Akino

Akino is quick to spot thanks to the dark shades he never takes off. His coat is tan, split by a lone white stripe that begins at the crown and runs the length of his snout. He sports the pack's usual blue vest, marked by a heno-heno-moheji design, plus a Konoha forehead protector worn at the throat. In its earliest anime appearance his fur was drawn wholly tan, a choice revised once the manga colored him in.

Among the few ninken able to talk, Akino also boasts senses keen enough to follow a mark with little effort. Underground, he can pursue that target through his Earth Release summoning, the Tracking Fang Technique, and once he catches up he pins a foe so Kakashi may strike unhindered. Alongside the rest of the pack he drills a range of attacking and guarding formations that play to the dogs' agility and strong limbs.

In the anime, once the pack sealed its contract with Kakashi, Akino helped hunt for the kidnapped Rin Nohara and drew the enemy's attention so she might be spirited away, and he later joined the chase after a fleeing Orochimaru. On the Land of Waves job the dogs ran down the rogue Zabuza Momochi, clamping onto him and holding him fast so Kakashi could loose the Lightning Cutter with no risk of retaliation.

He was summoned again to follow Naruto's squad as it chased Sasuke, and in the anime to scout out the Takumi Village. Come Part II, the pack tracked the Akatsuki's Sasori from a scrap of his garment, and Kakashi recalled them to hunt Itachi Uchiha, teaming Akino and Guruko with Shino. Around the Five Kage Summit he ran intel scrolls out to the other villages, and during the Tobishachimaru crisis the dogs gathered the exploding tags rigged aboard and passed them to Might Guy.