Tsunade

Tsunade is the granddaughter of Hashirama and because Hashirama was first Hokage, Tsunade was called "Princess" and doted on by Hashirama when she was very young. It is said that she adopted her gambling habits from her grandfather and she then inherited Hashirama's necklace.

After she graduated from the academy, Tsunade was placed under the leadership of Hiruzen Sarutobi in a team that also consisted of Orochimaru and Jiraiya. When Jiraiya failed to acquire the bells, Tsunade teased him which made him comment on her flat chest. Despite teasing and annoying her a lot, Jiraiya always was interested in Tsunade.

Tsunade was full of life and a believer. Her younger brother wanted to become Hokage as well as her lover. Nawaki wanted to become the Hokage as he wanted to protect his grandfather's legacy. On his twelfth birthday, Tsunade kissed him on his forehead and gave him Hashirama's necklace in the hopes that he is successful in achieving his dreams.

Sadly he passed away the next day during the Second Great Shinobi War and thus her necklace was returned back to her. After that Tsunade then joined the medical unit and helped people so as to avoid future deaths like Nawaki's. Hiruzen, at the time who was the third Hokage, agreed with her but was unable to dedicate the necessary resources needed due to the ongoing war.

Dan agreed with her views and as their relationship grew he told her about his dream of becoming the Hokage and that he could bring change to Konoha in order to protect the ones he loves. Tsunade kissed him on his forehead and gave him Hashirama's necklace in the hopes that he is successful in achieving his dream.

Even though Team Hiruzen had disbanded, Tsunade, Orochimaru, and Jiraiya continued fighting together during the Second Shinobi World War. During one such fight in Amegakure, they were the only three to survive an encounter with Hanzo, for which he dubbed them Konoha's "Legendary Sannin.' After the war Jiraiya stayed back to train the Amegakure orphans.

Although Tsunade's actions are said to have won the war for Konoha, Tsunade was unable to prevent Dan's death, and her failure to stop his severe blood loss caused her to develop hemophobia (the fear of blood).

After the death of her loved ones, she lost her spirit of believing for a while. She, therefore, left Konoha, taking Shizune with her to train her as an apprentice. Due to her hemophobia, Tsunade retired from any direct involvement in medicine or combat and instead relied on Shizune for whenever the need came up.

However, that all changed when Tsunade met Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto met Tsunade when he and Jiraiya had come to search for her to ask her to become the Hokage. When she first met Naruto, he reminded her of her younger brother and her lover.

There was a point where Naruto protected Tsunade during their fight with Kabuto and Orochimaru. After the fight Tsunade challenges Naruto to a fight but instead of actually fighting him she gives him her most cherished necklace and accepts the position of Hokage. Thus, Tsunade becomes the Fifth Hokage of Konoha.

Tsunade believes that dreams can be achieved and turned into reality while Nawaki and Dan were alive, and by the right support and encouragement those dreams could truly be achieved. When both of them died, Tsunade lost faith in the idea of dreaming for anything and thought that if she dreamed they would eventually be crushed and doomed. Due to this she becomes quite skeptical of the idea of being the Hokage, as both Dan and Nawaki died trying to become the Hokage. She also points out that being the Hokage is a fool's job.

Tsunade is forced to rethink this ideology of hers when she meets Naruto Uzumaki, who showed her that if a goal seems impossible doesn't mean that it actually is as Naruto himself mastered the Rasengan quickly even though he lacked talent. Another thing that he taught her was that just because the dreamer dies doesn't mean that the dream dies, as Nawaki and Dan's dream of becoming Hokage lived onto Naruto.

Naruto was a total opposite and an exception to what Tsunade thought of how the world worked. Thus Tsunade put her faith in Naruto and started dreaming again, so much so that she overcame her fear of blood. She becomes the Fifth Hokage of Konohagakure and lives the dream that Nawaki and Dan could not and also paved the path for Naruto to become the Hokage. She only allowed Naruto to refer to her as 'Grandma' out of affection.

As the Hokage, Tsunade was committed to protecting Konoha and its village and was willing to give her life for her village and also her allies if ever needed. She supported everyone else's dream like when Rock Lee tells her that he dreams of being a true Ninja even though he knows that he would die trying and she doesn't argue with his decision and also helps him achieve his dreams.

Even though her reasons are different, the outcome always is consistent with the Will of Fire. She is also optimistic about the next generation of Konoha's Ninja and knows that the village's future will be in good hands because of them. She tends to becomes angry whenever someone lacks the same faith as Naruto and his friends, she believes that they should try and fail than to assume that they already failed and not try at all. She also trusts that Naruto will successfully bring Sasuke back to the village.

Tsunade is also very blunt and short-tempered. She also drinks constantly and sometimes even sleeps on the job and also tries to make others do her work too. One of her favorite things to do is gambling which she inherited from her grandfather Hashirama Senju. She has had bad luck in gambling and lost the majority of the time. She is so used to losing that whenever she has a winning streak she thinks that something bad is going to happen.

When Hashirama found out about this he thought that it was amusing and when he got to know that Tsunade is the Hokage, he got worried about how many misfortunes that she brought upon the village.

Jiraya assumed that Tsunade also liked him since they first met, which whenever he mentioned always annoyed and made tsunade very angry. Despite his advances, Tsunade never reciprocated the feeling as she only truly loved Dan even after he had died. Jiraiya was never discouraged by this and always said that her rejections always made him stronger each day and it also made good content for his book the Icha Icha series.

Tsunade told him that he did not need to put on such a brave face every time. After Jiraiya dies while fighting Pain, Tsunade was devastated and privately mourned for her late dear friend and teammate. Her biggest desire was to be with her lost loved ones, while supporting Dan and Nawaki dream of being the Hokage. Even though she dreamed of this, she chose not to reincarnate them when she was given an opportunity as she realized that it would go against everything they stood for.

Despite Orochimaru’s contribution in the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Tsunade had her walls up around him due a long history of distrust between them. This also influenced the way she thought about the people who were related to him. Due to this she was furious at Naruto, the Seventh Hokage for allowing Mitsuki, Orochimaru’s son to come to Konoha. Due to her prejudiced view she always thought that Mitsuki was as dangerous as his parent.

Tsunade is fair skinned with brown eyes. She has straight blond hair which reaches her waist with shoulder length bangs. While she was a child till she was a young adult she wore her hair in a ponytail, currently she keeps her tied in two loose ponytails.

She has a purple diamond (The strength of a Hundred Seals) on her forehead. During her childhood she wore a Grey mesh shirt with a real kimono with short sleeves which had a red lining around the collars which was secured by a blue sash. She also wore red wristbands and white wrapping around her calves with blue sandals.

She was quite skinny throughout her childhood and was flat chested. Over time Tsunade grew to be a slender woman who had a curvy frame with an average height with large breasts. She was known to be the most beautiful kunoichi in the world. When she was in her fifties she started to look a bit frail (due to the over usage of Creation Rebirth). However Tsunade maintains her youthful appearance by using the transformation technique.

She wears a green haori which had 'gamble' written on the back inside a red circle. Underneath she wears a Grey kimono blouse woth no sleeves which is held by a dark - bluish grey obi which matches her pants. Her blouse is a bit low which reveals her cleavage. She wears strappy black sandals with high heels. She also wears red nail polish and wears soft pink lipstick. She also used to wear Hashirama's necklace which she later on gave to Naruto.

Like her other teammates, Tsunade is exceptionally skilled and a talented shinobi. Her skills became quite well known during the Second Great Shinobi War when along with Jiraiya and Orochimaru she was referred to as a Sannin. Her skills are also known as the reason why Konoha won that war and in the coming years she was known as the world's strongest kunoichi.

Despite being a bit rusty; Tsunade's skills easily outclassed Kabuto when they battled, he could only rely on Military Ration Pill and used her fear of blood against her to have an upper hand. When she overcame her fear of blood she even defeated Orochimaru one on one. As the fifth Hokage she was responsible for saving countless lives of her villagers during the Pain attack on the village. Even Madara Uchiha agreed that she was worthy of being a Kage.

Tsunade inherited a lot of life force and physical energy due to her Senju and Uzumaki genes. That enabled her to not only battle the likes of Madara for over half a day without exhaustion but even survive being cut in half and retain consciousness long enough to heal others before being healed herself. Her reserves of chakra are immense, enough to heal several thousand shinobi during the final battle with Obito.

She can use the summoning Jutsu and summon her slug Katsuya. She is a well-skilled medical ninja as she can identify medical ailments at a glance and can even cure the ones which a deemed impossible to cure!.

She is knowledgeable enough to perform autopsies and examine damage on a cellular level. Not only that, because of her vast medical knowledge, Tsunade was primarily responsible for setting up the modern system of medical-nin, though she exempts herself from many of the laws that govern them due to her Creation Rebirth.

Tsunade is an exceptional shinobi and is known to be the most powerful kunoichi. Some of her special abilities are:

Strength of a hundred seals: When this is released, Tsunade has access to all the accumulated chakra. This sends her chakra levels hundred-times above her normal levels and thus makes her one of the few medical ninjas allowed to battle.

Summoning of Katsuya: Like Jiraya and Orochimaru, Tsunade also has a summoning as she can use Katsuya as a source of communication with her long-distance allies and also heal them by linking with her.

Body pathway dearrangement; Tsunade creates an electric field by giving her chakra the properties of electricity. When she strikes a target with her hand, the electricity pours into their nervous system and rearranges their body's signals.

Transformation technique: It allows the user to take the appearance of whatever they choose.

Creation rebirth: Tsunade created this jutsu in which when a large amount of chakra is released the injury will instantly heal regardless of the severity. The one drawback is that it lessens the user’s lifespan.

Tsunade has not appeared only in the series but she has also made an appearance in the movies to.

Movies

Naruto Shippūden the Movie

In this movie when Moryo raises an army of stone warriors in order to take over the world, Tsunade sends most of Konoha's forces to fight these stone warriors. She also sends a team which consists of Naruto, Sakura, Neji and Rock Lee to guard Shion, the priestess who can stop Moryo.

Naruto Shippūden the Movie: The Will of Fire

Hiruko, who was an old friend of the Sannin, declares the start of the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Due to the way he declares the war made the villagers believe that Konoha is supporting Hiruko's schemes to start a fight inside Konoha itself. While Tsunade tries to control the situation, Kakashi approaches her and reveals that he had met Hiruko many years ago and was branded with a mind- mind-controlling technique which forces him to go to him.

As he knew that this will happen at something and Hiruko will try to get his Sharingan, Kakashi asks Tsunade to place a seal on him so that his Magekyo Sharingan activates when Hiruko tried to take his Sharingan, which will kill Hiruko and prevent the war. Tsunade agrees with this plan and declares him missing, so that his plans remain a secret. She forbids anyone from going after Kakashi but Naruto doesn't listen and goes after him.

Naruto the Movie: Blood Prison

In this movie when Naruto is accused of attempting to assassinate the Fourth Raikage, Tsunade throws him in the Blood Prison despite him claiming that he is innocent. Tsunade is well aware that Naruto is innocent but she needs to know who was behind this conspiracy and catch them. When she finds out who was the real culprit, she leads the forces of Konoha to rescue Naruto from his wrongful imprisonment.

Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie

The Tsunade of the Genjutsu World wears glasses, she is also flat-chested and is very responsible. Tsunade looks old for her age.

Video Games

Tsunade is a playable character in the following video games:

Q. How old is Tsunade?

A. Despite her young looks Tsunade is actually in her fifties! She uses her reserve seal to keep herself young.

Q. Why is Tsunade scared of blood?

A. Tsunade’s phobia of blood developed after she lost the man she loved in battle.

Q. Why does Tsunade have a diamond-shaped tattoo on her forehead?

A. The diamond on Tsunade’s forehead is the seal where she stores her chakra.