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There are so many tropes in Naruto that we had to split its trope page. Please add character tropes directly to said character entry on one of Naruto's numerous characters sheets, unless it is a key plot point or a remarkable recurring trope (e.g., on this page: Not So Stoic). This is to keep these pages from inflating artificially.


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    L - N 
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • Sasuke is often wondering why Naruto and Sakura are willing to go so far for his sake, when he has given them and the rest of the world nothing but grief in return.
    • During the dénouement of the World War Arc, which features endless powerups, backstabbings, ultimate villain introductions, and inexplicable dramatic turnarounds, Sakura sees the Sage of Six Paths — a mythological figure that was supposed to have been dead for eons — floating and congratulating her for saving the world. She doesn't even bother trying to find out how the hell this is possible, and just says that at this point nothing would surprise her, and she's frankly tired of it all.
  • Last Confession Wins: Subverted with Sakura's infamous fake love confession to Naruto in Chapter 469, which came after Hinata's sincere Anguished Declaration of Love in Chapter 437. Not only does Sakura's fake confession spectacularly fail to win, it explicitly loses — it is rejected outright, rightfully accused of not being emotionally honest because it was genuinely not an honest confession, and in retrospect, serves as the definitive Ship Sinking for NaruSaku.
  • Laughing Gas: In episode 186 of the anime, "Laughing Shino (aka, the Funeral Proxy Mission)", Naruto and Shino are hired to go to Motoyoshi Village to stand in for Futa Kagetsu at his father's funeral. The apparent reason being that his father's will stated that, if Futa laughed at all during the funeral, he'd lose his inheritance to his sister, Tsukiko. When the three sit down to dinner, Shino volunteers to eat first since the beetles he houses in his clothes will neutralize any poison that the food's been laced with. As soon as he starts, Shino snickers, which soon erupts into uproarious laughter that he spends the rest of the episode dealing with, as his beetles were apparently unable to neutralize the laughing formula in the food.
  • Lava Adds Awesome:
  • The Law of Power Proportionate to Effort: Sage Mode is a perfect example of one that climbs this scale as it slowly succumbs to So Last Season.
    • At first, it requires Preparation, Charging, and Concentration to use. Sage Mode takes several minutes of charging nature energy to use, which makes it absolutely useless because you have to enter a battle with it already prepared, and then avoid using the energy you worked so hard to store in the first place.
    • Naruto learns to get around this by using Self-Duplication, having his clones charge the energy for him, and then dismissing them to absorb their power. However, as his clones need to concentrate, that means Naruto is limited in the number of clones he can use (which is problematic as a Zerg Rush is his signature strategy).
    • Later on, though, Naruto's Next Tier Power-Up gives him more power to summon clones with, and Naruto master nature energy to the point that he can enter Sage Mode in seconds.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • In the Forest of Death, after the fight against the Sound Genins, Shikamaru and Choji comment how Naruto is too much an Idiot Hero to be a good Shonen manga main protagonist.
    • Also, there's one point where Naruto comes running into a fight late, yelling: "The main character of a story usually shows up in these types of situations and instantly kicks the enemy's ass!" Naturally, he then proceeds to be on the receiving end of said ass-kicking.
    • That Jiraiya wrote a serious book about a ninja Determinator whose name is Naruto (which the character of the series was named after by his parents after they read the book) is fourth wall-leaning enough. But in a couple of pages which are only in the volume 48 release, part of Naruto's speech to Pain/Nagato sounds like he's talking about himself as if he was fully aware that he is a fictional character. All of this is done in a completely serious fashion.
    • Acting also as a Take That, Audience! moment, Sakura's infamous fake love confession to Naruto in Chapter 469 is a verbatim reading of all the arguments Naruto/Sakura shippers used to justify why they should be together (paraphrasing: "I used to love Sasuke, but he's now evil and he's breaking my heart, but you, on the other hand, have always been there for me", and "You used to be a dork but now you're the village's hero, so of course now I love you."). Not only does every single person present have a Disapproving Look on their faces, but Naruto easily sees right through her, calls her out for lying, and rejects her outright by telling her that he hates people who lie to themselves.
    • In Episode 499, the penultimate episode of Shippuden (the arc of the preparations for Naruto and Hinata's wedding), after learning of the rest of cast's mission to get the perfect wedding gift for them, Hinata innocently says "I never thought our wedding would cause so much trouble." Considering the amount of shipping wars that split the fanbase through the course of the series, despite Naruto/Hinata being one of the biggest Fan Preferred Couples in anime and manga for the last fifteen years with the manga's entire run, this is perfectly fitting.
  • Left Stuck After Attack: During the night before the Chunin Tournament starts, Hayate assaults Baki of the Sand Village with his sword. But then Hayate's blade gets stuck on Baki's shoulder, who, while ignoring his shoulder, says: "Would you like to know a kind of blade that will never get lodged to things?" Before he can realize it, Hayate is then killed by the answer to the riddle: a blade made of wind chakra.
  • LEGO Genetics:
    • Orochimaru tried to plant the First Hokage's Green Thumb skill in 60 kids. It only worked on Yamato — the other 59 all died horrible deaths. Danzō used Orochimaru's research to do the same thing to himself.
    • Screwing with the genetics of powerful people seems to be a popular pastime for villains. Madara messed with the first Hokage's genes, too, and Kabuto implanted Orochimaru's cells into himself to find direction for his life.
  • Life Energy: Chakra is a combination of a person's physical and spiritual energy. While it can be used to power jutsus and enhance the body, it is also required to keep the body functioning. If you use up enough that your body has less than the minimum needed for the body, you suffer from chakra exhaustion. If you use up absolutely all of it you die.
    • Overuse of chakra can have visible effects on one's body in addition to fatigue. Using a large amount of chakra at once (or having it drained) results in loss of muscle mass, loss of power and, if it's not stopped, death. Notable examples are Nagato, Kisame, Choji, and Shikamaru. Conversely, receiving a huge amount of chakra in an instant restores a person's strength, muscle mass and heals them. Notable examples are Kisame, Reanimated Nagato, Choji, Shikamaru and Guy after he opened the eighth gate.
    • Natural energy found in the world acts as a third component of chakra if a person is able to learn how to use it. It's present wherever there's life and greatly enhances the body, but drawing too much will overwhelm the user's own chakra and transform them into stone.
  • Limited-Use Magical Device: In the Narutoverse, people are capable of using single-use Ninja Scrolls to inscribe elemental jutsus onto them for various reasons. This ranges from Water Style, to even Summoning Jutsus. Due to this, a ninja can use a element they normally do not have, provided they have a moment to open and use it.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Most characters have one outfit for before or after the Time Skip, but may wear casual clothes while off-duty. By contrast, the Sand Siblings change outfits in each of their major appearances.
  • Line-of-Sight Name: It's hard to tell whether this is played straight, or subverted, or what.
    • Naruto's namesake, a character from Jiraiya's novel, is a Watsonian example from our perspective and a Doylist example from the story within a story perspective, as Jiraiya thought up the name while eating a bowl of ramen and Naruto is a type of ramen topping. The titular Naruto, in turn, was named after said character by his dad, which is not a Line-of-Sight Name at all.
    • Sasuke was a straight-up Doylist example. Naming a ninja "Uchiha Sasuke" is akin to naming a nurse Fanny Nightingale (you may have heard of Sarutobi Sasuke). Then we find out that in-universe he's named after the Third Hokage's father, whose name actually was Sarutobi Sasuke.
  • Lingering Social Tensions: After Hashirama and Madara struck a peace alliance to build the Hidden Leaf village, the resentment between the Senju and Uchiha never fully went away. This ultimately led to the Uchiha becoming ghettoized and the target of constant suspicion by those in power.
  • Living MacGuffin:
    • The jinchūriki's.
    • Sasuke provides an even better example given the number of people who are after him throughout the story.
  • Living Weapon: The jinchūriki. Yes, even Naruto. In fact, especially Naruto. He is the only one who had a specific target — the masked man who attacked the village in the first place (though that story turns out to have been more complicated than anyone anticipated).
  • Living Emotional Crutch: Considering the brutal nature of this universe's profession, it becomes somewhat inevitable that certain individuals, including the titular character, needs someone to help them find the means to carry on, despite the terrifying lifestyle.
    • Itachi is this for Sasuke, with Sasuke not realizing it until Itachi dies and Sasuke learns that Itachi had done everything to protect him in a horribly convoluted way. He then goes mad with grief and has a huge moment of Sanity Slippage.
    • It's Implied that Orochimaru is this for Kabuto.
    • Rin is a Crutch for two characters. She is Obito's entire reason for living, and also the only one who keeps Kakashi's mental health together out of a promise he made with Obito. When she dies by commiting suicide by Kakashi's hand after she's forcibly turned into an Apocalypse Maiden, everything goes to hell for both boys: Obito becomes a psychotic terrorist hell-bent on assimilating mankind, while Kakashi becomes a mentally damaged person whose sanity is barely hanging on and is dangerously close to being Driven to Suicide like his father before him.
    • Naruto and Hinata are this to each other. Both suffer from severe self-esteem issues, yet they help each other out during some of the darkest moments of their lives. Naruto's determination inspires Hinata to never give up on herself, while Hinata gently encourages Naruto during his moments of despair.
      • Naruto's emotional dependency on Hinata first became apparent during the Invasion of Pain arc. Along with still reeling from his master Jiraiya's death, Naruto has just seen his village completely demolished, confirmed that his sensei Kakashi is dead, and just saw his frog-sensei get killed in front of him, and yet he still maintains control of his emotions. But as soon as he is Forced to Watch Pain almost fatally stab Hinata with one of his chakra rods, right after she sincerely confessed her love to him — which was the first time he ever heard anybody say that to him genuinely — Naruto crosses the Despair Event Horizon, completely loses his will to live, and nearly releases the Nine-Tails.
      Naruto: When Pain struck Hinata I was so mad, so full of rage, my heart instantly connected with the Kyuubi's will.
      • If one were to keep a close eye on their interactions throughout the series, Naruto seems calmer around Hinata and more open about his insecurities with her than with anybody else, as if being with her helps him be at peace with all the pain he's been through in his life.
      • In the Canon movie The Last: Naruto the Movie, after Hinata "rejects" Naruto (so that she could save Hanabi), Naruto falls into a deep depression for four days — three of which he spends in an Angst Coma — and comes very close to giving up on everything. A pep-talk from Sakura regarding the depths and unwavering nature of Hinata's love for him snaps him out of it and gives him a Heroic Second Wind. After the Final Battle, Naruto and Hinata finally become a couple, get married, and have two children together.
      • This quote from Sakura Hiden explicitly states just how important Hinata is to Naruto:
      "Throughout that mission, Naruto realized that Hinata's being was irreplaceable and essential to him."
  • Local Hangout: Ichiraku's ramen bar.
  • Lodged Blade Removal: Hidan's gimmick is that he is immortal and can turn himself into a living Voodoo Doll. He first demonstrates his abilities by stabbing himself in the leg, causing his victim to suffer the same injury. He then pulls out the spear and tries to deliver the Coup de Grâce by running it through his heart.
  • Loners Will Stay Alone: There is a sort of theme about overcoming this sort of situation with The Power of Friendship... there's also a theme about those unable to do this becoming a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:
    • The jinchūriki tend to suffer from this from their earliest childhoods.
      • Gaara of the Sand is a prime example. None of the kids would play with him at first because he was the host of the Ichibi and they were scared. He got more and more desperate, and eventually started using his sand powers to try to stop them from getting away, scaring them even more. Then his dad decided he was more trouble than he was worth and had his trusted uncle try to assassinate him, at which point he broke completely and became an Omnicidal Maniac.
      • This example is directly pitted against that of Naruto in-story: the Fourth Hokage, who was beloved by all, had died sealing the Nine Tails Demon Fox, who had gone in a murderous, destructive rampage, into Naruto. Despite the express wishes of the Kage, the villagers decided to blame the kid for it, and despite the extreme law-enforced taboo on talking about the subject, their children picked up on their attitudes and nonverbal cues, and Naruto grew up hated and isolated, and coped with it by making lots of pranks and stupid stuff to attract much needed attention. The entire point of the manga could be said to be to explain is how he slowly overcomes this situation. By the time he meets Gaara, Naruto knows about the redeeming power of friendship, and ends up befriending Gaara and getting him out of his funk.
    • Haku was born from an infamous bloodline, inheriting their special powers. They had been genocided, and he was hated and persecuted throughout his childhood. When he found a man who would accept him for what he was, even if it was apparently only to use him as a disposable tool and weapon, he was so glad he swore undying loyalty to the man, making his value to him as a tool his sole source of self-esteem as a person, and lived up to his promise.
    • Zabuza had this enforced on him when, during the final exam of his village's ninja school, which involved killing your comrades, he single-handedly killed all the other candidates. Since then he was treated as a freak and an outcast by damn near everyone. Except Haku.
    • Kisame Hoshigaki is revealed to have had this enforced on him as part of a black-ops section of the military, charged with murdering the intelligence members of a team were the team to be captured.
  • Longest Pregnancy Ever:
    • Kurenai Yuhi, who is also a Pregnant Badass.
    • Also Kushina Uzumaki, who explains that a female jinchūriki's pregnancy is 10 months instead of the usual 9.
  • Loophole Abuse: By way of Lampshade Hanging. The Stinger of the Chunin exam second stage's Hidden Purpose Test is that the evil mind games and intricate manipulations surrounding the exam were played up so much, you could theoretically pass the test without writing down a single word. Which Naruto does.
    • The next portion of the exam has your team need to get one of two types of scroll to pass. Nothing is stopping you from getting more than that, to reduce competition in the later parts of the exam or to use as bait if you get jumped by someone stronger than you.
  • Losing Your Head: Twice. First, there's Hidan, who, being immortal, yells curses at his beheader until such a time as his head can be reattached. Then, there's Kisame (actually a Zetsu clone), who compliments his opponents on their victory as his head is flying through the air.
  • Love Hurts:
  • Love Letter: Sakura gets one, but she claims her heart is already taken. In reality, she sadly thinks of Sasuke.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: The reveal of Naruto's incredibly surprising parentage.
  • Mandatory Unretirement: There are a few cases.
    • Hiruzen, the third Hokage, had to leave retirement when the fourth Hokage died.
    • Nono was forced by Danzō to become a spy again.
  • Magical Eye: The Sharingan, Byakugan, and Rinnegan.
  • Magic by Any Other Name: Sex-change, fireballs, summoning toads! Oh jutsu, is there anything you can't do?
  • Magic Fire: The legendary Amaterasu jutsu summons black flames that can burn anything and cannot be extinguished for seven days and seven nights.
  • Mama Bear:
    • Kushina, who allowed herself to be impaled by Kurama's giant claw to stop it from impaling/crushing an infant Naruto.
    • Gaara's mother, Karura. At first, it looks like she died cursing the world, the Sand village, and her son, but in actuality, she died vowing to always protect and love her son. Her vow came true in the form of Gaara's sand shield.
    • The Three-Tails filler arc in Shippuden introduces a little boy named Yukimaru and his guardian Guren. At first, Guren thinks she's just babysitting him, but she eventually grows fond of the boy, enough so that she uses her special Crystal release at select occasions where he is in danger.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Naruto exaggerates this trope to absurd extremes, it's first revealed that Akatsuki is lead by a mysterious figure known as Pain. Some chapters and an important character death later, we find out that "Pain" is actually a collection of dead bodies controlled by a man named Nagato, who once studied under the same sensei as Naruto. Then Nagato is actually being manipulated by a masked man known by the alias "Tobi" who claims to actually be the legendary shinobi known as Madara Uchiha. Later on, Tobi isn't the real Madara Uchiha, but is actually a former leaf shinobi named Obito who used to be a student of Naruto's father and later turned evil. Then, it turns out Obito's "Moon's Eye Plan" was actually the real Madara's plan, and Obito was also supposed to bring Madara back to life to he become the jinchūriki of the Ten Tails. But later we learn that Obito never had any intention of reviving Madara and himself using him in order to become the jinchūriki of the Ten-Tails. But then, turn out they both was being manipulated the entire time by Black Zetsu, a mysterious member of Akatsuki and a being that Madara thought he himself had created to carry out his will. And Black Zetsu? He's actually carrying out the will of Princess Kaguya, an ancient Physical Goddess whom the current shinobi clans are descended from and who created Black Zetsu centuries ago right before she was sealed away to ensure that she would be revived. And thenokay, just kidding.
  • The Man in Front of the Man: Most of the time Black Zetsu seemed only The Dragon for Madara, imagine how Madara and all the spectators were surprised when he showed that he manipulated Madara all this time for the revival of his creator Kaguya.
  • Manly Tears:
    • Quite often, and from the first chapter on. Mostly exaggerated and Played for Laughs with Lee and Might Guy.
    • The author's reaction on learning that the manga would be serialized into an anime.
  • Masquerading As the Unseen
    • In the Chūnin Exam, the Kazekage is only ever seen masked or behind a curtain with the implication that this is normal behavior, enabling Orochimaru's impersonation of him.
    • A large part of what allowed Tobi to get away with impersonating Madara Uchiha for so long. Nobody knew who was behind the mask and he was powerful enough to back up his claims that he was who he said he was.
    • Subverted when Yamato tries to impersonate Sasori by riding in the large puppet he was rarely seen out of. The disguise works until it gets hacked apart and it turns out Orochimaru knows what the real Sasori looks like.
  • Martial Arts Headband: Everyone who is either attending their village's ninja academy or is a fully graduated shinobi wears one of a standard style, a strip of black or dark blue cloth with a metal plate riveted onto it. The plates each bear a symbol denoting which shinobi village a particular ninja is from and it is generally expected that ninja in the field will wear theirs visibly to show both the sanction of their mission and to identify their village to passersby or enemy combatants. Wearing the headband in an atypical fashion is generally allowed (such as Sakura using hers like a hairband, Shikimaru tying his to his bicep, and Hinata wearing hers around her neck), and striking out the symbol on the plate is a sign that one has betrayed or forsaken their village and is a rogue ninja (like all members of the Akatsuki have done).
  • Mass Resurrection: It seems this is one of the abilities of a person who possesses the Rinnegan as long as they have enough chakra to do so.
  • Master-Apprentice Chain:
    • The Hokage lineage is probably the most well-known one: The First & Second Hokage > The Third Hokage > Jiraiya > The Fourth Hokage > Kakashi (who becomes Sixth Hokage towards the end of the series) > Naruto (The future Seventh Hokage).
    • The Third Hokage > Orochimaru, Jiraiya & Tsunade > Sasuke, Naruto, & Sakura, respectively.
    • The Third Hokage > Jiraiya > Konan, Nagato, and Yahiko.
  • Me's a Crowd: The various Clone Jutsu: Shadow, Water, Lightning, etc. Also seen on a smaller scale with Replacement and Substitution Jutsu. Then you have Zetsu, whose white half can be cultivated like a plant. The Big Bad grows one-hundred-thousand copies of him to fight in the fourth ninja world war.
  • Meaningful Echo: In the "Land of Waves" arc, Naruto freezes against two assassins that Sasuke is able to deal with easily and his response to Naruto...
    Sasuke: "Hey... you're not hurt are ya? Scaredy cat."
    • Later in the Forest of Death when Sasuke is paralyzed in fear of Orochimaru (in disguise), Naruto kills the giant snake about to eat Sasuke.
    Naruto: "Hey kid... you're not hurt are ya? You scaredy cat."
  • Meaningful Funeral: The Third Hokage's funeral.
  • Meaningful Name: Most of the characters are affected by this.
    • Naruto's surname, Uzumaki, means "spiral" or "whirlpool". There's a famous whirlpool in Japan near the city of Naruto — and it's given its name to those spirally pink things you sometimes see on ramen, which is Naruto's favourite food. (They're called naruto kamaboko, and if you're wondering, they're made of processed fish.) The spiral motif is all over the manga, especially where Naruto himself is concerned. The Leaf Village symbol, the seal on Naruto's chest, his graffiti stylings... just look at the first page of the manga! Further compounding this is the fact that his signature attack is called "Rasengan", which means "Spiraling Sphere". Given that Naruto can mean both 'Maelstrom' and 'Fishcake', his full name can be translated as Maelstrom Whirlpool. Fitting for someone whose ancestors came from a place called the Village Hidden Among The Whirling Tides in The Land Of Whirlpools.
    • Sasuke surname "Uchiha" being a type of Japanese fan and the clan symbol, and "Sasuke" being a stock name for a ninja character. The third Hokage's family name is Sarutobi, which sets up the name Sarutobi Sasuke, which is the name of a popular fictional ninja. They also gave said Sarutobi Hiruzen (no personal name given until well after his death) the ability to summon monkeys. Or at least the monkey king, who given he had the perpetually-expanding rod was clearly intended as a Son Goku pastiche.
    • "Sakura" being a reference to her hair colour, and the phrase "Haru no sakura" meaning "spring's cherry blossoms". This works only if you say her name out loud, though. Sakura's last name is actually written with the kanji for "spring" and "field" (not the possessive "no") so her full name really translates out to "Spring Field Cherry Blossom".
    • Kakashi means scarecrow. This doesn't immediately sound very flattering — until you realize a scarecrow's purpose is literally to protect things that cannot protect themselves. Suddenly Kakashi's role as team 7's protector at the start of the manga and his role as the Sixth Hokage start to make sense. Also in one episode, the team follow Kakashi to find out what's under his mask. Sakura watches Kakashi standing at the stone memorial for a while until she figures out something is wrong. Sure enough, Kakashi used the substitution technique with a scarecrow that looked just like him from a distance.
    • And so on...
  • Medicinal Cuisine: In one anime-only arc, the Curry of Life is a dish made only by the store that bears its name. Its hellishly spicy flavor is said to be able to instantly resuscitate an unconscious or dying person, while those brave and resilient enough to eat multiple portions may even be strengthened by it. However, those who have a low tolerance for this kind of food may be knocked unconscious instead.
  • Men Get Old, Women Get Replaced: Most kunoichi from older generations managed to somehow stay young, particularly Tsunade, whose youth is a spell, and she has never been seen on-camera in her withered old form. Mei Terumi is a kunoichi from an older era who is worried about getting married at her age, although she is still in her thirties and gorgeous. The only female Big Bad Kaguya, is an immortal, unkillable goddess. The single exception to this, Elder Chiyo, is used mostly as a Foil for her evil grandson, Sasori, and after he dies, she does too not long after.
  • Mental World: When two people communicate via some sort of mind link, they find themselves in a strange, timeless place.
    • Naruto and the Nine Tails communicate in a share mindscape that looks like a prison cell with a very shallow pool of water. Initially, Kurama was locked up behind the seal but after they become friends, the prison bars vanish. Every jinchūriki and their Tailed Beast communicate in a similar area.
    • Naruto finds himself in such a place when he forms a Psychic Link with Sasuke and, later, Obito.
    • Naruto's conversations with his parents took place somewhere inside his mind.
  • Meditation Powerup: Sage Mode. To gather natural energy, one must sit absolutely still in meditation; thus, entering Sage Mode during combat is difficult.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: Quite frequent (Hiruzen, Minato, Jiraiya, Asuma, and Chiyo can count). Of notice is that three of the mentors die by the hand of a former student turned evil.
  • Messianic Archetype:
    • Naruto. Let's count his Messiah credentials... He is The Chosen One by prophecy. He has a number of devoted followers. He's persecuted for most of his early life for being a jinchūriki. He's technically dead with Kurama extracted from him and is about to be revived to save the world and most especially he is the reincarnation of the youngest son of the Sage of Six Paths, AKA the God of Shinobi, who was chosen as the Sage's successor.
    • Sage of Six Paths aka Hagoromo Otsutsuki was this during his time, when he created the Ninshu/Ninja Creed. Shippuden Episode 464 is almost a retelling of the life of Jesus: just replace Hagoromo for Jesus and Futami for St. Peter. Hagoromo wants to atone for the role Kaguya played in nearly destroying the world, just like Jesus died in the Scriptures for everyone's sins. The sage then travels around the world, restoring the land and assisting the people, gathering disciples along the way after inspiring them with his goodness (many of whom turn out to be former thieves, just like the apostles). He even works as a carpenter fixing bridges — Jesus's father was a carpenter! Just to get the point across further, Hagoromo returns during the Ten Tails's comeback to grant Naruto and Sasuke the Yin and Yang releases.
  • Meteor Move:
    • Rock Lee has his "Primary Lotus" attack, which involves kicking the opponent into the sky, jumping alongside him and wrapping his bandages around the foe, adding spin and an assurance that they land headfirst. Sasuke subsequently copies this with his "Lion's Barrage," an attack that substitutes several kicks for the bandage-spinning (as he only saw the first half of the attack and didn't know exactly what Lee was going to do with the bandages), and Naruto then copies that for his "Uzumaki Barrage," a variant that uses shadow clones to begin pummeling the foe into the sky and following up.
    • Upon releasing the Fifth Gate in his fight against Gaara, Rock Lee kicks the Multihit Meteor variant up. He kicks Gaara into the air, jumps behind him and kicks him towards the ground, and then jumps in front of him and hits him back into the air, commencing the game of pinball. Things get rather uncomfortable for Gaara thereafter.
  • Meteor-Summoning Attack: Madara's Tengai Shinsei attack summons a meteor, which he can then direct to a specific impact location to cause devastation on a large scale.
  • Military Mage: Just about every military encountered in the series seems to be composed exclusively of ninja, most of whom make liberal use of explicitly-magical ninjutsu powers. Most fall under the general umbrella of Special Forces and operate in small four-man cells, although the more powerful ones can act as artillery up to and including One-Man Army / Person of Mass Destruction levels.
  • Mindlink Mates: Chapter 677 reveals that Naruto and Hinata are this.
  • Mind Rape: Most of genjutsu techniques boil down to this, with Tsukuyomi being the most extreme.
  • Mind Screw: The sequence where we get treated to a visualization of the effect Naruto's words are having on Obito. First, illusory versions of Minato, Kakashi and Rin appear. Next, Minato and Kakashi start messing with Obito's head. Then things get really weird: Rin starts speaking seductively to Obito, except she's suddenly super creepy, and then she, Minato and Kakashi start transforming into tailed beasts. Then Naruto turns into young Obito and runs off with Rin. You still something perceive? Obito not very.
  • A Minor Kidroduction: The intro has brief shot of baby Naruto before seeing him as an adolescent.
  • Mirror Character: Naruto has many foils throughout the series, and often he finds out that he's more like them than he thought:
    • Gaara is what Naruto would have become if Iruka hadn't acknowledged him. They share the traumatic isolation of being hosts to tailed beasts. This is made all the more poignant by the fact that we are introduced to Gaara as a completely Ax-Crazy monster hungry for blood and only find out that he and Naruto aren't that different after several Establishing Character Moments of Gaara's that involve plenty of murder. What's more, they were both entrusted to the care of someone whose loved ones they'd inadvertently killed. Where their paths diverged, and for us the story begins, is Iruka not succumbing to pressure and manipulation to become another face lost in the jeering, uncaring masses.
    • Naruto realizes at some point that his own anger from Konoha's hatred towards him means he could've been the threat to Konoha and Sasuke the one defending it. The panel shows Naruto using chidori and Sasuke using Rasengan to drive it home.
    • For all of the godlike destruction Pain wreaks, it is eventually shown that he started out very similar to Naruto, and his ideals never really wavered; it was only the "goody-good" methods he despaired of.
    • Inverted with Obito — when he is finally introduced properly as a villain, the first thing we learn is how similar his beginnings were to Naruto's; it is only later revealed how radically different their choices and conclusions had been.
  • Misery Builds Character: Played straight and subverted. Several people, the main character included, are better people specifically because they can empathize with the pain others are feeling. However, the main character makes it very clear that endless suffering is like drowning, and you can only last so long without someone pulling you up for air. The jinchūriki who have someone supporting them turn out well, like Bee and Naruto, but the ones like Gaara who have nobody....don't turn out well. And there are cases like Haku and several members of the Sound, who suffered so much that a single act of kindness or even neutrality made them devote themselves to people just to feel needed, even when they knew they were just being used as tools.
    • The overall result seems to be 'misery can make you strong, but you'll likely go crazy and probably be overall weaker than if you had a positive upbringing'. Gaara and Lee were about on even terms without a demon transformation and Lee gained strength from support with his teacher. Killer Bee is also exceptionally strong and respected and he was raised from childhood as a recognized member of his village.
  • Monster-Shaped Mountain: The Land of Iron's signature landmark is the Three Wolves, a mountain that is shaped like 3 wolves' heads.
  • Monumental Damage Resistance: Pain's Shinra Tensei destroys the whole Konoha village, but does no damage to the Hokage mountain. This meant that when Naruto was reverse summoned there, he could still be sure where he was.
  • Mood Whiplash: The episode previews in Shippuden are really bad about this; tense, dramatic cliffhangers...followed by the characters telling jokes and performing skits.
  • Mooks: The White Zetsu clones.
  • Multiple-Tailed Beast: The tailed beasts, sans Shukaku, who only has one tail.
  • Mundane Utility:
    • In canon, Naruto jumps into a creek with shadow clones to force some fish to the surface, which Sasuke catches with kunai and cooks with his fire jutsu. Jiraiya also uses a fire jutsu in a flashback to cook a giant fish.
    • Ninja in general are somewhat this, especially Genin. The test to pass the Ninja Academy? Produce a pair of illusory duplicates. Your likely first missions? Gardening, babysitting, retrieving lost pets, etc.
    • Naruto has a particularly special mundane use for his clones, Clones when dismissed will automatically pass on any learned knowledge to the user, as Kakashi demonstrates by taking a Naruto clone away and telling it a number, when dismissed Naruto knows the number, while this is a useful skill in itself, it is limited to how many clones a user can produce, with most being able to summon maybe 3-4 clones at a time, Naruto can summon hundreds, which means he can learn massive amounts of knowledge at once, allowing him to mostly avoid the slow path of learning abilities, by having his clones all do the same task as him, and then dismissing them, he can learn techniques faster than most can, be that as it may, it is still hampered by Narutos slow learning pace, if a more "competant" ninja had this ability they would become exceptionally skilled ninjas.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: Sometimes averted, sometimes played with. While some characters use special chakra-based abilities to have Super-Strength (just look at Sakura and her teacher, Tsunade (whose trademark ability is her raw strength). Barely a muscle on their slim bodies (except for their bosoms), but they can beat down mooks fifty times their size!), the characters known for being physically strong are usually HUGE. A, Killer Bee, and Chouji come to mind. There ARE exceptions, like Rock Lee (who is much stronger than his muscles would suggest, and DOESN'T use chakra to make up for it).
    • Sakura and Tsunade's hard hitting explicitly doesn't have anything to do with muscles, as it's actually them gathering chakra into their fists and blasting it all out on impact. Most of their actual physical ability involves heightened agility to avoid getting hit. When it comes to raw physical strength, the strongest tend to be pretty big guys (Choji and his father, Jirobo, Jugo, the Raikage) or use some form of body modification (Kakuzu, cursed seal user, Naruto and Jiraiya in Sage Mode) except for Mighty Guy and Rock Lee, who tend towards the "defined, but lean" in the style of Bruce Lee (see below) as they value both speed and strength. It's outright (and hilariously) subverted when Sasuke (who's really rather scrawny) tries to kick Killer Bee (who is quite large, tall, and muscular)... and it does absolutely nothing.
      • However, in one of the first filler episodes Sakura rips up a ship's mast and uses it to beat the bad guys off the vessel. This is before she began her training with Tsunade, you understand. It was a big ship.
    • Tsunade, due to being a hybrid of a Senju and an Uzumaki (both clans with massive amount of pure physical ability and vitality) has incredibly high natural physical strength. So much so that without chakra she could lift and wield Gamabunta's sword after being seriously worn out...and when she enhances her strength with chakra she can bust through Madara's Susano'o.
    • Kurama is noticeably the slimmest tailed beast, to the point he occasionally looks emaciated due to thin arms and a visible ribcage, but he's also the strongest beast of all (barring the Ten Tails) with vast chakra reserves and the ability to level mountains with the whip of a single tail.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • Sasuke claims one of the most epic instances of this in the series, but an honorary mention goes to Sakura when Sai gets her to realize what the promise she got out of Naruto did to him.
    • Kakashi blames himself for Obito's death, insisting that if they had gone together to save their teammate in the first place, that would not have happened.
  • Natural Disaster Cascade: Using Tenpenchii, the Ten-Tails can create a simultaneous blast of natural disasters — earthquakes, floods, storms and tornadoes — within the area.
  • The Needs of the Many: Suspicions that someone bearing the sharingan was involved in the Nine Tails incident, combined with the Uchiha clan's isolation (caused by the Second Hokage's reformations), the Fourth Hokage's death, the Third Hokage's reluctance to take measures and Danzo's manipulations to further his ambitions, stretched the — already strained — relations between the Leaf and the Uchiha clan to a breaking point. To ensure their interests were safeguarded, the Uchiha planned a coup d'état that would lead to a civil war and, probably, an invasion of the Land of Fire by its neighbours that would result in the deaths of thousands. With no diplomatic solution available, since those on either side who would mediate between the two factions had been "removed" from the game, the Leaf's elders ordered Itachi to kill every member of the Uchiha clan to prevent this from happening.
  • Nemesis Weapon:
    • Naruto and Sasuke in at least two different ways:
      • Sasuke's signature move Chidori is a hand thrust charged with electricity. Naruto's Rasengan is similarly used ball of pure energy. It turns out that Chidori was a bastardized version of what should've been a Lightning Release Rasengan. After learning this, Naruto is able to create a proper Wind Release Rasengan.
      • In the final arc, the two are revealed to be reincarnations of the Sage of Sixth Paths sons, and are granted their predecessors' powers by their father. Once they receive this power, Sasuke gets the symbol of the moon on his hand, while Naruto gets the sun.
    • Kakashi and Tobi also have the same dimensional ability Kamui. This is because Kamui is a Mangekyo Sharingan ability. Tobi is actually Obito, Kakashi's childhood friend who gave him his one Sharingan eye in the first place. They literally have the same eyes.
  • Never a Self-Made Woman:
    • Tsunade has light shades of this, since one easily forgotten reason of why she got picked up to be Fifth Hokage is that she's respectively the grand-daughter and grand-niece of the First and Second Hokages. It's by no way THE one reason, but it's there, somewhere at the bottom.
    • Konan was introduced as having been mainly defined by her loyalty to Yahiko and Nagato, and eventually, Naruto. Subverted when she eventually gets a chance to show just how powerful she is.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Lampshaded once by Tobi, when Sasuke summoned Garuda, a giant hawk, to aid him in his battle with Danzo.
    Tobi: Hmm? A new summoning? When did you get that?
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Uchiha clan holds the world record in this. Remember when they felt things weren't going their way so they had this brilliant idea to sway things in their favor?... Remember how that went? Mm hm. Remember Sasuke's great triumphant moment of revenge? Remember how that one turned out? Mm hm. Remember the part where we find out what Itachi was all about and what he was trying to achieve? See how that one turned out? Mm hm. Nice job, Uchiha clan. Lampshaded by Itachi, about himself. He tells Sasuke that it was his fault Sasuke became the criminal he is today.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ironically, Obito arguably did the biggest contributor to the peaceful state of affairs at the end of the series. By serving as a sort of ultimate enemy, Obito provided the shinobi nations of the world with the impetus to set aside their previous grievances and stand together for a common cause by serving as a common enemy for all of them. In a sense, he's the person who gave the shinobi world one big push towards unification and a lasting peace. It's arguable that, if he hadn't shown up at five kage summit and declared war on everybody, things would have been much more tense between the Shinobi villages.
  • Ninja: Pretty much everyone is referred to as a ninja, even if they dress in orange or fight by summoning giant toads. The ANBU fit the ninja mold much better, being an elite group of mask-wearing warriors who specialize in assassination and espionage.
  • Ninja Log: Used in a surprising number of variations, including several that explode.
  • Nobody Poops: Averted in the sports festival OVA as well as the actual show. Naruto is the usual offender. Played straight with the early Zetsu clones, which explicitly don't poop, to the point where they actually ask Tobi what it's like.
  • No-Harm Requirement: The Akatsuki were tasked with catching the jinchūriki to extract their Tailed Beasts. However, the ritual to extract the beast only works if the host is still alive. Kisame remarked how not killing them was the hardest part of the job.
  • No Hugging, No Kissing: There is effectively no on-page romance in the series at all. Kurenai ended up pregnant with the late Asuma's child without them having even appeared on the same page for several hundred chapters beforehand and in Chapter 700 we just get to see all the characters paired up along with their children (including some characters who never even MET during the story) with no signs of their relationships (most didn't even interact with their own spouses). This was due to Masashi Kishimoto's self-confessed inability to write romance, which he attributed to chronic embarrassment. Only Naruto and Hinata subverts it with The Last: Naruto the Movie where they get a detailed Romance Arc which ends with The Big Damn Kiss that signifies the start of their relationship. Kishimoto thought he wouldn't be able watch the said scene but "surprisingly" he could and felt like his children grew up and flew away from home.
  • Nonhumans Lack Attributes: Averted with a certain armadillo. Squick. Also averted for Akamaru in the comical spin-off Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth.
  • No Off Button: The Akimichi pepper pill puts your metabolism into overdrive, converting calories into tremendous power. But it keeps going even when your body has no fat left to use up.
  • The Nose Bleed: The inevitable result of Naruto's Sexy Jutsu.
  • Not a Date: Asuma and Kurenai deny being out together, claiming they just happened to meet on the road. Nobody's buying it. Similarly, Shikamaru and Temari say they are only hanging out together because they have to oversee the Chunin exams.
  • Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: One half of the first task of the Chūnin exam is actually this.
  • Not Even Human: How most people in the manga view jinchūriki. This way of thinking is a personal berserk button for Naruto.
  • Nothing but Skin and Bones: Nagato is horribly skinny because of a Dangerous Forbidden Technique of his, which drained his life force. His legs had been burned useless just before that. And overall, he uses nothing but techniques that consume huge amounts of chakra.
  • Not Just a Tournament: The Chunin Exam arc features a single-elimination tournament as the final stage of the exam. Initially, the idea is that the contestants will fight each other and that the judges determine who should be promoted based on the performance. However, it is soon explained that that function is more of an in-universe Excuse Plot to showcase competition between villages. Said competition affects incoming business for each village.
    • The Kazekage even refuses to let his village's star ninja get a free pass to the next round because his tardy opponent is from a distinguished clan and defeating such an individual would be a great way to showcase his village's ability. In actuality, the disguised Orochimaru wanted Sasuke to fight to help advance his Cursed Seal corruption, but the excuse is solid enough that Sarutobi accepts it.
  • Not Quite Dead: A number of characters pull this off at some point or another, but the runaway award winner is Orochimaru. Second place goes to Hidan and Kakuzu, who each should have died at least thrice in their arc. Justified (at least in-universe) in that Hidan is immortal and Kakuzu has 5 hearts (and does finally die when all five are killed).
  • No True Scotsman: Jiraya and Orochimaru have a brief argument over what makes a true ninja, in the context of whether Naruto qualified. Orochimaru said it was being proficient at ninjustu, Jiraya claimed it was having the guts to never give up. In an earlier conversation, Zabuza defined ninja as killers with blood on their hands.
  • Not So Stoic: It's something of a theme that no one can truly kill or completely overcome their own emotions and pretty much everyone who tries to play The Stoic with some level of development lets loose at some point.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: End of Part I. Seems to be the case after a certain Wham Episode in Part II, but the lasting effect on the plot turns out to be less drastic than expected.
  • Nue: One of the various experiments done by Root is a Nue, a monster created from Project Gozu Tenno as a bioengineered superweapon using Hashirama Senju's harvested cells.

    O - P 
  • Oblivious Mockery: Having heard that Jūgo went to Orochimaru voluntarily, Suigetsu comments that only someone completely nuts would throw himself into Orochimaru's arms. Right next to Sasuke, who threw himself into Orochimaru's arms for the sake of his revenge.
  • Oddly Small Organization:
    • Due to lack of focus, a lot of the clans initially come off as this. However, the later arcs show that at least most of them have far more people than just a single nuclear family.
    • The Akatsuki. Its size is never clearly stated. It's defined as a ten-member group, incredibly small for an organization aiming at world domination, although Sasori has several underlings working for him in the Sand village and their leader turns out to have a whole village under his control.
  • Official Couple: Asuma and Kurenai, Minato and Kushina, Dan and Tsunade, Hayate and Yuugao, and Konan and Yahiko. In the epilogue, the official pairings for the original teenagers in the series are revealed to be Shikamaru and Temari, Sai and Ino, Choji and Karui, Kiba and Tamaki, and for the main characters, Naruto and Hinata, and Sasuke and Sakura. You can read more about the twists and turns that eventually led to those under "Shipping Rollercoaster" in the Analysis page.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
    • We don't see most of the fights between the Tailed Beasts' hosts and Akatsuki.
    • Tenten is constantly a victim of this. Most memorable in that regard is her battle with Edo Kakuzu; this is a villain Jounins were having trouble with, and Naruto had to eventually step in with his Big Damn Rasen-shuriken to defeat, even before he was an indestructible infinite-chakra zombie. Tenten defeats him, or at least gets halfway there, but we never get to see the Armageddon of pointy weapons she presumably unleashed on him in the process.
    • The specifics of what Hinata wrought upon the Juubi-lings with Divination: 64 Twin Lion Fist strikes are left to our imagination (even in the anime), which is especially egregious given that we never got to see what the Twin Lion Fists do in the first place.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Sure to happen whenever some invincible villain turns out to be Not So Invincible After All or some ultimate technique turns out to be Not So Ultimate After All. Also a common response to nightmarish genjutsu before the victim realizes (s)he's been caught in one.
    • A rather humorous example is Shikamaru during the final round of the Chunnin exams. He has no interest in fighting the match, and is about to give up when Naruto pushes him into the field, and he is promptly jeered by the audience because he is not Sasuke. His face has Oh, Crap! written all over it.
    • Not being able to regenerate when you're supposed to be able to regenerate. For example, the zombified Fourth Hokage is unable to regenerate his missing arms, which zombies in the Naruto-verse are supposed to be able to do. This seems especially unfair, since all three of his equally-zombified Hokage comrades have each regenerated massive battle damage.
    • The entire company of ninja when Madara (the real one) uses a Jutsu that calls down a meteor.
  • One True Love:
    • Naruto has spent almost his entire life searching for the one person who would love him unconditionally, in spite of everything that has and will transpire in his life, along with all of his flaws, like his parents would have if they lived beyond his birth. However, since he never understood the romantic implications of such a relationship, he's been blind to the fact that the person he's been searching for has been right in front of him all this time: Hinata, the girl who has admired, acknowledged and loved him for the way he is since the day they first met as children. It takes him until the Canon movie The Last: Naruto the Movie to finally realize that Hinata is the precious person he wants to protect and be with.
      Masashi Kishimoto: I think what made me realize it was partly because, if you really look back and think about it, Hinata always supported and acknowledged Naruto, even before Master Iruka. She had the ability to see beyond his reputation and see the true person inside. I think I started realizing that they were meant to be.
    • Naruto's own parents recognize each other as this as well. His mother Kushina was bullied as a child for being an outsider and for her long flowing red hair in particular, which caused her to resent it. She also initially didn't think much of his father Minato, believing him to be "flaky", similar to how Naruto initially thought of Hinata as "weird". One day, though, Kushina was kidnapped by Kumo ninja for being the Kyuubi jinchūriki. She made a Trail of Bread Crumbs using strands of her hair, and just when it seemed no one had caught on, Minato appeared and rescued her. He was the only one to catch on to what she was doing, and even admitted that the first thing he noticed about her when they first met was her beautiful long red hair. That was the moment that Kushina realized that the hair she hated so much had become her Red String of Fate that led her to her soulmate.
    • Sakura has only ever loved Sasuke throughout the series, and she later marries and has a daughter with him.
  • One Extra Member: The "Sound Five" actually counts Sakon and Ukon as one person, instead of making it the Sound Six.
  • One-Steve Limit: There exists 2 characters in the show proper named Fu, Fu, the jinchūriki, and Fu Yamanaka, the Root member.
  • One-Winged Angel: Many. A couple of the purer "villain" forms of the transformation involved Gaara's grotesque mutation into his demonic Shukaku form, and Orochimaru's curse seal's second stage, which turns the bearer into a monstrous version of their former selves: various members of the Sound Five grow horns, spikes, deformed facial features, an extra eye, and a tail from using it, and Face–Heel Turn Sasuke actually grows hand-like wings.
    • Orochimaru himself has a grotesque "true form" that he transforms into whenever he performs his body-switch technique. He takes the shape of a giant white snake made up of a multitude of smaller snakes, with a monstrous, dragon-like face and shaggy black hair. He also has a jutsu that allows him to transform into a giant "hydra", one of the mouths of which holds his normal body.
    • All the Akatsuki have a One-Winged Angel form in one way or another. Kakuzu's tentacle mass thing, Hidan's Grim Reaper form, Kisame's Samehada-Fusion form, Itachi and Sasuke's Susano'o, Sasori's real body, Konan and her paper angel form, Pain already consists of six remotely controlled zombies; his final revealed form was a creepy wasted body impaled by many chakra antennae. Deidara did the thing mentioned in the trope description of becoming a living bomb... Tobi the only who do not have this (well, that is, before he became jinchūriki Ten-Tails).
    • All the jinchūriki have this. They have their human forms, then the Version 1 (as Killer Bee called it) chakra shroud, which is still human, but has the chakra of his/her Tailed Beast creating a Battle Aura with the appearance of the beast. Then there is the Version 2, which makes the Beast's chakra burn their skin and making the tails solid, and has the risk of reducing the jinchūriki lifespan if he doesn't have the beast under control. Then there is the change into the beast itself...
  • Only a Flesh Wound: "Oh, my god! That was my arm! They ripped off my arm! AARGH!" — A quote not uttered by anyone at any point in the series, though logic dictates it should be on at least five separate occasions. On two separate occasions, a villain has this done to them, and instead of the battle being over right there and then, they just kept fighting to eventually win. This is especially odd given how much Orochimaru was both furious and terrified at the loss of his arms (sealed, rather than cut off) — however, his reaction's based around being no longer able to use ninjutsu, rather than the loss of his arms' functionality period.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You:
    • Dosu does this to Sasuke in an attempt to foil Orochimaru's plans; this leads to his death at Gaara's hands. Gaara himself uses this before his Heel–Face Turn by saying Sasuke is "his prey."
    • Itachi Uchiha basically says that the only one allowed to defeat him is his younger brother, the same Sasuke. But he has his reasons for saying that.
    • Also, Naruto and Sasuke, mutually and multiple times.
    • When Jiraiya is about to take on Itachi and Kisame at the inn, Sasuke insists that the only one who is going to kill Itachi is him. Well, needless to say, that fight doesn't exactly end in his favor. Nor do any future attempts.
  • Opposites Attract: Most of the Official Couples, past and future, in the series fit this mold.
  • Organ Theft: All over the place; name a body part, and someone's taken it from a dead opponent and integrated it into their own body. Gruesomely. The Uchiha have a power-up based on taking a sibling's eye.
  • Orphanage of Love: Where Kabuto was initially raised.
  • Our Ancestors Are Superheroes: Modern shinobi are descendants of the Otsutsuki, an extended clan of beings from another world. The Otsutsuki were extremely powerful and possessed both physical and learned abilities that made them superhuman compared even to most modern shinobi. This is because after destroying themselves with in-fighting, the remaining Otsutsuki interbred with normal humans, which either diluted their Superpowerful Genetics throughout the generations, caused their powerful jutsus to become restricted to a few specific bloodlines, or both.
  • Our Clones Are Different:
    • One brand of clones can be created from normal chakra (which are either non-solid illusions or doppëlgangers), all kinds of Elemental Releases (more durable but with less agency), or, well, whatever theme a character has (crows, paper, being The Beastmaster or a plant-man, etc.). They all consume chakra, but the most chakra-costly are probably the doppëlgangers (aka the Shadow Clones) because they provide a high degree of agency and return their memories to the caster, making training and on-battle intel-gathering all the easier.
    • It's possible to create clones by more scientific methods, which makes them as human as possible: they don't dispel upon receiving sufficiently strong hits and have free will. Orochimaru created such clones from Shin Uchiha.
    • Subverted with the Rinnegan's Six Paths of Pain. The technique allows controlling up to six bodies as if they were one's own, sharing a Hive Mind and being able to see through them. Nagato's Paths all looked eerily similar to him (same orange hair and black, metal bar piercings, and Rinnegan eyes), so at first glance, they look like his clones. When Obito uses this technique is hammered that, no, they aren't — he controls the bodies of six tailed-beast hosts without making them resemble him.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: Type "V" for the characters brought back with the forbidden technique Edo Tensei.
  • Out of Focus: Most of anyone in this series who has just played some significant part in the plot and is not part of Team 7 or a top-tier villain goes straight to the Offstage Waiting Room. In fact, more often than not, when the focus shifts to any of the secondary characters it's because something bad is about to happen to them. Particularly egregious in that Sakura, who is a main character from Team 7, also falls prey to this for most of Part II of the manga.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome: Too many characters to tell. Despite relatively consistent competence, Tsunade suffers from this chronically, as does her disciple Sakura (despite being a designated main character). In-universe, Obito admits outright to Minato that he feels overshadowed by Kakashi's superior ability.
  • Page-Turn Surprise:
    • In the pilot, a new page coincides with Takashi revealing that Saburo stabbed Kuroda, and when Takashi gets shot by the person who came to steal "Proof".
    • Several times, someone will talk for a little while to build up to revealing something, then hesitate for a panel or two to push The Reveal onto the next page, sometimes accompanied by a character asking "What?". Noteworthy examples include Naruto finding out that he is the host of the nine-tailed fox, Sasuke learning that Itachi was trying to protect him, and Hinata confessing her love to Naruto.
    • During the Sasuke Retrieval arc, where you turn the page and find a gloriously awesome full page of Rock Lee roundhouse kicking the bad guy.
  • Pair the Spares: In an odd, non-romantic example, Sakura and Tsunade. It feels like the former asked the latter to train her so every Sannin could have a member of Team 7 as their student. But while Jiraiya and Orochimaru had plenty of reasons to train Naruto and Sasuke, respectively, there's no good reason why Tsunade would agree to train Sakura, since not only is Tsunade a very busy woman, being both the Hokage and the village's foremost Medic-nin; Part I Sakura was a rather subpar ninja with no obvious strengths other than academics, meaning that Tsunade would have very little incentive to spend what little spare time she had training a ninja that hadn't shown much potential. On top of that, at no point before that moment did Sakura ever show any interest in learning Medical Jutsu or talent for it. It is noted early in the series that Sakura has better chakra control than Sasuke and Naruto, and chakra control is key to both Tsunade's strength and medical ninjutsu, but it is not until she trains under Tsunade that Sakura exhibits any extraordinary levels of chakra control.
  • Papa Wolf:
    • Minato — Shortly after Naruto is born, Tobi shows up and threatens his newborn son. Minato pulls no punches in ensuring his child survives, even ultimately sacrificing his own life to make sure the threat is dealt with.
    • Iruka, Naruto's surrogate father of sorts, does his part when he takes a huge shuriken in the back for Naruto's sake.
  • Parental Abandonment: Orphans abound due to the life of a ninja just not being very conductive to one's life expectancy. Kyuubi killed numerous ones in its rampage — the ones which weren't killed in the previous Ninja Wars, that is. Some would-be-plot-relevant parents may have managed to escape this fate by virtue of their invisibility.
  • Passing the Torch: The final Episode of Shippuuden has at the very end Naruto handing over his Ninja Headband to his son, Boruto, signaling the beginning of the new series.
  • Passion Is Evil: Seems to become an important theme in Part II.
    • Kurama can much more easily take control of Naruto when the latter feels despair or hatred. Whenever it has an occasion, it will try to push Naruto over the edge. At least until Naruto manages to defeat him, and then befriend him.
    • Nagato connected himself to the Gedo Mazo while feeling intense pain and hatred following Yahiko's sacrifice.
    • Even later, strong emotions are revealed to be the "curse" of the Uchiha clan, and that feeling strong emotions, like love and friendship, then suddenly losing them, is what creates the Sharingan.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Most prominently Tailed Beast hosts, but it's a valid option to any protagonist or villain so inclined provided they have a sufficiently high Power Level. (cue Vegeta breaking his scanner).
  • Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements: The sword Samehada can only be wielded if it likes the taste of the wielder's chakra.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: In Real Life, ninjas were covert agents and mercenaries who engaged in such things as espionage and assassination and so on and so forth (or at least, that's what pop culture agrees they were, but the difference is semantic). Though early arcs do make some attempt to play up these things, at no point do any of the good guys actually do any of it, despite being trained for it. Later in the series this is outright abandoned as the cast begins pursuing personal vendettas and fighting the bad guys using lasers and giant animals. For a long time the villains actually do all the things ninjas are supposed to have done, but this is eventually derailed into magic eyes, immortal zombies, mountain-leveling laser blasts, and Eldritch Abominations.
  • Playing with Fire: Any character who uses fire techniques. Not that any of them could really help anyone win a fight.
  • Please, Don't Leave Me: Sakura to Sasuke before he leaves the Leaf, in an absolutely heartbreaking scene. Naruto’s entire fight with Sasuke at the Valley of the End consists of this, eventually turning into “I’ll break every bone in your body and drag you all the way back if that’s what it takes!” “I won’t let you be taken by someone like Orochimaru!” Subverted by Naruto when he just wants to talk with Sasuke, even going so far as to tell Sasuke that they will die together if they fight each other, then allows him to go freely on his way once he’s finished.
  • Plot Armor:
    • Sasuke Uchiha is a major offender, often relying on New Powers as the Plot Demands to make him As Strong As He Needs To Be. His most iconic one may be when, after it has already been established that he was out of chakra, he has continued use of his Sharingan, summons a giant snake, hypnotizes it, jumps in its mouth, and teleports it and himself out of harm's way, all to avoid a massive 10-kilometer-radius explosion. After said explosion had already gone off. A few feet from him. (Illustration.)
    • Madara Uchiha is a villainous version of this. Since his resurrection, Madara got in a few situations in which he was very close to defeat, only to suddenly demonstrate a new power that had never been seen or even hinted at before, or just doing impossible action without explanation. His most iconic one may be when he was somehow knowing how terminate the contract with Edo Tensei when the person who summoned him was defeated despite the fact that even the original creator of this jutsu does not know how to do it. And as if in confirmation of this when his Plot Armor disappeared (after activation Infinite Tsukiyomi) he was defeated literally one hit in the back from Black Zetsu which showed that he manipulated Madara all this time and to use him as fodder for Kaguya's resurrection. The plot gods giveth and the plot gods taketh away, actually...
    • Hinata somehow manages to survive being stabbed point-blank in the stomach, getting caught in the blast radius of a Wave-Motion Gun and lying there alone, bleeding and unconscious, for several minutes, while two Persons Of Mass Destruction summon gravity blasts and giant chakra balls all over the resulting smoking crater.
    • This is in effect for the Ninja Alliance in general for pretty much all of the war. They're fighting an army of invincible zombies, who in life were some of the strongest ninjas to ever live... including aforementioned Madara Uchiha. And there are only a handful of non-Red Shirt casualties. At best, three Mauve Shirts die (Ino and Shikamaru's fathers and, above all, Neji) and not even the slightest hint of anyone else dying. Not even Gai, who uses an explicitly fatal Dangerous Forbidden Technique to fight Madara and is saved by Naruto intervening with his Deus ex Machina power-up.
    • Kaguya is so hilariously over-powered she makes Madara Uchiha look like Part I Sakura. She has the ability to teleport herself or others at any point to any place, which they are unable to resist in any way. Despite this and some degree of reality warping, she's unable to kill any of Team 7.
  • The Plot Reaper: Victims include:
    • Jiraiya, who falls prey to the Mentor Occupational Hazard.
    • Orochimaru, who has served his purpose as the Big Bad and has to make room for Sasuke to prove himself as a serious threat in his own right. This is eventually inverted; Orochimaru is required for plot purposes again, the process is reversed, and Orochimaru is free to roam the Earth and do his new thing.
    • Itachi, who finally dies because the plot is done milking Sasuke's grudge against him for everything it's worth.
    • Konan, an inconvenient leftover from an old storyline to begin with, is much more valuable to the plot as a minor character whose death people will actually still kind of care about than as yet another ally for Naruto, busy running a faraway village and nigh-completely detached from the main thrust of the plot.
    • Danzo, who would have been the key to a myriad hypothetical arcs, questions chasing questions and twisty little passages of plot that the author apparently just wasn't very eager to deal with.
    • Neji, whose death — according to Kishimoto — serves the purpose of pulling Naruto and Hinata closer together after the War Arc.
  • Plot Tumor:
    • The Uchiha clan, and Sasuke in particular, have done nothing but become more prominent in the story as time passes. It's gotten to the point where the Uchiha clan is responsible for the entire plot of the manga. Sasuke started out as merely The Rival to Naruto (though he clearly had greater story importance than other such rivals due to also being Naruto's teammate) who wanted to avenge his clan, but as the Uchiha presence expanded, so has his. He's arguably had more face time in the manga than the actual protagonist (he hasn't, though he's had more than every other character despite being largely absent for the first three arcs of Part II), and in the arc that's shaping up to be the climax of the series, it's mainly Uchihas who accomplish anything of importance since two of them are the main villains, and a third single-handedly negates the mass revival technique that nobody else could stop. It's a sore spot between fans whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between.
    • The First Hokage possessed a rare ability to control wood, something done by combining water and earth elemental chakra. In the beginning, this was just one of ten possible chakra combinations, with no reason to believe it was any more special than lava chakra or ice chakra. As the series has progressed, however, the importance of the first hokage's cells, which possessed this ability, has grown to the point where the amount of characters that possess them rivals the amount that possess the sharingan.
    • The Sage of Six Paths. Originally just the man who was the first user of chakra and supposed progenitor of the Uchiha and Senju clans, and later the one who brought the tailed beasts into being by defeating a worse creature and splitting it up, it eventually turns out that Naruto and Sasuke, and Hashirama and Madara before them, are direct reincarnations of his sons, his mother is actually the Greater-Scope Villain, and her "third son" Black Zetsu has been manipulating the world since the Sage's time try and bring her back.
  • Police Are Useless: Though the governments do have safety nets to deal with rogue ninjas, these are incredibly inadequate. The people in charge of taking out rogue ninjas are Nameless Faceless Mooks that get slaughtered by anything stronger than a stiff breeze whereas said rogues are, almost without exception, THE strongest ninjas in the world.
    • The invasion of the Hidden Sand is probably the worst example in the series. The border guards are massacred by their treacherous leader. The interior ninja specifically watching for aerial intruders are dispatched by an opponent in the sky. Neither group even manages to see the Akatsuki members, but Gaara is able to identify the aforementioned flying enemy by casually glancing out the window.
  • Poorly Timed Confession:
  • Powers Do the Fighting:
    • Gaara is protected by his sand, so for most of his fights early on in the series, he stands by while the sand deflects projectiles and destroys his enemies for him.
    • Naruto's Nine-Tails chakra shroud (before he defeated Kurama and took control of the Nine-Tails's chakra) can act independently from him and launch its own attacks.
  • Power Makes Your Hair Grow: The level 2 of the cursed seal. Inverted with Jiraiya's hari jizo attack, where your hair growing makes for power. Moreover, it is the Jutsu's power.
  • The Power of Friendship: ...is apparently a distant second behind the power of a sufficiently well-seated superiority complex. It is nonetheless strong enough to end ancient grievances, unite the Ninja Villages against a common foe, and remind an Eldritch Abomination about his better nature.
  • The Power of Hate: ...will cause a cycle of revenge throughout the ages. Sasuke also lives by it.
  • The Power of Love: ...is apparently a distant second behind the power to repel things with gravity, and cannot sooth a sufficiently deep-seated hunger for power and revenge. It is nonetheless powerful enough to make an ever-active shield out of sand protecting your loved ones after you die, and to pull you away from the brink of madness and despair.
    • The Power Of Love Makes You Evil: Extremely strong love that turns to hate is revealed to be exceptionally powerful:
    Tobirama (Second Hokage): [[to Sasuke]] When Uchiha suffer after experiencing the loss of a loved one or despair, special chakra sprouts inside their brains, which affects the optic nerve and produces a change in their eyes. That is "the eye that reflects feelings"... The Sharingan. [...] The deeper their darkness becomes, the more powerful their eyes get, and it's impossible to handle them... like in Madara's case.
    Hashirama (First Hokage): Madara really loved his little brother... probably even more than your brother.
  • Previously Overlooked Paramour: Naruto is initially so emotionally stunted by his upbringing in the village that resulted from his parents' deaths and the way the majority of the villagers treated him because of Kurama that he is completely unable to tell the difference between romantic love and the kind of 'love' one would feel for a favorite treat (such as ramen). And as a result, he proves completely oblivious to how Hinata is just about the only one who genuinely likes (and later loves) him for exactly as he is even back when they were both little kids (and the fact that he also ends up developing a shallow crush on Sakura as a result of him coming to view her as a prize to be won in his rivalry against Sasuke (whom Sakura herself likes) certainly doesn't help either). It isn't until long after he's matured and later realized the true nature of different types of love (among other things) that he finally becomes aware of how Hinata had always been willing and able to give him the love and attention he'd wanted for so long even when no one else would. And from there, the two eventually manage to become an official couple.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality:
    • How moral is pursuing revenge? That depends on who you are. If you're Sasuke, it's a corruption to stay away from and Kakashi will give you an extensive lecture to make sure you get that. If you're Shikamaru, it's a rite of passage that will get you closure. No one is actually bothered by this because Sasuke is batshit insane and wants to exact revenge on an entire village full of innocent people, whereas Shikamaru just goes after the guy who killed his Mentor; nonetheless, it's still sort of disconcerting that rather than acknowledge this, the manga just keeps on spouting the "revenge = bad" message. This is made even worse by the fact that when Kakashi is lecturing him, Sasuke only wants to go after Itachi, who is believed to have killed his clan For the Evulz and is part of the same evil organization as the guy Shikamaru revenge-kills. He doesn't even want to go after the village until well after Shikamaru's arc is finished.
    • Naruto's obsession with redeeming a traitor and would-be mass murderer just because they happen to have an abrasive Worthy Opponent dynamic (which the audience is repeatedly told is friendship) is treated, at worst, as idealistic to a fault. When bad guys are loyal to villains who showed them kindness, it's tragic and destructive (Haku, Zaku, Kimimaro). To be fair, there are exceptions where it is portrayed as a redeeming characteristic for a villain, such as with Kisame.
    • Pain brings this up to Naruto during his attempt to Break Him By Talking — the status quo the Leaf Village calls "peace" means constant, hellish war for the smaller nations.
  • Protagonist Journey to Villain: Sasuke's journey takes such a big share of the story that for a while he effectively serves as the main character.
  • Psychic Link: When the chakra of two (or more) people is connected, they are sometimes able to see each other's thoughts and emotions. Justified, since ninjutsu was originally ninshu, a way for people to communicate by melding their chakra.
    Sasuke: When two shinobi are powerful enough, they're able to read each other's thoughts simply by an exchange of fists, without ever uttering a single word.
    • Naruto and Sasuke often "talk" this way. After the Time Skip, it's the only way they can communicate.
    • While he was trying to extract the Tailed Beasts from Obito, Naruto had a long talk with him in a shared Mental World. Minato later says he was able to see the entire thing.
  • Psycho Rangers: The Sound Five (see Evil Counterpart).
  • A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: A large portion of the major villains are this to someone in the story, including Orochimaru, Sasuke, Nagato, Konan, and Tobi/Obito.
  • Punny Name:
    • UZUMAKI Naruto = "Spiralling whirlpool" (plus "naruto" is a ramen topping)
    • HARUNO Sakura = "Cherry blossoms of spring"
    • HATAKE Kakashi = "Farmer's scarecrow"
    • UMINO Iruka = "Sea dolphin"
    • HYUGA Hinata = Hyuga and Hinata can be written with the same Kanji. "Hyuga" means "towards the sun" and "Hinata" means "sunny place."
    • And so on...

    Q 
  • Quieting the Unquiet Dead: Edo Tensei is a technique developed by the Second Hokage where the user is able to resurrect a deceased individual in an indestructible body at the cost of a Human Sacrifice. The only ways to break the technique are to seal the target away or if they manage to find peace, at which point they can break free from it on their own and return to the afterlife (albeit this latter weakness was removed once Kabuto gained enough strength to increase the jutsu's binding abilities).

    R 
  • Random Power Ranking: Uses S, A, B, C and D ranks for the missions, though they serve a purpose: higher ranking (and therefore more dangerous) missions are more dangerous, therefore more expensive as they would require more or better ninja, so there's an incentive for customers to leave out details and get a lower ranking. The letters are based on the Japanese school grading system (S is for "Shin", meaning "Perfect"), and there's also an E rank for the most basic jutsu. Of course, just about every "C" mission shown turns out to be an "A" or above mission.
  • Rank Up: Almost all of the Konoha 11 ninja are promoted in between the Time Skip. Gaara takes this further by going from Genin to the Kazekage.
  • Rays from Heaven: Inverted at the end of the Naruto vs. Sasuke fight at the Valley of the End. After the final clash, Naruto is lying on the ground with Sasuke looking down at him. Sunlight has broken through the clouds and one of the rays is on Naruto, but the cloud cover returns and the ray slowly shrinks to a point on his bare* forehead and disappears, symbolizing the loss of hope for retrieving Sasuke.
  • Razor-Sharp Hand: The Chidori in its basic form consists of concentrating lightning chakra in your hand and charging very fast to make it cut and pierce through anything. "A" uses it to cut his own left arm. His father the Third Raikage also has a similar technique, except he takes it to ridiculous levels.
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: One of the chapters features a character stating that octopi eat sharks. Many found this statement to be idiotic, but there's actually quite a bit of truth to it.
  • Reality Warper:
    • After the Five Kage Summit a technique is revealed which breaks the boundaries between reality and illusion.
    • Kaguya has some measure of Reality Warper powers.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kakashi gives one to Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke in Episode 5. He tells them the reason they failed his test to grab the two bells he had on him was due to their lack of teamwork, and that they had selfish reasons for passing with disregard to their teammates. This hits them all rather hard once Kakashi spells it out for them.
  • Recruited from the Gutter: Kimimaro was the lone survivor of his clan as the result of severe infighting. Orochimaru showed up and offered him a new life, as well as being the first not to discriminate against him (because of his freaky powers). It is implied that Orochimaru recruited his other henchmen this way, too, but only Kimimaro shows a high amount of loyalty because of this.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Sometimes, but redemption is equally likely to earn life.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Pretty much every team has the two guys as this with the girl making it a Freudian Trio. The girl is the Ego most of the times, but not always.
    • Naruto and Sasuke (complete with the colors of their clothing and demon forms). In the third opening of Naruto Shippuden, "Blue Bird", the pair are shown against a red-and-blue background. Unusually, Naruto has wind-based powers and Sasuke's are fire-based. For Naruto and Sasuke especially, see Tiger Versus Dragon below.
      • Lately, Sasuke has been showing a few Red Oni traits, while Naruto has been showing some Blue Oni traits. But they haven't switched quite yet.
      • However, before and after the Uchiha Massacre Sasuke was the red compared to Itachi's blue.
    • Other Red Oni/Blue Oni pairs include Lee and Neji, Jiraiya and Orochimaru, Guy and Kakashi (and, before that, Obito and Kakashi), Kiba and Shino, Choji and Shikamaru, and arguably even Kankuro and Gaara (at least after his Heel–Face Turn). With Choji and Shikamaru, Choji is easily set off and uses close attacks while Shikamaru is known to think things through thoroughly and always be ten steps ahead, and he also uses his shadows to attack from a distance. Shikamaru is not exactly blue but he does have a cool-color based theme while Choji has his bright red symbol, and in Shippuden, his outfit is nearly all red.
      • To a lesser extent, their dads qualify. Shikaku is a fiercely intelligent, rational strategist and Jounin Commander of Konoha. Choza is calmer than his son, but is still the fieriest of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, and he has red hair.
    • Karui and Samui of Kumogakure are a female Red Oni/Blue Oni pair. Karui is a hot-tempered dark-skinned redhead, while pale blonde Samui is level-headed and calm — hell, her name even means "cold." She also serves as the Blue Oni to her Red Oni brother, Atsui (though they look similar in appearance and hinted they are twins). Unsurprisingly, his name means "hot."
    • The color scene is inverted with Akatsuki partners Itachi and Kisame, the former being a cold, calculating Aloof Big Brother with red eyes and several fire jutsus and the latter being a Blood Knight that specialises in Water Jutsus and has the blue skin of a shark.
      • See also Juugo and Suigetsu. Juugo has red hair, but is a Gentle Giant when he's not flipping out and is the calmest out of Taka. Suigetsu, meanwhile, is a white-haired Blood Knight from the same village as Kisame.
      • A subtle subversion with Suigetsu and Karin.
    • A few of the Akatsuki pairings invert this. Between Sasori and Deidara, Sasori has the orange eyes and Deidara has blue.
    • Despite their hair colors mismatching the trope (at first), near the end of Pein's fight with Naruto. Pein becomes the Red Oni by losing his emotionless attitude and slowly turns drastically infuriated when fighting the enraged jinchūriki. Pein's Blue Oni exterior finally faded showing what many years of torture can do to you. Konan proved to be the Blue Oni after warning Nagato not to over-exhaust his power, and attacks her foes when it is truly personal or she is ordered to. This is a clever example of how both Onis can switch at any time of a story.
    • Then there's Hidan and Kakuzu. No colour association, but jeez, the contrast couldn't get much stronger.
    • Sakura and Hinata are another female Red Oni/Blue Oni pair. Whereas Hinata is a Shy Blue Haired Nice Girl who can barely talk to Naruto until Part II, Sakura is a Hot-Blooded rose-haired Tsundere who is ready to inflict unnecessary damage on Naruto. By Part II, even their fighting styles became total opposites to each other's: they both use chakra, but Sakura is using it to increase the strength of her punches to monstrous levels, making her a Cute Bruiser, whereas Hinata is using the Pressure Point-based Gentle Fist-style of the Hyuga clan, making her a Lady of War. Furthermore, as a result of their respective personalities and body figures, Sakura has A-Cup Angst whereas Hinata is hiding her buxom figure in baggy clothes. Also, according to the anime, Sakura is a Lethal Chef whereas Hinata is a supreme one.
      • After the War, Temari joins Sakura as the more proud and short-tempered Red Oni mother duo, while Hinata and Ino settle down as the elegant and intuitive Blue Oni mother duo.
    • In the latter stages of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Obito and Madara form an interesting version of the trope. When Madara is first reanimated, he appears to be a stoic villain who kills his enemies with a perfectly straight face. However, when Hashirama is reanimated, he starts wearing a Slasher Smile and generally going off the deep end while Obito remains perfectly stoic, only being briefly fazed when he first becomes the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki.
    • The two Senju brothers Hashirama and Tobirama. Their armours colour makes it obvious, as well as the fact that Hashirama has more involvement in the Leaf's past than his brother despite that both of them were Hokage.
    • The two snake shinobi Orochimaru and (eventually) Kabuto can fit. Orochimaru was the Red Oni as he sacrificed too much and recklessly in his quest for power which ultimately resulted in his death. Kabuto was the Blue Oni who patiently followed the latter and even became a far greater threat, manipulating more appropriately.
      • The main Jutsu types can be seen this way; Taijutsu (red) focuses on upfront combat like brutal kicks and general martial arts. Genjutsu (blue) focuses on illusions and breaking your opponents will without risking physical injuries (unless the use of the Sharingan is included). Ninjutsu (in-between) mixes both physical and environmental attacks using all natural elements.
    • The Fifth female Kage's, Tsunade Senju and Mei Terumi can count, too. Tsunade being the Red Oni has an awful habit of losing her temper and starting bad habits very easily, her strength is astonishing easily making her one the most powerful female characters of the series. Mei being the Blue Oni not only wears blue but acts with much elegance and kindness even towards her enemies, although she also has a Berserk Button like the latter, however she'd rather warn them than outright knock them out.
  • Reformed, but Not Tamed:
    • The previously Card-Carrying Villain Orochimaru outgrows his fetish for fanning the flames of war and becoming a perfect immortal being, and now wants to trust his knowledge to the next generation and see what happens. His slithering snakes and creepy rituals, once used to terrorize the innocent and shake the foundations of nations, are now used to bolster faltering heroic forces and give confused teenagers history lessons. Orochimaru's former friend Tsunade — whose life he goes out of his way to save — uncomfortably accepts him as an ally again, but makes a point of asking "but why, Orochimaru? Why have you always been such an asshole? Why are you suddenly now not being an asshole? Are you aware of the fact that our friend Jiraiya may have still been alive if you had decided to stop being an asshole earlier?", to which Orochimaru basically replies with "don't nag me with your silly hypotheticals."
    • Double Subverted with Orochimaru's disciple, Sasuke. Sasuke's short term as apparently Reformed, but Not Tamed is, to begin with, edgier and more fraught with reservations than Orochimaru's — which is very jarring given that Orochimaru was introduced as a villain with a capital V whereas Sasuke was a mere Rival Turned Evil who several times displayed redeeming characteristics. At first we are led to believe that Sasuke has concluded that the best way to stick it to the man is to save the world and be elected for office, with only ominous hints regarding the mystery of his ultimate agenda; eventually, we find out that he does not intend to be elected, and instead his idea of "saving the world" involves a total coup d'état of the current world order, starting with the murder of Naruto and all the current world leadership. In the end, he is somehow finally convinced to become a good guy again simply because Naruto never, ever gives up on him.
  • Refuge in Audacity: So you attack under a flag of truce in order to break into a compound of one of the most powerful clans in an enemy village and kidnap the 3-year-old daughter of the clan head in order to steal her eyes, but her father thwarts the attempt by killing the kidnapper CAUGHT IN THE ACT. What do you do? Pretend the kidnapping attempt never happened and accuse her father of murder, and demand that he be put to death and have his body delivered to you (which would also give you access to the eyes you wanted), and if they don't comply, you'll resume the war. International politics, Cloud village-style.
  • Regional Redecoration: Madara mentions this as a Badass Boast, saying that it's a good thing that his rival Hashirama isn't present since they won't have to redraw the map "that much". He then cuts a mountain in half. His climatic battle with Hashirama in Naruto's backstory was also what created the Valley of the End, where Naruto and Sasuke battled before the Time Skip, in the first place.
  • Removed Achilles' Heel:
    • Whenever an Uchiha uses the Mangekyo Sharingan, they run a risk of going blind when they use it too much. To avoid this, they replace their original with a Mangekyo that belongs to a close biological relative, like a sibling in Madara's and Sasuke's cases.
    • In order to enter and maintain Sage Mode, the user must stand still in order to gather enough Natural Energy. That said, three users have been able to bypass this:
      • With Jiraiya, he summons Shima and Fukasaku and has them gather Natural Energy for him and transfer it via Sage Art: Amphibian Technique.
      • With Naruto, he creates shadow clones and has them gather Natural Energy for him. Whenever he needs to recharge, he dispells one of the clones. After becoming friends with Kurama, he can gather Natural Energy for Naruto.
      • With Kabuto, he added Jūgo's DNA into his body so that he can replicate his ability to passively absorb Natural Energy.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Giant bastard Orochimaru has a ton of snake motifs. Also, Four-Tails has scaly appendages on its tails.
  • Rescue Romance:
    • It turns out this is how Naruto's parents met.
  • The Rest Shall Pass: During the Sasuke retrieval arc; every time one of Orochimaru's Sound Four arrives to stop them, one of them stays behind to fight while they tell the rest to keep going.
  • Resurrection Gambit: Madara Uchiha sought to pull this gambit off in order to oversee his Eye of the Moon plan as he was getting very old. However, it didn't exactly go as planned. One, the person he tasked to oversee the plan after his death, Obito Uchiha, sought to carry out the Eye of the Moon plan on his own without Madara. Two, Pain, the person who was supposed revive Madara in the future, ended up doing a Redemption Equals Death and resurrected his victims of his invasion of Konoha after being convinced by Naruto the folly of his ways. It took the actions of Black Zetsu to bring back Madara to the living.
  • Retcon:
    • Though Gaara is a SIMILAR character to Naruto thanks to the monsters sealed within them, Shukaku is openly stated at first to be a completely different manner of being to the Nine-Tailed Fox (an incarnation of sand, living spirit of a Sunagakure priest stored in a kettle), let alone them both being members of a "series" of tailed beasts. This can be explained because Shukaku was inspired by the Japanese folktale Bunbuku Chagama.
    • In terms of being stored in a kettle, apparently that did happen. However, it was removed to be placed inside a shinobi. As for the priest bit, it turns out he was just the previous jinchūriki.
    • Going further back, in the first chapter (not just the pilot, which is in a different continuity and has this as its premise, but also the first chapter of the actual series), it's treated as if Naruto is the Nine-Tailed Fox in human form, rather than simply having it sealed inside him. The Hokage worries that he might regain his old form, and Naruto gets a brief Heroic BSoD on being told that he's literally the Nine-Tailed Fox. In current continuity, where jinchūriki are a major cultural institution, it's impossible to imagine anyone making that mistake. Note, though, that it's Mizuki telling him he is literally said beast, and anything that guy ever says should be taken with a grain of salt. Furthermore, Chapter 438 demonstrates that their fear was pretty close to being right. Though the jinchūriki is not the beast itself, the jinchūriki can be swallowed by the beast's will and release the beast, which is effectively the same thing as what they were afraid of.
    • In the Third Hokage flashback, he seems to be a kid when he's appointed Hokage, and the First is still alive. Many chapters later, Danzo's flashback gives a completely different version of Sarutobi's nomination, be it his age or the circumstances.
    • Gaara's mom loved him so much that she named him "Demon who loves only himself." Awww, so sweet. What, the sand powers that came from being a host? Nope, mom's love (or rather the auto defense is her love, the sand manipulation is still Shukaku).
    • When first shown, Edo Tensei is stated to be able to revive a person at full power, with characters confirming that the revived first and second Hokage were at full power when they fought the third, Hiruzen. Later during the war arc, it's retconned to be that in truth revived people are weaker than they are when alive.
  • Retroactive Idiot Ball:
    • The premise of the series revolves around the fact that the title character, Naruto, is hated and shunned by the rest of Konohagure because he holds within his body the Nine-Tailed Fox that destroyed their village and killed many people—including the beloved Fourth Hokage. It's revealed that Naruto is the son of both the beloved Fourth Hokage as well as a member of the esteemed and respected Uzumaki family... who for generations have acted as the vessel for the fox to protect the people. This raises the question of why no one, including members of the Konohagure leadership who should know better, told the people who Naruto's parents were. The reason is Hand Waved as "because the Hokage's enemies would have targeted Naruto", but this still makes little sense because Naruto himself came very close multiple times to going down the same path as many of the series' villains due to the treatment he received. Further, every clan in Naruto has enemies, and if people knew who Naruto was, they would have more inclination to protect him. That said, it's also noted by Minato that in addition to fear of what Minato's enemies would do, it was Hiruzen's policy to keep everything regarding the Nine-Tails as secret as possible, including Naruto's bloodline and said bloodline's relationship with the beast.
    • Why Jiraiya never told Naruto about his past with the Fourth—including the fact that he had named Naruto after a character in one of Jiraiya's novels—is completely incomprehensible to anyone with the slightest degree of empathy. Naruto's biggest desire was to prove his worth by becoming Hokage, and Jiraiya could have show him just how much closer he was to that dream than he realized, because not only was he the son of one of the most powerful Hokage, but he was now being mentored by the same guy who trained his dad! Instead, Jiraiya ended up taking that knowledge to his grave and Naruto only learned about it after the fact. Sarutobi is also guilty of similar omissions.
    • When Itachi Uchiha was first revealed to be Sasuke's older brother and the one who had slaughtered their clan, it was stated he did so for power, something he pushed onto Sasuke heavily when they met for the first time on screen by hitting him with a Mind Rape. This caused Sasuke to make a Face–Heel Turn and join Orochimaru to become more powerful so he could avenge his clan. Eventually, Sasuke would fight Itachi and by the end of the fight Itachi was dead. However, it was revealed after that Itachi was Good All Along and had killed their clan because they were going to stage a coup, so he killed them and spared Sasuke so Sasuke could kill him and become something of a hero. This begs the question of why Itachi would Mind Rape his brother, and not be concerned his brother had defected from the very village he had tried to save to join Orochimaru, a person Itachi knows is a Hate Sink. If he wanted Sasuke to become stronger while protecting the village, he failed horribly, because he made Sasuke hate the Leaf Village when he found out why Itachi did what he did. Itachi later asks Naruto to undo his mistake, indicating that Itachi hadn't thought through his plan, but it makes the supposedly genius Itachi look like an idiot for not trying to be more careful with his brother.
  • Reusable Lighter Toss: Shikamaru does one in a Revenge by Proxy moment with his dead mentor Azuma's lighter. It was a cigarette in the Manga. Probably changed for both Rule of Cool or Rule of Drama and/or to lessen the idea that Smoking Is Cool.
  • The Reveal: Many:
    • Obito is still alive and is Tobi.
    • Before that, the fact that Tobi ISN'T Madara and was impersonating him.
    • Minato being Naruto's father, though it isn't too surprising.
    • Way back in the Chunnin Exams arc, Kabuto is revealed to be a spy for Orochimaru. Even though it's now a Late-Arrival Spoiler, it was still shocking back in the day.
    • Madara was responsible behind Start of Darkness Obito (though at that time when it turned out, it was already not very important).
    • Black Zetsu showed that he manipulated Madara all this time for the revival of his creator Kaguya.
    • A minor one for Gaara when it's revealed that his uncle and mother did love him after all.
  • Revenant Zombie: The Edo Tensei reanimations function as a weird version of this trope. The basic idea is that they revive someone who is long dead to work under the summoner as a meat puppet. The spell itself is imperfect and has a number of quirks to it though. First, Edo Tensei zombies either come back as imperfect, silent replicas (as Orochimaru did in his battle against the Third Hokage) or fully animate, near-perfect copies with intelligence. The latter even have access to all their old techniques and abilities, making them a sort of resurrection. The problem is that the Edo Tensei reanimations also retain the memories, personality and motives of the original person they embody. Thus, an Edo Tensei reanimation can undermine their summoner's objectives. During the climax of the story, Kabuto's summoned Edo Tensei zombies fight to undermine their own prowess in battle. For example, Itachi and Nagato are forced to fight against Naruto and Killer Bee, but both of them call out their attacks and deliberately undermine their own battle prowess to protect the two of them. Itachi even takes advantage of a prior genjutsu he placed on Naruto to break him out of the control of Edo Tensei and kill Nagato, ending the fight. There's also the matter of Madara managing to break out of the Edo Tensei control jutsu by himself, which leads to him taking the reigns as the Big Bad.
  • Rival Final Boss: Happens a lot, where after Big Bad after Big Bad after Big Bad (Naruto had a really huge Sorting Algorithm of Evil that began during the Ninja War) Sasuke and Naruto fight one last time to determine if the Cycle of Revenge will keep going.
  • Rival Turned Evil: Sasuke could very well be the Trope Codifier.
  • Roofhopping: Chase scenes/battles set in the Leaf Village proper rather than training grounds or the stadium tend to involve this.
  • Rousing Speech: By Gaara, in Chapter 516. By Hinata, in Chapter 615.
  • Rousseau Was Right: The entire series is all but constructed around this principle. It's made clear that the people of the other villages are no different than the people of Konoha, and that even the most vile villains of the series began as decent people who were driven to madness and cruelty by some horrible trauma. (Except for Hidan and Deidara.) In fact, the ultimate theme seems to be redeeming villains and ending the pointless cycle of hatred that was responsible for creating the various ninja wars and conflicts.
  • Rule of Symbolism:
    • The Uchihas and Shinto mythology.
      • The three arcanes of the Mangekyou Sharingan are named after the 3 greatest gods of the japanese mythology, who are also siblings: Tsukuyomi (God of the Moon -> Genjutsu), Amaterasu (Goddess of the Sun -> black flames), and Susano'o (God of Storms and a hero -> something akin to giant summoning).
      • The last fight between Orochimaru and Itachi is a remake of the one between Yamata no Orochi and the god Susano'o. Itachi uses his Susano'o attack to defeat Orochimaru, who turned himself into a gigantic 8-headed, 8-tailed White Snake.
      • The Sharingan also has two techniques that are forbidden even among the Uchiha: Izanagi and Izanami. Izanagi gives the user Reality Warper powers for a brief time in exchange for the eye that used it permanently going completely blind, and Izanami negates the Izanagi's effect and traps the Izanagi-user in a genjutsu until they accept whatever reality they tried to alter with Izanagi. In Shinto mythology, Izanagi and Izanami are the gods that together created the islands of Japan and the bridge from Heaven to Earth. Izanagi later begat Tsukuyomi from his right eye, Amaterasu from his left eye, and Susano'o from his nose; for the Uchiha, the power of Tsukuyomi is in their right eye, the power of Amaterasu is in their left eye, and the power of Susano'o comes from unlocking both of those (both eyes > center, nose > center).
      • The flame arrows Sasuke's Susano'o uses are named after the Shinto god of fire, Kagutsuchi, who burned Izanami to death as she gave birth to her.
      • References are made to at least two of the Imperial Treasures of Japan, as well: Orochimaru has the Kusanagi sword and Itachi has the Yata mirror.
    • Orochimaru and his White Snake theme; white snakes are said to bring fortune and rebirth.
    • The Fourth Hokage references the "Susano'o vs. the Yamato-no-Orochi" myth. His name is Minato Namikaze ("harbor", "wind and waves": Susano'o is the god of the sea and storms), his signature technique is the Flying Thunder God, and he beat out Orochimaru for the title of Hokage. Overlaps with Meaningful Name. And knowing that his wife, Kushina Uzumaki, harkens back to Susano'o's own consort Kushinada-hime might also count, but we're probably pushing it.
    • Pain and Buddhist beliefs. It turns out his bodies' names are a Meaningful Theme Naming. They invoke the Buddhism's Six Paths of Rebirth.
      • The statue that Akatsuki uses is called "Gedo Mazo". "Gedo" means "outer path", referencing the term in Buddhism for a false path to enlightenment (as opposed to the inner path, which is the correct one). Konan reveals that Nagato himself is another "path" of Pain called the "Outer Realm" and can also revive the recently deceased. This is fitting, given that Pain is what Naruto could have become if he had chosen a false path to enlightenment.
    • Jiraiya and Tsunade are the names in a Japanese folk tale of the main character and his wife.
    • Danzo's conversation with Itachi in flashbacks: He gives Itachi the choice between siding with the Uchihas, represented by a statue of an angelic Deva, and siding with the Leaf, represented by a statue of a three faced demon that looks very sinister, an Asura. At the time seemed like faux symbolism but not so much after the names of the sons of the Sage of Six Paths are revealed. Indra (the Uchiha ancestor) is named after the leader of the Devas; his brother was called Asura.
  • Running Gagged:
    • Inner Sakura. She only appears in Part I when Sakura hides her feelings more often, and when Part II comes around she only appears once in the Final Battle as part of a series of Call Backs to the early story. The last time it appears in Part I, it is used to foil Ino's attempt at Grand Theft Me, and it is implied that Inner Sakura is an alternate personality.
    • Rock Lee falls in Love at First Sight with Sakura in what is initially an obvious bit of comic relief. Almost immediately, he is proclaiming his love to her and going to extreme lengths to catch her attention — including but not limited to throwing cartoonish heart-shaped kisses in her direction. Instead of running with this (like Naruto's similar antics), the series opts to Shoo Out the Clowns and build on Lee's affection as a serious thing, culminating in a scene where Lee risks his life for Sakura's sake while knowing full well his chances with her won't get any better for it. After that incident, the gag-gone-plot-point is just dropped, and doesn't get picked up again, apart from Lee's unpleasantly surprised reaction to Sakura's fake love confession to Naruto, signifying he's not happy about being third at best to Naruto and Sasuke. As a point of contrast, the spin-off Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth shows that Lee's still trying and failing to win her over.

    S 
  • Sacrificial Revival Spell: Lady Chiyo uses a secret jutsu to revive Gaara, but at the cost of her own life.
  • Sadistic Choice:
    • Invoked when Kakashi is giving Team 7 their Secret Test of Character. He asks Sakura what she would do if he threatened to kill Sasuke unless she kills Naruto. Much later we find out this actually happened to a major villain and was part of his Start of Darkness.
    • When confronted with one of these, Naruto's knee-jerk reaction is to try and Take a Third Option. Itachi even calls him out on it, telling him that he's naive and sometimes the choice must be made, but Naruto tells him to shove it.
  • Samurai Shinobi: Ninja in this setting function just as much as soldiers in open combat as they do as spies and assassins, if not more so. Add in their superhuman powers and you basically get a weird combination of ninja, samurai and wizards.
  • "Save the World" Climax: It starts out with the misadventures of a bratty outcast in search of recognition. It ends with saving the planet from an Assimilation Plot powered by an Eldritch Abomination.
  • Saving the Orphanage: When Danzo indirectly threatened to stop subsidiary payments from Konoha, Kabuto agreed to become a spy.
  • Say My Name:
    • This is the one you'll hear the most:
    Sasuke: NARUTOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
    Naruto: SASUKEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
    Madara: HASHIRAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
    Hashirama: MADARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
    • In the Invasion of Pain arc and The Last: Naruto the Movie, Naruto gets another name that, when uttered is usually followed by a massive Tearjerker, can give the "SASUKEEEE!!" above a run for its money.
    Naruto: HINATAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
  • Schizo Tech: When the plot calls for it, suddenly there's a fridge. And walkie-talkies, security cameras, full-color movie theaters, and so on. Towards the beginning of the Fourth ninja war, the five feudal lords communicate using video conferencing; just a few months back, the Suna village had to send a messenger bird asking Konoha for help when their Kazekage was abducted. Modern Weaponry is pretty much nowhere to be seen, which is obviously an Acceptable Break from Reality (To quote Word of God: "If we allowed that, this story would not be about Ninjas."). One of Pain's bodies has rocket launchers due to the Rule of Cool, but that's about it.
    • In the epilogue, Naruto is seen typing on a high-tech laptop and Konoha has expanded into a massive modern-looking Skyscraper City, but they still use swords, shuriken, and kunai as weapons.
  • Science Wizard: Medical ninja combine knowledge of chakra and anatomy to do their jobs as field medics. There is also Orochimaru who is skilled in jutsu and has done a number of twisted experiments.
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale:
    • The black flames of Amaterasu being "as hot as the sun", which ought to be ever-so-slightly more volatile than portrayed.
    • A character busting out 600 billion exploding tags; even with a jutsu that spawned 1000 of them per second, you would have to constantly be on it without food, drink or sleep for over 19 years to have that many. See the Trivia page for more information.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Kakashi gives Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto one more chance to pass his test in episode 5. He even gives them time to eat, but forbids the first two from feeding Naruto as punishment for him trying to eat the lunches earlier. He tells them that if they feed him, they'll be immediately disqualified. Sasuke attempts to give some to him anyway, stating he needs Naruto's help and doesn't want him being a hindrance. The moment Sakura feeds him due to Naruto being tied up, Kakashi appears before them, and the sky grows dark as he questions why they disobeyed his orders. The three state that they're a team. Kakashi immediately passes them, since they passed his Hidden Purpose Test of working together rather than individually.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: With urns, people, sake jugs, kettles, even the Moon(!)... All the ninja masters seem to think that if you like it, you should seal an evil in it.
  • Secret Test of Character: Appears during most of Naruto's early ninja training:
    • Kakashi had two such tests: the first was his infamous bell test, where he had two bells and would only pass the students that they managed to take them. This test was conducted as a means to gauge his pupils' ability to cooperate. Afterwards, he had Naruto tied up and instructed Sakura and Sasuke to not share their lunch with him under any circumstances. They shared their lunch, however, and passed this test: Kakashi wanted to know whether his students would be willing to disobey a direct order to help a friend.
    • Later, there was the written exam of the Chuunin Exam. The test consists of ten hard questions, with the final question being a secret until after the exam ends. During the first portion of the test, students have to attempt to stealthily cheat off of the others without being caught: if a student is caught cheating five times, they and their team will fail. The test's proctor explains before a "final question" is issued that if any student gets this question wrong, they and any remaining classmate present will fail the exam by default and be permanently barred from becoming a Chuunin. Any student may choose to leave before the question, however: doing so will cause their team to fail, but they will be permitted to retake the exam next year. In truth, all teams that choose to try to answer the final question pass automatically: the purpose of this "question" is to determine if they are willing to face the unknown for the sake of their teammates, as well as to weed out those who would betray their teammates for their own sake. Naruto inspired the class he's in enough to pass, refusing to run away (despite being unable to answer a single question). Another class in a filler arc fails after being accused of having the the potential of betrayal, preventing them from retaking the exam.
  • Self-Duplication: There are various Ninjutsu that can do this, but the Shadow Clone Technique is the most iconic one, not the least due to being the protagonist's pre-Time Skip modus operandi.
  • Self-Healing Phlebotinum: It is eventually revealed that Zabuza's sword has the power to repair itself by leeching the iron out of blood.
  • Self-Imposed Exile: At the end of the series, Sasuke decides to atone for his actions by leaving the village to seek out threats and the truth about Kaguya.
  • Self-Harm–Induced Superpower:
    • Ninja activate magic scrolls by biting or cutting the skin at the tip of their finger and touching it to the scroll because they need the user's blood to activate.
    • Hidan of the villain group Akatsuki has the special ability to link himself to his target, resulting in any damage to him being inflicted on his target as well. Since Hidan himself is both immortal and very resistant to pain, his "fighting style" often boils down to linking himself to an enemy and then repeatedly inflicting self-harm, crippling if not outright killing his enemy without having to run around.
  • Self Made Super Powers:
    • Orochimaru, the Big Bad of Part I and a brilliant scientist, modified his body to be very malleable and snakelike, a power he refers to as the Power of the White Snake. He gains a Healing Factor, ability to reconnect body parts via snakes, shed his skin to regurgitate a new body free from all damage, etc. Most importantly, he gains the power to use Living Corpse Reincarnation, his path to immortality that allows him to transfer his consciousness to another body. He can store his consciousness within the cursed seals he brands others with, allowing him to revive himself, albeit with some outside help, even after being sealed by Itachi Uchiha's extremely powerful sealing jutsu.
    • Orochimaru's right-hand man and highly skilled spy and Combat Medic, Yakushi Kabuto, integrated multiple Kekkei Genkai (unique abilities) into himself, granting him among other powers, a powerful Healing Factor, ability to liquefy, create a clone, use a Super Mode indefinitely along with becoming a Master of Illusion capable of overcoming Itachi and Sauske Uchiha simultaneously.
    • Madara Uchiha, unlike his rival Senju Hashirama, is a brilliant scientist and to surpass him, integrated Hashirama's DNA in him, granting himself his rival's signature Wood Release technique and most importantly, the eyes of the God of Shinobi. See his page for the full list.
    • Obito Uchiha is a skilled surgeon and well-versed with genetics and transplants. He made up for his lack of natural talent by mastering Hashirama's cells, allowing him to phase through all attacks for 10 minutes with 1 Sharingan, and later transplants a Rinnegan stolen from Nagato's corpse.
  • Series Continuity Error: The most powerful techniques used by an Uchiha depend on the state of their eyes — when Sasuke was going blind due to over-using his Mangyeko techniques, those techniques deteriorated and vanished as a result. However, in the end of the series, Madara manages to use one of those techniques (Susanoo) despite having no eyeballs whatsoever, frustrating fans who were hoping that this character would get some comeuppance. Admittedly Susanoo is never said to require the eyes to use, only requiring that the user has awakened Mangenkyo in both eyes at some point.
  • Serpent of Immortality: The series's original prime villain, Orochimaru, has a decidedly serpentine motif (he's named after a mythical character who is in turn named after a hydra-like monster), with matching snakelike face, and the ability to summon a giant snake. He got these attributes in his search for a technique to bestow immortality. The degree of similarity with Voldemort is staggering, and both are examples of this trope meeting Reptiles Are Abhorrent. He also uses a technique that resurrects and controls dead shinobi to fight for him as undead zombies. Kabuto, who absorbs Orochimaru's powers, looks even more serpentine and takes the Reanimation jutsu to another level.
  • Sewing Needle Sword: One of the blades of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, Nuibari (lit. "sewing needle"), references this. It is shaped like a giant sewing needle, long and thin with a wire attached to it like a thread, and capable of stitching together those it strikes.
  • Sexposition: A variant. Naruto teaches Konohamaru the basics of the Rasengan. Which are 1) Rotation (Konohamaru imagines a half-naked girl pole dancing), 2) Power (it comes as a dangerously sexy woman), and 3) Compression ("compress it all into an ultimate sexy pose!") And then Naruto gets startled at what Konohamaru's thinking. To be fair, the latter expects the former to teach a super-perverted technique as he thinks it's "usual" for him to do.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: The Uchiha Clan Downfall, at least from Itachi's point of view. He carried it out in the hopes of preventing a possible Fourth War. A Fourth War did end up happening and, as if to drive the point further, it was triggered by the same person who helped him do it. Itachi himself seems to be aware of his failure.
  • Shared Family Quirks: The Ninja Families usually share their powers and inclinations.
  • Shared Signature Move: The Rasengan has famously been Naruto's signature technique; a swirling ball of pure chakra that can land a devastating blast on whatever its aimed at. He would in turn create variations like "Big-Ball Rasengan", an even bigger and stronger ball of chakra, "Rasenshuriken", a projectile variant many times stronger and with other special properties thanks to adding a Wind nature to it, and Giant Rasengan (even bigger than Big-Ball Rasengan and first learned by Jiraiya). Unbeknownst to him at first though (he knew who invented it, but not his relation to them), this technique was actually invented by his father Minato, who would then teach it to his master, Jiraiya, and his student/Naruto's teacher, Kakashi. Naruto's close friend, Konohamaru, later learned it after some lessons from Naruto, and then years later he'd teach it to Naruto's son, Boruto, who would iterate on it by turning what at first seemed to be a regular Rasengan into an improvised projectile thanks to his ability to subconsciously put Lightning nature chakra into it. This newest Rasengan type would be named Vanishing Rasengan. Boruto would later figure out how to use regular Rasengan as well.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend:
    • Inverted with Naruto and Sakura; Naruto says that Sakura "kind of" is his girlfriend, which is blatantly false and earns him the obligatory smack upside the head. In retrospect, Naruto was put on the spot and didn't actually know how to answer, which is evident by his hesitation and bland facial expression before he finally said the first thing that came to mind, while Sakura was genuinely put off by this outlandish claim, because she and Naruto were closer like siblings than anything else and Naruto knew that she only ever loved Sasuke (he outright confirmed this in Chapter 474); bonus points for Minato thinking that Sakura reminds him of his wife, Kushina. This ambiguity was very much intentional.
  • Ship Sinking:
    • Neji's death put the final nail in the coffin of various speculations regarding him becoming romantically involved with his cousin Hinata or his teammate Tenten.
    • Despite Masashi Kishimoto's self-admitted effort to keep the main Love Triangle ambiguous until the end, in retrospect, Sakura's painfully fake love confession to Naruto, which he easily sees right through, rejects outright by telling her that he hates people who lie to themselves, and calls her out for lying, along with the fact that every single person present is sporting a Disapproving Look as they watch her continue to blatantly lie, in Chapter 469 was Kishimoto's biggest, boldest, and definitive warning to fans to get off the NaruSaku train.
    • Subverted with Sasuke and Sakura, who act out several scenes that give this impression (even going as far as trying to kill each other when they're still enemies) but are shown to be married in the Distant Finale.
  • Ship Tease: The series is caught between an insistence on milking fan interest in the Love Dodecahedron for all it's worth on the one hand, and a genre-typical reluctance to actually deal with Romance Arcs on the other. As a result, even though hints pointing towards the eventual couples are scattered throughout the story, they are never played to the point where a Relationship Upgrade can be declared with absolute certainty; instead of following through, the plot quickly, elegantly, and invariably pulls away, sometimes for dozens of volumes, before revisiting the issue. In the series' final arcs, the teases become gradually bolder, and yet the "tease-backpedal" dynamic is still in place in spite of that, with the backpedals becoming markedly more calculated and deliberate; by his own admission, they was essentially the author's favorite way to troll that part of his audience still masochistic enough to pay attention. This goes along right up until the Distant Finale (see under "Shipping Rollercoaster" in the Analysis page for more details).
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: The first few episodes are punctuated by several silly Running Gags, including Gender Bending-induced Nose Bleeds and gastrointenstinal malfunction. These stop getting used very quickly, and are used maybe once or twice at total since the beginning of Part II, and even then strictly in Call-Back capacity. (It's worth noting that the anime takes those one-off gags from nearly a decade ago and is still running with them whenever some Padding is called for, making for a rather weird example of Once Done, Never Forgotten.)
  • Shoot the Dog: One of the major themes of Part II is Naruto trying to avoid this at all costs, even when it seems like the path to the closest thing to a happy ending he can get.
  • Shoot the Hostage: Happens once. When it does, you are likely not very happy with the person who does it.
  • Short-Lived Leadership:
    • Back when Tsunade (the Fifth Hokage) was sick after her attempts to protect Konoha's people from Pain (Akatsuki's leader)'s invasion, Danzo, one of the elders of Konoha, becomes the acting Hokage for the meeting between 5 Kages in the Land of Iron. After the meeting's over, he got ambushed by Sasuke and then died in battle. Tsunade also gets well again around that time to take the position back.
    • After the "saving Gaara" arc where Kakashi (leader of Team 7) gets injured, Tsunade appoints one of Kakashi's friends, Yamato, as a temporary leader for Naruto and Sakura. Together, they try to go after their rogue friend Sasuke, but the mission ends in failure; Kakashi gets well soon afterward to take the position back. Not long after, Yamato also becomes the temporary leader of Team 8 (Kiba, Shino, and Hinata) as their leader Kurenai is on a maternity leave.
  • Shout-Out: Plenty. Now with its own page.
  • Shown Their Work: Kishimoto did not slack off during his science classes. There are many Genius Bonuses in the series, although some of them require some additional research by the audience.
    • Transplant surgery is not as "free" as everyone seems to assume from watching the series.
      • Both Kabuto and Danzo have a blood type of AB; thus, they are "universal recipients", able to accept any transplant in their bodies without rejection.
      • Kakashi and Obito both have a blood type of O. This is why Kakashi's body didn't reject Obito's Sharingan.
      • Madara also has the O blood type. This blood type is known as the "universal donor"; implants with O blood type will not be rejected by others. That's why he was able to implant his Rinnegan to Nagato (blood type A) and why he was able to implant on himself and use Obito's left eye. It's also why Obito was able to implant Madara's Rinnegan.
      • Kishimoto draws large breasts rather realistically. Most series would have the breasts drawn plump and upright even without a bra, but here they're drawn more like what they would be in real life without support: less round and more baggy.
  • Shrouded in Myth: Everything concerning Hagoromo Ootsutsuki (the Sage of Six Paths), his brother Hamura, his sons Indra and Asura, and, most important of all, his mother Kaguya. The timeline is vague, but the Sage lived more than a thousand years ago: that's plenty of time for details about him and his life to be forgotten. All that remains of him are his prized ninja tools and a stone tablet containing his teachings. Said tablet was altered by Black Zetsu as part of his Gambit Roulette to revive Kaguya.
  • Signature Device: Almost every shinobi wears a headband with a metal plate, engraved with the symbol of the village they represent. These can be taken away when someone dishonors their place as a ninja, and not wearing one is seen as disrespectful.
  • Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: This appears to be a major theme in the series. The younger generation of ninja that Naruto belongs to, who move a great deal of the plot, are idealists, while the older ninja who lived through dark and violent times are cynics. However, the narrative frequently depicts the cynical views that peace is impossible and people can't understand each other as completely wrong, and the people who buy into this cynicism most are villains, some of whom are fallen idealists that turn around and help the heroes when Naruto or another challenges their cynical outlook.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: One of the early conflicts in the manga centers around Neji's anger at the slave brand placed on him, binding him to serve his uncle and cousins. This is just the tip of the iceberg, though, as most of the conflicts originate in the rivalry between Hashirama and Madara, which in turn grows out of the generations-long feud between the Senju and the Uchiha. Pain destroyed Konoha out of revenge for Konoha turning the Land of Rain into a battleground for their war, resulting in the deaths of many Rain citizens, including Pain's parents.
  • Situational Hand Switch:
    • When Naruto is learning the Rasengan, he uses his left hand to form the chakra. During the fight with Kabuto, he has to use a Shadow Clone to mold the chakra for him because he used the left hand to stop Kabuto's attack.
    • Oddly enough, the same situation applies to Kabuto in the same fight. He is hit with an attack by Tsunade which causes the electrical signals in his body to go haywire. A command to a part of his body causes another part to respond.
  • Skeleton Government: So, each one of the 5 Great Countries have 1 Daimyo and 1 Kage. And that's pretty much it. No ministers, no (more) police. Some councils are featured, but their roles, powers, and composition are very vague.
  • Skyscraper City: The Hidden Rain Village is an odd example. The architecture and giant pipes everywhere make it seem like the buildings are "unfinished"; this, and the perpetually gloomy sky, give the impression of a huge shantytown rather than a prosperous city.
  • Slap Yourself Awake: A common way to snap out of illusions is to injure oneself.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Despite being set in a heavily militarized world full of deception and some of the fandom's wishes to the contrary, Naruto is quite clearly on the idealistic side, as emphasized by the "Will of Fire" held by the protagonists and most associated with them. The spirit that is able to turn about any creature in the world from cynical towards idealistic, by just talking to them! Though, of the few who have so far proven to be immune to it, such as Danzo, who believes that people are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling and that the only way to protect Konoha is to make Konoha stronger. Problem is, his reasoning is pretty faulty, since a lot of the crap the idealists had to go through were the direct or indirect result of him also acting like a bastard...
    • On the cynical side, we have Sasuke, who believes that murder and more murder is the only way to solve your problems and make everything better. No matter whether or not they had anything even remotely connected to those problems, or even whether they're your teammates or not. If Danzo thinks people are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling, then Sasuke thinks everyone and everything is meaningless before his wants and desires.
    • The sliding scale is an important part of Nagato's backstory. When he was younger, Nagato was a member of an organization that tried to end the wars that devastated their homeland without resorting to violence. The leader of their village views this group as a threat, so he leads Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko, who is the leader of the group, into a trap under the guise of peace talks. He captures Konan and forces Nagato to kill Yahiko to save her. This incident causes Nagato to abandon his idealistic beliefs and turn to a more cynical solution for bringing world peace that involves creating a weapon that will cause immense destruction so that people will be too afraid to go to war. Nagato's cynical views come into conflict with Naruto's idealism when he invades Konoha. Ultimately, seeing Naruto's beliefs reminds Nagato of how he used to be, and he chooses to sacrifice himself to undo some of the destruction he caused.
    • And this is ultimately the core theme in the battle between Naruto and Obito. In a series with a focus on parallels and Generation Xerox, Obito is arguably the biggest parallel to Naruto, with characters such as Kakashi and Obito and Naruto themselves noting the similarities between the two in their youth. However, Obito eventually gave up on the world due to how much pain and suffering it causes, whereas Naruto continues to fight for a better world. Obito, believing that Naruto will grow to become like him, even tries to speed up the process. In the end however, it is ultimately Naruto who wins and reminds Obito of the good person he once was and to be that person again.
  • Smash the Symbol: In a flashback Itachi throws a kunai into an Uchiha clan symbol, while going into a rant about having lost hope in the clan.
  • Smitten Teenage Girl: Sakura, Ino, and Hinata at the beginning of the series, though they eventually all grow out of that phase. Later, Karin, who is almost too late to realize her crush is not a very good person.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Most teams have a single token female member if they have any at all. Also applies to the Akatsuki, though Konan isn't really a member. Inverted with a three-man team of Cloud ninja that has two female ninja and one male ninja.
  • Snap to the Side: A variation, as this tends to happen more in response to a sneak attack than Teleport Spam.
  • Snow Means Love:
    • Defied and Subverted with Naruto and Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. Sakura spends all of Chapter 469 trying to convince Naruto that she loves him and that she loves Sasuke no more, claiming that she now loves him for the hero he's become after he defeated Pain rather than the "mischievous, prankster loser" that he always was and always will be, all in a snowfield with the snow falling softly. Then on the very last panel of that chapter, Naruto rejects her outright by telling her that he hates people who lie to themselves. The text on that panel even Lampshades it: "In the falling snow..." The following chapter has Sakura arguing with Naruto because she wants him to stop chasing after Sasuke and hurting himself to keep his promise to her, but Naruto tells her that his promise was no longer the reason why he wants to save Sasuke; he has his own reasons now. Finally, in Chapter 474, Naruto reveals to Sai that he could tell she was lying because he knew she only loves Sasuke.
    • Played Straight with Naruto and Hinata in the Canon movie The Last: Naruto the Movie. They met on a snowy day when they were children before they enrolled in the Academy, he confesses his love to her and later proposes to her during the present-day wintertime, The Big Damn Kiss takes place in the snowy sky, and The Stinger shows them playing in the snow with their two children.
  • Social Services Does Not Exist: There's the unanswered question of who looked after the more troubled and often orphaned members of the cast, especially Naruto and Sasuke.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Played straight during Part II, where Naruto has to deal first with the Akatsuki, then with their godly-powerful leader Pain, then eventually with Tobi, who was initially a moderate threat but accumulated power so rapidly that by the end of his arc he was even more godly-powerful than Pain, and was able to single-handedly be a match for every other living Ninja combined. This pattern repeats itself with Madara and Kaguya, who each come out of the woodworks in turn in increasing order of "what the fuck we cannot possibly handle someone this powerful".
  • Soul Eating: one Dangerous Forbidden Technique summons the Shinigami with the user's body as its conduit, which then rips the enemy's soul and then devours them. As the payment for this technique, the user's soul will also be consumed by it and get locked in a fight with the souls its user ripped.
  • The Spartan Way: The things young ninja have to do and endure in order to advance in rank are pretty hellish, even more so for some of the villages other than the main characters'. The Village Hidden in the Mist, for example, was known as "Bloody Mist" for its brutal "graduation exam". To become a ninja there, you had to kill a fellow student in a duel. Zabuza, the series' first major enemy, was infamous for having killed all of the students in this "exam", and he wasn't even in it.
  • Spell Levels: The Jutsu techniques are ranked E to S.
  • Spell My Name With An S:
    • Might Guy, whose name has a number of other unofficial romanizations that fans like to use.
    • Pein vs. Pain vs. Paine in the early chapters after he was first named.
    • In what has to be the most bizarre application of this trope ever, there has been some controversy over whether the Raikage's name is A or E. It's actually "A" versus the literally romanized version of the Japanese pronounciation of the English letter "A", which is something like "E/Ei" (all of which are pretty much pronounced the same). It's just that since it's only written down many think it's supposed to be "E".
    • There's also "Killer Bee"/"Killer B"/"Kiraabii"; "C"/"Shii"; and "J"/"Jay"/"Jei" from the same village.

  • Spiteful Spoiler: Weaponized when Naruto and Sakura retake Kakashi's bell test. Kakashi has to work much harder but still holds onto the bells — until Naruto threatens to spoil the next Icha Icha book. He immediately covers his ears and shuts his Magic Eye, since it automatically reads Naruto's lips.
  • Spot the Imposter: Two different characters (the Rain Genin Oboro and the not-yet-introduced Orochimaru) use ninjutsu to disguise themselves as Naruto in the Forest of Death arc.
  • Spy Catsuit: The female teachers and even some of the male ones.
  • Standard Evil Organization Squad: The Akatsuki play this role.
  • Start of Darkness: We get to see it for nearly every villain. It usually means they're going to die soon and the author is going for an Alas, Poor Villain reaction (though there are exceptions).
  • Start X to Stop X: One villain's grand plan is to bring true peace is get people to see first-hand the horrors of fantastic nuclear warfare and make war much less likely by virtue of mutually assured destruction. He flat out states that his plan is a stop-gap measure, and he expects them to resume fighting and nuke each other once they've forgotten how terrible it is. And eventually revert to peace for short periods before doing it all over again. "True peace" really.
  • Step into the Blinding Fight: One forbidden ninjutsu that the Second Hokage uses on the Third causes darkness that blinds the target.
  • Stock Ninja Weaponry: Used extensively. Kunai and Shuriken are used as the default weapon for many Ninjas, the ANBU use Ninjato, Sasuke has his Fuuma Shuriken and Gai can use Nunchaku in battle. Resurrected Hanzo uses a Kusarigama, and so does Tobi.
  • Story-Breaker Power:
    • Itachi Uchiha. His genjutsu was so powerful he could Mind Control others without making eye contact with them. An exaggerated portion of the anime is spent detailing how the main character learned how to counter this kind of technique, only for it to be revealed that Itachi's version can't be countered the normal way. That's before he brings out his trump card which just happens to be equipped with a shield that can counter almost any attack, and a sword which can trap the victim in a world of eternal drunken dreams!
    • Pain. His Rinnegan gives him ridiculous amounts of chakra that rivals the Nine-Tails, a virtually unlimited number of summons, and the ability to use all five elements (in addition to another two), level entire cities, create miniature moons, read minds, rip souls from peoples' bodies, and revive the dead all while being in a wheelchair.
    • This trope is arguably the reason Might Guy's team wasn't in Konoha during the Pain Invasion arc. While it is debatable whether Guy alone could defeat the Six Paths of Pain, two Eight Gates taijustu users would have taken the spotlight from Sage Mode Naruto.
    • Minato has the ability to create one of his Flying Thunder God seals on anything he touches. He can teleport to those seals from any distance as well as sense what's in the immediate vicinity of the marked object. Such seals cannot be erased and can be placed on people, including his enemies. One of the last things Minato did before his death was to plant a seal on the Big Bad, meaning that he had to be killed off to prevent him from eliminating them with ease.
    • Madara Uchiha. His Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan gives him access to the most convenient abilities in the series, and this at some point evolved into the Rinnegan, the most powerful and exalted eye power in the shinobi world, allowing him to resist a Rasenshuriken. His fire-based jutsu, an element notorious for being ineffective, would have killed many shinobi had it not been for a number of skilled Water users, including a Kage. He can summon meteors, and if the first one fails, he can summon another to crash into another one, killing many people, and they question whether it can even be compared to ninjutsu, and Gaara believed it to be a power comparable to a god's. He can also use Wood Release, an element that Uchiha shouldn't be able to use (due to stealing the 1st Hokage's DNA). Oh, and let's not forget that he's an immortal zombie with unlimited chakra that will regenerate from any damage done to him. He hijacked the resurrection jutsu controlling him, meaning no one can control him anymore. Then he's truly resurrected in a living body and becomes the Ten-Tails' jinchuriki.
    • The Sage of the Six Paths. Not only did he create the techniques that descended to the series's present day, he also saved the world from the original Eldritch Abomination and split the beast in half, creating nine beasts that threatened the world on their own. With his own power, the Sage also created Earth's moon as a prison for the original beast's corpse. On his deathbed.
    • Obito, as host of the Ten-Tails, has a working facsimile of the Sage of the Six Paths' powers, and has shown the ability to negate aforementioned zombie regeneration, fire Tailed Beast Bombs and erect impassable barriers, as well as use a new element that is as malleable as the Kazekage's sand (although in a more fluid and highly cohesive fashion) and is as destructive as the Tsuchikage's Dust Release or beyond it (essentially meaning liquid black holes that violate the Law of Conservation by erasing all matter not protected by natural energy); Naruto's Sage Mode is just about the only thing shown to be capable of hurting him, but his regeneration is on par with Tsunade's.
    • Kaguya ate the forbidden fruit of the Shinju, which gave her godlike powers. She was singlehandedly able to end wars and destroy opposition, so much so that she was worshiped as a goddess. When we see her fight she is virtually indestructible, with the only thing that can truly stop her being a sealing jutsu her sons created to stop her.
  • Subtle Superpowering: Invoked during the Chūnin Exams. The ninja exam includes a written test portion that is designed to be impossible for the students to pass fairly. What this exam is ''actually'' testing is if the participants can subtly use their various abilities to cheat the answers without being noticed by the facilitators.
  • Suicide Attack: Edo Tensei (Reanimation) was created with this particular strategy in mind. It allowed the one controlling the reanimated dead to nuke any battlefield with techniques lethal to both the opponents and the caster. Given a little time, the reanimations would regenerate any damage, turning any battle into: suicide attack -> regenerate -> rinse and repeat. Combined with the Second Hokage's Tandem Paper Bomb jutsu (paper bombs, each one summoning more paper bombs upon detonation), it allows the user to dominate any battlefield.
  • Summon Magic: Ninja can make Summoning contracts with one type of animal; e.g., dogs, toads, or snakes. One of Pain's "paths" allows him to summon any creature controlled by his chakra via special rods, including his other bodies.
  • Super Special Move:
    • Naruto has multiple stronger variants of his Signature Move, the "Rasengan". Examples include "Big Ball Rasengan, which is literally just a bigger, stronger Rasengan. But more varied twists include techniques like "Rasenshuriken", a projectile variant that grants Naruto greater range, power, and has the added benefit of sharp edges that can cut through hard surfaces.
    • The Tailed Beast Ball is the signature Breath Weapon of the Tailed Beasts, but Naruto learns how to perform an augmented version called the Tailed Beast Ball Rasenshuriken.
  • Supernatural Fear Inducer: When confronted by Orochimaru in The Forest of Death during the Chuunin Exams, Sasuke and Sakura are paralyzed by fear from just one of his Evil Glares. Sasuke had to stab himself in the leg with a kunai in order to "wake up", grab Sakura, and escape before Orochimaru's kunai could finish them off (right in the forehead!).
  • Supernatural Sealing: Fūinjutsu is a brand of jutsu that can be used to seal objects, living beings, chakra, or a wide variety of other things within another object. Some notable examples include the sealing techniques that seal Tailed Beasts within Jinchūriki (as was the case with Kurama and Naruto), the Dead Demon Consuming Sealnote , or the Six Paths Chibaku Tensei (which was used to seal away the Ten Tails's chakra deprived body within the spherical prison that would become the moon). The titular character's clan, the Uzumaki Clan, were well known for their use of Fūinjutsu.
  • Superpowered Evil Side: Several characters have one, such as Naruto and Jugo. Even Sakura has one (though it's mostly Played for Laughs).
  • Superpower Lottery: The members of the Uchiha Clan, with their Sharingan eye fall into this naturally. It's revealed, however, that they have the ability to win another lottery by attaining the Mangekyou Sharingan. While the Mangekyou comes with the Necessary Drawback of blinding the user over time, this can be overcome in the event that the user transplants the eyes of a sibling. Furthermore, we eventually discover that the Rinnegan, a superpower lottery in its own right, is actually the final evolution of the Sharingan. This means that anyone who gains the Sharingan has the potential to gain the Rinnegan, in which case they can all the abilities of both eyes!
    • Abilities of the Sharingan include: Power Copying, Combat Clairvoyance, and turning the user into a Master of Illusion.
    • The abilities granted by the Mangekyou Sharingan vary from user to user. Those we've seen include: Technicolor Fire, Teleportation, Intangibility, more advanced Master of Illusion skills, and the ability to summon a giant construct around the user made of Pure Energy.
    • The Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan doesn't change the users abilities, but it does allow them to Spam Attack their abilities as long as they have chakra, without having to worry about going blind.
    • The Rinnegan then gives users access to a host of new, completely unrelated skills including: The Beastmaster, Gravity Master, Energy Absorption, Soul Eating, Powered Armor, Healing Hands, Mass Resurrection, Lie Detector, and chains made out of chakra. Nagato displays a few other manners in which the Rinnegan can be used. Through splitting his abilities into 6 different bodies, he gains Seeing Through Another's Eyes as well. Finally, just like the Mangekyou Sharingan, it seems that users of the Rinnegan gain unique abilities as well. Madara Uchiha gains the ability to summon invisible clones of himself, while Sasuke Uchiha gains a completely new type of teleportation unrelated to any of the other versions displayed in the series and Dimensional Traveler.
  • Super-Reflexes: One of the powers the Sharingan grants is super reflexes due to move prediction. It can read any movement the enemy makes, even those at high speeds, so the user can avoid an attack. This isn't an exact science. Rock Lee rightfully says that even if you can see an attack, if you can't move fast enough to react, it's useless. Tsunade and Sakura's style also revolves around having super reflexes and move prediction to make up for their lack of speed.
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: Every single jutsu.
  • Superpowerful Genetics: A big plot point is special powers that run through family genes. Countries go through a lot of trouble to protect theirs and get their hands on their enemies' abilities. The First Hokage's Green Thumb is somehow unique to his personal DNA and isn't found in any of his descendants, but that's where LEGO Genetics (and a truckload of dead test subjects) come in. The reason turns out to be that it's a combination of two powers (water and earth) to rapidly grow plants. His DNA can also be used for a host of other purposes, such as to regrow flesh.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In an intense social setting like this, there's bound to be this:
    • The Third Hokage was still the strongest of the 5 Kage at the time of Part 1 (including Onoki), knows every jutsu in Konoha, and was the best shinobi of his generation, but he's still almost 70 years old. When faced with his former pupil Orochimaru, who has a similar mastery of jutsu, similar talent, and youth (to say nothing of body modifications or the Edo Zombies he brought as backup), Hiruzen can just barely hold his own, and tires out quickly because his body just can't be pushed as much as Orochimaru's.
    • One of the main reasons the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze was so deadly; due to his speed he made speech NOT a free action.
    • Konan prepares to give a rant on how Naruto is the bridge of peace near the end of a battle (albeit after essentially being defeated herself). Tobi doesn't even let her finish her sentence.
    • A relatively subtle example shows up with Sakura and Naruto's contrasting shortcomings early on. Sakura gets good grades in class, and is the only one able to actually answer the seemingly impossible questions in the first stage of the Chunin Exam, and loves to look down on Naruto, the "dead-last" in their grade. But in the Forest of Death, Sakura's lesser combat ability proves a problem when Naruto and Sasuke are incapacitated. Similarly, while Naruto's very good at fighting despite being Book Dumb, some of the things he failed to learn in the academy come back to haunt him in his training; he regrets not paying more attention in class when trying to learn how to focus his chakra for his Rasengan training.
    • Early in the series, Naruto is poisoned in battle. The poison is spreading slowly from his hand and Sakura surmises that the best course to take would be to use a surgical incision to drain the poisoned blood. Since the team would have to go back to the village and abandon their mission to do that properly Naruto violently stabs his hand with a kunai to quickly drain the blood (and also as a dramatic gesture in a vow to never again be paralyzed with fear like he was during the fight)... and then goes into a panic attack when Kakashi points out that he's probably gonna bleed to death from a wound like that. Fortunately the tailed beast within him easily healed the wound.
    • Naruto's Rasen-shuriken is not fully perfected when he first uses it in the battle against Kakuzu. Nor does he have any actual experience using it prior to this. Sure enough, the first one he uses fails and it takes a second attempt to land a hit.
    • Post-Pain Arc, Naruto has been running himself ragged with him unable to talk to his adopted "grandmother" Tsunade due to her coma in the ensuing invasion. He learns Sasuke has become a criminal and attacked a fellow jinchūriki for Akatsuki. He learns that his friends, even Sakura, whom Naruto knows is still in love with Sasuke, have given up on bringing Sasuke back to Konoha. Then when he's told there will be War on top of everything... he can't take it anymore and passes out. A realistic depiction of a Determinator when pushed to the limit, especially when he seems less likely than ever to accomplish the goal he'd been working towards for three years.
    • What killed (or crippled him for the rest of his life) the legendary Madara Uchiha during his battle with Hashirama? An epic ninjutsu clash? Nope... a stab through the back.
      • Similarly, after he was revived, Madara managed to become fully human, while this gave him full autonomy over his Rinnegan and made him a deity in power, a stab to the back from Zetsu injures him once more, allowing the Greater-Scope Villain to reincarnate from his body.
      • To a lesser extent, Naruto and Sasuke become increasingly exhausted over the course of the series' Final Battle, and while they come at each other with their strongest techniques, causing massive devastation, by the end, they're using relatively basic jutsus until they pool the last of their energy into one final clash.
    • The Last: Naruto the Movie, a canonical Interquel between the last two chapters of the manga, revealed that Naruto does not completely understand the concept of romantic love, thinking that Hinata's love for him was like his love of ramen. When you consider the fact that Naruto never had the unconditional affection that most people had with their families due to being both an orphan and the village pariah for most of his childhood, it actually makes a lot of sense. Naruto would be starved for any sort of affection, and would have a hard time differentiating them and takes a great amount of time, love and patience to heal. Luckily, Hinata has that in spades for Naruto.
    • In one of the Shippuden endings, Naruto uses Konohamaru's scarf to pull him while fighting, instead of ignoring it.
    • While Naruto has the whole Sad Clown outsider going on for him to cope with being alone and uncared about, being starved of any kind of affection until the series proper, Gaara is initially a more realistic take on treating someone like an outsider and threat all their life, he is a complete psycho with little to no real regard for anything outside his own existence due to his treatment, being isolated and treated with comptempt and hatred broke Gaara mentally, having little to no moral compass, His inital introduction actually seems like a really good metaphor for someone with a really violent mental illness.
    • Sasuke, the cool, stoic, lone wolf type, driven by revenge, is not a healthy mindset, which is something characters constantly try to shake him from, and it ends up biting him in the ass multiple times throughout the series, but the series shows that he really is just an angry kid who has no idea about the scope of the plots he is messing around in, in his quest for revenge, even when it turns out he shouldn't actually be seeking revenge in the first place.
    • After the final battle Naruto is granted the rank of Jonin by the Hokage. He is then given a boatload of reading and study material to complete before he is officially ready assume his new rank.
  • Swirling Dust: Every chakra usage generates varying levels of dust. For example, a simple water-walking jutsu makes nearby grass bend slightly. Exaggerated with Naruto's fourth level of Demonic Possession; it flattens a metal bridge and a square mile of a forest as a side effect of his raging, corrupted chakra.
  • Swordfish Sabre: The Giant Marlin has a literal double-edged sword as his rostrum, and is quite apt at using it.

    T 
  • Tactical Reminiscence: Sasuke and Itachi pull this off while fighting Kabuto. Itachi asks Sasuke if he remembers the time they had to fight off a giant boar. Sasuke remembers. Suffice to say that it is not a good thing to have both Uchiha brothers as enemies when they aren't trying to kill each other.
  • Take a Third Option: The whole point of the series. From the beginning, Naruto faces people urging him to follow the "ninja way", basically saying, "Give up X or be a failure." X being human feelings (Zabuza), the will to fight (Kabuto, Pain), Sasuke (Jiraiya, Itachi, Pain, Sasuke himself), etc. Possessing the "wisdom of the fools," Naruto always dismisses that dilemma saying, "I won't give up X and I won't be a failure." This leads him doing some things (namely, not killing Nagato and never ever giving up saving Sasuke) which are highly controversial in the Fandom.
    • Specifically, during his conversation with Sasuke after the latter has just killed Danzo, Sasuke asks him, "What do you want to do, Naruto? Die by my hands and become another victim of my revenge, or kill me and become a Hero?". Naruto, of course, has a third option: "If we fight, we both will die."
    • Even with his love life. One would think that when a girl sincerely confesses her love to you, you either accept the confession or reject it. Naruto resorts to the third option of initially forgetting it, and it's only until two years later that he finally remembers it, realizes his love for her, and becomes incredibly unsubtle with his feelings. Later on, with a different girl and a different love confession, he resorts to the fourth option of saying, "You're lying. You don't even mean it." In that case, though, it really was a meaningless love confession, so he had every right to call that girl out for lying and then reject her outright. However, at the point when both confessions happened, things were intense and he still had trouble understanding how romantic love towards him is even possible, considering how his complicated life plagued him with insecurities.
    • The participants in the first round of the Chunnin exam are given a test which is supposedly too difficult for their level. The participants are therefore faced with the option of either failing the test or getting caught trying to cheat. It is later revealed that the true purpose of the test was to test their ability to cheat without getting caught. However, both Naruto and Sakura pass the test without cheating: Naruto turns in his paper completely blank, and Sakura is able to answer all the difficult questions.
  • Take Over the World: A goal of numerous factions in the manga and anime, most notably the Akatsuki.
  • Take That!: There's one that's fairly subtle and obscure: Deidara notes that his art is not "pop art" but "superflat". You'll only notice the Take That! if you know what superflat is and remember that Deidara is evil and his "works of art" are in fact explosives.
  • Take That, Audience!:
    • Sakura's infamous fake love confession to Naruto in Chapter 469 reads like a bullet list of all the oft-cited reasons why they should be together, which makes Naruto's flabbergasted reaction to it ("I hate people who lie to themselves!") very suspect of being this trope in action.
    • Kakashi describing Sakura as a kind person and defending her persistent feelings for Sasuke — saying that, unlike hate, love doesn't need to be justified — could be interpreted as Kishimoto's own defense of Sakura against common fan criticisms alleging she is a shallow bitch whose love for Sasuke is a bad thing. If translations are correct, the author himself apparently expressed concern with Sakura's reception among audiences.
    • The two-page manga short released as a tie-in to the Canon movie The Last: Naruto the Movie contains a subtle jab to an infamous Naruto/Sakura doujinshi: In the latter after Sakura confesses to Naruto that she's gotten over Sasuke and now loves Naruto, it ends with Sakura explicitly stating that on their first date she wants to go to a nice restaurant and definitely not to Ichiraku. The two-page manga short has Naruto and Hinata on their first date, with Naruto at first trying to take her to an expensive restaurant, but upon noticing that the frantic Naruto is short on cash, Hinata then suggests going to Ichiraku instead.
    • The Post-Script Season, Naruto Gaiden makes a very pointed jab to the people that both disliked the Sasuke/Sakura pairing and actually suggested that Karin was Sarada's mother instead of Sakura by dealing with the real possibility of Sarada being Karin's daughter, even using a DNA test to confirm this. But in the end, it turns out Sakura is indeed Sarada's mother, and not only that, but Karin mentions also being good friends with Sakura.
  • Taking the Bullet: Iruka starts it in Chapter 1 and many a hero (and villain!) follow suit.
  • Taking You with Me: Kiba attempts this after Ukon invades his body. The latter attempts to strangle him, forcing Kiba to attempt an unorthodox attack, by stabbing himself with a kunai. As they are sharing one body, this hurts Ukon as well, and Kiba doesn't care if he dies, so long as Ukon dies with him. Fortunately Ukon ejects himself a short while later.
  • Talk to the Fist: The Raikage tries to do this to a major villain only to have him dodge it casually and keep talking like nothing happened.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Common enough to make you wonder if Talk You To Death no Jutsu is part of the ninja academy curriculum.
    • If you don't get a whole dramatic scene as part of an important character's death, you can tell the next few seconds probably involve a log appearing or a clone going *poof*.
    • Lee manages to have a brief exchange with Sasuke while the two are flying through the air in Lee's Dancing Leaf Shadow jutsu.
  • Talking the Monster to Death: Used by Naruto to beat Nagato, and later on against Obito as well. This is also the only way to defeat Edo Tensei zombies other than removing their soul. Cynically referred to as "Talk no Jutsu" by critics of the series.
  • Tears of Joy: Hinata, after Naruto defeats Pain.
  • Teen Genius: Very common.
  • Tempting Fate: Kabuto declares that his Impure World Resurrection has no weaknesses. Naturally, it bites him in the ass; not only that, but at least two characters (Madara and Itachi) later go out of their way to respond that they're its weakness, even though they didn't hear him say it originally.
  • Thanatos Gambit:
    • Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage in sealing the fox; turns out he wanted to give his son Naruto a weapon against Tobi. That, and stopping a giant fox from killing them all. On top of that making the seal so he would appear when his son was stupid, distraught or desperate enough to consider releasing it.
      • This also included making the seal with the chakra of his Action Mom wife, Kushina. This is not just to keep the Kyuubi pinned down again (she used to be its host, after all), but to give her a chance to appear in Naruto's mind and see their son, granting Kushina her last wish.
    • Kisame also pulls this off after Might Guy takes him down, by simultaneously committing suicide with his own shark summons so the Shinobi Alliance can't search his mind for information, and by booby-trapping the scroll he was supposed to deliver to Tobi so that the good guys would be distracted while another summoned shark made a getaway with the information.
    • Itachi Uchiha attempts this. This is practically his entire life after leaving the leaf village. His plan revolves around his younger brother Sasuke killing him as retribution for his crimes. Due to his life threatening illness he is already dying, when the final confrontation with his brother occurs. The whole point of his actions are to redeem the Uchiha clan and to allow his brother to be seen as a hero for killing him after he massacred the Uchiha clan. It fails spectacularly. He also set up a postmortem trap to kill the Big Bad and stop him from spilling his secrets. This also fails. He also set up another postmortem contingency plan to brainwash Sasuke to protect Konoha in the event he turned evil. This also fails.
      • Turns out all he really needed to do to accomplish his goals was have an honest and open talk with Sasuke about his choices instead of manipulating and trying to brainwash him.
    • The real Madara Uchiha attempted to pull one off. He left Tobi in charge of carrying out his plans and intended for Nagato to revive him later. This didn't go as planned due to Nagato making a Heel–Face Turn and sacrificing his life to revive the villagers he killed and Tobi who going to become the jinchūriki of the Ten-Tails himself and never had any intention of reviving him. Nonetheless, he gets revived as a zombie later on by Kabuto and subsequently hijacks the jutsu so he can't be controlled.
  • That's No Moon: Played straight to the highest, most absurd degree. The Moon itself turns out to be No Moon. Yes, really.
  • Theme Naming: Not the characters, but rather the land - every country is named "Land of <some object or material>". Land of Fire, Land of Wind, Land of Sand, Land of Tea, Land of Candy... Similarly, most ninja villages have names in the "Hidden <something> Village" (or "Village Hidden by <something>" depending on translation) pattern.
  • There Are No Coincidences: There are only seemingly random events, tied together in the greatest Gambit Pileup in Shinobi history.
    • The critically wounded Obito waking up in Madara's secret hiding place. The Zetsu prototypes found him under the rubble and brought him to the one place where his life could be saved and his missing limbs replaced. Justified: Madara was relying on the Gedo Satue's life support and, thus, he was confined in the cave. He needed someone to help him carry out his plans. That "someone" could have been anyone at all, not necessarily Obito.
    • Rin getting kidnapped (again), used by the Mist as a Trojan Horse to destroy the Leaf and ending up dead. It's all a little too perfect: Rin is in danger, Minato is busy with another mission, Kakashi is trying to save her and Obito is racing there to help them. However, when he gets there, Rin is dead, killed by Kakashi. This incident causes Obito to flip out and join Madara. Madara orchestrated all of it to ensure his new helper would stay loyal to the plan, although even he admits that Kakashi's involvement was a bonus.
    • Madara’s resurrection in the Fourth Ninja War was also a case of this. Obito never intended to resurrect him as he aimed to take control of the Moon’s Eye Plan. He would have succeeded if not for Kabuto resurrecting Madara with the Edo Tensei. It's ultimately revealed that Black Zetsu was the one who led Kabuto to the location of Madara’s corpse as part of his plan to bring back Kaguya Ootsutsuki.
  • There Are No Therapists: Sweet Ninja Jesus, the number of problems in this series that could have been solved by a therapist is staggering.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
    • Konan uses six-hundred billions of explosive tags in an attempt to kill Tobi. He lives, but only because he has the ability to resurrect himself.
    • The real Uchiha Madara is resurrected during the Fourth Shinobi War. He wipes out almost an entire Division of the Shinobi Alliance Army using only his bare hands, some swordplay, and a little genjutsu, and then drops meteors on his hapless opponents.
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Deconstructed when Sakura decides that it is her duty to end Naruto's suffering and kill Sasuke all by herself. First she does her best to convincingly declare her love for Naruto, so he can be free of the promise he undertook for her sake. Then she tricks Sai and Kiba to spray them with sleep gas, so she can proceed to confront Sasuke on her own. Both of these plays spectacularly backfire: Naruto easily sees right through her fake love confession, calls her out for lying, rejects her outright by telling her that he hates people who lie to themselves, and explains that he is chasing Sasuke for his own reasons, not because of the promise. Later, when Sakura finally confronts Sasuke after all that effort, she finds herself unable to go through with the kill because she still loves him, despite him being weakened enough that she could kill him with her Super-Strength, and is in serious need of all the backup she just blew off. Thankfully, Naruto saves her before her lapse of judgment costs her her life...but in the process he gets cut by her own poisoned kunai.
  • Those Two Guys: Two pairs: Kotetsu and Izumo, Genma and Raido.
  • Throwing the Fight: Gaara refuses to take a dive in his match with Sasuke and proceeds to kill the two Kusagakure Shinobis who threaten him to do so.
  • Tickle Torture: Jiraiya uses this as an interrogation technique on some Hidden Rain ninjas.
  • Tiger Versus Dragon:
    • Naruto and Sasuke, respectively, in Part I. Doubles as Fridge Brilliance when you realize that Sasuke's clan is known for their fire techniques and Naruto's color is orange.
    • Also used as a picture to open one of the Gaara Vs Lee chapters, with Lee as the Dragon and Gaara as the Tiger.
  • Time Skip: Part II/Naruto Shippuden begins after a three-year time-skip.
  • To Be a Master: It takes a certain kind of skill, but Naruto won't stop until he becomes Hokage, and if all goes well he will be writing a brand new chapter in the history of the Ninja world.
  • Toilet Humor: There were a few examples early on, namely in the second episode of the anime where Naruto drinks badly spoiled milk, then his shadow clones all get diarrhea at once, fighting to get to the bathroom. In the Chunin Exam, Naruto won his match against Kiba strictly through a fortuitously timed fart that momentarily stunned Kiba when he had enhanced his sense of smell several hundred times.
    • It became a Running Gag; every time Naruto farted, Kiba was always in the vicinity.
    • Also Naruto had a habit for stepping in dog poop, not to mention Akamaru peed on his face once.
  • Tongue Suicide: In the Land of Waves arc, Tsunami threatens to commit suicide by cutting her tongue when a group of thugs tries to use her as a hostage against her son. However, Naruto manages to rescue her and her son before she needs to carry out the threat.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Name a character that was alive at the end of the Sasuke Retrieval arc. Any character. Odds are they took a level during the Time Skip. Naruto stands out in particular due to doing this multiple times, and it is later revealed that Kabuto was putting his time off-screen to good use as well.
    • The Retrieval arc itself has six of the eventual nine rescuers show off a new ability or power, and one gets a retroactive level by showing a power he already had but was too wild and dangerous to use prior. The last two have more of an emotional growth.
  • Too Dumb to Fool: In the first part of the Chunin Exams, the ninja candidates are given an insanely difficult written test with the intention of finding the answers by cheating and not getting caught. Naruto can't solve any of the questions on his own, and he doesn't realize that he's supposed to cheat. The tenth question was a Secret Test of Character, which he aces, allowing him and his teammates to pass to round two despite him not answering a single actual written question.
  • Touch Telepathy: Killer B can have extended conversations with others via fist-bumps. For example, Naruto tells him everything that happened during his fight with the Nine Tails in the time it takes Yamato to yell at them for purposefully being so cryptic.
  • Tournament Arc: The Chuunin examination arc.
  • Trail of Bread Crumbs: Naruto's mother relates to Naruto how she did this with her own hair during her tale of how she met Naruto's father.
  • Training the Gift of Magic: Ninjutsu is available only to those who have the inherent gift of manipulating chakra, and is unavailable to those without the gift, such as Rock Lee. Some ninja have more chakra to manipulate than others, and with intensive training, they can learn to use their chakra more efficiently. Sakura is noted to be Weak, but Skilled, with a smaller chakra pool that she uses more efficiently than the Unskilled, but Strong title character, at least until he trains with Jiraiya and takes several levels in badass.
  • Training the Peaceful Villagers: The "Land of Waves" Arc features the villagers gathering their courage and weapons and booting out Gato's gang.
  • Transferred Transformation: Normally, absorbing too much of "nature energy" would turn one into a frog, and then a stone statue. Naruto eventually manages to "weaponize" this when he fights one of Pain's bodies, which specializes in Energy Absorption; when he grabs Naruto's body, the latter starts meditating to gather nature energy, causing said Pain body to absorb Naruto's nature-energy-infused chakra as well, morphing his body into having frog features and then turning him into stone.
  • Translation Train Wreck: The word used to describe Kaguya's merger with the Shinju to become the Ten Tails is "incarnate", which when properly defined refers to a metaphysical being or abstract concept taking on physical form.
  • Trash Talk: Commonly used by antagonists, but the revived Madara Uchiha probably takes the cake.
  • Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Bloodline powers tend to come out this way: the various forms of the Sharingan explicitly work on this principle, and it's how Nagato awakened his Rinnegan.
  • Troll: Obito seems to enjoy toying with people's emotions to break them down. Later we find out this probably stems from deep-seated insecurity of his own convictions, and that he probably does this to reassure himself of them.
  • Troubled Backstory Flashback: Too many to list. It's no exaggeration to say that literally every major character has (at least) one at some point, and there's no shortage of them among supporting characters either.
  • Try Not to Die: Before the second task of the Chunin exam, which takes place in a Deadly Training Area:
    Anko Mitarashi: Just don't die!
  • Tsundere: Must be a shinobi requirement:
    • Karin; she's tsun-tsun towards almost everyone (especially Suigetsu), but is unabashedly dere-dere with Sasuke.
    • Count Sakura, as well. She's very tsun-tsun towards Naruto, but many times shows she does actually care for him. By the Time Skip, she turns into a Type B kind of Tsundere (kind to everyone but certain people make her mad), and she noticeably loses her temper with Naruto more than anyone else.
    • Kushina is this, as well, if the Road to Ninja Filler movie and her short appearance in the manga are anything to go by.
    • After his Heel–Face Turn, Kurama is added to the list. He's not fond of Naruto; he just wants to be entertained by watching him fight some more. In addition, during the battle against jinchūriki!Obito, Kurama admits that the only reason he wouldn't let Naruto harness sage chakra at Mt. Myoboku is because he was annoyed that Naruto would use Sage chakra over his. The boy calls him out on this.
  • Tunnel King: Quickly burrowing through the dirt is a semi-common trick to get the drop on people.
  • Turtle Island: The island where Naruto and Killer Bee are sent and train together is actually an enormous flying turtle.
  • Two Guys and a Girl: Played completely and shamelessly straight with every ninja three-man team, so much so that there is only one team in the entire series that has two girls to one guy. A Hand Wave is offered that there are more male ninja than female ninja and having a girl on the team provides a balancing influence.
  • Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Explanations of various new moves and counters.

    U - Z 
  • Unknowingly in Love: Played with in regards to the titular character. Naruto himself spends the majority of the series unaware of the nature of romantic love and how it is any different from the kind of 'love' one would have for a favorite treat (which he understands due to how much he loves to eat his favorite food ramen). It ultimately isn't until he's finally become fully accepted by his village and later learned the true nature of romantic love over the course of his adventures in The Last: Naruto the Movie that he fully understands and realizes the nature of Hinata's love for him and how he himself has in fact been in love with her without even realizing at first.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Deconstructed in a fake love confession delivered by Sakura to Naruto in Chapter 469. Naruto and everyone else present don't believe her, and she immediately stops trying to use that tactic after she's found out. Word of God confirmed that the confession was fabricated out of desperate, well-meaning manipulation (It Makes Sense in Context).
  • The Unreveal: Episode 101 of the original anime, in which Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura go into Serious Business mode to try and see what Kakashi looks like underneath his mask. At the end they fail, and Naruto straight out asks him what's underneath. Kakashi pulls off his mask slowly... only to reveal another mask underneath. Subverted by the end of the series.
    • For many who died before seeing it, Tobi's true identity.
  • Unstoppable Rage:
    • A surefire catalyst of Naruto drawing on Kyuubi's power, much to the former's chagrin and medical detriment. Cue earnest attempts to not go on Unstoppable Rages anymore, which promptly all goes to Hell in a hand-basket during the next Wham Episode. Naruto then realizes that he can't avoid this, and decides to control the power instead.
    • Sasuke's rampage at the Kages' Summit is very much like this.
    • The fourth Raikage on any matter pertaining to his brother, Bee.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
    • Everything with Sasuke from the latter half of Part I to the end could've been avoided if that one guy (Aoba Yamashiro) had been more careful with announcing Itachi's return.
    • Danzo is a major offender of this trope, seeing as four major characters have fallen to darkness because of his actions. Those people are Itachi, Sasuke, Kabuto and Nagato. This is one of the major reasons he's such a polarizing character.
    • Kakashi, while visiting Rin's grave, mentioned Naruto's birth while Obito was in earshot (Kakashi didn't know this, or that Obito was even alive, much less evil). As a result, Obito strikes at a critical moment in order to gain control of the fox, which results in Naruto's parents' deaths and Naruto having the fox sealed inside of him.
    • Tobirama, aka the Second Hokage, killed Madara's last remaining brother, which led to Madara obtaining the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan; gave the Uchiha clan a base of operations that was isolated from the village and in a former prison to boot, which led to bad relations between the Uchiha and Konoha later; invented the Edo Tensei, which was used detrimentally multiple times in this series; and, after Madara's death, hid the body for further study instead of disposing of it, which led to Madara resurrecting himself through a time-delayed Izanagi.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid:
    • Several members of Akatsuki, most notably former Big Bad Orochimaru, Pain, Itachi, Konan, and Obito.
    • Madara is shown to have been a very caring brother in his youth who deeply valued his friendship with Hashirama. It was, in fact, these very characteristics which drove him to become Big Bad (well... or almost the same).
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Big Bads who aren't Orochimaru tend to delude themselves this way.
  • Variant Power Copying:
    • Early on in the story, neither Sasuke nor Naruto can do Rock Lee's Front Lotus attack combination, so they make new versions. The Front Lotus kicks an opponent in the air and then uses a Spinning Piledriver to smash an opponent on the head. Sasuke's variation is the Lion Barrage, which copies the initial kick but instead kicks them all the way down. Naruto's variation is the Naruto Uzumaki Barrage, which uses clones to perform the multiple attacks and falling attacks, since he lacks the skill to do it normally.
    • Naruto's signature move, the Rasengan, was created by the Fourth Hokage to copy a Tailed Beast Ball. Later in the story, Naruto also learns to combine the attacks together since they're so similar.
  • Vein-o-Vision: Chakra pathways can be seen this way by the Byakugan.
  • Vengeance Feels Empty: This is the main character trait of Sasuke and he experiences it in its full wonderful bitterness. After enacting his revenge against Itachi, he becomes apathetic. Tobi shakes it by revealing that it was totally NOT worth it, since Itachi's actions were driven by the village's politics. It makes Sasuke angrier than ever. He moves on to wanting to destroy the Hidden Leaf Village. But someone else has already done it. So What Do We Do Now? Rather than move on and try to find another goal in his life, Sasuke decides to personally kill anyone who's lived in the Leaf, starting with the village elders. In contrast, a number of other characters get their revenge and move on, or learn to forgive and forget.
  • Vicious Cycle:
    • The only reason there's any conflict in the plot at all is because of some old grudges between dead people. Of course, the same can be said about many similar situations in the real world. Later in the series the driving motive for many characters becomes finding a way to stop this cycle.
    • The biggest example is the rivalry between the Uchiha and Senju clans. It started over an argument between two siblings on who was the rightful heir to the Sage of Six Paths as well as what was the best way to achieve prosperity using chakra, which evolved into a bitter rivalry between their descendants. Their clans would fight and each member killed by the other clan would only serve to fuel their need to fight one another.
    • Shikamaru at one point reasons that Kumo should leave killing Sasuke to Konoha. If a Kumo ninja killed Sasuke then someone from Konoha would seek vengeance against the killer, which would only breed more grudges.
    • The violence of the ninja world is eventually revealed to have been fueled by more than simple grudges, but also the machinations of the Humanoid Abomination Black Zetsu, and the reincarnating hatred of Indra.
  • Viewers Are Goldfish: Given the abundance of flashbacks in the anime, though it may just be a method of padding.
  • Villain Override:
    • The Edo Tensei allows its subjects to retain some free will despite making them obey their summoner. If this interferes too much with their battles, a seal can be used to completely suppress their free will and make them nothing more than killing machines. However, this also reduces their combat ability.
    • Black Zetsu has the ability to take control of Obito's body due to half of his body consisting of cells cloned from Zetsu.
  • Villain Reveals the Secret: Starter Villain Mizuki reveals to Naruto that he is the container of the Nine-Tailed Fox and that the villages hated him because of it.
  • Voice Changeling: A basic ability for ninja. Normally it is used in combination with the transformation jutsu to disguise oneself as another person, but they are shown to be separate abilities when Yamato has to disguise himself as someone whose voice he has never heard (Sasori) and has to consciously adjust his voice after transforming (guided by Sakura, who had heard Sasori speak) until he matches it.
  • Volleying Insults: Played for Laughs, most of the time.
    • Naruto and Sasuke do this often in the beginning. One flashback has Naruto calling Sasuke "idiot" repeatedly and Sasuke responding with "dumbass". The fight on top of the hospital was the result of this going out of hand, to the point where Naruto and Sasuke were saying things they didn't even believe just to one-up each other.
    • Ino and Sakura do this after becoming rivals as well, with Sakura calling Ino "Ino-pig" and Ino calling Sakura "Billboard Brow" for her big forehead.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
    • Guy had been seasick during the entire journey from the Land of Fire to the Turtle Island in the Land of Lightning so, naturally, his stomach was a bit tender when they reached their destination. When a huge gorilla scares them, he pukes on the ground.
    • This happens to Naruto when he sees if he can make the tailed beast bomb work by sticking his fingers down his throat. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: Many, many examples.
    • Sasuke in Part II, who is lean but moderately muscular, wears a long-sleeved white shirt open all the way to his waist, exposing his torso. He actually has a functional reason for his not-shirt: it's so his Cursed Seal form's wings don't rip his clothes every time he uses them as they erupt from his back. When Itachi removes this ability, Sasuke reverts to more standard clothing.
    • The Raikage, who is utterly freaking ripped, wears only a white robe when he's chilling. Before losing his left arm, he would take it off when he was about to start fighting for real.
    • When he was introduced, Zabuza didn't wear anything on his upper body but a few straps and arm-warmers. His outfit during the battle on the bridge included a shirt; flashbacks to when he was still with the Mist Village show he used to wear a standard flak jacket.
    • Utakata, the container of the Six-Tailed Slug (believe it or not he's a bishounen) wears his kimono half open, revealing his chest and, if it weren't for his strategically-placed soap container, much more.
    • We see in a flashback that Hanzo used to fight shirtless because he can release poison from a venom sac he implanted in his abdomen and clothes apparently make it hard to release it.
    • And let's not get started on Hidan, who can't be troubled to wear a shirt or button up his cloak all the way.
  • Walk on Water: Precise chakra control can result in this ninja technique.
  • War Arc: The Konoha Invasion arc by Orochimaru and the Fourth Shinobi World War arc.
  • The War to End All Wars: Two major villains actively work in triggering it.
  • War Is Hell: One of the main themes of Naruto is that war is part of an everlasting Cycle of Revenge that has plagued humanity since the beginning of time. Love breeds sacrifice, sacrifice breeds hatred, and hatred breeds war. War is regarded as the source of everything's gone wrong in the world, and the evidence provided does not suggest otherwise.
    • In fact, Tobi said "For a child, war is hell". War was responsible for making Itachi who he is and also very much had something to do with Pain's motives. When the three Sannin met Nagato (Pain), Yahiko and Konan, Orochimaru suggested killing them because only more pain and hell would await them and tragically that turns out to be the case.
    • The Fourth Shinobi World War defines this trope when you hear the death toll of the Alliance forces for the first day. 40,000 Ninja and samurai died in a single day of fighting.
    • Flashbacks show that the era constant warfare that Hashirama and Madara grew up in was even worse than anything in the present day. The average life expectancy for soldiers and civilians alike was 30 thanks to the deaths of so many child soldiers. Illustrated perfectly in one page depicting Hashirama's youngest brother Itama crying in fear while surrounded by a band of angry Uchiha, with the next panel showing his bloody corpse.
  • The Warlord: During the Warring States period, Madara Uchiha — the head of the Uchiha Clan — was feared as a legendary warlord only capable of being opposed by Hashirama of the Senju Clan, and would often hire his clan out to act as mercenaries for the feudal lords — with long-abandoned Uchiha Clan fortresses still dotting the Land of Fire decades after the war's end. The truce between Madara and Hashirama brought an end to the Warring States period and ushered in the establishment of the Five Great Shinobi Nations and the Hidden Villages.
  • Warrior Therapist: Neji perfectly fit this trope before his Heel–Face Turn. Gaara was like this exclusively towards Sasuke. Interestingly, they still have this dynamic the next time they meet, except, well, some things have changed around. Naruto has his moments, too. Obito as Evil Counterpart Naruto, is an evil version trope. Also, Hashirama to Sasuke.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: A standard visual cue for "impossibly epic attack imminent".
  • Way Past the Expiration Date: In an early episode/chapter, Naruto finds himself running for the toilet constantly throughout the entire episode, usually leading to comical hijinks. At the end of the episode, his teacher discovers that the milk he drank that morning had expired a long time ago.
  • Weapons Breaking Weapons: During Sasuke's Team Hawk vs Killer Bee fight, when the latter is about to strike the downed Sasuke with his lightning-covered sword, Suigetsu jumps in to block it with his BFS. Killer Bee's blade nearly cut Suigetsu's before Jugo uses this moment to punch Killer Bee away.
  • Weapon Tombstone: Zabuza's Executioner's Blade. Years later Sasuke and Suiegetsu go back to retrieve it.
  • Weird Moon: The Moon of the Naruto world is not a natural moon, having been created by two powerful sages aka Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's twin sons in order to seal her away. It's considerably smaller and closer to the planet than our Moon, and since it's technically in the Earth's atmosphere, you can even live on it. Hamura, one of the twin sons, did exactly that, taking his family to settle there. They transformed it into a perfectly livable and Earth-like environment, until a civil war made the Moon as barren as ours. A millenium later, a descendant of that clan planned to drop the Moon on the Earth to cleanse it of all life. The Moon is also the key to Madara Uchiha's grand plan: casting a Tsukuyomi on the Moon so that its light reflects everywhere on Earth, trapping everyone in an infinite dream-like state.
  • Welcome Back, Traitor: Justified with Sasuke and Orochimaru, who are clever enough to execute their Hazy-Feel Turn when the good guys are really in no situation to reject their help.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Fugaku and Sasuke are the straightest example. Played for Laughs (most of the time) with Guy and Lee. Hiashi was this to Hinata as well, but before wanting praise from her father, she just wanted to not suck.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Most villains consider themselves this (especially after the Time Skip), as they tend to share Naruto's goal of creating World Peace. Unfortunately, most of their ideas about how to achieve this make patently ridiculous conceits.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Sasuke succumbs to temptation and deserts the village.
    • Pain kills Jiraiya, then Kakashi and a buttload of other named characters. Then he lays waste to Konoha and turns it into a smoking crater. Then he almost kills Hinata, which causes Naruto to nearly completely release the Nine-Tails, which is supposed to be an irreversible, cataclysmic, Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies event.
    • Kabuto casts Edo Tensei and resurrects Zombie Madara, which means that the person we (and the protagonists) spent the last god-knows-how-many chapters thinking is Madara is actually someone else.
    • TOBI IS OBITO.
    • Sasuke's sudden change of heart that, at the time, seems to be a very sudden Heel–Face Turn, and his subsequent declaration that he will compete with Naruto for the Hokage title — meaning that he suddenly aspires to lead and protect the very same village he just spent years plotting to burn to the ground. This is so absurd at the time that the author duly lampshades it by showing characters in-universe having literally the exact same "WHHHAAAAAT?" reaction to it as the audience probably has. This sharp turn in the story is evened out later, when we learn that Sasuke's change of heart is not as benevolent as we might have hoped, and that by "become Hokage" he means something entirely different, and much darker than what everyone has come to associate with that ambition.
    • Remember how it took nine Akatsuki three days to extract one bijuu from one jinchūriki? Madara single-handedly extracts nine bijuu from eight jinchūriki in seconds. Bee is presumed dead (his tentacle clone saved his life), Naruto needs a crash team, and Madara takes the opportunity to stab Sasuke in the heart. Oh, and suddenly Karin learns how to use chakra chains.
  • Wham Line:
    • Tobi revealed to Sasuke that Itachi was Just Following Orders.
      Sasuke: Why would Itachi do such a thing?
      Tobi: Don't you get it? He did it... to protect you.
      Sasuke:Then why did he kill our family???
      Tobi: It is true that he slaughtered the entire Uchiha clan and then fled the Hidden Leaf Village, but it was his mission to do so. He was ordered by members of the Hidden Leaf.
    • Tobi's reveal that he's had his Sharingan since the battle Obito died in. More of an in-universe example; at that point the viewers still aren't quite yet (supposed to be) in on what this actually means, but Kakashi understands perfectly well, and after a short episode of denial he is frozen in shock.
    • During the Shinobi World War arc, Madara summons a gigantic meteorite, by far the largest ninjutsu the series has seen yet, to crush a fifth of the entire shinobi alliance all at once. In a huge CMoA for Ohnoki and Gaara, with tremendous effort they are able to slow and eventually stop its descent, to the great relief and celebration of the alliance. Then, Madara asks:
      Madara: But what will you do about the second one?
    • Kakashi to just unmasked Tobi: You are... Obito??? One of the biggest wham lines of Naruto.
    • Sasuke revealing his endgame in Chapter 692.
      Sasuke: But first... I'm going to execute the Five Kages who are still inside the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
  • Wham Shot: The reveal of Kabuto's trump card — Madara Uchiha reanimated using Edo Tensei — at a moment when we think Madara is someone else entirely.
    • In the climactic moments of Sasuke and Itachi's fight, with Sasuke cornered and exhausted, and Itachi menacing over him and talking about stealing his eyes, Itachi instead gently taps him on the forehead, exactly like he did when they were younger. This cast serious doubt on the motives he ranted about and his insistence that he only acted like a caring older brother to Sasuke, a fact that's confirmed soon after by Tobi when he unloads all the baggage Itachi had been keeping inside.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • During the Sannin battle royale back in Part I, Orochimaru summons two giant snakes. One is trapped in a swamp jutsu and later killed. The other injures Naruto and then is never seen again (not even as a puff of smoke which would indicate that it was de-summoned). The anime "corrects" this by having both snakes entrapped in the swamp; after attacking Naruto, the snake inexplicably sinks.
    • Another comes a little while later: Hayate Gekko, the proctor for the third part of the chuunin exams, is killed by Baki when he finds out about the Sand and Sound village's plan to attack Konoha. When his body is a found, a female ANBU member named Yugao Uzuki turns out to be Hayate's lover, and swears revenge. She's never seen again, and when Baki and the whole Sand village pull a Heel–Face Turn the audience is left wondering how she responded. One of the video games finally resolves the question, as if you start a match between Yugao and Baki, she will declare her desire for revenge at the beginning, and when using her special move.
      • Filler in the Shinobi World War arc goes into this a little she's now a medic nin and gets called out to deal with Zombie!Hayate.
    • The Akatsuki rings. Deidara, Orochimaru, and Zetsu are all used to play up how incredibly important the rings are and the camera lingers tellingly on it a few times when Itachi first comes to town. Not a single mention is made otherwise, and the significance of them is never explained.
    • Hinata's little sister Hanabi played a significant role in the former's backstory; Hanabi was considered stronger and more promising than her sister despite the age gap, and this (among other things) led their father to hold Hinata in great contempt and eventually disown her, while choosing Hanabi to eventually inherit the clan. Following this plot hook, Hanabi disappears off the face of the Earth, and for most of the manga she is not even mentioned in passing (which, understand, is a really sad place to be; in this manga, even the most minor of recurring characters get mentioned in passing now and then). Hanabi finally resurfaces — after a fashion — during the ongoing climax of the Fourth Great Ninja War arc, where she appears briefly in Hinata's Lotus-Eater Machine dream world. And then she finally returns at the end of the series in The Last: Naruto the Movie.
    • In the epilogue, there's no mention of what happened to Orochimaru, Kabuto, Karin, Jugo, or Suigetsu following the war. Especially egregious considering the frankly horrific experiments Orochimaru did before siding with the heroes during the final war, and that Kabuto almost caused the apocalypse by reviving Madara.
      • They returns in Naruto Gaiden with Orochimaru still up to his old tricks.
    • The finale never really goes into detail explaining what happened to the tailed beasts after the war ended. The Chibaku Tensei prisons are broken, but nothing more is shown. From The Last, we know that Kurama happily and willingly returned to being sealed inside Naruto and the Epilogue reveals that Bee reunited with Gyuki.
    • Despite being critical to the backstory of the series and being one of the two main founding clans of Konoha, the Senju Clan at least as a name and unified clan doesn't appear to exist anymore by the events of the main story and the reason why is never addressed or even hinted at. There is no sign there was ever a "Senju district" in the village like there was for the Uchiha and Hyuga, or land owned specificlaly by them like the Nara. Tsunade is at least part Senju but her last name is never stated and her relation to Hashirama is given attention over any relation to the Senju as a whole.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Sasuke angrily gives one to Sakura when she insults Naruto about being the way he is, with her thinking that it's due to him not having parents. It works; she starts trying to be nicer to Naruto afterwards.
    • Sakura then gives one to Sasuke when he's ready to give Team 7's scroll to the not-yet-revealed-Orochimaru; she says Naruto is many things, but he is not a coward, and he's not the one holding them back at the current moment. It works.
    • Naruto tries to reason with Sasuke throughout their fight at the Valley of the End in Part I. It doesn't work.
    • Shikamaru's dad lectures him about his temptation to leave the shinobi life after the Sasuke Retrieval arc.
    • Danzo slams Sasuke on his chaotic lashing out of blind revenge and his rejection of the will and cause of the person he's avenging.
    • Naruto chews out Sakura for her painfully fake love confession rather angrily. He stops having a crush on her afterwards, and their friendship is strained for a while.
    • Some of Naruto's classmates berate him for his over-idealistic approach to the situation with Sasuke.
    • Ino, Shikamaru, Asuma, and Choza are all furious with Choji when he refuses to attack Asuma, who's been resurrected and forced to fight his former students. Choji gets the hint and helps take Asuma down.
    • Madara and Hashirama, to their respective fathers, when their fathers and younger brothers went into battle against each other. Each father tried to kill the other's son for strategic reasons.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Generally, this applies to most of the clan ninja, who rely exclusively on clan techniques and basic skills. Ino seems to be the sole exception by branching out to medical ninjitsu.
    • Naruto has a phase of this with his Kage Bunshin and Rasengan, but he seems to grow out of it (this probably hangs on fans' minds because this is the point he was at when the plot of the anime took an 80-episode Filler break, so those fans who followed the anime and not just the manga got to see these milked for much, much more than they were worth).
  • Wing Shield: After the Time Skip, back when he still has Orochimaru's "curse mark", Sasuke can manifest hand-shaped wings from his back that he can use to shield himself. In the fight against Deidara he tried to block the latter's large exploding statue with them; one of said wings got blown to smithereens as a result.
  • Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: This is how the titular character passes the written portion of his chuunin exams. The exams were deliberately made too difficult to pass honestly; the idea is to test the student's covert information gathering skills by cheating on the test without getting caught. However, on Team 7, Sasuke is the only one who actually realizes this. The Smart Guy Sakura just takes the test straight, while Naruto panics and doesn't do anything at all, which exploits a loophole in the rules entirely without meaning to. Naruto didn't answer a single question on the written test, but since he was technically never caught cheating, he passes.
  • Wise Serpent:
    • Orochimaru, a powerful snake-themed ninja, is the smartest and most cunning of his team. He gets corrupted by the pursuit of learning all jutsu, going as far as doing inhumane experiments. Furthermore, he establishes a spy network across several countries. He's also a dark mentor figure for Anko, Sasuke, and Kabuto.
    • Orchimaru's students, who all have the snake summoning contract (and snake-themed jutsu) too, follow his lead in their own ways:
      • Anko works in Konoha's Torture & Interrogation department, with her job being to extract information from prisoners. This means she's mastered mind games and a tad of psychology.
      • Sasuke was already fairly smart before training under Orochimaru. After that, he develops a plethora of ninja techniques that make him very versatile in battle. He masters two nature transformations, signs two summoning contracts, and even creates his own jutsu. His cunning in combat also improves, using genjutsu (illusionary arts) far more efficiently to trick his opponents.
      • Kabuto is an outstanding medical ninja who weaponizes the fine chakra control it requires and rivals medicine virtuoso Lady Tsunade — like her, he can heal himself very fast regardless of the wound's nature. Only Kabuto inherits Orochimaru's calculating demeanor.
    • The White Snake Sage is a gigantic albino Japanese rat snake that Orochimaru and later Kabuto studied under in an attempt to learn senjutsu (translated as sage arts), with only the latter being successful. In the sequel series Boruto, she's shown to be a master of gengetsu capable of disguising herself as an old woman.
  • Wizard Duel: Ninjutsu being what it is, the battles become more arcane as time goes on. By the final arc, all the relevant fights are essentially fights with pure chakra, summons, shapeshifting, sealing, and reality warping; there's little if any hand to hand combat, and even that is often enhanced with chakra.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: A good chunk of the villains have a miserable backstory to explain why they're nuts, but for his term as a villain, Gaara is by far the most straight example.
  • The Worf Barrage:
    • Fire-element techniques look powerful. In practice, what they do is create a Smoke Shield for enemies to slowly and dramatically step out of without a single burn on them. Played with when Sasuke's fire attack melts the layer of skin disguising Orochimaru in the Forest of Death but otherwise doesn't hurt him (and blows a hole through a tree without lighting it on fire).
    • Anything attempted by Rock Lee is automatically this. Lampshaded in the Denser and Wackier spinoff Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth, where Lee's initial lotus fails against some random fodder Mook, to which he comments, "I guess there's no helping it... That move never even worked once in the actual story." (An outraged Tenten then shouts, "Then why did you use it?!")
  • The Worf Effect:
    • Lee was hyped to be extremely strong (by worfing Sasuke) and actually never wins a real fight (except against his doppelganger in the Rescue Gaara Arc) because he fights people even stronger, even if he falls with honors.
    • This is the entire point of the ANBU's existence. Almost every time they appear, they end up being killed by someone, regardless of the killer's rank. It makes you wonder why the ANBU actually exist in the first place.
    • The jutsu Amaterasu gets this. Initially introduced as black flames that burn to ashes anything they make contact with (even fire is consumed by them) and can't be dodged unless you can move/react faster than the user's eye can focus on you (since in its base usage the flames are not shot out but actually directly appear on the body of the target), the vast majority of the time it is used simply to showcase how the target can't be beaten by it (typically by them being able to absorb the chakra powering the flames). Over the course of the series Sasuke often uses it for defense or as an actual projectile to more success than the instant-win use it was originally introduced for.
  • Worf Had the Flu:
    • It's almost never mentioned, but the Sound Four were already tired from their fight with two jonins before battling the Sasuke rescue squad.
    • Sasuke acknowledges that he defeated Orochimaru only because the latter was terminally ill.
    • A majorly powerful villain has to confront Naruto when he's just used a very exhausting technique, is without his backup, and cannot kill Naruto if he wants his plan to work. When he loses one can't help but wonder how the fight would have gone if it weren't for all of those factors.
    • Danzo loses a major battle which he begins while having just used one of his major abilities that needs to recharge. He gets it back at the end but, unable to decide how to use it in time and taken by surprise by one of his opponent's decisions, it doesn't do him any good.
  • World Half Full: The ninja world is a horrible place to live. Ninja are supposed to be emotionless tools to be used and discarded as the village they live in sees fit, especially jinchūriki, who have demons put inside them largely without their consent, and are treated even worse than other ninjas. In less than 100 years, four massive wars have been waged, three of which were borne of grudges and massive distrust between nations, and fostered these in turn. Child Soldiers are the norm, and are taught that if they want to live in this world they have to kill. The current ninja system of blood and hatred is responsible for the birth of people like Pain and Sasuke, who are driven mad by the death that occured around them. Luckily, though, this series has Naruto, who, when he first began to comprehend the horror of everyday ninja life, basically says, "Suck it!" and decides to do it his way, and fix this shitty way of life. Considering where this series falls on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, he'll probably succeed.
  • World of Badass: Almost everyone relevant to the plot displays their badassery in one way or another.
  • World of Ham: These are quite possibly the least subtle ninja to ever exist.
  • World of Silence: This is the Kage's interpretation of Madara and Obito's solution to world peace.
  • World of Technicolor Hair: The manga's hair colors are all over the place, like Sakura's pink, Gaara's, Sasori's, Kushina's, and Karin's reds, Konan's blue, and Kakashi's grey. There are also a surprising number of blondes for a culturally Japanese village, like Naruto himself, Ino, Temari, and Tsunade.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Everyone. Shikamaru is the only person shown to have reservations about fighting women, and he does it anyway. Justified in that there are plenty of female ninja, and refusing to fight them would probably get you fired and/or killed very quickly in the Naruto world.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Pretty much all of the villains in this series. They have no problems fighting and even killing young Genin, often doing so with sadistic pleasure. It's especially noticeable in Part I, where most of the main characters are 12 to 13 years old.
  • Wowing Cthulhu: Naruto is able to gain the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon Kurama's trust during his fight with Obito by freeing the Four-Tails.
  • Wrap It Up: The Distant Epilogue (Chapter #700) and the movie, The Last. Due to pressure from the manga's publisher, the author found himself having to tie up the story in way, way fewer chapters than he had (probably) originally intended. Though the effort to wrap things up in the last few chapters is very evident, it was pretty clear from the start that doing a decade-and-a-half manga justice in half a dozen chapters of continuous storytelling is impossible. The last chapter and movie take advantage of the inherent Time Skips to resolve Naruto's ambition to become Hokage, paint the aftermath of the war in broad strokes, and, most of all, make a dedicated effort to (finally!) unravel the Love Dodecahedron. In contrast, we never find out what Kaguya needed an army of white Zetsus for, and the details of what really happened with Sasuke in the end aside from his redemption. Nor do we know what happens to Orochimaru. This is subverted however, but in different ways. Kaguya's motives behind amassing an army are elaborated on in the Sequel Boruto, Sasuke's quest for redemption is further explored in canon Light Novels set during the Time Skip, and Orochimaru's circumstances are elaborated in both.
  • X-Ray Vision: Anyone with the Byakugan Bloodline Limit.
  • You Are Already Dead: Some ninja abilities are engineered to lead up to this. If a character starts a Tempting Fate speech about how their opponent is screwed that didn't involve this trope in the first place, chances are 50/50 that they'll start coughing blood mid-sentence followed by their opponent explaining to them that three minutes ago they were hit with poison or chakra-eating insects or Pressure Point strikes or what-have-you.
  • You Are Not Alone: Gaara and Naruto, in particular, only come as far as they do because they have people supporting them. This became especially true for Naruto; his parents literally left a portion of themselves in his seal for the sole purpose of helping him against the Nine-Tails when he needs it most.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
    • Zabuza says that Haku was nothing more than a useful tool to him; why should he care about his death? However, when Naruto delivers an impassioned speech about Hakus's devotion to Zabuza, the tough-as-nails remorseless killer breaks into tears and begs the boy to stop talking.
    • Gato is quick to turn against Zabuza after Kakashi defeats him the second time. It turns out he was really hoping the two ninjas would have killed each other, so he wouldn't have to pay him. Unfortunately for him, Zabuza decides he's Taking You with Me.
    • Orochimaru views his subordinates as pawns to be used and discarded when their role is over. The most extreme example is Kimimaro, who lived and breathed for him: when he dies, Orochimaru basically says "oh, well... where is Sasuke?"
    • As he gets more and more obsessed with killing Danzo during the Five Kage Summit arc, Sasuke abandons Suigetsu and Juugo to be captured by the samurai and later stabs Karin with a chidori in order to kill his enemy. He actually quotes this trope to her word for word as he's about to finish her off.
    • As Obito lies dying with a big hole in his chest, Madara tries to mind-control him into using the Rinne Rebirth jutsu to revive him, adding that it's time Obito paid him back for saving his life all those years ago.
    • Madara, of all people, is on the receiving end of this. After he became the Ten Tails jinchūriki and activated the Infinite Tsukuyomi, Black Zetsu stabbed him in the back saying that he was a fool for believing he's the only one who can manipulate people. All he can do now is become Kaguya's new vessel.
  • You Know the One: That Man, whose use of That Jutsu in That Day played a key role during That Incident.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: Zigzagged with the jutsu Izanami, where your mind is involved, and reality and imagination are also involved, and explaining how it actually works requires two flow charts.
  • Yo-Yo Plot Point:
    • This plagues the elongated conclusion of the Fourth World War arc. By the end of it, most readers have lost count of how many times during the climactic battle Naruto's allies have come to doubt their usefulness, then overcome their doubt by resolving to do their best regardless, then soon fell prey again to that same doubt; how many times the Big Bad has wavered towards doubt in his philosophy, then back to absolute faith in it and trying to make Naruto doubt his philosophy, and then back again; how many times, conversely, Naruto himself has felt the need to go through a revelation of why his ideals are worth believing in and fighting for, prompted by him relating to Hinata, Minato, and Sasuke each in turn, only for his resolve to soon waver enough that another revelation is in order; and how many reveals of either the good guys' or bad guys' seemingly unbeatable "True Power" there have been, only for that power to be beaten soundly, trumped and superseded, followed by ominous hints of the next Ultimate Power That Will Surely Decide Everything.
    • Sakura three times takes the spotlight and decides to step up her game and shed her Faux Action Girl status, and two times steps back down, with varying degrees of fanfare.
    • Also, as mentioned above under Ship Tease, this applies to nearly all would-be romantic relationships in the series. Apparent turning points just pass the story by, make a wooshing sound, leave the impression of a resolution and then go away, as if they were never there. Apart from the ones mentioned already, the most egregious instance has to be the sudden, violent disappearance of Karin's solemn disillusionment with Sasuke.

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