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| Alias(es) | 九喇嘛, Kurama Nine-Tailed Demon Fox (九尾の妖狐, Kyūbi no Yōko) Monster Fox (化け狐 バケ狐, Bakegitsune)[1] Furball (ファー玉, Fatama) |
| Debut | |
| Novel | Naruto: A Shinobi Story |
| Appears in | Novel |
| Character Status | |
| Species | Kitsune |
| Family | Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki (Creator) Shukaku (Sibling) Matatabi (Sibling) Isobu (Sibling) Son Gokū (Sibling) Kokuō (Sibling) Saiken (Sibling) Chōmei (Sibling) Gyūki (Sibling) |
| Affiliation(s) |  Konohagakure Allied Shinobi Forces
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| Classification | Tailed Beast Sensor Type Sage |
| Nature Type | |
 Fire Release Wind Release Lightning Release
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| Unique Traits | |
| Can detect negative emotions. | |
| Jutsu | |
| Chakra Transfer Technique, Continuous Tailed Beast Balls, Electrocution Technique, Great Roar, Foxfire, Negative Emotions Sensing, Nine-Tailed Fox Flaming Body, Nine-Tails Beam, Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, Fox Lightning, Nine-Tails Twister, Sensing Technique, Tailed Beast Ball, Tailed Beast Chakra Arms, Tailed Beast Full Charge, Tailed Beast Heavy Cannon, Tailed Beast Shockwave, Tailed Beast Telepathy | |
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Kurama (九喇嘛), more commonly known as the Nine-Tails (九尾, Kyūbi), was one of the nine tailed beasts. Centuries of being regarded as a mindless monster and sought after as a tool for war caused Kurama to hate humans. After being sealed into Naruto Uzumaki, Kurama attempts to maintain its cynical perspective about the world, but with Naruto’s insistence on treating it with respect, the fox overturns its hatred and willingly strives to use its power for the world's salvation.
Background[]
Kurama and the other young tailed beasts with Hagoromo.
Kurama and the tailed beasts first came into being in the waning days of Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, who used his Creation of All Things Technique to divide the Ten-Tails’ chakra into nine separate bodies, giving them each a name. Sometime after being created, the Sage explained to the young tailed beasts that a link existed between them despite their separation. He also foretold of a day when they would be brought together again ― though not as they were ― and that at that time someone would emerge to show them what true power is.[2][3] Before his death, Hagoromo sent Kurama to live in a temple built for the purpose of protecting it in a forest region with mountains that would later become part of the Land of Fire.[4] Over time, Kurama gained a fearsome reputation as a natural disaster that can desolate areas where the darkest aspects of human nature collect and fester.[5][6]
Kinkaku and Ginkaku vs. Kurama.
During the time of the founding of the shinobi villages, the Gold and Silver Brothers of Kumogakure were assigned to capture Kurama, but were both swallowed whole by the fox; however, the two brothers survived and gained some of its power by eating the flesh of its stomach for two weeks, forcing Kurama to regurgitate them.[7][8][9]
Kurama and Madara Uchiha vs. Hashirama Senju.
After Madara Uchiha's defection from Konohagakure, he found Kurama and used his Sharingan to control it, forcing the fox to help him fight against Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage. The epic battle left a colossal scar on the earth that would come to be called the Valley of the End. After his victory over Madara, Kenshirō Shunsoku and Hashirama’s wife, Mito Uzumaki, sealed the fox inside her, becoming its first jinchūriki.
Over the period of time which included the first two Shinobi World Wars, Mito kept Kurama at bay except when the seal nearly broke when she was going through childbirth. Towards the final years of Mito’s life, it was decided that a new jinchūriki would have to be found, and that was another member of her clan, Kushina Uzumaki. Although Kushina was terrified when she learned of it, Mito comforted her young successor by telling her that by filling herself with love, Kushina would overcome the fox’s hatred.[10] This was shown years later that despite Kurama’s constant attempts to destroy her hope for happiness as its jinchūriki and coerce her to break the seal, Kushina’s love for Minato Namikaze and vice versa, her close friendship with Toshirō, his wife Mina, and Mikoto Uchiha were proven to be strong enough to contain the fox.
Kurama getting extracted from Kushina.
Soon after the end of the Third Shinobi World War, the Third Hokage and his wife made special arrangements for Minato to ensure that Kurama would remain sealed inside Kushina while she gave birth to Naruto on the night of October 10; however, despite keeping the childbirth a secret, a masked man called Tobi tracked down their location, killed their escorts, and held Naruto hostage, forcing Minato to quickly rescue him and teleport him to safety. Right after Tobi captured Kushina, he extracted and seized control of Kurama. He tried to have the fox kill its barely surviving jinchūriki, but Minato made it in time to save her. Soon afterward, the masked man summoned Kurama into Konoha and ordered it to destroy the village.
Kurama attacks Konoha.
While Kurama was rampaging in the village, Minato fought against Tobi and soon managed to place a Contract Seal on him, which freed the fox from his control. Despite that, Kurama still harbored resentment against Konoha for sealing it away and continued decimating the shinobi forces that tried to repel it until the village’s Tailed Beast Without a Tail arrived and managed to kick Kurama in the head, grabbed him by the tail, and threw the Tailed Beast outside the village. Kurama battled Toshirō and the rest of Konoha’s forces arrived when it prepared and fired a Tailed Beast Ball at Hokage Mountain when Minato teleported it away. He then summoned Gamabunta on top of Kurama alongside Toshirō and teleported them away to Kushina’s and Naruto’s location. Already dying from the extraction, Kushina used her remaining strength to restrain Kurama, planning to seal the fox back inside her so it would die with her; however, knowing that Kurama would revive without a host and how great a threat Tobi was, Minato instead came up with a plan to give his son the means to combat the masked man in the future.[11]
Kurama moments after being sealed within Naruto.
Minato would use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal to seal Kurama within Naruto and then prepared the Eight Trigrams Seal to seal a portion of his and Kushina’s chakra into their son when the boy attempts to control Kurama’s power. Realizing what they were planning, Kurama attempted to kill Naruto, but Toshirō used himself as a shield so Minato could complete the sealing. Later, upon awakening within Naruto’s subconscious and learning the reason behind Minato’s Kurama, though frustrated of being sealed again, decided to wait for the time to come when it would influence Naruto as much as it can to use its power to break the seal.[12] Throughout the years, Kurama weakened the seal through the cracks of its formation by constantly leaking out small portions of its chakra, which had positive side effects on Naruto such as amplifying his naturally large chakra reserves and healing ability, being able to heal from minor wounds within seconds to major injuries within a day.
Personality[]
Appearance[]
Kurama is a red-orange colored kitsune with black fur around its red eyes that stretch up to its ears, and nine long swiping tails. It also has an upper body structure of a human, complete with opposite thumbs on its clawed hands.
During the last remaining days of Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, Kurama in its youth was much smaller in size, yet still towering over an adult human, with leaner and softer while less defined in shape with a rounder face, akin to a fox cub. Over time, Kurama’s size grew roughly equaling the Hokage Mountain. Against the stump of the God Tree, Kurama towered over it, and Gamabunta was only the size of its torso. Its pupils alone were bigger than a tall human.
While manifesting its Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, the fox’s entire body took on a transparent golden color, its whiskers were much thicker, and black circular markings appeared on its shoulders, stomach, and the front of its paws. Black lines also run the length of its spine, arms, legs, and tails. Additionally, while Naruto is in Sage Mode, Kurumi gained similar thick dark patches circling around its eyes. Upon gaining Naruto’s Six Paths Chakra, Kurumi’s Tailed Beast Mode avatar grew to tremendous proportions, roughly the same size as Satsuki Uchiha’s Six Paths Chakra-enhanced Complete body — Susanoo, with its tails becoming bushier.
Abilities[]
Kurama’s physical power.
Kurama is widely known as the strongest of the nine tailed beasts.[13][14] Hashirama Senju, who could subdue the fox, viewed it as too powerful and dangerous to be left roaming free.[15] Even with five tailed beasts attacking at the same time, Kurama was strong enough to defeat all of them.[16] The only people who can match and subdue Kurama were Madara Uchiha and Sasuke Uchiha, Hashirama Senju with his Wood Release, Kisame Hoshigaki with Samehada, and every member of the Shunsoku and Uzumaki clans, respectively.
Chakra and Physical Prowess[]
Kurama’s chakra is enough to power up an entire shinobi army.
Even for a tailed beast, Kurama possessed massive reserves of powerful chakra, required to be sealed last into the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path to avoid overloading it.[17] It could also accumulate a huge amount of chakra shortly after it has used up most of its own, enough to be passed on to the entire Allied Shinobi Forces and be felt countries away by non-sensors.[18] Due to Naruto’s compatibility with Kurama’s chakra, any chakra it possessed is limited for its jinchūriki alone unless it was molded to fit the recipient’s unique chakra signature.[19] When used by others, the chakra became dense enough to be seen as a visible shroud than can further protect the wearer. Using its chakra, Kurama could shroud itself within its Nine-Tails Chakra Mode to increase its power.
Kurama’s display of raw strength and power.
Kurama had a great deal of brute force, reputedly able to raise tsunamis and flatten mountains with just a single swipe of a tail.[20] Alone, it can overpower Obito’s controlled tailed beasts,[21] smash Madara’s senjutsu-enhanced Susanoo with just a tail,[22] and with the Six Paths Chakra, battle Sasuke’s Tailed Beast-enhanced Complete Body — Susanoo.[23] Kurama was deceptively quite fast, able to catch Naruto in Sage Mode[24] and Toshirō in its claws. The fox was also durable enough to withstand several senjutsu-enhanced attacks,[25] and withstand Toshirō’s most devastating attacks with only minor damage.
Ninjutsu[]
Kurama supercharges a Tailed Beast Ball even on low chakra.
As a tailed beast, Kurama could create a Tailed Beast Ball, and was able to fire it as a beam or rapid blast of spheres. Unlike most tailed beasts, Kurama could supercharge it, creating one many times its own size for much greater power, even on wisps of chakra. One of these was powerful enough to counter a collaborated Tailed Beast Ball from five tailed beasts.[26][27]
Kurama could create destructive shockwaves, capable of dispersing a massive Rasengan, knocking back five tailed beasts at once, and destroying entire city blocks as shown when he used it against Konoha.[28][29] Even when limited through Naruto’s Version 1 and Version 2 states, they were strong enough to destroy an entire bridge and repel Pain’s Shinra Tensei respectively.[30][31] Kurama also had adept sensor skills, able to detect chakra from great distances and uniquely able to sense negative emotions,[32] as well as natural energy, which it could accumulate and transfer to Naruto to create senjutsu chakra.[33]
Nature Transformation[]
Kurama using Fire Release.
Kurama has extensive knowledge of all five nature transformations, all combinations of the five elemental affinities, and can use Wind, Fire, and Lightning Release, being able to generate twisters, breathe fire,[34] and produce lightning from its body and tails.
Intelligence[]
Kurama was very cunning and could formulate strategies in the midst of battle. Through Naruto’s body, the fox tricked Obito into using Kamui to absorb Kakashi into Kamui’s dimension, only for Obito to become vulnerable to Kakashi’s attacks as he phased through Naruto’s punch.[35] Kurama had also shown remarkable leadership skills, being able to calmly and effectively instruct its allies on how best to engage the Ten-Tails.[36] It also had enough knowledge of fūinjutsu to determine the natures and weaknesses of the Eight Trigrams Seal that bound it inside Naruto.[37]
Part I[]
Prologue — Land of Waves[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Prologue — Land of Waves
Chūnin Exams (Arc)[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Chūnin Exams (Arc)
Search for Tsunade Senju[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Search for Tsunade Senju
Sasuke Recovery Mission[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Sasuke Recovery Mission
Interlude[]
Part II[]
Kazekage Rescue Mission[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Kazekage Rescue Mission
Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance Mission[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance Mission
Akatsuki Suppression Mission[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Akatsuki Suppression Mission
Pain’s Assault (Arc)[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Pain’s Assault (Arc)
Five Kage Summit (Arc)[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Five Kage Summit (Arc)
Fourth Shinobi World War (Arc)[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Fourth Shinobi World War (Arc)
Birth of the Ten-Tails’ Jinchūriki[]
Main article: Naruto: A Shinobi Story/Birth of the Ten-Tails’ Jinchūriki
Trivia[]
- Kurama was the first character shown in the series.
- “Kurama” (九喇嘛) literally means "nine lama". Kishimoto was mainly inspired to create Kurama based on the character with the same name from the manga series Yū Yū Hakusho.[38] The name may also reference Mount Kurama (鞍馬山, Kurama-yama), the sacred mountain said to be the home of Sōjōbō, a tengu who taught the arts of swordsmanship to Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
- Furthermore, in the jōruri and kabuki play Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees, Minamoto no Yoshitsune is accompanied by Genkurō, a kitsune disguising himself as Yoshitsune’s retainer, Satō Tadanobu.
- Kitsune (狐, fox) are popular animal yōkai in Japanese folklore, and are very well-known to be cunning tricksters with shape-shifting abilities, to which on occasion, use to transform themselves into beautiful women in order to seduce men (possibly the inspiration for the Sexy Technique; for instance, Naruto thought Kushina was Kurama when they first met). They are also said to be rivals to the tanuki, which created an old Japanese proverb: “A fox and a tanuki matching their cleverness” (狐と狸の化かし合い, kitsune to tanuki no bakashi ai), which meant the two sly characters trying to outsmart one another. However, kitsune are known to keep their promises, a trait Naruto has with his nindō. Stories often depict kitsune growing additional tails as they age, which increases their magical power; once a kitsune reaches 1,000 years of age and grows its ninth and final tail, its fur turns to gold and becomes a tenko (fox) (天狐, celestial fox), making themselves equivalent to a kami.
- In the manga pilot, Kurama was actually Naruto's father, who attacked the village of Mt. Oinari and required nine shinobi to defeat him. Hiruzen was the only survivor and had taken pity on Naruto, who had taken human form and allowed him to live in the village.
Quotes[]
- (To Naruto) “I suppose I can’t kill you, can I? After all, you die, I die. Your courage is impressive, little boy… Very well, as a reward for making it this far, I will loan you my chakra!”[39]
- (To Naruto) “You runt, you really are weak! You better be grateful to me… and to your beloved Fourth Hokage, who sealed me inside a twerp like you!”[40]
- (To Sasuke) “With that vision of yours and chakra more ominous than my own… You’re the spitting image of Madara Uchiha from the elder days…”[41]
- (To Naruto) “Destroy everything… Erase everything that hurts you… Entrust your heart to me… I will save you from your pain…”[42]
- (To Naruto) “You don’t have what it takes to control my power! You’re nothing more than a mere fragment of my hatred!”[43]
- (To Naruto) “Are you stupid!? I am the Nine-Tails! I haven’t fallen so far that a little brat can influence me! I am hatred incarnate!”[44]
- (About Naruto) “Naruto… If you really want to do something for us… then do what you’ve always done… Prove it to us with your actions! That's who you are!”[45]
- (To Obito about Naruto) “Sorry, but… this guy doesn’t suit your words. The Fourth Hokage entrusted me to him, and not only has Naruto befriended me… he mastered my power as well!! The Fourth sealed me inside Naruto… to take you down! Go… Naruto! You won’t fail!!”[46]
References[]
- ↑ Naruto chapter 1, page 12
- ↑ Naruto chapter 467, pages 15-16
- ↑ Naruto chapter 572
- ↑ Naruto: Shippūden episode 464
- ↑ Naruto chapter 149, page 9
- ↑ Naruto chapter 370, page 14
- ↑ Naruto chapter 527, page 5
- ↑ Naruto chapter 529, pages 3-4
- ↑ Naruto chapter 594, page 6
- ↑ Naruto chapter 500
- ↑ Naruto chapter 503
- ↑ Naruto: Shippūden episode 327
- ↑ Naruto chapter 471, page 11
- ↑ Naruto chapter 567, page 10
- ↑ Naruto chapter 568, page 8
- ↑ Naruto chapter 571
- ↑ Naruto chapter 353, page 5
- ↑ Naruto chapter 616, pages 4-6
- ↑ Naruto chapter 698, page 3
- ↑ Naruto chapter 1, page 1
- ↑ Naruto chapter 571
- ↑ Naruto chapter 658, page 11
- ↑ Naruto chapter 695
- ↑ Naruto chapter 497, pages 6-7
- ↑ Naruto chapter 610, page 14
- ↑ Naruto chapter 571
- ↑ Naruto chapter 572
- ↑ Naruto chapter 497, page 5
- ↑ Naruto chapter 571
- ↑ Naruto chapter 292, pages 9-11
- ↑ Naruto chapter 438, pages 5-6
- ↑ Naruto chapter 496, page 10
- ↑ Naruto chapter 696, page 14
- ↑ Naruto: Shippūden episode 167
- ↑ Naruto chapter 609, pages 9-14
- ↑ Naruto chapter 610, pages 9-10
- ↑ Naruto: Shippūden episode 327
- ↑ Second Artbook, pages 74-81
- ↑ Naruto chapter 95, pages 16-17
- ↑ Naruto chapter 230, page 16
- ↑ Naruto chapter 309, page 3
- ↑ Naruto chapter 439, page 11
- ↑ Naruto chapter 539, page 2
- ↑ Naruto chapter 539, page 2
- ↑ Naruto chapter 569, pages 15-17
- ↑ Naruto chapter 597, pages 18-20