do. And that's not counting the invasion...
• Long-Range Fighter: Many shinobi from Suna tend to have fighting styles that utilize fighting from a distance, which is shown through their puppeteers, most of their Kazekage (if not all), and the Sand Siblings.
• Magnetism Manipulation: In an interesting twist on Dishing Out Dirt, all 3 of the Kazekage who receive focus in the series (The Third, The Fourth, and the Fifth) utilize techniques based on around Shukaku's Sand Manipulation as their main techniques. The Third, credited as being the most powerful Kazekage in the village's history, used Iron Sand (iron powder). The Fourth, the father to the Fifth, used gold dust. The Fifth, Gaara, is the only one who uses actual sand. What's notable, however, is that it is eventually revealed that this manipulation is not actually Earth Release in nature. All 3 of the different elements being manipulated fall under the Magnet Release category, which combines Wind and Earth Release to manipulate different elements.
• Marionette Master: All puppeteers shown are from Suna, and the technique presumably originated there. As each village has a legendary troop of fighters, with the Sand Village's elite being the Puppet Brigade.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: How Orochimaru was able to manipulate them into invading Konoha—by impersonating their leader.
• Only One Name: Not a single person from Suna seems to even have a surname. Some, like the first four Kazekage, didn't even have their given names revealed until the manga was almost over (and only in a databook, at that). Some fans misappropriate ninja titles as names, using "Sabaku" as the last name for Gaara and his siblings and "Akasuna" for Sasori when really they're just descriptors.
• Quality over Quantity: The approach adopted by the Third Kazekage when the Land of Wind's daimyo started focusing his resources on the Leaf Village instead. Indeed, thanks to their research and innovative techniques, the Sand Village gave out some seriously strong fighters through its story, but they were relatively few among a predominantly Red Shirt Army, and this tend seem to increase through the years. In Kazekage Gaara's times, it's apparent that he and his siblings (and Baki, only that he rarely leaves the village by this point) are the only high-level shinobi in their active ranks: when one of them is kidnapped and the other is hospitalized, they are forced to call an elder out of retirement.
• Selective Magnetism: The country to originate the Kekkei Genkai known as "Jiton/Magnet Release/Magnet Style", which combines the Wind and Earth elemental transformations. The third and fourth Kazekage both had it. The Third used it on "Iron Sand". The Fourth used it on "Gold Dust". Gaara Hiden reveals Gaara also has it, combining a cloud of sparkling metallic dust with his sand to strengthen it even further.
• Took a Level in Kindness: The Sand characters are less actively aggressive after the Time Skip, thanks to Rasa's death and Naruto's influence in Gaara.
• Trauma Conga Line: The village got bad luck right at the beginning, when they controlled a mostly worthless desert country, making them demographically, economically, and militarily the weakest of the Five Great Ninja Villages. They possessed a single Tailed Beast and the weakest one on top of that, albeit already having one meant at the negotiating table they were able to demand money and arable land from Hashirama instead. All of their leaders fell to assassination or battle (although the latest gets better). Their own feudal lord chose to pick Konohagakure to do missions for him, bringing down the village's economy even more. As a result of this grievance, they team up with Otogakure to invade Konoha in a breach of their peace treaty, only to find out that Oto had manipulated them from the beginning, having assassinated and assumed the identity of their Kazekage. Three years later, the village experienced a terrorist bombing that is barely averted but still does enough damage. Finally, since the Fourth Division specializes in wind-based jutsu, it's implied that Suna ninja forms the highest casualty count in the Ninja Alliance after Madara's double meteor attack obliterates the division.

Gaara of the Desert

See Gaara.

Kankuro

Kankuro

Voiced by: Yasuyuki Kase (JP), Michael Lindsay (EN, Part I and Kazekage Rescue arc), Doug Erholtz (EN, Shippūden Movie 3 and Five Kage Summit arc onwards), Vic Mignogna (EN, Rock Lee and his Ninja Pals), Miguel Ángel Montero (Spain), Sergio Morel (Latin America), Thierry Janssen (French)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 34 (Manga), Naruto Episode 20 (Anime)

^{Click here to see his pre-Timeskip appearance}

When a puppeteer lets someone else control him, it's all over! I won't lose to you… or to the one controlling you. Your techniques… and the puppets you created will never rot. As long as there's a successor who will take up the spirit inhabiting them!

Kankuro is the second child of the Fourth Kazekage and Gaara's older brother. He tries to control Gaara's homicidal tendencies as best he can, but fears the younger boy's abilities and is thus fairly ineffectual in that respect. He's pretty confident and doesn't have a whole lot of respect for other people; his first appearance in the series sees him bullying Naruto's young friend Konohamaru. Kankuro always wears the robes and face paint of a theater performer and speaks in that fashion in the original Japanese.

Kankuro fights Shino during the Invasion of Konoha arc and is defeated, but not before poisoning the latter. He reappears along with his siblings at the end of the Sasuke Retrieval arc, saving Kiba and easily killing Sakon and Ukon.

Kankuro is a puppeteer, which means he fights with mechanical contraptions, controlling them with strings of chakra that he can extend from his fingertips. Puppets are unliving machines, so they can't use chakra, but each of them is outfitted with an array of weapons and poisons. Kankuro can also use the Substitution jutsu to seamlessly switch places with his puppets, causing his enemies to attack the puppets instead. He picks up a new puppet with each new appearance. All of Kankuro's puppets were designed by Sasori before he joined the Akatsuki.

In Shippuden, Kankuro is Worfed by Sasori after Gaara is defeated and abducted by the Akatsuki, giving Sakura a chance to show off her new medical skills, but he managed to get a piece of Sasori's clothing which lets Team 7 track them down. He spends the rest of the arc recovering from his injuries and arguing with the village elders to focus on looking for Gaara instead of choosing his replacement.

He's since acquired a new puppet body: Sasori himself. Later he goes on to defeat the revived Sasori when they face off a second time, gaining the puppets of Sasori's parents in the process.

Years after the war comes to an end, Kankuro still remains the dutiful brother and bodyguard of Gaara to this day.

His hobby is collecting puppets, and installing and upgrading the mechanisms in them.

Favorite phrase: "One must never miss a good opportunity"

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• Anatomy Arsenal: On his puppets.
• Art Attacker: Kankuro uses the puppets he spends his time modifying for battle.
• Badass Bookworm: Sand puppeteers like Kankuro are expected to make and repair their own puppets, which are often elaborate death machines requiring a fair amount of maintenance.
• Beautiful All Along: Well, not a Bishōnen, but he's still quite handsome without his face paint.◊
• Big Brother Instinct: He gets really angry over anyone insulting Gaara. When Gaara was captured by Akatsuki, Kankurō rushed to his brother's aid alone in an attempt to save him, and risked his life for him, despite the dangers that he put himself in.
• Big Damn Heroes: Kankuro completely turns the tides when Kiba is on the ropes with Sakon and Ukon, killing both with relative ease.
• Big Ham: In contrast to his efficient siblings, Kankuro likes make a show or performance out of his fights, as an homage to Kabuki and Bunraku. He drops the act when up against someone who is clearly stronger than him, though.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: He and Temari act as Gaara's bodyguards during the Kage Summit. He also appears to have settled as the Kazekage's bodyguard.
• Brainy Brunette: While Kankuro is the most Hot-Blooded of his siblings, he has also the keenest tactical skills. Also, see his badass bookworm section.
• Can't Catch Up: While he and his siblings are already introduced as dangerous opponents in their first apparitions, Kankuro is notably one of the least improved characters during the Time Skip, his only improvement being a third puppet added to his former two that receives fairly little screen time. Even at the end of the series, his biggest feats are focused on field strategy rather than individual fighting like almost everybody else.
• Caring Gardener: He cultivates cacti in his free time.
• Celibate Hero: While Temari is married and Gaara was almost matched with someone (until it didn't), Kankuro remains a bachelor by the events of Boruto.
• Child Hater: Before the Time Skip, he expressed great displeasure of being in the presence of anyone younger than him. He's later shown to be pretty good with his nephew, though.
• Color Motifs: Black, given his entire clothing style's color theme is black.
• Creepy Doll: Concept art for the epilogue shows he has a puppet with a nightmarish resemblance to Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
• Dark Is Evil: Kankuro wears all black and was a real jerk in Part I.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Still keeps his choice of clothing, but is now a good guy and Took a Level in Kindness.
• Deadly Gas: His puppets contain bombs with toxic gas implanted into them.
• Dressing as the Enemy: He passes the first part of the Chunin exam by disguising Karasu as a Konoha examinator. It should be noted as an awesome feat, not only at ninja puppeteering, given that he has to control it through a classroom full of people and desks, but also of the logistic aspects of infiltration, as he reveals Karasu was literally an intruder between the other examinators (meaning it was all an act of Bavarian Fire Drill as opposed to, for instance, Kill and Replace) yet nobody noticed or asked him for ID. That said, at least Ibiki Morino is able to see through the disguise.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: At the moment of its unveiling, Kankuro's puppet is the most complex weapon technique shown at the series until that point, and he proves it by creepily destroying Misumi.
• Eyes Always Shut: Has the trait for most of his early apparitions. Only after receiving some characterization, he drops it.
• Facial Markings: Has used three or four different patterns. They are all inspired by traditional makeup used by Japanese puppeteers, as is his outfit.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: One of his puppets at the videogames. After gaining Sasori's puppet body, he also gains access to its flamethrowers.
• Flechette Storm: When fighting Sasori in the anime, Kankuro attempts a combination attack between Karasu and Kuroari that launches a storm of poisoned senbon at the target while they're surrounded by poisonous gas. After reappearing at the Kage Summit with Sasori's body, he's upgraded to kunai that have bombs attached to them resulting in a massive explosion.
• Glass Cannon: In contrast with his brother. With the poisonous blades and toxic gas projectiles of his puppets, Kankuro has a higher and more versatile offense than most of the ninjas from his level and can easily overwhelm a conventional opponent, but he has basically no defense and is obliged to trust on stealth and body change tricks to keep himself safe. He later covers this with the puppet Sanshouo.
• Hidden Weapons: All of his puppets are loaded with them.
• Hot-Blooded: Not as bad as Naruto or Kiba, but he's got a pretty nasty temper, although he's getting better at controlling it.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His Machine One-Shot technique: after trapping the enemy inside Black Ant, he impales them with blades hidden in Crow's bodyparts.
• It Was a Gift: Sasori passes on the puppets of his parents to Kankuro after their rematch. It's especially noticeable as those two puppets have now been owned by all three puppeteers in the series.
• Jerkass: He was an antagonistic, cocky and arrogant bully before his turn to good.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kankuro is prideful (about his village), isn't very fond of children, and can be a bit of a jerk. However, he's developed to be a caring leader and a wonderful big brother to Gaara.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: In Shippuden, after Gaara's Heel–Face Turn, he can be quite impulsive when Gaara is threatened or harmed.
• Long-Range Fighter:
  • Not having Chiyo's taijutsu skills or Sasori's invulnerability, Kankuro is this by necessity as his puppets require his full concentration to work effectively, and fighting at short or medium ranges leave him a vulnerable target.
  • He has gotten better, and currently boasts a taijutsu level higher than either of his siblings according to the data books. He also seems to be able to multitask a bit better as well.
• Marionette Master: His attire is even based on a real-life Marionette puppeteer.
• Master of Threads: As a ninja puppeteer, he uses threads made of chakra to control his puppets.
• The McCoy: To Gaara's Spock and Temari's Kirk. While he does have a keen mind in strategy and is possibly the best strategist of the three, Kankuro is also the most Hot-Blooded of his siblings and sometimes doesn't think things through.
• Meaningful Name: He's named after a real-life Kabuki actor, hence the facepaint.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Averted. Despite being the second child of Rasa and Karura, the fact that Gaara was a vessel for the One-Tail Jinchuuriki made him The Un-Favourite, not Kankuro.
• Out of Focus: Compared to his siblings Temari and Gaara, Kankuro gets much less focus from the narrative, as well as less appearances.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: His achievements are usually glossed over when compared to his siblings.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: While death by Temari and Gaara are not ways anyone would want to go, Kankuro's method of execution tends to be confining someone to a small space, unable to move, and then sliced to pieces by various blades. Thankfully, he's only shown to be using against people firmly not on the side of good.
• Poisoned Weapons: The blades of his puppets are laced with poison.
• Purple Is Powerful: Kankuro's facial markings are always colored purple.
• Real Men Eat Meat: According to the databooks, one of Kankuro’s favorite foods is hamburger steak.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers one to the revived Sasori after defeating him and Deidara in Chapter 518:
  Kankuro: Sasori... your strength came because of your soul, not in spite of it. You tried to erase it, to become a puppet yourself, but couldn't change completely. Now you've got your immortal body but you've fallen, sunk to the level of the puppets you used to control. You were supposed to be a top-class ninja puppeteer, not a worthless nobody who lets someone else pull the strings.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The loud Hot-Blooded red to Gaara's calm and quiet blue.
• Required Secondary Powers: It is never mentioned, but the way he uses to disguise his puppets must be another kind of sand jutsu, probably like Gaara's techniques. Same for the way he cheats in the Chunin exams, as it is never explained exactly how he does it (the anime implies it was a scope in the puppet's eye).
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: An interesting variation. Kankuro asks to go to the bathroom during the written Chunin exam, and one of the examinators shockingly concedes, albeit only with him shackling Kankuro and accompanying him to watch over. This would seem an unusual exam rule if not for Kankuro revealing the examiner was actually his puppet Karasu, which means he staged the act and essentially gave himself permission to go.
• Sibling Team: With Gaara and Temari.
• Stealth Expert: Being a Glass Cannon puppet master, Kankuro tends to sneak up on his opponents and strikes before they even know he was there.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He has the closest physical similarities to the Sand Siblings' father.
• This Means Warpaint: Wears the traditional bunraku facepaint.
• Took a Level in Badass: Is named Captain of the Ambush Company in the Fourth Shinobi World War and leads to a victory against Sasori and Deidara with few casualties.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Started off as an arrogant, Hot-Blooded Jerkass and becoming noticeably kinder in Shippuuden, partly due to his improving relationship with Gaara.
• Verbal Tic: Has a tendency to end his sentences with 'jaan'.
• Warrior Prince: The middle child and oldest son of the Fourth Kazekage.
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • When compared to his siblings who are both people of mass destruction who specialize in area attacks, he's definitely this, focusing on sneak attacks with poisoned weapons and single target techniques. Fans have picked up on this with one story referring to him as a garrote wire, not a buster sword during a weapon-related character study.
  • Physically talking, however, he is implied to be not exactly weak, as he easily scarf lifts Konohamaru in his first appearance and later carries on his back two puppets that must be really heavy.
• The Worf Effect: A victim of this, particularly by Sasori (albeit Sasori is later shown to be able to worf more or less everybody in the series until that point, not to mention being the creator of Kankuro's puppets). The worst example belongs to the filler Ultimate Weapon Arc, in which Kankuro is bested by the relatively unimpressive enemy Ryugan and ends up needing the clumsy aid of Kiba and Choji to defeat him.
• Would Hurt a Child: He scarf-lifts Konohamaru and doesn't let go even when the latter vocalizes Kankuro is hurting him. He explicitly doesn't like children due to his childhood experiences with Gaara.
• Wrecked Weapon: Gets all of his puppets destroyed in his first fight with Sasori. Luckily, they get fixed in time for the Shinobi World War.

Temari

Temari

Voiced by: Romi Park (JP), Tara Platt (EN, main series), Julie Ann Taylor (EN, Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals), Ali Hillis (EN, Ultimate Ninja Impact), Mayra Arellano (Latin American Spanish), Inés Blázquez (Spain), Claire Tefnin (French, original series), Cathy Boquet (French, Shippuden)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 34 (Manga), Naruto Episode 20 (Anime)

^{Click here to see her pre-Timeskip appearance}

^{Click here to see her in The Last}

Unexpected fragility… men are strange…

Temari is the oldest child and only daughter of the Fourth Kazekage, and the older sister of Gaara and Kankuro. She clearly has an attitude, being quite upfront and abrasive, sometimes to the point of crudeness. But she's also a strong ninja - notably the only female to have made it past the Chunin exams preliminaries - who despises war and who values her family.

Like Shikamaru, she's a master strategist, and most of their appearances have been together. She defeated him during the Chunin Exam arc, and she later saves him from Tayuya during the Sasuke Retrieval arc. In Shippuden, she and Shikamaru work on the upcoming Chuunin Exams together. When Naruto sees them walking together, he believes Shikamaru and Temari are dating. Similar to the scene a few years earlier, when Kakashi thought the same thing while watching Asuma and Kurenai together.

Temari fights with a giant metal fan which she can use both as a blunt weapon and to create cutting whirlwinds. She's a better fighter at a distance, according to Kankuro. She believed herself to be the only genin in the Chunin exam capable of using the Summoning Jutsu before Naruto demonstrated his ability to do so.

In Shippuden, Temari has become an emissary between the Leaf and Sand Villages. She wanted to pursue the Akatsuki along with the Leaf Village's rescue team, but the village elders forbade her from doing so, putting her on border patrol instead. She doesn't have much of an effect on the arc.

During the events of the Fourth Shinobi World War, she is serving under Gaara, and alongside Shikamaru and Choji, in the Fourth Battalion.

Years after the war comes to an end, Temari moves from her home village to Konoha, marrying her sweetheart Shikamaru, and together producing a son, Shikadai Nara.

Her hobby is flora appreciation.

Favorite phrases: "Sharpen your sickle at sunset" and "One view, a thousand ri" The latter idiom refers to a sweeping view of the eye or a boundless expanse.

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• Abusive Parents: Toward her son Shikadai, but in a fair and disciplinary manner. When she found out Shikadai skipped school, Shikadai came to school the next day with a red hand mark on his cheek. Highly doubtful that his father Shikamaru did that.
• Action Heroine: The most consistently proactive one on the side of good in the whole series. She's one of the few people to have landed a hit on Madara (admittedly to no effect, but it was Madara after all), and the only female in the series to have won a one-on-one fight against a named character. Three times, no less.
  Temari: Wasn't much of a match; kinda boring.
• Animal Motif: Hers is weasels, though it is much more discreet than usual.
• Babies Ever After: Has a child with Shikamaru.
• Battle Aura: Surrounds herself in this when she uses wind release
• Best Her to Bed Her: Heavily downplayed. When Shikamaru outsmarts her at the Chunin Exams (throwing the match notwithstanding), it's enough to make her develop an interest in him, but only an interest. It takes years before it develops into more, and even when they started dating, it took a while before they got around to the 'bed' aspect of this trope.
• The Big Guy: Temari is a bit more boisterous and cocky than her brothers, and the only one of her siblings with any shown proficiency for close combat, and her jutsu tend to be widespread and devastating jutsu compared to Gaara and Kankuro.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just like her brothers, she shows up just in time to save Shikamaru from the losing battle he had against Tayuya and killed her with two swings of her fan.
• Big Sister Instinct: When Gaara was captured by the Akatsuki, Temari hurried back to the village to save him. When Kankuro was poisoned, she watched over him until he had recovered.
• Bitch Alert: Subverted. It's only hinted at when she's first seen, especially when Gaara kills another ninja team in the Forest of Death, but she mostly remains in the background as Gaara's older sister. However, when she's seen fighting during the Chunin Exams proper, she immediately demonstrates that she's quite the bitch indeed.
• Blow You Away: Uses her fan to create wind attacks. She's acknowledged as the best Wind-style user in the Allied Forces. Only Naruto surpasses her, but mostly due to his raw power than skill with wind jutsu.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: She and Kankuro act as Gaara's bodyguards during the Kage Summit.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Her first appearance in the manga is a far cry from the no-nonsense kunoichi we see for the remainder of the series, getting flustered when she thinks Sasuke's interested in her and was visibly disappointed when he's more focused on Gaara. This character trait would only come to the forefront in the Hiden novels when her relationship with Shikamaru starts to blossom.
  • Her fight against Tenten in the anime (as it was not shown in the manga) established Temari as a long-range jutsu user, but it also hinted she was just as good of a physical fighter: she finished Tenten with a strike of her fan (technically, by making Tenten strike her fan, but still) and then parried easily a kicking attack by Rock Lee, who was the best taijutsu user in the room by an extreme margin. However, the rest of her battles in the series saw virtually no physical fighting, and her stats never showed her great in this field.
• Color Motifs: Purple. All of the outfits she's seen in are connected to purple and her trademark fan sports three purple dots.
• Combat Hand Fan: A comically large variant, but still fitting the trope. Appropriately, she uses it for wind attacks.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Her clothing in Part II is a black kimono that reaches down to her legs, with slits along the side and a more revealing neckline.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: She's a tough lady, as you can tell by her seiyu alone. But thanks to becoming more of a Cool Big Sis to Kankuro and Gaara, and a Ship Tease with Shikamaru, she has significantly mellowed out compared to how much of a bitch she was at the start of the series.
• Dumb Blonde: An inversion. Temari has sandy, blonde hair but is a noteworthy tactician.
• Education Mama: In the Boruto anime, she's shown to be very strict about Shikadai's school behavior, grounding him without dinner when he gets punished at school (along with her husband when he doesn't take her side and scold the kid "properly"), and handing out a motherly slap when her son skips school.
• Everyone Can See It: In Episode 316, Matsuri and Yakata blurt out that she has a crush on and likes an intelligent guy. The same intelligent guy people thought she was dating. Temari denies it, but even the rank and file of her division can see she has feelings for Shikamaru. In fact, Gaara Hiden: A Sandstorm Mirage shows that Gaara was the only one who didn't see it due to his total lack of understanding about anything romantic. Kankuro, on the other hand, says that it was obvious to everyone.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • She calls out Kankuro for bullying Konohamaru for no reason other than to alleviate his boredom.
  • Before she became nicer, Temari may have been quite the Jerkass, but even she drew the line at war.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Her weapon of choice is a giant fan, but she handily defeats Tenten, who used a variety of more traditional weapons.
• Familiar: She has a summoning contract with a weasel that aids in the lethality of her fan. She thought she was the only genin capable of doing this until Naruto proved otherwise.
• Genki Girl: Very downplayed, and a bit of a dark example, but she's always willing to fight a good fight and is rather chirpy in contrast to her brothers.
• Girlish Pigtails: Played with. Temari has 4 consecutive ponytails, but she's also quite tomboyish. Also, her favorite hobby is flora appreciation.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Temari becomes this after the Sand Village becomes an official ally with Konoha, and she personally evolves into a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend: With Shikamaru. By the epilogue, they are married with a son, Shikadai.
• Hey, You!: She never once seems to call Shikamaru by his proper name, always using belittling terms of endearment such as "crybaby" or "slacker", even after their relationship develops. It is also true the other way around, with Shikamaru never addressing her properly despite giving that courtesy to her brothers (outside of one occasion in the English dub).
• Hidden Depths:
  • Her hobby is flora appreciation.
  • Konoha Hiden reveals she's insecure about her looks.
• Insecure Love Interest: In Konoha Hiden: The Perfect Day for a Wedding, when she mistakenly believes Shikamaru is asking for her hand in marriage, she reveals that she doesn't find herself attractive enough for marriage.
• Jerkass: She used to be very condescending when she was first introduced, and quite the vicious opponent, though she eventually evolves into a more tolerable Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is a brash, crude, rude, blunt, stubborn, and sometimes even a cruel woman that hates war and chaos and would do anything for friends and family.
• The Kirk: To Gaara's Spock and Kankuro's McCoy. Temari isn't as hot-headed as Kankuro, but she's neither as calm as Gaara.
• Lady of War: Temari shows shades of this in Part II. She's become more graceful and even wears more feminine clothing. But, she can still kick ass with a giant Combat Hand Fan.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: Temari is obstinate, rough, and pretty scary, but also has a sweet side. In several ways, she's similar to Yoshino Nara, the mother of Shikamaru who she gets the most Ship Tease and who he ends up marrying and having a child with.
• Living Emotional Crutch: It's implied she is this to Shikamaru in Shikamaru Hiden when she is referred to as the "light in Shikamaru's gloomy world".
• Long-Range Fighter: She almost exclusively uses her fan to blast away any frontal assaults at medium and long-range use it as a club in short-range if someone gets too close.
• Magic Skirt: In Part I, she wears a skirt that would somehow not show her undergarments when she performed acrobatics.
• Morality Chain: She was this to Gaara when he was still a psychotic killer. When Gaara gets into an argument with Kankuro and threatens to kill him and Team 8, who happened to be watching them, it was Temari's pleading who got him to back down.
• Ms. Fanservice: Particularly in Part I, where she's the oldest female genin, thus having more curves.
• Official Couple: With Shikamaru.
• One-Woman Army: With her versatility and highly destructive attacks, she is one of the most consistently powerful minor characters.
• Opposites Attract: With Shikamaru. She's an aggressive Action Hero; he's lazy, calm, and prone to doubting himself.
• Paper Fan of Doom: Her weapon is a huge one (鉄扇, tessen). Used in tandem with her Wind Release nature manipulation to create severe torrents winds.
• Razor Wind: Which she produces with her large fan. It's also her Chakra Type.
• Sibling Team: With Gaara and Kankuro.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Out of her siblings, Temari has the closest resemblance to their mother.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Temari is a girl of strong personality and fights by blowing massive cutting winds at her opponents to overwhelm them, also having some smarts of her own. Shikamaru has an IQ of 200 and fights with deep tactics, utilizing his Shadow Pin technique to take control of his opponent's body, and his techniques are used more for submission or incapacitation rather than doing heavy damage.
• Super Mode: Gains a chakra cloak thanks to Naruto which greatly increases her strength.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After the Konoha Crush arc, Temari still kept her brash attitude, but in a way that was more loving than mean-spirited.
• Tsundere: In the words of Shikamaru:
  Shikamaru: She is even scarier than my mom!
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Since her mother was an identical twin, Temari has the closest resemblance to her maternal uncle.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: She hides her medicine inside her bra when healing Gaara.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Even though she was only fulfilling her duty as an ally, she shows shades of this when saving Shikamaru from Tayuya.
• Wicked Weasel: Her Summon Magic calls a giant one who wields a Sinister Scythe, a direct reference to the Youkai called Kamaitachi. This a recurrent motif, given her fan attacks are called "kamaitachi".
• The Worf Effect: She suffers from it before fellow Wind-style user Kujaku, who counters her attacks and almost finishes her during the Ultimate Weapon filler arc. It takes Shikamaru's help to allow her to land a hit.

Baki

Baki

Voiced by: Joji Nakata (JP), Sam Riegel (EN), Javier Moreno (Spain), Humberto Vélez (Latin American Spanish), Mathieu Moreau (French)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 65 (Manga), Naruto Episode 37 (Anime)

The instructor for the Sand Siblings's team. Discussed the joint Sand/Sound invasion of Konoha with Kabuto, and killed Hayate for overhearing as a sign of trust.

When Deidara invades the Sand Village he leads an unsuccessful attempt to hold him off. He's later seen objecting to suggestions to pick Gaara's successor as Kazekage while he is missing. Later, Baki considers retiring and joining the council of elders for the Kazekage.

His hobby is taking sand baths.

Favorite phrase is "Indomitable perseverance"

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• Affably Evil: While he's introduced as a villain plotting to destroy the Leaf Village, he doesn't hold any ill will towards them personally, and is fairly respectful (albeit, even if he’s a little blunt) towards them. Notably, he praises Hayate's skills and dedication, before ripping him apart with a Blade of Wind.
• Armor Is Useless: Averted, as his flak jacket appears to be enough to stop Hayate's sword from wounding him any more than a bloody scratch.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Is rarely ever seen after the first arc of Part II, to the point where he doesn't even appear in the final War Arc where loads of long-time-not-seen characters come back. He finally shows up again in Gaara Hiden, but he still hasn't reappeared in illustrated or animated form.
• Deus Exit Machina: Downplayed, although still notable. Despite his little screentime, Baki is clearly one of the strongest shinobi in his village, possibly second only to Gaara himself given his role as the sensei of the Sand Siblings (and his apparent performance against Kakashi and other Leaf ninja), so his presence as an active field player would have changed, if not solved, several events and battles through the series. Instead, after the Chunin Exam arc he becomes a sort of staff commander and never ever steps on the battlefield again, to the point a viewer that never saw him fight might come to believe Baki is a Non-Action Guy with exclusively logistic tasks.
• Enigmatic Minion: His musings about Gaara's inner demon and Orochimaru's plan are the first hint that there's something nasty behind the Chunin Exams, but this is dropped when it's revealed Baki is as much of an Unwitting Pawn as everybody else.
• Evil Counterpart: To Kakashi, as he is sensei to Gaara, who is Naruto's own evil counterpart. Baki's character seems even designed to make a contrast with Kakashi in a variety of ways: visually (they have both the left eye hidden, but while Kakashi has his lower face covered and his hair exposed, Baki has his lower face exposed and his hair covered), in personality (Kakashi is laid-back and has his hair unkempt to demonstrate it, while Baki is solemn and focused and wears ceremonial facepaint) and in techniques (they both have a signature jutsu that comprises concentrating elemental power on one hand, but Kakashi's is made of lightning while Baki's is wind). However, unlike Gaara and Naruto, their relationship is not expanded beyond this conceptual level and they never interact significantly onscreen, neither in the battlefield nor outside of it.
• Eyepatch of Power / Mask Power: Or rather, a piece of cloth that hangs from his head covering half of his face.
• Facial Markings: He sports some facepaint, not unlike Kankuro's. His is red and located on his cheek.
• Guyliner: His eyes are framed in a sharp black, which gives him an almost Egyptian air.
• Karma Houdini: He has paid no consequence for murdering Hayate, despite Yugao's swear of revenge.
• Knight in Sour Armour: At the time of his introduction, he was quite bitter with how the Land of Wind’s feudal lord is handling their economy, and how the Sand Village is suffering for it. By the time the story begins, he’s dead set on restoring the Sand’s prosperity and securing their safety by any means necessary.
• Minor Major Character: Despite being the Sand Siblings's sensei, which implicitly grants him Kakashi's Evil Counterpart status, Baki plays a surprisingly minor role and remains one of the least explored characters in the series.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Implied. When he realizes Orochimaru killed the fourth Kazekage, and manipulated his village into attacking the Leaf Village, he curses Orochimaru for taking advantage of their situation.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Implied at the end of the invasion of Konoha, as by then Baki is one of the only guys on the invaders’ side alongside Kabuto that are still standing. May not sound like much until you realize who their opponents were: Kakashi, Might Guy and Genma Shiranui. And yet, both sides are worn out but relatively uninjured. Even more impressively, while survival against three of Konoha's best is an awesome feat in and of itself, it's also implied that Kabuto didn't partake in any combat at all, meaning that Baki probably faced them while alone or just supported by overwhelmed redshirts, and still pulled basically a draw. In hindsight, this would technically make Baki one of the most outstanding Jonin in all of Naruto.
• Parental Substitute: To the Sand siblings. It's telling that while Gaara has a scene threatening to murder Kankuro by bothering him, he has none with Baki ordering him around, at least onscreen.
• Perpetual Frowner: He does grin sadistically when murdering Hayate, but that's pretty much the only time we see Baki sporting anything different from a surly face.
• The Spook: Blink and you'll miss it, but when Kabuto uses his ninja cards to bring info about Gaara before the Chunin Exam, profile pictures of Kankuro and Temari are shown included, yet the pic of their team's sensei is empty and replaced by a question mark. This seems to imply Konoha had zero info on Baki, or at least on his relationship to the Sand Siblings.
• Razor Wind: He can form a sword made out of wind. This is how he kills Hayate.
• Team Dad: Seems to be this to be his students, being authoritative but caring towards them.
• The Unfought: Subverted, yet barely. Although he looks powerful and menacing, Baki has literally one fight in the entire series (not counting a collective, offscreen battle) and it entails only two jutsus.
• Villain Respect: Baki seems to hold the Leaf Shinobi in high regard, even when they are enemies, as he praises Hayate for being a commendable shinobi he comes to expect from the Leaf.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: When he was a villain, his reasoning for participating in the Destruction of the Hidden Leaf was out of loyalty to his village, for the sake of regaining some of the village’s prosperity, meaning that the village survives.

Chiyo

Chiyo

Voiced by: Ikuko Tani (JP), Barbara Goodson (EN), Socorro De la Campa (Latin America), Julie Basecqz (French)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 252 (Manga), Shippuden Episode 9 (Anime)

Retired? One foot in the grave? Maybe, but if I hadn't hauled this old body here to face you, I would've died with far too many regrets!

Sand Village Elder and Sasori's grandmother. An expert on medicine, poison, and puppets as well as a veteran of the Second Shinobi World War, she holds great contempt for both Tsunade for countering her poisons and Sakumo Hatake (Kakashi's father) for killing her son and daughter-in-law. After Sasori's parents died by Sakumo's hands, she took care of him and taught him of puppetry. She was the one who Gaara's father asked to seal the One-Tailed Tanuki into Gaara before he was born, after which she ceased involvement with the village's affairs.

When Gaara is kidnapped, she decides to accompany Team 7 as they try to retrieve him. She fights together with Sakura against Sasori, and she capitalizes on an opening left from Sakura taking the blow from a poison sword to finish him off. She is able to heal Sakura using an ability that transfers her own Life Energy, but doesn't die because Sakura wasn't quite dead. When she discovers Gaara dying, she transfers what's left of her energy and some of Naruto's into him, reviving him, but dying in the process (considering it an act of redemption).

Kabuto resurrected her with Edo Tensei but thankfully her soul was put to rest before she could do some real damage.

Her hobbies were pretending to be dead, playing senile, and fishing.

Favorite phrase: "Trained by a hundred battles" This idiom refers to a richness in experiences gained through battling through many adversities.

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• Arch-Enemy: Sakumo Hatake, the White Fang, was this to her, as he killed her son and his wife, which led to her grandson's Start of Darkness, and indirectly the death of the Third Kazekage.
• Artificial Limbs: Her right arm is actually a puppet arm which she controls with chakra, and the arm she's shown using opens apart and makes a shield out of chakra.
• The Atoner: Regrets sealing Shukaku into Gaara, as well as for having a militaristic and isolationist ideology for much of her life.
• Blatant Lies: After mistaking Kakashi for his father and attacking him, she tries to claim she was just pretending to have gotten them confused.
• Cloudcuckoolander: To her brother Ebizo's much chagrin, Chiyo does not take the things seriously for most of the time.
• Character Development: Chiyo is introduced as a xenophobic old timer who believes that shinobi from opposing villages can’t be trusted, not understanding why opposite villages would seek each other’s help. Once Sakura heals Kankuro, and Chiyo learns about Naruto being a Jinchuriki himself, who knows the full extent of, and sympathizes with Gaara’s pain, Chiyo starts to reflect on her past misdeeds, reconsidering her mentality on opposing villages. Ultimately, Naruto’s empathy to sympathize with other people inspires Chiyo to correct the consequences of her choices, and encourage Naruto to stay true to himself and his open-hearted beliefs, believing it can be strong enough to change the world for the better.
• Combat Medic: Her healing skills are praised by Tsunade of all people.
• Cool Old Lady: She may be batshit insane but she's been a good parental figure to Gaara, and a reasonable leader to her people.
• Cyborg: At least her right arm is that of a puppet.
• Cynicism Catalyst: It's implied that Chiyo was a much nicer person before her son and daughter-in-law were killed during the Second Shinobi War at the hands of a foreign ninja, which caused Chiyo to develop a xenophobic view of the world.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Kishō Tensei/the Reanimation Jutsu is a Kinjutsu she created. It can heal serious and mortal injuries and even revive the recently deceased. Unfortunately, it does so due to being powered by the very life force of its user, along with their chakra, putting a heavy toll on their bodies. Reviving someone who died will kill the jutsu's user in the process, as it happened to her. It was originally an attempt to create a jutsu that would give true life to puppets, but failed due to its users dying in the process.
• Elite Army: The Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu are essentially this, having been enough to take out a fortress and destroy a large number of Sasori's puppets through teamwork and special weapons.
• Empathic Healer: She can heal most poisons, and even revive someone from death.
• Establishing Character Moment: She makes her debut playing dead to unsettle her brother and laughing maniacally at his reaction, before turning dead serious when Baki arrives to inform them about Gaara's kidnapping.
• Faking the Dead: On a few occasions she's pretended to have passed away with old age to her brother. When she did finally pass away, he admits to half expecting her to just be pretending again.
• Flechette Storm: She can use chakra strings to launch a torrent of kunai without throwing them.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She trades her life force to resurrect Gaara after his bijuu was extracted.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: You'd think focusing on fighting with things that you keep a distance from your opponent would leave you inexperienced with hand-to-hand combat, but her taijutsu was good enough that she held back Naruto and several of his clones (though she lacks stamina).
• Marionette Master: One of the two extremes in the series relying on quality over quantity in comparison to her grandson.
• Meaningful Name: Her Sanpou Kyukai technique is a reference to various Buddhist teaching concepts, her Lion-Headed Kannon is a reference to a Bodhisattva figure and Monzaemon Chikamatsu was a famous puppeteer dramatist who was considered the Shakespeare of his day.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Aged 73 and 149 cm (about 4'8").
• Mr. Exposition: She provides the first explanation about Tailed Beasts and their hosts.
• Never Mess with Granny: She uses very deadly puppets as weapons, is a Kung-Fu Wizard, and there's still the Flechette Storm below. Grandma here is DANGEROUS.
  • She made Mother and Father strong enough to challenge the Third Kazekage puppet. Wow!
  • She used to fight Hanzo The Salamander all the time in the past (against whom survival is a tremendous feat in and of itself, just ask the Sannin).
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She enjoys playing dead and acting senile to fool others. Doesn't mean she can't kick your ass if she wants to.
• Offing the Offspring: A heroic version. She wants to stop Sasori, who as an Akatsuki member is a threat to the world, by personally killing him. In the end, she is the one who deals him the fatal blow.
• Outliving One's Offspring: She outlived her son by about 30 years. In fact, she outlived her grandson as well, if only briefly.
• People Puppets: She can use her puppet technique on people as well, as when she uses it on Sakura to help her fight Sasori.
• Person of Mass Destruction: While a lesser example than most in the series, she still fits having been said to take down an entire castle with her puppets.
• Power Nullifier: She has a sealing jutsu that can pin and seal an enemy's chakra.
• Racist Grandma: Of a sort. Chiyo has a low opinion of foreign ninja and is not pleased that Suna have to request aid from Konoha when they could have trained their ninja better. Nevertheless, she thanks them once they successfully heal Kankuro from near-death and is willing to put aside her grudges and work with three Konoha ninja to rescue Gaara.
• Razor Wire: Her Parent Puppets are equipped with some, allowing them to slice and dice with ease.
• Redemption Equals Death: Chiyo's sacrifice to resurrect Gaara is explicitly a way to atone for the less-than-savory things she had done before.
• Retired Badass: Her introductory scene? Fishing. Baki had to beg her to get up and help.
• Retirony: Inverted. Chiyo has been retired for years and it's her choice to come out of retirement that eventually leads to her death.
• Revenge Before Reason: Averted (which is very notable considering this series). She holds no grudge against Kakashi for what his father did, and only attacks him initially because she thought he was the real deal.
• The Rival: During the previous shinobi wars, Chiyo had something of a rivalry with Tsunade, who was able to counter any poison that she could throw at Konoha. Ironically, she forms a good team with Sakura, Tsunade's apprentice.
• Tempting Fate: When Baki asks for her help, she says she's retired and has no interest in the world of ninjas anymore. Her only desire left is getting to see her grandson again. Baki tells her that is good; the enemy they need her help with is said grandson.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After Kakashi informs Chiyo of Naruto’s Jinchuriki status, and how Naruto sympathies with Gaara’s pain of having a tailed beast forced upon him, Chiyo becomes more kindhearted towards her comrades, hoping to help in any way possible, as well as encouraging of others to unite the ninja world in overcoming their differences.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She never told Sasori that his parents are dead. As a result, he eagerly anticipated their return for years, until eventually he could not handle the heartbreak and decided to defect from the village.
• Weapons That Suck: Her Sanpou Kyukai technique is this creating a crushing vortex that atomizes whoever is caught in it.

Ebizo

Ebizo

Voiced by: Ken Shiroyama (JP), Kyle Hebert (EN)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 252 (Manga), Naruto Episode 9 (Anime)

Sister... Time is really flowing by.

Sand Village Elder and brother to Chiyo.

His hobby is fishing.

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• All There in the Manual: Subverted. Not even the databooks reveal how strong he is supposed to be or what kind of jutsu he uses (he's only said to be a great strategist, which in this manga is like saying nothing).
• Big Little Brother: Downplayed. Chiyo is the elder of the two, but Ebizo is slightly taller than her, and his turban makes him look even taller.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Has an impressive pair that reaches his chin.
• Deus Exit Machina: Presumably the Doylist reason why Ebizo doesn't go to fight Sasori along with his sister - if his skills are really on par with Chiyo's as their collective title vaguely implies, their combined force (along with Sakura) would have probably subdued Sasori cleanly with little chance of drama.
• Hidden Eyes: A strange variation: his eyes are so sunken that they remain in the shadow of his eye sockets.
• Informed Ability: It's stated that he had a distinguished service in more than a ninja war, and his fellow Sand citizens certainly revere him just as much as his badass sister. However, he never fights onscreen, neither in the present time nor in flashbacks, so he doesn't demonstrate any reason for this veneration other than being Chiyo's brother.
• Minor Major Character: He and Chiyo are known as the Sand's Honoured Siblings, implying they used to be Bash Brothers or at least equally accomplished in their ninja careers. However, while Chiyo is a walking moment of awesome with a past connected to several important characters and a brilliant performance in the war against Akatsuki, Ebizo is... her brother, who does literally nothing during the conflict.
• Non-Action Guy: Is retired, but unlike Chiyo, he never comes back to the battlefield, not even when the affair in question (Sasori) genuinely interests him.
• Retired Badass: Served in the previous ninja wars and is now retired.
• Satellite Character: Appears along with Chiyo when she is introduced and later reappears to attend her funeral. Only after her death, he appears to have increased his own role in the village's business.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Compared to his sister, he's a much calmer and saner individual.
• The Strategist: Reputed to be a master at this.

Yashamaru

Yashamaru

Voiced by: Soichiro Hoshi (JP), Brian Beacock (EN), Benjamín Rivera (Latin America)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 129 (Manga), Naruto Episode 50 (Anime)

A wound of a heart is different from a flesh wound. Unlike a flesh wound, there are no ointments to heal it, and there are times when they never heal.

The younger brother of Gaara's mother Karura, and his main caretaker until Gaara was six years old. He provoked little Gaara into killing him as a Secret Test of Character, which is what throws Gaara past the Despair Event Horizon. Gaara himself wouldn't know about it for many years, thinking that Yashamaru truly hated him. In reality the person he truly hated was Gaara's father, his brother-in-law, the Fourth Kazekage, and that he did care about Gaara.

Favorite word: "affection"

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• Broken Pedestal: Yashamaru was the most significant figure in Gaara's childhood, being the person who raised him for the first six years of his life. Yashamaru's assassination attempt and subsequent fake confession, where he stated that he never loved Gaara and that Gaara himself had never been loved, is what finally drove Gaara over the deep end.
• Combat Medic: Was a medic-nin and an ANBU who served as his brother in laws right hand.
• Cool Uncle: Before his fake confession, he took care of Gaara with love and affection while everyone else avoided him.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: And how! In some countries, the dub refers to him as female and Gaara's aunt.
• Flechette Storm: He can use chakra strings to launch a torrent of kunai without throwing them.
• Flying Weapon: The kunais described above.
• Half-Identical Twins: Subverted: he and Karura weren't twins but looked very much alike anyway. Or it could be just Only Six Faces syndrome.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: He didn't do it because he wanted to but under orders of the Kazekage. It turns out that he didn't hate Gaara at all and truly loved him, and the person he actually hated was his brother-in-law, the Fourth Kazekage.
• Kick the Dog: Telling Gaara that his mom never loved him, then trying to kill him. It's revealed that he did it on Rasa's orders, and it's shown that he actually opposed it but did it out of loyalty to his village.
• Morality Chain: The moment Yashamaru said he never cared for Gaara and attempted to kill him, Gaara's Start of Darkness began. Years later, learning that Yashamaru was lying and had loved him all along brings him to tears.
• Motive Rant: After a Dramatic Unmask, he tells Gaara that he hated him for being responsible for Karura's death through his birth. It turns out to be a fabricated one to test Gaara's capacity to control Shukaku under emotional pressure.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: He despised his brother-in-law Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, for what he did to Karura and Gaara. His loyalty to his home, however, meant that he still willingly served as his right-hand man and carried out his orders, even if he disagreed with them.
• Nice Guy: Subverted; he tells Gaara it was all an act when he attempts to assassinate him. This becomes a double subversion when this is revealed to be a lie much later — see the above.
• Parental Substitute: He was the one who raised Gaara.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: Though it wasn't specifically addressed, it's obvious this is what happened after Gaara learned that Yashamaru truly had loved him.
• Posthumous Character: He's dead by the time the series starts.
• Suicide Attack: He attempted one on Gaara after giving him his Motive Rant, using paper bombs. It obviously didn't work.
• Undying Loyalty: To Suna. As a shinobi, he served as a member of Suna's black ops and as the right hand of the Fourth Kazekage, Gaara's father despite hating him for sealing Shukaku into his pregnant older sister and Gaara's mother. It was because of this loyalty that Yashamaru willingly went through the assassination attempt to test Gaara, though not without protest.

Karura

Karura

Voiced by: Yukari Oribe (JP), Tara Platt (EN)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 547 (Manga), Shippuden Episode 297 (Anime)

The Kazekage's wife, Yashamaru's older sister, and the mom of the Sand Siblings. She died when Gaara was born, having been used as a sacrifice for Shukaku to be implanted into her youngest child. Gaara later learns that it was due to her will and love that Gaara gains his automatic sand protection, not due to Shukaku's influence.

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• Death by Childbirth: She was dying from complications after giving birth so she offered herself as the sacrifice to seal Shukaku in her son.
• Foreshadowing: The fact that Gaara still has his sand protection during his fight with Sasuke, which takes place long after Shukaku has been extracted from him, should be a good indication that it doesn't really come from the beast.
• Mama Bear: Little Gaara convinced himself that Karura was protecting him via his sand and Shukaku, as a psychological defense against his horrid life. It turned out that this was true: it's confirmed in her last words ("What a small, feeble child... No matter what happens, I'll always protect you! Gaara...!") and by how Gaara's sand, as he gets free from the Fourth Kazekage's Gold Dust, takes Karura's form.
• Missing Mom: She died shortly after giving birth to Gaara.
• Posthumous Character: She's dead by the time the series starts.

Rasa (The Fourth Kazekage)

Rasa

Voiced by: Masahiko Tanaka (JP), Crispin Freeman (EN), Ricardo Brust (Latin American Spanish), Franck Dacquin (French)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 95 (Manga), Naruto Episode 50 (Anime)

You weren't worth anything...

The former leader of the Hidden Sand Village, a Knight Templar who reaches horrible extremes to protect his village. These include: using his own wife Karura as a sacrifice to seal Shukaku into his youngest child, subjecting said child to Training from Hell and abuse, then attempting to get him killed several times when Gaara didn't turn out to be the perfect Tyke Bomb he wanted.

Kabuto resurrected him with Edo Tensei. He's now facing the much more adult and mature Gaara, who calls him out on what he did to him ever since he was born and we also get to see exactly why he was such an asshole. Rasa later reconciles with his son, apologizing for the hell he put him through, and tells him that he and his mother are so proud of their youngest child.

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• Abusive Parents: He was a Doting Parent until Gaara lost control over Shukaku at around six years old.
• All There in the Manual: His name wasn't revealed until after the manga ended.
• Archnemesis Dad: Up until his death. By the time he was revived by the Edo Tensei, Gaara had already forgiven him, having come to understand his motivations during his time as Kazekage. Before the Fourth is sealed, the two make their peace and he leaves the village in his son's hands.
• Back for the Finale: The Sage of Six Paths summons him from the afterlife along the other deceased Kage in order to summon Team 7, the Tailed Beasts, and Madara from Kaguya's dimension.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Subverted — after being revived with Edo Tensei and seeing that his son has become the Kazekage, he calls himself out, admitting that after everything, he has no right to call himself Gaara's father.
• Disappeared Dad: To his children, as he is dead. And even before his death, he was hardly around for any of them, especially Gaara.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Uses Gold like Gaara uses sand.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Rasa genuinely loved his family — he just loved his village more. Most notably, if he had truly wanted Gaara dead, he could've done the deed himself. Unlike the assassins he sent Gaara's way, he was strong enough to keep both Gaara and Shukaku in line. The only reason he could have for not doing so is because he had never wanted to kill his youngest son at all.
• Faceless Eye: He can use his Gold Dust to make a third eye just like his son.
• Failure Hero: More like Failure Anti-Villain, but the general concept still applies. Looking back, his entire reign as Kazekage was rife with mistakes, which he himself admits after being revived by the Edo Tensei. Gaara was just his biggest, due to his shortcomings as a parent (to say the least) and his inability to truly see Gaara's "worth".
• Foil: He is one to Minato Namikaze. Like Minato, he was the fourth Kage of his village and the father of a Tailed Beast host. He was also responsible for the sealing of the beast into his son and personally stopped the beast when it attacked his village. However, whereas Minato did it so his son can become the savior of the ninja world, Rasa did it for pragmatic reasons. While Minato was a loving father in the short time he could be together with Naruto, Rasa was unashamedly abusive to Gaara (although he comes to regret this after he is resurrected). Finally, Minato died of his own choice a few hours after Naruto was born, while Rasa died of assassination when Gaara was 12 years old.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: And heavy which is why he was the perfect counter to Shukaku's powers in the past.
• Heartbroken Badass: The death of his wife definitely affected Rasa's attitude, driving him to be even more of a hard-line extremist.
• Heel Realization: Realizes what a huge asshole he's been after battling his son, and decides to give Gaara information on his mother as he dies and admits that his son was a better man than he was.
• Hyper-Awareness: In a group of four kage (one of them a very gifted sensor), Rasa is the only one that notices Gaara’s spying technique is watching them. Justified since he’s familiar with the technique and said sensor (Mu) had told him that someone with similar chakra was nearby.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Orochimaru killed him that way with his Kusanagi, and stole his clothes to pass himself for him, leaving him to rot for days in a sand crater.
• Jerkass: He didn't seem to care much about his offspring, even Temari and Kankuro.
• Jerkass Realization: After discovering that Gaara managed to get friends after his death, he realizes that maybe his style of child-raising could be better.
• Kick the Dog: His treatment of Gaara as a kid, and especially telling Yashamaru to put on a Hidden Heart of Gold-hiding facade and lie to him about Karura and himself, purely to test Gaara's strength. It worked as well as you'd expect.
• Knight Templar: A trait common between ninjas. Even if misguided, he was only trying to do the best for his weakened village.
• Love Makes You Evil: He loved Sunagakure and wanted to protect it. He pulled horrible shit on his own family, to make sure the village could continue to thrive.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Just like Gaara. The only difference between them is that he uses his to manipulate gold, whereas Gaara uses his own to manipulate sand. Naturally, this leads to both of them having many of the same techniques, if not the exact same fighting style.
• Metallic Motifs: He has a Gold motif which is thematic to his attitude of looking for the value of everything.
• Moveset Clone: He uses many of the same ninjutsu as Gaara only using Gold Dust instead of Sand. This makes sense given Gaara said his father personally tutored him in ninjutsu when he was young.
• Mundane Utility: It's mentioned that when Sunagakure experienced an economic crisis, Rasa would use the gold he accumulated using Magnet Style to be used as a commodity.
• My Greatest Failure: He considered Gaara this. In life, he thought it was because Gaara was a failed experiment, unable to aid the village he loved because he couldn't control Shukaku. However, after being revived by the Edo Tensei and seeing that Gaara had surpassed him as both a shinobi and as a Kage, all while becoming a far better man than he ever was, he realizes that his true failure was not being a father to his son, and robbing him of everything good in his life as a way to test his "worth".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job turning your youngest child into a Jinchuriki - resulting in most of the village hating and fearing him - sending his uncle, the one person he thought genuinely cared for him, to die on a suicide mission and ordering him to lie to Gaara about how his mother never loved him in order to test Shukaku, and leaving Gaara to grow up hating everyone and everything, believing that no-one ever loved him, and killing people to verify his own existence. Not to mention the impact it must have had on Temari and Kankuro.
• Offing the Offspring: Tries that on young Gaara more than once.
• Pet the Dog: Ultimately telling Gaara that Karura did love him.
• Posthumous Character: A variation. Before he was resurrected by Edo Tensei his only real appearances were in Gaara's flashbacks. By the time the Chunin exams were taking place — which would have been the first time readers had seen him in-person, had Orochimaru not been impersonating him — he was already dead.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He shows this despite having been killed offscreen and having been the first of the resurrected Kage to go down, and both because of who his opponent(s) was in either instance. Orochimaru needs Kimimaro's assistance to kill him and, upon resurrection, he fights Gaara, who knows all his techniques and has developed some of his own. And, of course, he was more than strong enough to defeat Shukaku, a Tailed Beast. Despite his tenure as Kazekage being very much riddled with failure, there was no disputing that he was more than strong enough to hold the title.
• Secret Test of Character: He issued one on Gaara, asking Yashamaru to attack him in order to test one last time if Gaara could control himself after he murdered several people.
• Selective Magnetism: His bloodline Magnet Release, as Required Secondary Powers. Yes, gold can be magnetized if in a field.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Both of his sons strongly resemble him despite looking quite different themselves.
• The Unfettered: Rasa will ensure the prosperity of his village, even at the cost of his own family members.
• Unnamed Parent: His name is never given in the manga itself. The final databook eventually reveals that his name is Rasa, though it's never mentioned in the actual manga.

The Third Kazekage

The Third Kazekage

Voiced by: Minou Kawai (JP), Ben Diskin (EN)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 690 (Manga), Shippuden Episode 457 (Anime)

Considered to be the strongest leader of the Sand Village. He was assassinated by Sasori, and his disappearance led to war and the election of the 4th Kazekage.

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• Awesomeness by Analysis: His Iron Sand was inspired by Shukaku and its hosts' use of sand.
• Back for the Finale: The Sage of Six Paths summons him from the afterlife along the other deceased Kage in order to summon Team 7, the Tailed Beasts, and Madara from Kaguya's dimension.
• Deadly Gas: One of the modifications Sasori made to his body was to include a poison gas dispenser.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Similar to the 4th Kazekage, the 3rd uses Iron Sand with his bloodline, Magnet Release.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Just like both of his successors, Rasa and Gaara, he uses Magnet Release. Instead of manipulating either gold or sand, however, the Third used his to manipulate iron. Notably, his use of Magnet Release was claimed to be the most powerful weapon in the history of the sand village.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: After becoming a puppet Sasori installed a seal on his right arm that allows this.
• No Name Given: The only Kazekage whose name is not revealed in the fourth databook.
• People Puppets: He became one after his death.
• Poisoned Weapons: Given that Sasori modified him this is par for the course.
• Posthumous Character: Died twenty years before the start of the series and since his body was destroyed by Sakura, was never resurrected with Kabuto's Edo Tensei in contrast to the Fourth Kazekage.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Considered to be the strongest Kazekage to have ever lived.
• Retcon: Originally his bloodline was just magnetism, but was changed to an element years later.
• Selective Magnetism: His bloodline, Magnet Release.
• World's Best Warrior: He is regarded as the strongest Kazekage in all of Suna's history, the keyword here being Kazekage. He was originally considered to be the strongest shinobi Suna had ever produced, and his disappearance during the Third Shinobi World War was a mystery up to the present storyline when it was eventually revealed that Sasori killed him. Since Sasori's the one who killed him, that technically makes him the strongest shinobi in Suna's history, hence the Third being only referred to as the strongest Kazekage.

Matsuri

Matsuri

Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto (JP), Lara Jill Miller (EN, Part I), Michelle Ruff (EN, Kazekage Rescue arc), Laura Bailey (EN, Fourth Shinobi World War arc), Andrea Orozco (Latin America), Marcha Van Boven (French)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 280 (Manga), Naruto Episode 216 (Anime)

A girl from the Sand village, who is training to become a kunoichi. She's among the first friends Gaara makes after his Heel–Face Turn, and has a huge crush on him.

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• Adaptation Expansion: In the manga, she first appears after Gaara's resurrection. She's just one of the two fangirls, with no more importance. The anime makes her appear much earlier. It also gives her a backstory and some characterization (Nice Girl, Parental Abandonment, Does Not Like Weapons).
• Blade on a Rope: She uses a jouhyou as her main weapon, which is a flexible rope with a metal dart at the tip used in Chinese Martial Arts. She is confident enough in it's use in the anime to challenge Shira.
• Blow You Away: She is part of Temari's Wind Style squad in the anime.
• Fangirl: For Gaara complete with Squee. She and Yukata like to talk about how cool, strong, and handsome he is.
  • In the Anime, this also extends to Naruto by the time of the Fourth Shinobi World War.
• Faux Action Girl: She usually appears first in line and sports a chūnin rank, which automatically qualifies her as a strong shinobi, but we rarely see her fight.
  • Her first appearance is excusable, because she was still in training, and hadn't even chosen the jouhyou as her main weapon yet.
  • During the Chunin Exam that takes place between Part 1 and Part 2, she joins the effort to save Gaara from assassination, but her major contribution is fetching Team Guy. Afterwards, she challenges Shira to a friendly duel. That duel takes place entirely off-screen, and we know that she losses but supposedly she made a good showing, because Shira used his Super Mode to win.
  • During the Fourth Shinobi War, she is a background character, and most of her scenes are either gushing over Gaara or supporting Temari as part of her squad.
• Instant Knots: Has these courtesy of her jouhyou.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": This Suna Chunin totally admires her village's kage because he helped her to process the grief of her parents' death and inspired her to re-commit to her ninja training. She uses a jouhyou as her main weapon because it was the first weapon he showed her how to use and how it could be used to defend others.
• Nice Girl: Friendly, kind, patient, and understanding.
• Older Than They Look: Especially in her filler arc: she's a year older than Gaara.
• Only Six Faces: She looks quite similar to Sakura, only with black eyes and brown hair.
• Parental Abandonment: Her parents got killed when she was a kid.
• Rank Up:
  • After the time skip, she is seen donning a full kunoichi outfit, proving that she has graduated to genin status.
  • In Episode 261, she's seen wearing a Suna flak jacket and standing with the rest of the Allied Shinobi Forces after listening to Gaara's speech, implying that she's been made a chuunin since the time Shippuden started.
• Real Is Brown: After becoming a ninja, her outfit is almost entirely brown and navy, as opposed to the turquoise, yellow, purple, and black she wore before.
• Satellite Character: Her entire characterization centers around her relationship with Gaara.
• Shipper on Deck: She teases Temari (with Yukata) over her crush on Shikamaru.
• Ship Tease: With Gaara. She is totally enamored with him in Hero Worship style and vows to protect him from danger. Unfortunately for her, seeing as Gaara remains unmarried past the Fourth Shinobi World War and epilogue, and displays some ship tease with a new character at the end of Gaara Hiden, her feelings for him seem to have ultimately borne no fruit.
• Shrinking Violet: She's friendly but very shy around her crush.

Pakura

Pakura

Voiced by: Yukari Oribe (JP), Carrie Keranen (EN), Alexandra Corréa (French)

Debut: Naruto Chapter 516 (Manga), Shippuden Episode 261 (Anime)

A former Sand jōnin resurrected as part of Kabuto's immortal army for the Shinobi World War. During her life, she was a mentor to Maki.

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• Adaptation Expansion: In the manga, she appears in a total of two scenes, killing a couple of red shirts before being defeated off-panel. The anime gives her an Episode of her own, explaining her backstory, relationship to a previously established minor character, and reputation as a warrior.
• Back from the Dead / Our Zombies Are Different: Revived by edo tensei.
• Blow You Away: The second component of her advanced chakra nature, though like the other we don't see her actually blow people away.
• Et Tu, Brute?: In the anime backstory, she was literally backstabbed by a Mist ninja. When she sees her former pupil supporting one in a mixed team, she is not happy about it.
• Freudian Excuse: Pakura, known as the Hero of Sunagakure, was considered a part of negotiations with Kirigakure, according to Suna's higher-ups. Sent to Kirigakure as an ambassador, she was assassinated in an ambush orchestrated by Kiri and Suna as part of the negotiations. Upon being reincarnated by Kabuto, unlike several reincarnated people who fought against their own will — such as Itachi, Nagato, and Asuma for example — Pakura willingly killed any enemy shinobi in her path, justifying it by saying that she needed to vent her anger since those who killed her were long dead since.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Maki, while sympathetic, points out that Ruka and Pakura's victims have nothing to do with her death. However, her speech fell on deaf ears, and Pakura only spares them because she saw in their fight how much her student and the new generation as a whole improved.
• One-Hit Kill: You get hit by one of her heat bullets - it will boil the water out of you and leave you a mummified husk. Simple as that.
• Passing the Torch: Before sealing her, her past student Maki convinces her to let go of her hatred-thinking on her student's words Pakura decides to "give the children a chance to change the future" and passes on her will of a better future to her student.
• Playing with Fire: A component of her advanced chakra nature, though none of the techniques we see her use actually set anything on fire.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Her special Scorch Release bloodline allows her to dramatically raise the temperature of anything her flaming orbs hit.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child/Would Hurt a Child: Was surprised/irritated when she found out that she was going to have to fight what she deemed to be "children" but was forced to due to Edo Tensei. Was further surprised when she had to fight Maki, and used her last moments of free will to give Maki a chance to escape from her and Gari.

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