Uzumaki Naruto
naruto

The main character of the series, he is naturally impetuous, hyperactive and tends to rush into combat without thinking. However, he is capable of devising some quite clever plans by creative usage of his jutsus, most notably Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, when necessary. Inside Naruto is the sealed nine-tails demon fox, and when Naruto is under great stress or when his friends are severely threatened it the demon's power begins to force its way out. While seemingly uncontrollable, the demon inside Naruto- while not exactly nice whenever Naruto subconsciously faces him- is surprisingly cooperative and when truly necessary, such as in a life-threatening situation, The Kyubi's chakra will almost always lend itself to him. Naruto dreams of being acknowledged by everyone in the Leaf Village. He is an outcast (nothing like containing the demon that almost destroyed the village to ruin your reputation), and would have ended up with nothing but a desire to take revenge on leaf village had his sensei, Iruka, not acknowledged his ability and that he is different from the demon fox that attacked the village all those years ago. Naruto has a very ambiguous sort of rivalry/friendship/hatred relationship with Sasuke and has a crush on Sakura, who even after starting to respect him still largely cannot stand him. Naruto also likes Ramen. A lot. In fact, Kakashi once thought that Ramen and being Hokage were the only things he thinks about. While looking like a frivolous idiot on the surface, Naruto- unlike an unignorably large part of the series' characters- has his heart at the right place. It takes a Naruto to dare lecture Zabuza on not caring about Haku's tragic sacrifice for him, or to stand up for Hinata when Neji attempts to reduce her to a mental wreck, or to proclaim that he is going to prove that in this world... heroes do exist.

(/p>Uchiha Sasuke
sharingan
A Genin level Ninja, Sasuke is the natural genius offspring of the powerful Uchiha Clan. One of the most outstanding clans in Leaf Village, the Uchiha's advanced posess the power of the Sharingan. Sasuke's talent is not only confined to the Sharingan; before this ability even awakened he was considered the #1 Academy Ninja and the #1 rookie Genin. It is becuase of these abilities that Orochimaru is interested in Sasuke and puts his curse seal on him; Sasuke turns out to be strong enough to survive the 9/10 chance of immediate death and regains consciousness. Just by releasing Chakra the curse becomes active and forcibly pulls out more Chakra, stealing his mind. At this point the the small mark on the neck grows to wrap around Sasuke's whole body. Sasuke's willpower is surprisingly strong enough to hold back this curse and after Kakashi performs his Evil Sealing Method on him, it becomes even easier for him to control it and use his Chakra normally. Sasuke thinks of himself as an avenger; his only goal is to achieve power and be able to kill his brother, Itachi. He is even-minded and a bit arrogant, but has an inner coward he must still overcome.

Haruno Sakura
sakura
Sakura has a crush on Sasuke. This appears to be her main characteristic up until advanced stages of the series. She's often self-conscious about the size of her forehead and got teased by being called "forehead girl" at school (Ino, Sakura's childhood friend and now rival for Sasuke's affections, continues this honourable tradition). During the Chuunin exam, Sakura realizes that in her infatuation with Sasuke, she has neglected her duties as a team member - this coincides with her chopping off most of her hair (which she grew long because Sasuke apparently likes long hair), which an attacking sound-nin used to hold her by, thus symbolically freeing herself from her previous restraining tunnel vision. She still has a way to go before she fully deals with and reconciles her infatuation, however. Sakura started out extremely disliking Naruto (who has a crush on her much like her own crush on Sasuke), but has slowly started respecting him over the course of their being a team. In her early school years, Sakura was timid and was occasionally made fun of and bullied. That was until the popular Ino approached her and became her friend. Sakura looked up to Ino's looks and ability a lot; while she appreciated Ino's friendship, she couldn't help the feelings of inferiority she induced in her, as if Ino was a fully-bloomed flower and Sakura only a bud. Their friendship continued until it became clear that both of them liked Sasuke, and Sakura felt that she could never equal Ino, let alone surpass her at anything, while she was trapping herself as Ino's mere sidekick in her mind. She handed Ino her ribbon back and proclaimed that they were rivals from that point on. And bitter rivals they were, until the second stage of the chuunin exam, where Ino witnessed Sakura cut her own hair- even though it was known that Sasuke liked girls with long hair- to set herself free from her captor. It was the moment that both of them were simultaneously stricken with the fact that there are more important things than teenage romance. Later, when they tied on their battle in the third stage preliminaries, Ino told Sakura that she finally had blossomed, and- each acknowledging the other as her equal- they became friends again, although they snap into bitter rivalry mode again whenever Sasuke is mentioned. After all, old habits die hard. Sakura's main strengths are her intelligence and her great chakra control. She was able to climb trees using her chakra while it took days of constant training for Sasuke and Naruto to manage it; in the first stage of the Chuunin exam, she knew the answers to a (student assessment) test designed specifically to be so difficult for genin to accomplish that they would have to cheat. Inside Sakura resides the "Inner Sakura", which ridiculously seems to be much more mean-tempered than Naruto's Kyubi. While serving mostly comedy purposes as Sakura's typical gentle responses are juxtaposed with the inner Sakura's constant "Hell yeah"s and "Damn it"s, Sakura having 'two minds' actually came in useful when Ino hit her with the Shintenshin no Jutsu (Body-Mind Switch Technique), Inner Sakura combatting Ino's spirit where in the case of a regular person there would be no resistance.

Rock Lee
rocklee
A Genin level Ninja, he is a Taijutsu specialist and Gai's student. Incapable of using NinJutsu or GenJutsu, he spent all his time and concentration on Taijutsu. It is because of this determination and hard working ethic that Lee has become an outstanding Ninja. When in heated battle, Lee removes the extremely heavy weights he wears on his legs. This vastly increases his already amazing speed. After using his trump card and specialty technique, the Extreme Lotus for the first time against Gaara, Lee's body was so beaten up that he could barely even move, yet even after his left leg and left arm were both completely pulverised and he fell unconscious, he still stood up to prove his ninja way. However, because of all of the damage done to his body during the battle, he was told by the Leaf Village medics that he would be unable to live as a Ninja any more. He would not give up and, even with his torn and unusable body, continued to try practicing.