Kankurō

Beneath the hood and makeup, Kankurō closely resembles his father, a likeness that only surfaces when he goes bare-faced. His outfits all borrow from bunraku puppet theatre, where handlers dress in black to keep attention on their dolls. In Part I he sports a baggy black bodysuit stamped with a red-and-yellow circle, a full hood topped by cat-like ears, and gloves, his puppets slung across his back.

Part II swaps this for a long black top and trousers cinched by a red sash, with his hair revealed as brown and his puppets now stored in scrolls. By the Fourth Shinobi World War he wears standard Sunagakure gear, his hood marked with the Allied Shinobi Forces crest. One constant across his appearances is the purple face paint, redesigned for nearly every new arc, its color a nod to the nobility that shade signals in kabuki.

Early on, Kankurō comes across as prickly, especially toward children, an irritation on full display when he tries to rough up Konohamaru. His hardest relationship is with Gaara, whom he tolerates mainly out of dread, though that fear melts away after Naruto defeats his brother and the two draw steadily closer. In time he becomes fiercely protective of Gaara, bristling at anyone who insults him, even Suna's own councillors, and throwing himself into danger alone when Akatsuki abducts his brother.

He dislikes pointless combat and takes real pride in Sunagakure, insisting his village is far from soft. His devotion to puppetry runs deep: he loves collecting the dolls and tinkering with their mechanisms, and his greatest dream, glimpsed under the Infinite Tsukuyomi, is to build the ultimate ninjutsu puppet. In the original Japanese he speaks with a rough Yokohama dialect that lends him a tough, punkish edge.

Trained hard as one of the Fourth Kazekage's children, Kankurō ranks among Suna's most capable shinobi and eventually its finest puppeteer. As a genin he already manages to kill Sakon and Ukon, the deadliest of the Sound Four, and after the timeskip he rises to jōnin and takes charge of the Surprise Attack Division during the war, proving a level-headed leader who knows when to strike and when to pull back.

His craft is the puppet. He modifies and pilots them with skill enough to draw praise from Sasori himself, guiding each through chakra threads that he can even latch onto an enemy or a rival handler's strings. Later study of the chakra pathway system lets him thread a target directly to jam their chakra and inflict severe pain. His signature is the Black Secret Technique, which he boasts has outstripped Sasori's Red style, often carried out by having Karasu herd a foe into Kuroari's hollow torso for a killing blow.

Because puppeteers falter up close, he leans on deception, switching places with his dolls, tunneling underground, or disguising them as real people. His arsenal, every piece originally crafted by Sasori, comes to include Sasori's own converted body, and after besting the reincarnated puppet master in the war he is entrusted with the Mother and Father puppets. He rounds out his skills with every basic nature transformation, wielding Wind, Lightning, Earth, and Water Release.