Akatsuki (Naruto)

For other uses, see Akatsuki (disambiguation).

In the manga and anime series Naruto, the Akatsuki is a criminal organization, first introduced midway into the first arc, and gaining greater significance in the storyline in the second arc. All that is known thus far is that the Akatsuki consists of nine S-class wanted criminals, and that they show great interest in the powers of the Bijū (Tailed Beasts). Admission criteria to the group is unknown, but Kage-level fighting ability seems to be a prerequisite. Other requisites are currently unknown, but joining seems to involve the rings worn by Akatsuki members. Each member has a partner with the exception of Zetsu.

Known Members

The Akatsuki is comprised of ten members, including former member Orochimaru who left and founded Otogakure for an unknown reason (presumed to be due to Itachi's power, however they were never in Akatsuki together). Orochimaru's position was that of 空 (Kū, "Sky"); Currently, the known members include:

Uchiha Itachi

Name: Uchiha Itachi, うちはイタチ
Age: 20⁴
Height: 175,2 cm²
Weight: 57,1 kg²
Birthday: June 9
Blood Type: AB
Registration #: 012110
Ring: 朱 (Shu, scarlet/bloody)
Position: Right ring finger
Partner: Hoshigaki Kisame
Affiliation: Akatsuki, Uchiha clan, Nukenin (Missing-nin) from Konohagakure (Hidden Leaf)
Signature Ability: Sharingan, Mangekyō Sharingan, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique), Shadow Replication Technique (Kage Bunshin no Jutsu), Bunshin Daibakuha (Clone Great Explosion), Magen: Kyōten Chiten (Demonic Illusion: Mirror Heaven and Earth Change), Suiton: Suigadan (Water Release: Water Fang Bullet)

Noted within the Wanted Book, Uchiha Itachi is an S-Level criminal and a Konoha Missing-nin. He graduated top of his Academy class at age 7, had mastered the Sharingan by age 8, became a Chūnin at 10 and was previously a Black Ops (ANBU in the Japanese versions) captain at the age of only 13. At 18, he was even feared by Orochimaru. He left Konoha some years ago, after killing his whole clan except for Uchiha Sasuke, his brother. He is currently associated with Akatsuki. Orochimaru had planed to use Itachi's body as a new container, but seeing as Itachi is powerful to such a degree that even Orochimaru fears him, it's easy to see why Orochimaru decided to leave Akatsuki and try his luck with Sasuke instead.

The reason Itachi killed his clan, and the reason he left Sasuke alive only to physically and mentally abuse him, still remains a mystery. When asked why by Sasuke, he replied "To see what I am capable of." He was until recently the sole person who possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan as revealed in the manga. Hatake Kakashi has somehow developed a new kind of Mangekyō Sharingan in the manga. Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan appears different compared to Itachi's, and the similarity in power of both Mangekyō Sharingan is still unknown.

Itachi has told Sasuke that if Sasuke were to obtain the Mangekyō Sharingan, the people able to use it will total at three. It is unknown who the second person Itachi is referring to.

Trivia

The name "Itachi" means "Weasel" (Note that in Japanese mythology, weasels are a bad omen, signifying bad luck and deaths).
While it is generally agreed on by fans that Uchiha Itachi became an ANBU captain and massacred his clan at age 13, quite a few of them seem to be confused about when he graduated from the academy, mastered the Sharingan, and became Chūnin. The events are often misinterpreted as having happened one or two years earlier than they did.

Hoshigaki Kisame

Name: Hoshigaki Kisame, 干柿鬼鮫
Age: 31⁴
Height: 195 cm²
Weight: 83,1 kg²
Birthday: March 18
Blood Type: AB
Ring: 南 (Nan, south)
Position: Left ring finger
Partner: Uchiha Itachi
Affiliation: Akatsuki, Nukenin (Missing-nin) from Kirigakure (Hidden Mist)
Signature Ability: Samehada, Suiton: Bakusui Shōha (Water Release: Exploding Water Shockwave), Suiton: Goshokuzame (Water Release: Five Eating Sharks), Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu (Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique), Suiton: Suikōdan no Jutsu (Water Release: Water Shark Bullet Technique), Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu (Water Doppelganger), Suirō no Jutsu (Water Prison Technique)

Hoshigaki Kisame, along with Uchiha Itachi attempted to kidnap Uzumaki Naruto for Akatsuki purposes several years ago, but were effectively thwarted by Jiraiya. Itachi later explained that it isn't time to kidnap Naruto yet. Kisame and his sword (Samehada, 鮫肌, "Shark skin") both have shark-like characteristics. The sword also has the ability to drain chakra.

Kisame comes from Kirigakure. He is known as the Mysterious Person of the Hidden Mist (霧隠れの怪人, Kirigakure no Kaijin). He is also part of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Nanajin Shū (霧の忍刀七人衆, "Seven Swordsmen of the Mist"), seven powerful Ninja who utilise large and unique swords. Momochi Zabuza and Kurosuki Raiga(anime only) were also members.

Kisame's chakra amount is apparently considered very large, even by the Akatsuki's standards. The Leader even comments on his large amount of chakra; a Kisame body-double at 30% power, made with the Leader's Shōten no Jutsu (Shapeshifting Technique), had as much chakra as Uzumaki Naruto when powered up by Kyūbi. This is stated by Hyūga Neji when he sees Kisame's body-double with his Byakugan, but since Naruto had improved by the time they confront the Kisame body-double, this is likely no longer accurate. Either way, Kisame has a high chakra level and immense physical strength as he demonstrated against Sarutobi Asuma and later against Maito Gai.

Like everyone seen from the Hidden Mist Village, Kisame uses Water Element Jutsu's in combination with his powerful physical attacks.

Trivia

Kisame (鬼鮫) means demon shark, probably a reference to his tall height and appearance.
Hoshigaki (干柿) means dried persimmon.
Kisame's shark-like appearance and sword Samehada are rumored by fans to have been related to the Three-Tailed Shark in Japanese legend known as Isunade and his subordinate Samehada.
Since Kisame uses the sword, Samehada, many fans think that one of the Bijū (Tailed Beasts) taken already by Akatsuki was an Isonade (a three-tailed shark) and that Kisame now has this Bijū within him and may channel it through the Samehada.

Sasori

sasori's true form

Name: Akasuna no Sasori, 赤砂のサソリ, "Sasori of the Red Sand", literally "Scorpion of the Red Sand"
Age: ? (deceased)
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Birthday: ?
Blood Type: ?
Ring: 玉 (Gyoku, jewel/ball)
Position: Left thumb
Partner: Deidara (previously Orochimaru)
Affiliation: Akatsuki, Nukenin (Missing-nin) from Sunagakure (Hidden Sand)
Signature Ability: Kugutsu no Jutsu (Puppet Technique) (Hiruko, Sandaime Kazekage, himself, etc.), Aka Higi: Hyakki no Sōen (Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets), the Sandaime Kazekage's jutsu via the Sandaime Kazekage puppet

Deidara's partner and master, Sasori is a Nukenin (Missing-nin) from Sunagakure (Hidden Sand). In first appearance, he is a hideous hunchbacked figure with a poisoned scorpion-like puppet tail attached. He is known as Akasuna no Sasori (Sasori of the Red Sand), the creator of Kankurō's puppets and a genius puppeteer himself. His first appearance is during their mission to Sunagakure where Deidara is to capture Gaara. After Gaara's capture, Kankurō attempts to stop the Akatsuki duo, but to no avail. Sasori battles the enraged brother, nearly killing him and destroying his puppets in the process with little to no effort. It is revealed that he left the village 20 years before, but the background on his crimes is unknown at this point. After hearing news of his return, Sasori's grandmother Chiyo, decides to join Team Kakashi in search of the duo and to rescue Gaara.

Sasori and Deidara have quite different views of what art is. Sasori believes art is something that should last, while Deidara believes art is fleeting. Although Deidara respects Sasori's view, Sasori doesn't seem to respect Deidara's.

During combat, and possibly all the time, Sasori "wears" his puppets and controls them from inside, thus eliminating the puppeteer's weakness of being an exposed target. His favorite puppet is named 'Hiruko' (ヒルコ), according to Chiyo. Hiruko has a mechanical tail extending from the mouth of what appears to be a mask on his back, the left arm is something that appears to be a large studded projectile capable of firing shrapnel, and the clearly artificial mouth opens to reveal a projectile-firing device. What makes him even more frightening, however, was the fact that Sasori makes his puppets out of human bodies, as he stated in the quote. So far, he has a collection of 298 hitokugutsu, (人傀儡, "person puppets") made out of human bodies. And to show this, after he was forced to abandon Hiruko, he summoned a hitokugutsu of the Sandaime Kazekage. This puppet was made from the living body of the Kazekage, and thus is able to retain some traits and jutsu of the Kazekage while he was alive.

The truly frightening aspect of Sasori, however, was that his real body is actually as young as he was, and bishonen too. The secret of his youth is revealed after the Kazekage puppet is destroyed: he had made himself into a puppet. His stomach is now hollow, allowing a thick cable to be coiled and stored inside; the cable can act both as a stinger and a support for his body. On his back, a pair of arms, equipped with five large claws, is mounted, and on top of the spine is a scroll holder holding four scrolls, used to summon the puppets for his Aka Higi: Hyakki no Soen (Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets). Each of his hands now mounts a flamethrower nozzle. His right chest contains a hidden compartment, which can spin unknown numbers of chakra strings to control one hundred or more puppets. Over his heart is a large talisman that has the kanji 蠍 (Sasori, "Scorpion"). His puppet body can also be pieced back together after being splintered into multiple pieces; this is because the only part of him which is still "alive" (and thus able to control chakra) is his heart, located under the talisman. He can also easily transfer the talisman, and by extension himself, between puppets. (How he transfers his face/facial features, as depicted in the manga, is not explained.)

The talisman also proved to be his only weakness, as Chiyo used his mother's and father's puppets to stab him through this location in a manner similar to the hug that he desired. In a flashback in the manga, it is reveal that the first puppets Sasori ever made are in his parents' images. Interestingly, Chiyo seemed to believe that, in the end, Sasori allowed himself to be killed (as she believed he saw the attack coming and chose not to react). At the end of the battle, Chiyo, Sasori, and Sakura are all fatally wounded, but Chiyo uses a jutsu she originally developed for Sasori, "to give life to a lifeless puppet," to save Sakura's life. The jutsu is meant to take the life of the user, but as Sakura wasn't dead, Chiyo survived this use of the jutsu.

Sasori's last words (as a reward to Sakura for defeating him) were that he has a spy in Orochimaru's ranks, whom was supposed to meet with Orochimaru in Kusagakure in ten days.

Deidara

Deidara in the Manga

Name: Deidara, デイダラ
Age: ?
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Birthday: ?
Blood Type: ?
Ring: 青 (Sei, blue/green)
Position: Right index finger
Partner: Sasori
Affiliation: Akatsuki, Nukenin (Missing-nin) from Iwagakure
Signature Ability: Kibaku Nendo (Exploding Clay), Hand-mouths

A Missing-nin from Iwagakure, he is a part of the Akatsuki duo that comes to Sunagakure (Hidden Sand) to kidnap Gaara. A fancy and skillful fighter, with special mouths in the palm of each hand, he is able to manipulate clay into either a flight-capable clay bird that can support him, as well as a huge bomb that is capable of leveling a village without the assistance of exploding tags. Deidara is teamed with Sasori, whom Deidara refers to as Sasori no Danna (サソリの旦那, "Master Sasori"). This is probably because Deidara has a lot of respect for his fellow artist because Sasori is, as Deidara himself admits, a lot stronger. Despite that, Deidara still argues a lot with Sasori. They often argue about what art is, Deidara thinking that art is something that disappears quickly whereas Sasori thinking that art is something that lasts a long time.

During his fight with Gaara, his left arm was mangled by Gaara's Sabaku Kyū (The Coffin of Crushing Sand), but he still managed to defeat Gaara. Deidara lost his right arm to Hatake Kakashi when Kakashi used his newly obtained Mangekyō Sharingan against him. As a last resort (and in keeping with his favorite art form), Deidara blew up one of his bunshin in an attempt to kill everyone else around him. However, his bunshin was teleported away from the scene by Kakashi.

Deidara later returned after burrowing away from the scene and looked for his ring, which was on the arm Kakashi blew off. Zetsu and Tobi both expressed surprise that Deidara was still alive when they found him after discovering Sasori's death.

Trivia

He tends to end his sentences with "...un" pronounced in the anime with a nasal "n" sound corresponding with the english "hmmm".
Like with Haku, there is a lot of confusion over Deidara's gender. Although Deidara has a somewhat feminine appearence and his name is similar to the female name 'Deirdre', his manner of speech, including the masculine pronouns oira (オイラ) and ore (オレ), suggests he's a man.
Deidara's voice in the anime is distinctly masculine, once again suggesting his gender. However, this could also be a way for the anime crew wants to keep Deidara's voice a secret until he makes his first visible appearance.
Due to the Japanese language's sparse use of pronouns, translators have to use their own ideas of Deidara's gender to make sentences flow smoothly. This has caused a lot of confusion, since both "he" and "she" are used to refer to Deidara.

Zetsu

Name: Zetsu, ゼツ
Age: ?
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Birthday: ?
Blood Type: ?
Ring: 亥 (Kai, boar)
Position: Right little finger
Partner: None
Affiliation: Akatsuki, Nukenin (Missing-nin) from Kusagakure (Hidden Grass)
Signature Ability: Spying jutsu

Not much is known about this mysterious character at the moment, only that he is Akatsuki's spy. His head appears to be enveloped in a large Venus flytrap. The right side of his face, and likely his body, is black in color while his left side is white in color. His pupil-less eyes and superior vision suggest that he may harbor something similar to Byakugan. His first appearance was after the Naruto and Sasuke fight at the end of Part 1, which he observed in secret. He was also responsible for warning Akatsuki of the positions of the approaching Team Kakashi and Team Gai during their extraction of Gaara's bijū. He has the ability to merge with trees and other plants. He is a missing-nin from Kusagakure no Sato (Hidden Grass Village).

He seems to have a split personality, as the white half of his face speaks only in Katakana, which could indicate a robotic voice , while the black side uses both Kanji and Kana. He is also a cannibal (in Ch 261, he ate Kisame's body substitute), which fits his "venus flytrap" body.

The Leader dispatched Zetsu to recover Sasori and Deidara's Akatsuki Rings since they had apparently both been killed. This highlighted some significance in the rings since Zetsu takes Sasori's ring and Tobi asks if he can join Akatsuki in Sasori's place. This leads one to believe that a potential member must have one of the rings, which would explain why Orochimaru has no replacement since he took his ring with him.

Trivia

Zetsu's ring has the kanji 亥 (Kai, boar) while the list of Akatsuki rings suggests he should have the kanji 玄 (Gen, mysteriousness). The two kanji are somewhat similar in appearance though, which suggests an error by either the artist or the reader/translator.

Akatsuki Leader

The Akatsuki leader in the anime

The Akatsuki leader in the manga

Name:
Age: ?
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Birthday: ?
Blood Type: ?
Ring: 零 (Rei/zero, zero/nothing/overflow)
Position: Right thumb
Partner: None
Affiliation: Akatsuki
Signature Ability: Fūin Jutsu: Genryū Kyū Fūjin (Sealing Technique: Illusionary Dragon Nine Consuming Seals), Shōten no Jutsu (Shapeshifting Technique)
Not much is known about this Akatsuki member except that he acts like the leader of the Akatsuki since he is the only one to have ordered other members. In the Anime during the cave meeting, he also appears to be fairly tall, about the same height as Kisame, yet with no clear view of him it is hard to say.

Possible future members

Tobi

Tobi in the manga

Name: Tobi, トビ
Age: ?
Height: ?
Weight: ?
Birthday: ?
Blood Type: ?
Ring: ?
Position: ?
Partner: ?
Affiliation: ?
Signature Ability:?

Zetsu's possible subordinate who wishes to fill in Sasori's position now that he is dead. When he found Sasori's ring, he thought he could now be a member of Akatsuki. However, Zetsu scolded him for this, saying it wasn't that easy to join Akatsuki. Tobi has a very formal, correct manner of speech. Tobi finds Deidara's other arm, but Deidara tells him to drop it. After being scolded by Deidara 3 times, Deidara jokingly strangles Tobi with his feet.

Some fans theorize that Tobi is actually (the deceased) Uchiha Obito, due to his odd one-eyed mask, short hair, clumsiness, name similarity, and uncanny humor.

Miscellaneous Information

In addition to these named members, there are three more Akatsuki yet to be identified.
Akatsuki (暁) means "Dawn" in Japanese.
Aka, in Japanese, means "Red", and Tsuki means "Moon". So, because of their red coats, many believe Akatsuki actually stands for "Red Moon".
Each Akatsuki member wears a ring, inscribed with the first kanji related to the nine mythical beasts in Japanese mythology, including the four Kyoto guardian gods (shijin). They are:

青龍- せいりゅう, Seiryū - Green/blue Dragon - God of East and Spring

白虎- びゃっこ, Byakko - White Tiger - God of West and Autumn / Fall

朱雀 - すざく, Suzaku - Phoenix (literally "Red Sparrow") - God of South and Summer

玄武 - げんぶ, Genbu - Tortoise (literally "Mysterious Warrior") - God of North and Winter

空陳 - くうちん, Kūchin - The Void

南斗 - なんじゅ, Nanjū - Southern Star

北斗 - ほくと, Hokuto - Northern Star

三台 - さんたい, Santai - The Three Levels

玉女 - ぎょくにょ, Gyokunyō - The Virgin

The group has a jutsu similar to Orochimaru's Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei (Summoning: Impure World Resurrection) named Shōten no Jutsu (Shapeshifting Technique) which allows a member to replace someone else's body with his own likeness, complete with his jutsu, chakra level, and other abilities, and control it to fight on Akatsuki's behalf.
There has been a brief mention in the manga about how each Akatsuki member seems to have been assigned one, and only one, bijū to hunt down and capture, and indeed there is (or was) one Akatsuki member for each bijū.

Notes

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・翔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").
Taken directly from the manga chapters.