Shojoji

Towering and heavily built, Shojoji cuts an imposing figure in both height and bulk. His green hair rises into a fauxhawk combed backward, with what look like shaved patterns cut in beside each temple. Sideburns run down to meet his moustache in a friendly muttonchop, while his chin stays bare apart from faint stubble. Ink in the form of an irezumi marks his left shoulder and spreads across his back, and a chain hangs at his broad neck. Debuting in the stolen garb of his victim Yamaoka, he fills it badly: the pair differ so much in size that his gut spills past the shirt, forcing him to leave the vest and the upper buttons undone.

Cold, self-serving, and without a shred of remorse, Shojoji disposes of anyone who becomes a nuisance and even ate his own lieutenant to keep word of his capture from tarnishing the gang's name. His self-regard is enormous: he ranks himself beside Orochimaru and took real offence at being passed over for a card in the Extreme: Shinobi Picture Scrolls. Cruelty delights him, and he speaks openly of the pleasure he takes in devouring people, once fancying a dash of seasoning on Boruto's brain. In the anime his ambition runs to seeding chaos across the world; he means to slip into disguise after disguise until he reaches the Fire Daimyō, Ikkyū Madoka, and can raise a realm where crime goes unpunished.

Laziness suits the rest of him, since he leans on a scant few jutsu instead of training and gives little thought to how useful his recruits actually are. He is boastful and windy in speech, yet sharp enough to see past false fronts and cunning enough to goad the desperate Benga into cutting him loose. His survival instinct is keen too, having sent him fleeing the moment he judged Kara too dangerous. Even so, that arrogance has a ceiling: he sneers through questioning by Ibiki Morino and Sai, then folds into frightened cooperation the instant Sasuke Uchiha walks in.

Shojoji forms the Mujina Bandits and rises toward the top of the Bingo Book, his kinjutsu keeping his real name a secret. When he breaks into a hidden Amegakure facility to loot it, he overhears members of Kara talking about the Kāma seals and, sensing danger, slips out unnoticed. In the anime, run to ground by pursuers, he devours his second, Tsukiyo, wears the man's shape, and is thrown into Hōzuki Castle. That epithet of his springs from the Corpse Clone Technique, which lets him copy anyone he eats; alongside it he wields Wind Release, throwing up the Shield of the Wind Count to swat away blows and shaping a blade of wind to strike. Bulk aside, he moves fast, acts convincingly, and can make life miserable for jōnin.

Locked in solitary during the Mujina Bandits Arc, he plots to silence the deserter Kokuri, bribes the guard Benga, and finally eats Kokuri to take his face and stroll out of prison a free man. Months on, he sends his crew to rob Konoha's bank, then consumes Yamaoka, butler to the Fire Daimyō's son Tentō, and seizes the boy, demanding five hundred million ryō and freedom for every inmate of Hōzuki Castle. Just as he goes to eat Tentō, Boruto Uzumaki steps in. His wind barrier turns aside the genin's strikes until Tentō hurls a shuriken to break his focus, letting Boruto land a Rasengan. When the Kāma on Boruto's palm flares to life, a shaken Shojoji dreads that the boy belongs to Kara, and moments later Mitsuki and Sarada bring him down. Cowed under questioning once Sasuke appears, he surrenders the little he knows. Later, during the Kara Actuation Arc, he is hauled in to spar and test Boruto's progress, only for the boy's Compression Rasengan to shatter the defence he prized.