WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Naruto and Boruto.Despite defeating many villains, NarutoThe film’s title character directly kills only one person in both the original series and Shippuden. Set in a world of ninja nations at war with other powers, it’s no surprise that Naruto is very violent and features its fair share of blood, gore, and piercing. Despite this, Uzumaki Naruto’s kill count is extremely low. As the protagonist and reluctant hero of Konoha, Naruto’s journey to become Hokage finds himself at the center of many seismic battles and is subject to some pretty brutal attacks himself.
With that said, Shōnen Jump’s main characters are rarely depicted as killers, often being dominant or showing mercy towards their enemies, promoting the magazine’s values of kindness. and team spirit. When villains die in Shonen manga and anime, the story usually revolves around this issue so the main character is not directly responsible for the death. Naruto does exactly that after the fight against Pain, where the passionate young ninja leader changes the villain’s outlook and causes Pain to sacrifice himself and revive all of his previous victims. . Even Kaguya Otsutsuki, Naruto’s final villain, was safely sealed away rather than completely destroyed.
Naruto only killed one person: a sand ninja named Yura
Despite defeating many enemies throughout his story, Naruto Uzumaki only killed one person – a single jonin of Sunagakure named Yura. Yura was at first believed to be a trusted member of the Kazekage council, however, it was later revealed that he was a secret agent working on behalf of Akatsuki. His memory was reactivated when Sasori and Deidara arrived at the Hidden Sand. After Yura’s espionage activities ended, Pain transformed him into an Itachi clone. Under the guise of Sasuke’s brother, Naruto, Kakashi, Sakura and Chiyo confront Yura, who is eventually killed by Naruto’s massive Rasengan technique. Viewers then see Yura’s body, confirming his death.
For a series that actively avoids showing Naruto as a killer, it’s strange that the ambitious Hokage finishes off Yura as bigger, more despicable villains walk away with their lives intact – even if Naruto was under the impression that he was fighting Itachi. Perhaps the Akatsuki puppet was meant to be a minor enough figure that Naruto could destroy him without his morality being called into question, or perhaps the death was meant to highlight Naruto’s growing maturity after time-skip since the fight happened at the beginning of Naruto Shippuden.
While Yura is the only assassin under Naruto’s belt, delving into the subfield opens up some additional possibilities. For example, the Kirigakure ninja Raiga was sent flying off a cliff by Naruto’s signature Rasengan technique. Raiga actually committed suicide as he fell, perhaps realizing that the fall would kill him anyway, so Naruto was probably not entirely responsible for Raiga’s death. Furthermore, Naruto had a hand in defeating Urashiki Otsutsuki. This villain travels to the past in the Boruto spin-off to attack young Naruto. Urashiki was destroyed through the joint efforts of Naruto, Sasuke, Boruto, and Jiraiya, making Naruto jointly responsible for the character’s death in this non-canon adventure.
Naruto has helped destroy many villains but rarely delivers the killing blow
Yura’s death is an exception to the unwritten Shonen rule that protagonists should not become ruthless killers. Because of this, there has been some speculation that Pain’s Transformation technique took Yura’s life and that Naruto’s massive Rasengan only broke the transformation and left behind a corpse. While there is nothing in canon to suggest this was the case, Yura being killed by Pain rather than Naruto would allow the protagonist to maintain his moral superiority by not delivering the final blow. However, officially, Yura is the only character to have a direct death by Naruto himself.
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