Matsuri

Matsuri keeps her brown hair cut straight at the chin, set against dark eyes and light skin. Her early anime look centred on a blue-green top slipping off one shoulder over a pink-and-white sleeveless shirt, a short yellow neck-scarf, a black skirt, thigh-length stockings, brown sandals, and a single grey elbow-length guard on her right arm. For the Chunin Exams she switched to twin arm guards, a cut-shouldered dark pink shirt over a white layer, and a black forehead protector in place of the scarf. By Part II she wears a matching dark shirt and skirt beneath a Suna flak jacket.

On the page, Matsuri is simply an ardent admirer of Gaara and other strong shinobi, with reference material noting she has eyes for no other sort of man. The anime widens that adoration to include Naruto Uzumaki by the time of the Fourth Shinobi World War, though Gaara stays her clear favourite; she bristles when he is mocked and will ignore orders to act on his behalf. She begins as a shy, polite girl careful with honorifics, but under Gaara's mentorship she turns braver and more outspoken, even brushing off a Tsuchikage's instructions. Reluctant to touch weapons in Part I, she later takes them up to defend her comrades and her village's honour while still avoiding real harm to others. For all her usual sweetness, she can turn sharply aggressive, having struck Naruto, Ittetsu, and Kiba across various appearances.

In the anime, Matsuri's fear of violence traces to witnessing her parents' murder as a child. Enrolled in Suna's new Academy, she alone picked Gaara as her weapons instructor, and though she struggled to grasp his teaching that a weapon can guard others rather than wound them, the two grew close. Her importance to him made her a target: the Four Celestial Symbols Men seized her to reach the One-Tail's chakra sealed inside Gaara. Freed by Gaara, his siblings, and the Konoha 11, she finally understood his lesson by using her johyo, a dart tied to a long rope, to save Naruto from Seimei's killing blow. The weapon serves mainly to keep foes at bay, but she can turn it to attack, and her skill with it once pushed the taijutsu master Shira to unleash his Seven Heavens Breathing Method.

Two years on she entered the joint Suna-Konoha Chunin Exams with Mikoshi and Yukata, clearing the written stage and the Demon Desert before her team was caught up in rescuing a captured Gaara alongside Team Guy and Fu's squad; the exam was ultimately cancelled. When Akatsuki abducted Gaara, she joined the search and was placed on Temari's patrol team, witnessing his revival. She later saw him off to the Kage Summit, served in the Fourth Division during the war as part of a Wind Release unit sent against the reincarnated Third Raikage, and awoke beside Yukata once the Infinite Tsukuyomi was broken.