But sometimes that anger is totally justified in being directed at some characters. Specifically characters that are either unforgettably infuriating, infuriatingly forgettable, or somewhere in the between. And when it comes to Naruto, we’re listing out the most angering characters right here for your entertainment. We’re a little like dancing monkeys, except we spend a lot of time watching anime rather than bashing cymbals together…
15. Sakura Haruno
Sakura is moreso on the list to highlight the actual outrage that this character seemed to provoke, rather than my own personal opinion. Early Sakura divided opinions in a way that many characters never could. While some saw her as a fairly inoffensive if under-utilized part of a love triangle for the sake of it, others bemoaned her very presence. Abusive, useless, weak, selfish – just a few of the many words bandied about that really let you know what people were feeling at the time! As much as I think her development has been a good thing for the series, and has helped to lift the stereotype of female characters in the show (more on that later), it would still be remiss of me to not mention a character that was genuinely hated for one reason or another.
14. Ebisu
Ebisu straight-up sucks. Alright, the entry for this one isn’t going to be that short… but honestly, it really could be! He’s not the strongest character in strength levels. Most of the time he seems to just… give Naruto grief for being an orphan? For little to no reason as well. Also, his nosebleed at the sight of a transformed Naruto is, well… more than a little unnerving. I’ll say that as clear as I can. He does get a rather touching development much later in his arc. But for the majority of the time he was around, I think we would have been a lot better off if he wasn’t.
13. Konohamaru
While he certainly isn’t the worst offender on this list by any stretch of the imagination, Konohamaru has the unfortunate effect of his reputation preceding him – and tainting his character that way. You see, he was just the most annoying thing on the face of the Earth for a time. I think it was supposed to be endearing in a “rascally Cockney orphan” sort of way. But it felt far more grating than anything else. The “Boruto” series did a lot to undo the bad reputation he garnered by making him an impressive and important character. It’s just a shame that when we’re first introduced to him, I wanted to throw him off a cliff.
12. Yota
Nobody likes someone who tries to barge in on a friendship. Yota is that sort of a person, with a whole lot more attached. It’s a pretty big retcon to try and hoist Sasuke from the position of Naruto’s first bestie – but that’s exactly what they tried with Yota, to a chorus of “who cares?” from the fans. But what really got their goat (and mine) was the sheer pointlessness of the character in the grand scheme of things. Oh, that and he’s got the most teeth-grindingly horrendous chant in the history of the world. And it makes me want to push corks in my ears every time I hear it. But apart from that, harmless enough.
11. Sasuke Uchiha
I can hear the controversy alarm going off as I type this already. But Sasuke has absolutely been at the center of fan hate since, well, since he was introduced really. It could be because of his power levels –people see him as so absurdly overpowered that there’s little to no point in anyone even attempting to fight him. Or it could be because of how he acts as a husband and father later on, though a lot of that can have fingers of blame pointed at his childhood. Not that I’m justifying it! Oh, there’s also the small matter of him being the reason his village was razed when he was a child. I can see now why that might provoke an emotional response.
10. Hinata Hyuga
Poor, sweet Hinata. We really tried to overlook the fact that your love interest storyline has been done a thousand times, a thousand better ways – some of them in the same anime. We wanted to act like you were a useful and well-developed character, rather than having the emotional range of a spoon with a heart shaped sticker on it. And we really desperately wanted you not to be the typical shounen love interest, who fawns over the main character to the ends of the Earth and has absolutely zero other defining features. She really might as well have been a tree in the background for all the good she did for so long!
9. Hiruzen Sarutobi
Here’s proof that multi-faceted characters can also be hated too. Hiruzen has a lot to answer for when it comes to the way Naruto was treated as a child. And not just Naruto, either – facing an eight year old with no parents to just sort of live in the village by himself is only one part of the story! He also made the call on Sasuke getting to live in his dead family’s house, in his dead village, after his brother annihilated the place. There’s only so much good grace being the Third Hokage gets you, Hiruzen. And you’ve wasted it pretty much immediately!
8. Ino Yamanaka
Another day, another pointless love interest story shoe-horned in to make the main character(s) look like more of a big deal. Shounen has really set some terrible precedents when it comes to these sorts of relationships! What also put Ino on thin ice with a lot of fans was that she was essentially a more useless Sakura for long periods of time. Yes, the same Sakura everyone hated already for being useless. Safe to say Ino wasn’t exactly given a strong chance to survive fan fury. Though she was given some redemption in the Boruto series, they essentially tried to erase her from existence in the show’s original run.
7. Shizune
Shizune isn’t quite the most useless and underutilized character on the list, but they’re running it pretty darn close… Shizune has the benefit of actually having something to do in the series that isn’t making gooey eyes at Naruto or Sasuke. That thing to do, however, is acting as some sort of office assistant. Sigh. Yes, once again a female character not only takes a back seat, but is reduced to what might as well be a rock or a vase – just an object in a room with no features other than “existing”. I’m starting to think I could have called this list “The Most Pointless Characters In Naruto History” and still wound up with roughly the same choices.
6. Tenten
Wherever we land on lists that detail characters fans love to hate, Tenten is usually not far behind. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s the same old issue of a female character just sort of existing in the show, with no real story or arc or action to speak of. At least some of the other female characters get to fawn over Naruto for a little while to keep them relevant. Tenten? She’s somehow boastful, despite being an average shinobi at best – and frankly not worth the effort at worst.
5. Kaguya Otsutsuki
When it comes to crafting the perfect “final boss”, you have to take a lot into account. How the story ties into the heroes, motivations, ultimate goals. It also needs to make some amount of sense. Step forward Kaguya Otsutsuki, who was created in such a way that she missed the mark on every single one of those criteria. Given her significance, it’s a little outrageous that this is the final draft the fans ended up getting to see. She was rushed, nonsensical, and nothing more than a colossal let down. One of those moments where everything came together as worse than the sum of its already lackluster parts.
4. Boruto Uzumaki
I get it. Living in Naruto’s shadow has got to be pretty difficult, especially if you’re his son. All that weight of expectation and pressure will surely make a diamond out of the raw coal, right? Right?! According to the fans – no dice. And it’s not hard to see why. Naruto had a grand goal and faced untold hardships on the way to achieving it. Literal life and death stuff, it was a part of what made his character so likeable. His son, however, faced no such hardships on the way to his own goal. In fact, it felt like he went out of his way to create extra not-quite-hardships to keep the story moving. Also – cheating on his exams? That’s not cool, man. Cheaters never win! Except he never really faced any serious consequences for it. Oops.
3. Rasa
Where to start with Rasa… He’s not going to be winning any “Father of the Year” awards any time soon, let’s be honest. Jokes aside, what we’re shown of what he did in the series is nothing short of monstrous. Rasa’s experiments on his pregnant wife and unborn child unsurprisingly ended in tragedy, with his wife dead and his son unable to rein in his powers. Long story short, Rasa is a terrible person. And what’s the icing on the cake? Sending assassins after your own child because you tried to play God. How are there two characters worse than this guy?
2. Orochimaru
Apparently in the world of Naruto, killing orphaned babies is not only forgivable, but forgivable in that brilliant sort of way where you don’t actually need to prove you’ve changed – or do anything to make up for all the baby killing. So this entry was either “every single character in Naruto who forgave Orochimaru for what he did”, or the man himself. I figured putting the man himself was easier, given he was the one who killed all those babies in the first place. He’s evil. Full stop. Don’t need much more reason to hate someone than that!
1. Danzo Shimura
For my money, there isn’t a single character in anything remotely Naruto-related that’s worse than Danzo Shimura, and I’m glad that how much people despise him is an adequate reflection of that. Cold, brutal, and sadistic, Danzo is not only the reason that Sasuke lost his entire village, but is also the reason that the eyeballs of said villagers aren’t peacefully disintegrating underground right now. Yeah, that arm is full of eyeballs. Need I really say more? And here’s the worst part: the show actually tries to make us feel sorry for Danzo. As though everything he did was forgivable because he felt like a small man. I’m not buying it, and neither are the rest of the fanbase. Danzo is the worst. And he will live here at #1 as a testament to that!
