Yamato (Naruto)

Yamato is a character from the Naruto anime and manga.

Yamato, also known as "Tenzō", are both code names for this Anbu-turned-jōnin of Konohagakure. As his Wood Release would allow him to be able to keep the Nine-Tails sealed within Naruto Uzumaki in check, he was re-assigned from Anbu to the regular forces, joining Team Kakashi as a temporary replacement for their jōnin-sensei, Kakashi Hatake. While Kakashi eventually returns to the team, Yamato stays on to provide assistance as needed.

In the AWA fics, Yamato works as an instructor at the AWA Academy and is the adviser of Class 5.

Appearance
Yamato has short brown hair and black, almond-shaped eyes. While still a child and test subject of Orochimaru, he had long, unkempt hair going past his shoulders. When he débuted, Yamato wore the standard attire of the Anbu: a black, sleeveless jumper under a grey flack jacket with strapped-up shinobi sandals, arm-length gloves with guards over them. He carried a sword strapped to his back, and wore a mask that resembles a cat's face covered in green, and red intricate markings, and the Anbu tattoo on his left shoulder. When he meets up with Naruto, Sakura, and Sai for the first time, however, he has changed into a variation of the standard attire of a Konoha-nin, with a flak jacket.

The differences between his attire and that of the standard one is that his does not have the Uzushiogakure crest on the shoulders of the sleeves, and the neck of his navy-blue shirt is form fitting and goes up to his chin. He also still retains two hip pouches strapped to his lower back instead of just one. In addition to that, he has a happuri-style forehead protector that frames his face, similar to that of Tobirama Senju.

Years later during the reign of the Seventh Hokage, Yamato's appearance remained largely the same except with minor noticeable changes: he developed small wrinkles under his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, his hair was shorter, spiky and his happuri-style forehead protector is devoid of any emblem and slightly cracked.

Personality
Yamato is a very discreet, cautious and generally well-prepared person. He projects a calm, stoic demeanour even in very stressful situations. He takes his missions very seriously, even insisting on being referred to by whatever his current codename is. In the anime, having no family nor memories of them, Yamato's greatest desire has become to work hard for the village to make others happy and to be acknowledged by all for his efforts, particularly as leader of Team 7, as revealed by Infinite Tsukuyomi. Yamato also takes great interest in architecture which can be seen when he goes out on missions and creates a house to "camp out" in. This skill to incorporate his hobby with his kekkei genkai was also seen after Pain's assault on Konoha where he was key in recreating the village. While he has been good-natured so far, Yamato claims to be a different sort of leader than Kakashi, one who is not above "ruling by the use of terror" when his team misbehaves. Aside from his obviously intimidating skills as a ninja, however, this "terror" has so far primarily consisted of casting a creepy "ghoul-eyes" expression at his charges. Naruto, especially, is easily terrified by it, and stated that it felt like Yamato was controlling him with fear — something Yamato himself has noted that he has no qualms with. He has also less tolerate of Naruto's antics and lack of respect for rules than Kakashi. He is, however, also prone to being a victim of a cruel joke when given misleading information, as witness his visible fear and subsequent annoyance when Killer B maliciously joked about the dangers of a jinchūriki trying to control their tailed beast. In the anime, he's shown to use his fear face in a more comical manner when he created a bridge for Naruto and the others and asked if Naruto was happy he came along.

Despite his serious and sometimes overworked demeanour, Yamato is known for being somewhat playful, such as his tendency play pranks on Naruto during their downtime on missions. He usually does this by using his ghoul-eyes' frightening appearance or a wood clone to scare Naruto during ghost stories, showing that he does have a sense of humour underneath all of that responsibility and seriousness. He is also aware of his tendency to be overworked by his peers and gets frustrated by their lack of appreciation of how exhausting his Wood Release techniques are despite their obvious usefulness and versatility.

Yamato is known to respect ranking, as he told Naruto, who was the Seventh Hokage, to not call him "Captain Yamato" anymore.

Abilities
As a member of the Anbu, Yamato is a highly capable ninja, having one of — if not the finest service record of anyone working under the Third Hokage — leading the Fifth Hokage to have the utmost confidence in him. In the anime, his talents were shown to be enough to join the Anbu while still a child. Due to his abilities and potential, Danzō Shimura took him on as his personal apprentice and trained Yamato himself.

Nature Transformation
Sharing the same DNA as Hashirama Senju, Yamato possesses the First's signature Wood Release kekkei genkai. This kekkei genkai allows him to combine earth-natured chakra in one hand, and water in the other, to create vegetation such as trees and even grass which can be grown from any surface. These trees can be grown not only from the earth and pre-existing flora, but from his own body as well by using his own cells as a source of life. As this ability is not inherently his, however, Yamato has realised that he cannot use the Wood Release techniques to their full potential, which by his own admission results in the scale of his techniques paling in comparison to that of the First Hokage. Nonetheless, he has enough skill and experience with Wood Release to make it the main element of his fighting style, showing considerable control and gaining fame as a capable user of it. In the anime, he was shown able to effectively use this ability while still a young child. Much of his techniques come from studying a scroll containing the Wood Release techniques of the First Hokage.

Yamato can use Wood Release for both offensive and defensive purposes: he can surround himself with extremely durable wooden domes, which he can also use to trap foes within, and in the anime, create a wooden shield that can rebuild itself, and a wall of tangled branches. He can also cause trees to grow from his arm, which can be used to trap or impale an enemy, and create a binding tree around an enemy and subsequently crush them.

Yamato can also use Wood Release for other purposes, such as to transform into someone, with the wood acting as an outer layer, allowing him to leave out the suit when needed. He is able to create a wood-based clone that can be generated from his body or from the ground. As they share the same cells, he is able to track its location, communicate with it over long distances, and absorb any information it has gathered by laying his hand on it. Yamato can even turn a wood clone into a seed in order to track anyone he plants it on. He can generate wooden structures almost instantly, which he can use to create a large cage used to hold prisoners and intimidate unruly subordinates, and a large house that can be erected at a moment's notice instead of setting up a camp.

Yamato is skilled in the use of Water and Earth Release as well, as seen when he raised the groundand created a waterfall. He is also capable of utilising Yang Release.

Tailed Beast Suppression
Using the First Hokage's Necklace to amplify his powers, Yamato can suppress the power of a tailed beast. This legendary ability was one of the reasons that Hashirama Senju was made Hokage in the first place, and it was greatly coveted by Orochimaru. Although the First Hokage could suppress entire tailed beasts, Yamato has admitted to his skill not being as strong as the original's so it is unknown what the limits of his suppression ability are. He was able to suppress Naruto's four-tailed form in mere seconds. It was for this reason why Yamato was assigned to Team Kakashi in their leader's absence.

He also added a seal to the Hokage's necklace that would activate and reveal a number on his palm corresponding to the tails that Naruto has gained, when he called upon too much of the Nine-Tails' chakra, attempting to restrain him and alerting Yamato to what was happening. With the destruction of the necklace, however, Yamato implied that he could no longer help suppress tailed beasts. Despite this, during Naruto's tailed-beast control training, when Naruto started losing control, Yamato tried to suppress the beast once again.

Yamato can also use his Wood Release to suppress the chakra of regular people, as seen when he suppressed Kisame's chakra in order to subdue him after his capture.

Other Skills
Yamato is highly proficient in multiple areas of combat, including tracking, trapping, stealth, and diversionary tactics. He has keen instincts in battle, allowing him to quickly react to threats. He can also merge with the environment to spy undetected or evade most attacks. During his test of his new team's skills, he demonstrated considerable ability in taijutsu, as shown when he simultaneously fended off Naruto and Sai. Thanks to his training as an Anbu, Yamato is proficient in kenjutsu, able to clash against his senior Kakashi. He also has some skill in fūinjutsu, as he was able to place a seal and rig it to activate under certain conditions. Having been genetically altered to match Hashirama's DNA, Yamato was also granted the legendary shinobi's ability to heal nearly any wound, without the need for hand seals.

Trivia

 * Yamato is an ancient name of Japan, and is also the name of a World War II era Japanese battleship. Tenzō means "heavenly creation" and refers to anything created by nature, rather than by humans.
 * He could also be named after Yamato Takeru, who was a Japanese legendary prince of the Yamato dynasty and was believed to have been the first ninja.
 * "Kinoe" is the first sign of the Chinese calendar.
 * Studio Pierrots Settei sheets of Yamato show that he was 140 cm as a 10 year old Anbu and 166 cm as a 14 year old Anbu.
 * According to the databook(s):
 * Yamato's favourite foods are walnuts, while his least favourites are any food that is oily.
 * His hobby is reading books about architecture.
 * Yamato wishes to fight Kakashi Hatake.
 * Yamato has completed 996 official missions in total: 80 D-rank, 176 C-rank, 400 B-rank, 305 A-rank, 35 S-rank.
 * Yamato's favourite phrase is "Knocking on a stone bridge before crossing it" (Ishibashi o tataite wataru).
 * In the anime, it is revealed that Yamato suffers from motion sickness while in enclosed spaces.
 * Yamato is often affected by running gags in the series:
 * The prime running gag is that people over work him because of his wood abilities. Best seen when he rebuilt some of Konoha and everyone wanted him to do more despite being out of energy after making a street of houses.
 * A running gag in two omakes is that whenever his teammates stop for the night, they constantly attack Yamato while still asleep. He was almost hit by Naruto's weapons and a Rasengan, Kiba's Fang Passing Fang and even Shino's kikaichū swarm. Such assaults always force him to use Wood Release: Wood Locking Wall to protect himself and getting little to no sleep, making him look terrible in the morning.
 * He and Orochimaru had a running gag during Naruto & Hinata's wedding with him following Orochimaru, one example is him hiding in a barrel while Orochimaru was on a boat.
 * In the Naruto character popularity polls, Yamato was ranked as the 14th most popular character in the 7th.
 * In the same poll, his forehead protector ended in 76th place with 6 votes.
 * In Naruto SD: Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden, Yamato has a non speaking role in the entire spin-off and only makes cameo appearances.