Kekkei genkai
In the
Naruto anime and
manga series, a
kekkei genkai (血継限界, "blood inheritance limit" or "[an ability] limited to blood inheritance," also called a "bloodline limit," "advanced bloodline," or "bloodline trait") is any property passed down
genetically through a specific
clan that cannot be imitated or duplicated by any method, although it might be possible to copy it using genetic manipulation. Kekkei genkai are often beneficial, and are employed commonly by
shinobi to improve their chances in battle or other challenging situations.
The eagerness with which the rulers of nations have taken advantage of shinobi with bloodline limits for the purposes of furthering war efforts has taken its toll on their reputation, to such a degree that many in the
Naruto world automatically associate bloodline limits with war and pain. It eventually reached the point of outright fear and hatred, resulting in witch hunts and systematic murders of families and individuals with bloodline limits, as was the case with Haku's tragedy.
The
Byakugan (白眼,
literally "White Eye",
Viz "Evil Eye") is a special
pupil condition (Dōjutsu 瞳", "eye technique") that naturally occurs in members of the
Hyūga clan (and thus only characters from the Hyūga clan possess it).
Although it seems the abilities of the Byakugan are inferior to those of the
Sharingan (believed to be its genetic relative) because it cannot copy techniques that it sees or hypnotize human targets, in terms of insight the former surpasses the latter, as stated by Kakashi during the Chūnin exams.
A person with the Byakugan has a nearly 360
degree field of vision, except for a small blind spot behind the first
thoracic vertebrae (near the back of the neck), which is its only known weakness. Byakugan users can detect anything around them within a 50-meter radius (although later in the manga
Hyūga Neji manages to increase the radius to 800 meters), making them close-range combat experts. The Byakugan also gives the user the ability to see through basically any matter over extremely long distances. This seems to be a combination of
x-ray and
thermographic vision, as it has been noted that objects can be difficult to see if their temperature is the same as the objects around them. A small degree of telescopic vision is also present, as a Byakugan user can focus on a single object at any point within their range of vision. The degree of focus seems to be dependent on the skill of the user. The Byakugan's sight cannot be blocked (except in the case of something like
Ranmaru's kekkei genkai ability), unlike the Sharingan, which can be blocked by any sufficiently non-transparent substance, making it useful for searching, tracking, and identifying targets. It is however, possible to impede it slightly through the use of certain powerful seals.
One of the most powerful aspects of the Byakugan is the ability to see the inner chakra coil system, which is the key aspect of using
Jūken (Gentle Fist) to attack the system. If sufficiently developed, the Byakugan is able to see individual
tenketsu, potentially allowing the user to shut off the opponent's chakra flow completely, such that the opponent cannot perform techniques that require chakra. Seasoned Byakugan users are even capable of killing with a single blow.
Protection of the Byakugan ability is very important to the Hyūga clan, and has led to the development of an elaborate family hierarchy. The Hyūga clan is divided into two houses: the main house (宗家,
sō-ke) and the branch house (分家,
bun-ke). The branch house's main purpose is to protect the main house and the secrets of the Byakugan. Branch house members' abilities and freedom are restricted through the means of a
Juin ("Cursed Seal"). The cursed seal is placed on a branch house member's forehead. Through the means of a special technique that only main house members know, the seal can be activated. When the cursed seal is activated, the person's brain cells will be destroyed. Through the use of the cursed seal, the main house makes the branch house subordinate to its wishes. In addition, whenever a branch house member dies, the cursed seal will also seal the Byakugan ability so that enemies will not be able to discover the secrets of the bloodline limit if Konoha's tracker ninja were unable to find and dissect the body before the enemy did.
There are several techniques developed specifically for Byakugan users, which complement and make use of the Byakugan's abilities
Hakke Hyaku Nijūha Shō (Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms), a variant of Hakke Rokujūyon Shō which Neji uses when driven to a tight corner and is twice as fast as the original, and
Shugohakke Rokujūyon Shō (Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms), a development of
Hinata's that uses fast-moving chakra beams for both offense and defense.
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Young Haku manipulating water in the anime. |
Haku's kekkei genkai, Hyōton ("Ice Release", dubbed "Haku's Secret Arts of Water" by Viz) allowed him to combine wind and water-based chakra to create ice, which he could manipulate through willpower alone, as seen in the anime from a flashback where he was manipulating water in his hands and again when he uses water to create a field of icicles through his house by freezing water.
Haku's most powerful technique, Demonic Ice Mirrors (
English TV Secret Jutsu: Crystal Ice Mirrors), consists of Haku creating a hemisphere of very strong mirrors of ice enforced with chakra at 360 degrees around an opponent. He then enters one of the mirrors, and attacks by moving very quickly between them, much like a beam of light. He can also appear in some or all of the mirrors at once, and has a much faster reaction time while in transit. Utilizing the mirrors reflections to confuse his target, Haku can then unleash numerous senbon (acupuncture needles) into his opponent's critical body areas with very little difficulty while still in transition. It is also known that, once inside a mirror, his opponent will appear to be moving in slow motion. This technique had never been defeated before the battle with Sasuke and Naruto. However, using this technique for long periods of time will quickly use up Haku's chakra.
Haku's also developed a technique known as
Sensatsu Suishō (A Thousand Flying Water Needles of Death). Unlike other ninja techniques, the seals for this technique are one-handed. Once Haku has stopped an opponent's movement, he can use this technique to create needles out of water that surround a target and impale it, leaving him unharmed.
The Mokuton (Wood Release) techniques are initially used by the
First Hokage, and it is said that because of his unique ability he was chosen as the First. Mokuton techniques are performed by combining earth and water-based chakra simultaneously, thus causing trees to grow from any location the user wishes. The shape can also be controlled to a fine degree, allowing makeshift structures to be grown quickly in battle.
Yamato, who received DNA from the First as a result of an experiment done by Orochimaru, also demonstrates the ability to use Mokuton jutsu.
A secondary, and not necessarily related, ability the First's ability to control bijū, which Yamato also gained. With this ability, Yamato can reverse Naruto's Kyūbi transformation.
Ranmaru, from the filler arc of the anime, has a kekkei genkai ability similar to the
Byakugan and Zetsu's spying technique, all of which are dōjutsu techniques. Its powers allow the user to see through solid objects and create illusions with real chakra circulatory systems. It also allows him to interfere with the workings of the Byakugan (as shown in episode 154: 白眼の天敵, Byakugan no tenteki, "The Byakugan's natural enemy"), and has other vaguely-defined powers regarding vision. When activated, the bloodline causes Ranmaru's eyes to momentarily glow red. Not much else is known about his bloodline limit.
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Kakashi's fully matured Sharingan. |
The
Sharingan (写輪眼,
literally "Copy Wheel Eye",
English manga "Mirror Wheel Eye") is a special type of dōjutsu (pupil technique) that naturally occurs in all members of the Uchiha clan, though not all of them gain the ability to use it. The Sharingan is thought to be descended from the Byakugan (see above), but grants the user different abilities and a different insight; which includes the ability to observe the movement and flow of chakra (although not to the same extent and clarity as the Byakugan).
The Sharingan's first and most well known ability is to memorize any technique that it witnesses. It can memorize
ninjutsu,
genjutsu, and
taijutsu with perfect accuracy, allowing the user to use the techniques as his own. In order to reproduce copied jutsu, one must have the physical ability to perform the technique. For example, they need to have the needed amount of chakra, stamina, agility, and/or strength in order to perform said technique. In addition to physical skill, the Sharingan cannot allow the user to reproduce any other bloodline abilities or summon a creature the user has not made a contract with, because the user of the Sharingan has to have the same blood as the other user.
The Sharingan also grants the user incredible clarity of perception, allowing them to track fast moving objects with great clarity and predict their opponent's action. This perception is so great that it can even see through
genjutsu and reverse it, depending upon the skill of the user.
Finally, the Sharingan is capable of a unique brand of hypnosis that involves suggesting actions and thoughts to the opponent. When used in conjunction with the other aspects of the Sharingan, this allows the user to copy and use an opponent's technique before they can actually execute it.
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Sasuke's evolving Sharingan. |
The Sharingan does not automatically appear from birth in a user; instead, it will usually appear when the user is in a life threatening situation, where the power of the Sharingan could save the user. After this first appearance, the user can then call up the Sharingan any time he or she pleases. (Due to its unique nature, Kakashi's Sharingan is "permanently on", and thus he covers it except during heated battles, to conserve chakra.) The power of the Sharingan is judged through the number of
tomoe in the eye, known as the "tomoe seal". It is not unheard of for a Sharingan user to have different amounts of tomoe in each eye. For example, Sasuke's Sharingan initially had two tomoe in one eye and one in the other. Eventually his Sharingan evolved to two tomoe in each eye, then three. A fully-matured Sharingan has three tomoe in each eye.
Interestingly enough, it is possible to transplant Sharingan eyes from one person to another, as occurred with Kakashi and his deceased comrade
Obito. However, transplanted eyes do not work as well in a non-Uchiha body, causing more strain on the user, as is the case with
Kakashi - extended use of his Sharingan will cause him to collapse. Uchiha clan members are not burdened with this weakness; while activation of the Sharingan does consume chakra, the drain is so small as to be almost insignificant. Itachi in particular seems to have no trouble in keeping his Sharingan activated near-constantly.
Characters who currently possess the Sharingan include
Uchiha Sasuke,
Uchiha Itachi, and Hatake Kakashi. Kakashi's eye was given to him by Uchiha Obito, one of his teammates in his original three-man ninja team. Obito developed it in battle against rival Rock shinobi and during this battle Kakashi lost his left eye when he was attacked, hence his scar. Near the end of the battle Obito's right side is crushed under a giant rock, and as his last act Obito had
Rin, a medical ninja, remove his left eye and implant it in Kakashi's left eye, thus allowing Kakashi to use the Sharingan even though he does not have Uchiha blood. This is also why only his left eye is a Sharingan eye.
Mangekyō Sharingan
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Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan. |
The
Mangekyō Sharingan (万華鏡写輪眼,
literally "
Kaleidoscope Copy Wheel Eye") is a heightened form of Sharingan. The Mangekyō Sharingan is distinguished from a normal Sharingan through its appearance, which changes the form of the tomoe seal. However, unlike the Sharingan, it may have a different appearance between users, as Kakashi's version is significantly different than Itachi's. Those who have the potential to obtain it must make a great sacrifice in order to obtain it – according to Uchiha Itachi, they must kill their best friend. Itachi does in fact do this to obtain his version, but Kakashi has noted that everyone he cared about had died long before the start of the series, so how he developed his own variant is unknown. It has also been implied in the manga that use of the Mangekyō Sharingan may deteriorate the user's normal eyesight.
In the long history of the Uchiha clan, only a few have been able to obtain the Mangekyō Sharingan. At present, there are only two people who can use the Mangekyō Sharingan, Itachi being one of them. According to Itachi, if his younger brother Sasuke obtained it, the number of people who could handle the Mangekyō Sharingan (including them) would be three. Itachi's statement may suggest that there is (or was at that time) another Mangekyō Sharingan user somewhere; however, Itachi uses the verb atsukau (扱う) which means "to handle" or "to deal with", which could also mean that there are only three people left who are capable of acquiring the Mangekyō Sharingan. Given that Itachi had just killed every other member of the Uchiha clan, this statement could simply be taken as a matter of fact: Kakashi, Sasuke, and Itachi are the only known characters left alive with Sharingan eye, so no one else has the potential to obtain it.
お前が開眼すれば... オレ'含め万華鏡写輪眼'扱う者は三人になる
Omae ga kaigan sureba... Ore o fukume mangekyō sharingan o atsukau mono wa sannin ni naru
"If you activate it... Including me, the number of people who can handle the Mangekyō Sharingan will be three" - Itachi to Sasuke (Original Japanese version)
Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan
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Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan during Tsukuyomi. |
Uchiha Itachi gained the Mangekyō Sharingan by killing Shisui, his best friend. With the Mangekyō Sharingan, Itachi is able to use the two most powerful jutsu of the Uchiha clan,
Tsukuyomi and
Amaterasu.
Tsukuyomi, named after the
Shinto moon god
Tsukuyomi (or Tsukiyomi), traps the target in an illusionary world that is totally controlled by the user. The user can then torture the target for as long as desired, inflicting vast mental damage upon the target. Targets of this technique will most likely suffer mental collapse; if they are lucky enough to survive, they will not be in fighting condition for a while. Time is also distorted in the illusionary world: for example, the target will feel the effects of three days when only mere seconds have truly passed. Tsukuyomi requires that the target make eye contact with the user; however, Uchiha Itachi may be able to force his opponents to make eye contact with him, probably through the use of the hypnotic suggestion ability (see above) of the Sharingan. He demonstrated this when he used this technique on
Uchiha Sasuke, who had both of his eyes closed prior to Itachi's activation of the technique, but opened them in a shock/fear expression as Itachi used the technique on him (this may not have been the case; it is equally possible that Sasuke opened his eyes of his own volition, albeit unwisely). It is described in the Databook as being a "genjutsu of supremacy", implying that it is among the highest level of genjutsu in the
Naruto world.
Amaterasu, named after the Shinto sun goddess
Amaterasu, has only been employed once by Itachi off-screen. It is known that black fire is an aftereffect, and that the fire is capable of burning through even the strongest of materials, such as the esophagus of an extremely large rock frog (which is capable of breathing fire and therefore cannot be easily burned) that was summoned by
Jiraiya. According to the Second Databook, the fires created through Amaterasu are as hot as the sun, and blaze for seven days and seven nights. (Jiraiya, however, was able to contain these fires with his
Fūka Hōin (Fire Sealing Method)).
Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan
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Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan. |
Hatake Kakashi developed his own version of the Mangekyō Sharingan, presumably during the timeskip. Unlike Itachi's version, which is used to destroy a target, Kakashi uses his to create a localized interdimensional spacetime warp, allowing him to target any object and send it to another dimension, achieving the same result. Kakashi used this new jutsu to warp a segment of
Deidara's right arm into a different dimension. He subsequently uses it again in Chapter 278 to counter Deidara's ultimate move, which would otherwise level the entire forest they were fighting in. The attack requires considerable effort to aim precisely and appears to leave Kakashi's chakra significantly drained; he collapses after using the technique three times (compared to his other original move,
Raikiri, which he can use four times a day).
The appearance of the pupil and tomoe in Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan differ from that of Itachi's; Kakashi's looks more like a pinwheel. Before this was shown, it was thought that one had to kill their best friend to acquire the Mangekyō Sharingan. Kakashi stated long before developing his Mangekyō Sharingan that everyone close to him was already dead. The only known now-deceased person that could be described as his "closest friend" was Obito, who died shortly after Kakashi recieved his Sharingan eye. While Kakashi may have felt responsible for Obito's death at the time, he certainly didn't kill Obito himself, and it wouldn't explain why it took him do many years to obtain the Mangekyō Sharingan. Thus, the means behind its development and the actual meaning of the "requirement" are currently unknown.
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The Kaguya Clan's kekkei genkai. |
Shikotsumyaku (死骨脈, literally "Dead Bone Pulse", according to Databook 2) is the kekkei genkai of the extinct Kaguya clan that gave them the frightening ability to manipulate their own bone structure. They could protrude them out of their bodies, fire them like bullets from their fingertips, or even create a layer of bone under the skin to serve as armor. All this makes their bodies virtually indestructible and gives them a nearly perfect defense, since any point of contact can almostly instantly become as sharp as a spear. However, the ability seems rare among clan members, as Kimimaro was the only one seen to possess it out of his entire clan. The Kaguya clan's most powerful techniques utilize this ability in their many sword dances, named after flowers. After they started a war against Kirigakure, they were almost completely wiped out. Kimimaro was the only survivor. He is now deceased, having succumbed to a lethal disease during his battle with
Gaara.
Sakon and
Ukon of the Sound Four have the ability to unify some or all of one's body with the other's body with Souma no Kou ("Attack of an Evil Spirit Pair"). Typically, Ukon is dormant in Sakon's body, with his head protruding from the back of Sakon's neck. In heated battles, Ukon can
lend his arms or
legs (literally) to add force to Sakon's physical attacks, and even split completely into two bodies. Ukon can also merge with an opponent's body with
Kisei Kikai no Jutsu (Parasite Demon Demolition Technique), gradually killing the new host body.
Kibaku Nendo
Deidara possesses mouths in the palms of his hands, which is probably a bloodline limit or just hijutsu. The mouths can chew up clay and sculpt it into a number of artistic, and usually explosive, forms, thus the name Kibaku Nendo ("Exploding Clay"). Deidara can create clay and make the
clay explode by saying "Katsu" (喝).
Various sculptures include:
* Animal-shaped clay – Deidara will often mold his clay into small animals allowing the clay to get close to its target before exploding. Deidara also uses a giant clay bird as a means of transportation.
* "Explosion of
C3" ("C3"の爆発, "C3 no Bakuhatsu") – Deidara uses "Explosion of
C3" to destroy a large area fairly quickly. It has power enough to destroy an entire Hidden Village. Deidara calls this his Ohako (十八番, "Specialty"; "One's favorite stunt"; "Number 18")
* "Suicide Bombing Clone" (自爆分身, "Jibaku Bunshin") –
Suicide Bombing Clone creates a replica of Deidara, made entirely out of exploding clay. The explosion of the clone seems to be about equal to that the "C3". This jutsu is used by Deidara as a last resort, creating the appearance that he is trying to take his opponent down with him.
Satetsu
The
Third Kazekage had a special genetic trait that allowed him to turn the chakra he molded into
magnetic forces. This ability allowed him to create his '
Satetsu (Iron Sand),' based on the jutsu used by the previous host of
Shukaku. This ability was "inherited," and likely made more deadly through the addition of poison, by
Sasori in his Kazekage hitokugutsu. It is, as of yet, unknown if this was a kekkei genkai, or wholly unique to the Third, similar to the
First Hokage's ability to perform
Mokuton Ninjutsu.
It should be noted that there have been some techniques shown in the anime and manga that have not been explicitly labelled a bloodline limit. It should be assumed that unless explicitly stated, these abilities are not bloodline limits; rather, they are just specialized techniques that a person/clan developed and possibly, in the case of a clan, passes on. A good example is Naruto, who is a container of the Kyūbi; his ability to summon a certain degree of power from within, increasing his physical strength and chakra capacity, are granted to him because he alone has access to the Kyūbi's power sealed within him. A requirement of a bloodline limit, on the other hand,is that it is genetically passed on from parent to child within a specific group of individuals or clan. Although a certain clan's techniques may be exclusive to that clan because it is a well-kept secret, it does not qualify to be a bloodline limit because it could be learned by someone who was not born of that clan's blood.
According to the official data books,
Kidōmaru's web abilities and the
Aburame clan's ability to control bugs are not bloodline limits, but are in fact secret clan techniques.
# First Official Data Book (秘伝・臨の書キャラクターオフィシャルデータBOOK, "Hiden: Rin no Sho Character Official Data Book")# Second Official Data Book (秘伝・闘の書キャラクターオフィシャルデータBOOK, "Hiden: Tō no Sho Character Official Data Book")# Jump's 2nd Great Hero Book's Mini Data Book (秘伝・"の書オフィシャルキャラクターデータBOOK mini, "Hiden: Shō no Sho Official Character Data Book mini")# Naruto
manga chapters# Based on character's ability and status
