Shikamaru Nara

Shikamaru Nara is a male anime and manga character who features in Naruto.

Biography

Origin

Shikamaru Nara (奈良 シカマル, Nara Shikamaru) was a male human born as the son of Shikaku Nara and Yoshino Nara of the Nara Clan of Konohagakure in the Ninja World.

Whilst at the village, the young Shikamaru often played with the other kids where they often divided themselves into teams. One of the fellow kids was Choji Akimichi where he noticed that how the other children wanted to keep him out of their groups because their team often lost a game when he was with them. They ultimately decided to vote him off the teams despite Shikamaru standing up for him. This saw him leave the group as well and he instead decided to join Choji leading to the two becoming close friends. Upon entering Konoha's Ninja Academy, they'd usually sit together in class and hang out afterwards. Shikamaru had very little interest in the class itself, preferring to spend his time sleeping rather than listen to Iruka Umino's lessons. Shikamaru showed the same lack of enthusiasm for the tests he was given and couldn't be bothered to actually answer the questions, leading to his poor grades During this time, his sensei Asamu introduced Shikamaru to shogi where he quickly developed a talent for the game. Upon graduating from the Academy, Shikamaru is added to Asuma Sarutobi's Team 10, along with Chōji Akimichi and Ino Yamanaka. In the anime, Shikamaru is surprised that Naruto Uzumaki also graduated since Naruto failed their in-class graduation exam.

Naruto

Despite how recently they graduated from the Academy, Asuma enters Team 10 in the Chūnin Exams being held in Konoha. Shikamaru agrees to participate, but nevertheless complains repeatedly about the competition with the many other participating genin, especially his fellow recent graduates: the members of Team 7 and Team 8. For the first stage of the exams, they are given a written test with ten questions too difficult for the standard genin to be able to answer, and for which reason participants are expected to cheat without getting caught. Ino uses her Mind Body Switch Technique on Shikamaru to fill out his exam sheet with answers she copied from Sakura Haruno. Shikamaru was glad for Ino's intervention, as he did not want to bother answering the questions on his own with Team 10 ultimately passing the test. For the second stage of the exams, Team 10 enters the Forest of Death to take part in a five-day survival exercise. Team 10 initially spends their time avoiding conflict, hiding whenever they come across another team. When they discover Sakura defending her teammates from a team of Oto-nin by herself, Shikamaru asks Ino if they should help her. Ino decides to, and Shikamaru drags Chōji along to provide additional support. Team 10 initiates Formation Ino–Shika–Chō: Chōji attacks Zaku Abumi with Human Bullet Tank, Shikamaru immobilises Dosu Kinuta with his Shadow Imitation Technique, and Ino uses her Mind Body Switch on Kin Tsuchi. Ino tries to use Kin as a hostage, but Zaku opts to attack Kin himself rather than let her be used against him. Too tired to offer much more of a fight, Team 10 wonders what to do. When Sasuke regains consciousness, Shikamaru has them withdraw, sensing that Sasuke can deal with the Oto-nin on his own.

After passing the second stage, the remaining genin take part in one-on-one preliminary matches. Shikamaru, to his annoyance, is matched against Kin, who uses bells tied with strings to distract Shikamaru, giving her an opening to attack him with senbon; in the anime, the bells also produce a genjutsu, further disorienting Shikamaru. Shikamaru alters his shadow's shape and directs it to Kin under the cover of the strings she's holding on to, allowing him to ensnare her without her notice. After revealing his technique, he takes a shuriken from his holster and throws it, forcing Kin to do the same. Shikamaru dodges Kin's shuriken by bending backwards, forcing her to dodge his shuriken in the same way. Upon doing this, Kin knocks her head against the wall behind her, rendering her unconscious, ensuring Shikamaru's victory. When the preliminaries conclude, Shikamaru and the other finalists are informed who their first opponents will be when they reconvene after a month of rest and training. Because there are an odd number of finalists, Shikamaru is scheduled to fight Dosu in an additional match. Shikamaru is frustrated that he'll need to do additional work if he's to win the tournament. From listening to the Third Hokage's explanation about how the finals will be handled, Shikamaru speculates that one doesn't need to actually win the tournament in order to be promoted to chūnin, which the Third confirms when Shikamaru asks him: genin are promoted based on performance, not wins or losses. After they disperse, Chōji overeats in an effort to console himself for losing his preliminary match, sending him to the Konoha Hospital. While Shikamaru is visiting him there the day before the finals, he also visits Naruto, who is recovering from his training. As Shikamaru and Naruto are talking, they notice Gaara entering Rock Lee's room, intent on killing him. Shikamaru stops him with his shadow and tries to convince Gaara to leave by pointing out that he and Naruto outnumber him, but Gaara isn't deterred. After telling them a little about his childhood, Gaara prepares to kill them, his sand not being inhibited by Shikamaru's shadow. Might Guy arrives before he can do anything to them and forces Gaara to leave.

The audience simply booed the coming match as they felt Shikamaru was not a strong ninja and instead they were more keen to see the match between Gaara and Sasuke. Forced into a fight with Temari, Shikamaru put himself at a distance from his foe who used her wind jutsu against him. Hiding from the shadows, he attempted to use his shadow possession jutsu but simply reached his range with Temari keeping at a distance. Unknown to her, the Nara clan ninja prolonged their fight so that the setting sun would let to more shadows forming that would increase his range. Thus, as the fight prolonged, the range of his jutsu increased and he kept forcing Temari back in the fight. Feeling confident, the sand ninja did not realise that her foe was actually forcing her to a hole created from Naruto's earlier match that was linked to another one closer to Shikamaru. After strategically placing Temari by the hole, he used his shadow possession jutsu through its counterpart and travelled underground to take over her shadow on the other side. This tactic surprised the audience with many impressed at the young shinobi's skill though ultimately he forfeited the match where he claimed that he used too much of his chakra to complete his victory as his shadow possession was about to expire shortly. Thus, Temari won and many in the audience felt cheated at what they felt was a victory for Shikamaru.

The talent he showed led to Shikamaru being awarded the position of chunnin after the Third Hokage's recommendation with Tsunade seeing his promotion. This led to his team celebrating his rise to chunnin with a feast held in his honor. Around this time, he was summoned to the Hokage's office where Tsunade revealed that Sasuke Uchiha had left the hidden leaf and was going to the hidden sound village. Thus, a mission was assigned to Shikamaru to bring Sasuke back to Konohagakure and to prevent him from falling into the clutches of Orochimaru. Upon being given the assignment, Shikamaru was allowed to gather a team for the task where he requested chunnin and jonin but was informed that manpower shortages meant that the Fifth Hokage could not comply with that request. Instead, she told him to gather what talented gennin he could find and depart the village immediately for the mission. She immediately suggested that he take Naruto with him with Shikamaru then selecting Choji, Kiba, and Neji for the assignment. The team then immediately left the village as Shikamaru took charge and assigned a battle formation for them as they set forth for the hidden sound village.

Despite his efforts, he was unable to save Asuma who was fatally wounded by Hidan's attack though the team was largely saved by the arrival of leaf reinforcements. They managed to prevent Kakuzu from claiming Asuma's body for the bounty on it where Shikamaru reached a nearby rooftop just as Choji and Ino arrived. Checking his heart, Shikamaru heard a faint heart beat and thought the team's sensei could be saved but it was too late and Sarutobi gave his final words to his students before passing away. The death deeply impacted the team who returned to Konohagakure where Shikamaru reported back to the Hokage.

Next Generations

Later on, Shikamaru came to marry Temari where the couple had a son who they name Shikadai Nara.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In appearance, Shikamaru Nara was a male human with narrow brown eyes and shoulder length black hair that he tied in a spiky ponytail. He typically had an expression that showed that he was either bored or irritated.

Shikamaru was lazy by nature where he found any task to be too much of an effort. Instead, he preferred to spend his days sleeping, watching the clouds, or playing games of shōgi and Go. It was this same lack of enthusiasm that meant that he could not be bothered to actually answer the questions during his test leading to his poor grades.

He was fond of shogi and an avid player of the game. He was actually introduced to this game by his sensei Asuma Sarutobi where he quickly demonstrated a talent in shogi. In fact, he was able to defeat his sensei after only a short time being introduced to the game.

Early on, he would describe himself as 'the number one coward' but despite that he had a strong moral compass and dedication to his friends.

The death of his sensei Asuma led to Shikamar recognising that the world was not a safe place and that he could not be kept protected from it forever. After avenging Asuma, Shikamaru decided to takes it upon himself to do all that he could to make things better for future Konoha generations.

One of the things he found 'troublesome' in life was women based on his experiences with his mother, his close friend Ino and his companion Temari. Each of them he described as being aggressive, demanding, and sometimes even scary. Shikamaru tried to treat women delicately, being non-confrontational or at least polite to them and never asking anything of them that he believed he could do himself.

Shikamaru was was the son of Shikaku Nara and Yoshino Nara making him part of the Nara Clan.

From childhood, he had been close friends with Choji Akimichi and believed in his talents as a ninja.

He came to greatly respect his sensei Asamu Sarutobi and worked closely under him. After his death at the hands of Hidan, Shikamaru decided to avenge his sensei by killing the Akatsuki ninja.

By adulthood, he came to marry Temari of the sand village where the two had a son together who they named Shikadai Nara.

Powers and abilities

Shikamaru Nara was a human who possessed a life force of Chakra (チャクラ, chakura) allowing him to perform a number of Jutsu (術, literally meaning: skills/techniques). Despite his laziness, Shikamaru was noted for his high degree of intelligence with him having an IQ of 200. It was said that he often three steps ahead of his foe and often strategically manoeuvred them into positions that favoured him. The Akatsuki Kakuzu came to be impressed at the intelligence and deductive skills of the young Shikamaru Nara.

These traits also made him an effective team leader with him being able to coordinate his team mates on a mission. Such was his talent that the feudal lord had even requested for Shikamaru to join their personal guard which was a pathway that would have led to the Twelve Guardian Ninja who were the bodyguards of the Land of Fire's daimyō.

Among the techniques known to him included:

• Shadow Imitation Technique (影真似の術­, Kagemane no Jutsu) :
• Shadow Gathering Technique (影寄せの術­, Kageyose no Jutsu) :
• Shadow Clutch Technique (影掴みの術­, Kagezukami no Jutsu) :
• Shadow Sewing Technique (影縫いの術­, Kage Nui no Jutsu) :
• Shadow–Neck Binding Technique (影首縛りの術­, Kage–Kubishibari no Jutsu) :

Alongside Ino Yamanaka and Chōji Akimichi, Shikamaru was able to perform a team formation that combined their abilities with this being known as Formation Ino–Shika–Chō (フォーメーション猪鹿蝶­, Fōmēshon Ino–Shika–Chō).

He was a member of the Nara Clan (奈良一族, Nara Ichizoku) who were one of the prominent ninja clans of Konohagakure.

Notes

• Shikamaru Nara was created by Masashi Kishimoto where he featured in the setting of the Naruto universe.

Appearances

• Naruto:
• Boruto: Naruto Next Generations:

External Links

• Naruto Wiki Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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