Shino Aburame

Shino Aburame is a character from the Naruto anime and manga.

Shino is a shinobi of Konohagakure's Aburame clan. Quiet, and at times off-putting to some, Shino puts his clan's insect-basedtechniques to use on Team Kurenai.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Shino is a member of the Heroes Coalitions and is part of the Dream Team.

Appearance
Shino is regularly seen sporting the same style as the rest of his clan, consisting of dark sunglasses and a sea-green jacket with a high, upturned collar. While Shino was in the Academy, he wore a similar outfit to the one he does now in Part II except his jacket then was of a light grey colour. Shino is a fair-skinned man and the tallest member of his graduating class. He has dark, bushy, brown hair and dark, narrow eyes (which has only been shown in the anime). In all of Shino's appearances, he has been shown wearing his signature round and dark glasses. Even Hinata, his teammate, did not know what his eyes truly looked like. However, for a brief moment, Shino's eye profile was shown.

During Part II, his appearance became even more mysterious, with his jacket hanging down to his knees and the addition of a hood that obstructs his face even more and a satchel on his back. This current appearance makes it harder for people like Naruto to recognise him right away. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, he wears a flak jacket under his jacket.

Two years after the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Shino sports a flak jacket with his regular shinobi attire and a new set of sunglasses. His outfit consists of a grey shirt with matching pants under his light-grey button-up jacket. The jacket also has a hood which he keeps over his head. He also changes his forehead protector to a bandanna-style.

As an adult, he wears a flak jacket with two bug-like emblems on the neck, and a full-body suit underneath. While on duty he wears a three-strip optic visor which wraps around his head, and while off duty he wears sunglasses.

Personality
Since his early childhood, Shino has been a calm, collected, and solitary person, who is quite mysterious. Shino is portrayed as being somewhere between merely stoic and matter-of-fact, rarely ever smiling or showing emotion at all; rather than thank his teammates for congratulating him on his victory in the preliminaries, he told them that he expected them to do the same. He also has a tendency of holding grudges and being rather intimidating, such as seen when Naruto failed to recognise him at the start of Part II (which is fair as the only visible part of his face were his sunglasses), but easily recognised Kiba and Hinata regardless. He still holds that grudge to this day.

Shino seems to be aware of these odd personality traits; in the anime, when he ate food poisoned with a chemical that forced him to laugh, he menacingly told Naruto to forget it had ever happened. His interest in insects only helps him strengthen this viewpoint; by spending most of his spare time watching them, and often making analogies to insects when talking, people have come to identify Shino as "creepy", and tend to dislike being in his company for prolonged periods of time. In his Infinite Tsukuyomi dream, Shino dreamt that he found a new giant-sized species of bugs and tamed it as his own.

Despite occasionally arguing with Kiba due to their personality differences, Shino has a very strong sense of connection with his teammates and allies. This was first seen when he promised Sasuke Uchiha to help him fight Gaara after dealing with Kankurō, but regretted not being able to uphold that promise after being poisoned.

Shino is also very brave as he and his teammates were terrified after seeing Gaara's powers during the second stage of the Chūnin Exams, but he still resolved to help Sasuke in any way he could with Gaara. He also regretted being unavailable and therefore unable to help with retrieving Sasuke. From that point onwards, he resolved to work on his teamwork skills with Kiba and Hinata. He even helped Hinata to improve her abilities, and is one of the few people, besides Naruto, who openly professes confidence in her. The fruits of his efforts are seen in the anime, where Shino was able to carry out a mission successfully while also keeping others safe. He also proves to be able to understand his teammates' inner workings, sensing when the slightest of things is wrong with either of them. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, he also went out of his way to keep his teammate's chakra flow active through the use of his insects.

Shino speaks in a curious fashion, as noted by both Naruto and Kiba. He speaks in a manner most simply described as "nitpicking" and uses the word 'because' (nazenara) a great deal. To others, his manner of speaking seems like over concern with the trivial points of a conversation which could be left unsaid, or, providing information that will leave questions that could possibly be asked — already answered.

Shino is fairly confident in his abilities and that he will win a battle, and tends to try to communicate this to an opponent for their own well-being. Still, Shino enjoys fighting, and dislikes being denied a chance to battle a skilled opponent, as seen when he went out of his way during the Konoha Crush to fight Kankurō, after the latter had forfeited to avoid revealing his puppets' secrets.

In the anime, it was shown that Shino will panic when confronted with insectivorous animals or plants (with Shino himself likening it to psychological torture). He will also fall into despair showing saddened expressions — atypical of him — to the point where he almost cries and even refuses to continue his mission to avoid losing any more insects. Similarly, in adulthood, Shino's passion for teaching shows a noticeable distress when his students fail to listen to him or damage happens to the Academy.

Abilities
Shino showed great potential as a shinobi since early age, having drawn the attention of Danzō, a man with exceedingly high standards, in the anime. As a genin, he easily managed to defeat Zaku Abumi, and later fight Kankurō, a skilled shinobi to a stalemate. In the following years he was promoted to chūnin, and a decade later was acknowledged by several individuals as being jōnin-level.

Ninjutsu
Shino has shown considerable skill in shurikenjutsu, able to manipulate his shuriken's trajectory mid-flight. By the Fourth Shinobi World War, he possessed Earth, Fire and Yang Release. He could also use the Summoning Technique, which in the anime, he uses to summon a giant insect.

Aburame Clan Techniques
As a member of the Aburame clan, Shino was infused at birth with a special breed of insects, called kikaichū, that use his body as a nest and feed on his chakra, living in a form of symbiosis. In return, they attack and do other tasks as he commands forming his main fighting style: in battle, he boxes in opponents with his bugs and then consumes their chakra once they cannot escape. In the anime, Shino is able to transferthis accumulated chakra into a new target.

Shino has shown to be able to create insect replicas of himself, which can reform once struck. Offensively, Shino could encase his enemies in a cage of insects, preventing them from moving and depriving them of their chakra; as well as could use a special breed of insects called kidaichū to devour the chakra and even flesh of their victim. In the anime, Shino could also use his bugs defensively by having them swarm around himself and his allies, creating a dome.

Shino could use his bugs to spy and gather information. Since the bugs make little to no noise, Shino have them scout an area and return with any useful information. Shino could leave a female bug on his target to track them down by the scent picked up from a male bug. To stop himself from being tracked, Shino could use the Insect Jamming Technique to create false chakra patterns, which would confuse sensor-type opponents.

While the kikaichū only have a lifespan of a few hours, their life-cycle ensures that there will always be females with eggs. In the anime, it was demonstrated that his bugs are always undergoing evolutionaryadaptation through mutation and natural selection; so to cultivate for this ability, Shino can accelerate the growth of his insects.

Also, having bred insects with the rinkaichū of Torune, Shino cultivated insects that can simulate the same toxic effect as Torune's, or even produce antibodies against the said potent toxins.

Taijutsu
Although favouring the use of his insects in battle, Shino is shown to be quite capable in taijutsu. During the Chūnin Exams preliminary matches, he calmly blocked an incoming strike from Zaku and later defeated him with one punch. Shino was also fast enough to avoid a sneak attack from Kankurō's Karasu puppet. In the anime, after training more with Kiba and Hinata, Shino's taijutsu greatly improved to the point where he could fight on par with Suika and overpower him in their second encounter.

Intelligence
Shino has shown himself to be quite intelligent, being able to use his analytical and observational skills to make shrewd decisions with pinpoint reasoning. Like Shikamaru, Shino prevails in battles by systematically staying several steps ahead of the enemy, as well as keeping a good distance away to avoid his enemies' attacks. Shino can also tell the number of people in an area by putting his ear to the ground. Since becoming an Academy teacher, Shino has become well-versed in the various basic attack patterns and battle methods of shinobi combat, able to easily anticipate most tactics his opponents launch on him.

Trivia

 * The name "Shino" means "of faith", which is also the given name of the samurai Inuzuka of Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, a novel about a dog samurai. His teammate, Kiba Inuzuka is also based off Inuzuka from the novel. His family name "Aburame" literally means "oil woman", while it may also be a variation of "Aburamushi" which means "cockroach", referring to his family's use of insects as weapons.
 * In Naruto character popularity polls, Shino was ranked 12th in the third, 25th in the fourth, 21st in the fifth. He finished 26th in the sixth and most recent.
 * In the anime, Shino has been shown to name his insects.


 * In the anime, Shino's eyes are momentarily seen.
 * Shino is the only one of the Rookie Nine not to be on a manga cover before the time-skip.
 * According to the databook(s):
 * Shino's hobbies are entomology, and collecting new specimens for his insect collection.
 * Shino wishes to fight someone strong.
 * Shino's favourite foods are wild grass salad and winter melon, whilst his least favourite are foods that are strong-smelling.
 * Shino has completed 44 official missions in total: 17 D-rank, 17 C-rank, 9 B-rank, 1 A-rank, 0 S-rank.
 * Shino's favourite phrase is "trump card" (kirifuda).
 * According to seventh OVA, Shino's favourite colour is moss green and his favourite flower is chameleon flower.