Konohamaru Sarutobi

Konohamaru keeps his dark-brown hair short and spiky above dark eyes, with a small chip in one tooth, and the anime sometimes gives him faint blush across the cheeks. He debuts wearing a grey helmet, then adopts Naruto's cast-off goggles through the first part of the story before switching to his own forehead protector afterward. A blue scarf has stayed with him for most of his life, shrinking from a trailing childhood length to a shorter wrap over the years.

His early wardrobe runs to grey shorts and a yellow shirt stamped with the red Konoha crest. In Part II that becomes longer trousers and a pale green jacket split down the middle by a dark stripe. Grown to adulthood, he stands fairly tall with a leaner face and a solid build, working in a flak jacket and a left armband that bears his clan's emblem.

Born to Anbu parents and named for the village by his grandfather Hiruzen, Konohamaru spent his childhood buried under the label of Honourable Grandson, which villagers used in place of his real name. Desperate to be seen as a person rather than the Hokage's descendant, he kept challenging Hiruzen for the office and steered clear of his strict tutor Ebisu. Meeting Naruto reshaped him entirely. Because Naruto struck back without a shred of deference, the boy crowned him rival and role model, trailing after him as boss and big brother.

The two share a loud, stubborn streak and a fondness for cooking up lewd jutsu, and Konohamaru even caps his sentences with a verbal tic that mirrors Naruto's. From his idol he absorbs the hard truth that the Hokage title is earned slowly, which steadies his studies and, in time, leads him to decide he will chase the seat only after Naruto has held it. Grief tempers him further. He weathers the deaths of his grandfather and his uncle Asuma with a resilience beyond his years. Maturity eventually settles over him, though the old devotion resurfaces the day he gets to mentor Naruto's son Boruto, a boy he comes to love like a younger brother.

Middling grades at the Academy owed more to laziness than any lack of gift, and once Naruto's example taught him the value of true effort, his talents flowered. As a genin he impressed Temari and struck down one of Pain's bodies, and by adulthood he ranked among Konoha's finest jōnin, praised as a Sarutobi prodigy who once subdued a rampaging Jūgo.

His signature weapon is the Rasengan, a gift from Naruto. He progresses from needing a shadow clone to form it, to shaping it one-handed, to scaling it into the Big Ball version and finally wielding a sphere in each palm powerful enough to wound a God Tree. He commands the Multiple Shadow Clone and Shuriken Shadow Clone techniques, summons giant toads and ninja monkeys, and handles fūinjutsu well enough to undo enemy seals and break barriers. In nature transformation he leans on Fire, inheriting flame techniques from both his uncle and his grandfather, and he pairs Wind with his Rasengan to sharpen and enlarge it, a feat once unique to Naruto. The anime additionally shows him using Lightning and Earth Release.