Mizuki

Mizuki (ミズキ) was a former chunin level shinobi of Konohagakure.

He is also a former instructor at the Ninja Academy. He is the first villain shown in the Naruto series.

Background

Naruto Episode144-349 — Mizuki as a child

He was born on the day of October 21st and his parents are never seen or mentioned at all. His last name is also a mystery as well. As revealed in the anime, Mizuki was originally a childhood best friend to Umino Iruka, and had stood up for him until he was overwhelmed by sheer jealously rage when Iruka was getting better treatment and more attention by everyone else than him. Despite his new found hatred towards Iruka, Mizuki however pretended to be his best friend just to be noticed and to discreetly keep Iruka more miserable.

In the anime, sometime after Mizuki had just became a chunin, he was assigned alongside two other men on the Secret Document Recovery Mission (機密文書奪還任務). During their retreat one of the comrades suffered a leg injury, and Mizuki suffocated the man to death, believing that the injury would cause him to be a hindrance to the mission's success, and then falsely reporting that the comrade had died from the injury, in which Mizuki exaggerated in severity. Orochimaru also had witnessed this transgression, and after praising Mizuki for being able to take such bold actions, he had gave him a prototype cursed seal.

It was because of the controversy of Mizuki's actions, and a report during the mission that he was denied the position as an Academy instructor despite his performance in the test. Despite the lack of evidence leading to the investigation being dropped altogether and eventually granting Mizuki the position, he nevertheless was infuriated when he overheard the committee's reason for initially not promoting him, leaving him to despise Konohagakure altogether, especially when Iruka, who only performed well with Mizuki's assistance, made the cut. This feeling of being unappreciated for what he believes to be justifiable actions, along with meeting Orochimaru, made Mizuki decide that he would do whatever it took to rise up to power and glory, even becoming a secret follower of Orochimaru.

In the anime, Mizuki was the fiancé of Tsubaki, who saw him as a sweet man. However, after his involvement with Orochimaru, their relationship faltered poorly after that. He expressed to her hypocritical, prejudiced lies and views on how Uzumaki Naruto is an evil individual, and revealed to her of his evil plan to steal the Scroll of Seals to present it to Orochimaru, the latter hid information she withheld from the village, and was hoping Mizuki would come back to his senses.

Personality

Originally, Mizuki at first appeared to be very polite and kind hearted person, and was described to be a sweet man by his former fiancée, Tsubaki. In reality, he does not care for anything or anyone beyond his own rise in power. He takes pride in the fact that he is not bound by things like morals or teamwork, and is willing to sacrifice whatever he has to in order to complete his goals. His desire for power seems to come from what appears to be an inferiority complex, as he cannot stand having anyone look down on him. Although Tsubaki claimed that Mizuki was a sweet man before meeting Orochimaru. Even that was a façade as he already showcased his underhanded and ruthless methods since his childhood, by having a manipulated friendship with Umino Iruka for his own benefits, and later on murdering a comrade who suffered a minor injury, while justifying his actions by claiming he is merely eliminating any potential hindrances for the mission's smooth success. Mizuki's defining characteristics are being greatly ambitious and dishonorable.

Mizuki's craving for power, and acknowledgement led him to hate Iruka for gaining more attention than him, and pretended to be Iruka's best friend in order to live off of that attention, as well as discreetly inflict misery on Iruka. Because of this, during their second confrontation, Mizuki constantly mocked Iruka while refusing to surrender and repent no matter how many times Iruka tried to convince him to. Due to his disregard for comradeship and friendship, Mizuki detests the Will of Fire, while insulting it when Iruka tried to encourage Mizuki to look back into it, dismissing it as irritating nonsense. In what is perhaps an attempt to make him even more of an antithesis to Uzumaki Naruto, Mizuki's least favorite food is ramen, which happens to be Naruto and Iruka's favorite. Mizuki also has a particular hatred for Naruto, seeing him only as the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. His avarice even drove him to ignore Tsubaki's love, having no more feelings for her himself, as he took advantage of her lingering affections for him and used her to benefit himself. Then attacking her when she begged him to stop, even physically tossing her aside later on. Upon discovering that Naruto gained acknowledgement after risking his life to defend the village, Mizuki grew angrier than ever at him, refusing to accept the boy's heroism, and instead accused the villagers of being easily excited.

When Mizuki overheard the Third Hokage, and the examination committee suspecting his field of conduct as a reason for not promoting him, he felt that they wronged him for accomplishing a mission at all cost, and developed a grudge against the village for feeling that they neither appreciate nor understand his powers and efforts. He reached his tipping point of betraying the village when Orochimaru praised his actions and gave him a cursed seal; Mizuki came to the delusion that Orochimaru truly acknowledged his potential, and hold the renegade to high regard. Mizuki believed if he went to Orochimaru, he would be granted even more power, and attempted to steal the Scroll of Seals as a means to please him.

Mizuki has proven himself to be very sadistic; even as a child, he found satisfactions by watching Iruka wallow in misery of losing his parents, stating that having someone to look down on feels great. Upon his second confrontation with Iruka and Naruto, Mizuki declared that he intends to kill them slowly and painfully, as payback for having him arrested. During this time, he constantly mocked Iruka's ideals of comradeship and memories, while also derogatorily regarding Naruto as a "monster fox", and "nine-tails brat".

Appearance

Mizuki has light fair skin, two thick eyebrows, white shoulder length hair with a slight hint of blue to it, and dark green eyes. He wore the standard outfit attire of the Konoha nin before his defection, which included flak jacket and forehead protector that he wore like a bandanna.

Upon being sentenced to the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility in the anime, he wore the prisoner's uniform of a gray tunic with matching pants, with his prisoner number on the back, and going barefoot. During this time, he became much more muscular and well defined in body build to the point that Naruto didn't recognise him at first. When Mizuki escaped from prison, he changed into an opened black vest, tight black pants, and a dark brown belt which had a silver rectangular belt buckle.

When Mizuki drank the potion concocted from his cursed seal, he gained tiger like stripes, in which also gave him a more feral look. After the potion's effect wore off and his cells began a self destruction, Mizuki shrivelled up into a frail and decrepit old man. His skin became darkened brown and his skin was heavily wrinkled. However, Tsunade managed to stabilize his deterioration, and even restored his appearance to his original form, before his time in prison.

Abilities

Originally, not much of Mizuki's ninja skill was seen beyond proficiently besides wielding a large shuriken, either as melee weapons or by throwing them.

Later on, in the anime, where he was revealed to have always been considered a very clever and talented ninja with a knack for learning advanced techniques. Even the Third Hokage admits he is an excellent shinobi. In truth, the reason he had never advanced beyond chūnin was because there were suspicions on his conduct while in the field. He managed to teach himself various techniques and creatively coordinated them together to corner his opponents. He was also shown to be a very cunning manipulator from how he was so easily able to deceived Naruto and then later on the Legendary Stupid Brothers; although both cases were not too difficult, as Naruto was considered to be a little naive and emotionally desperate at the time, while the Legendary Stupid Brothers were simply immensely unintelligent).

During Mizuki's life in prison, he was able to train himself without any distractions, thus his prowess increased considerably. With the Legendary Stupid Brothers backing him up, he was strong enough to defeat a jonin such as Shizune and her entire team. He had obtained an extreme amount of physical strength, able to almost easily overwhelm Iruka in their initial clash with a single hand. Due to spending an entire year in a dark prison, Mizuki's eyesight has adapted to fighting in a dark environment. During his battle with Iruka, he demonstrated a new mastery of a random assortment of techniques.

While mostly improvised, he proved to be very capable of using them in creative combinations that Iruka just barely survived; Mizuki was able to use Earth Release, which allowed him to hide underground, kept himself from being detected, and a combination of a binding illusion and controlling a simple puppet that wielded a sword to finish off a helpless target at a safe distance.

Animal Curse Seal

Orochimaru has granted Mizuki a special tattoo which was a prescription of a potion that initially transformed him into a muscle-bound behaemoth of himself, with tremendous raw speed and strength. It also allowed him to gain the appearance of a tiger-like being with even greater strength but with much weaker speed, but since the potion was incomplete, his body was eventually destroyed, turning him into a shrivelled up old man. Although Tsunade managed to save his life and restore his original body, Mizuki lost all of his battle and physical prowess and was never able to become a ninja again.

Naruto (Part I)

Introudction arc

At the series' start, playing on the youth's desire to graduate, Mizuki duped Uzumaki Naruto into stealing Konoha's Scroll of Seals for him. Originally, Mizuki had the plan set up to use Naruto as a guinea pig, and kill him to hide the truth of his deception, and secretly leave the village with the scroll in his possession. However, Mizuki's plan is derailed when Umino Iruka found Naruto first and decided to reveal Naruto's identity as Kurama's jinchuriki to ensure he runs off disillusioned. However, after overhearing Iruka standing up for him, Naruto comes to his teacher's aid and uses the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique he had learned from the scroll to beat Mizuki to a bloodied pulp for harming Iruka. He was seen in a flashback by Naruto, when he was doing the Bell capture test with Kakashi.

Mizuki Strikes Back arc

In the manga, Mizuki claimed that he wanted the Scroll of Seals to gain infinite power for himself. However, the anime's filler arc showed that Mizuki intended to give the scroll to Orochimaru. Ending up at the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility after his defeat by Naruto, Mizuki bulked up by the time he stages a prison riot to escape from jail, intending to use the instructions given to him by Orochimaru to create a potion to increase his power and get his revenge on both Naruto and Iruka. Before that, he visited his lover, Tsubaki, who claimed that Mizuki used to be a sweet man, but that, ever since he got involved with Orochimaru, her relationship with Mizuki had faltered. Mizuki knocked out Tsubaki, whom he apparently did not love any more, and travelled to a cave where he could find the ingredients to the potion.

After consuming the potion, Mizuki obtained enhanced strength and power, stripes along his body, and enlarged arms. Later, as he added extract of a tiger into the potion, Mizuki assumed a tiger-like appearance but deceased his speed as Naruto managed to defeat him with the Rasengan. By that time, the flawed side effects of the Animal Curse Seal take effect with the defeated Mizuki reduced to a frail old man. Although his life was saved by Tsunade as she restored him to his original form. Having no information on Orochimaru's whereabouts while being interrogated. Mizuki loses his ability to ninjutsu for what is later revealed to be have been a failed experiment of Orochimaru's.

Video Games

Mizuki is a playable character in the following video games:

Naruto Clash of Ninja 2
Naruto Gekito Ninja Taisen! 3
Naruto Gekito Ninja Taisen! 4
Naruto Rise of a Ninja
Naruto Shinobi Collection
Naruto Shinobi no Sato no Jintori Kassen
Naruto Shippuuden Ultimate Ninja Blazing

Quotes

"It's the Nine Tail Fox".
I'll get you for this Iruka and the little Nine Tail brat too.

Knownable Relatives

Unnamed Mother
Unnamed Father
Tsubaki (former lover)
Umino Iruka (ex childhood friend)
Uzumaki Naruto (arc enemy)

Trivia

The name Mizuki means "cornel", a variety of the dogwood shrub.
He is a parallel version of Tono Katasuke from Boruto's timeline. However unlike Boruto who finally forgave Katasuke, Naruto never forgave Mizuki, and Mizuki never forgave Naruto.

According to the first databook:

His birthday is October 21, & his bloodtype is AB.
His favorite food is chirashizushi. While his least favorite food is ramen.
His favorite phrase is "Positive thinking" (ポジティブ・シンキング).
His star sign is a Libra.
His dislike of ramen is likely a metaphor for his dislike of Naruto & Iruka.
???

Voice Actors

Japanese : Shinichiro Miki (adult), Hisayoshi Suganuma (child)
English : Michael Reitz (child & adult), Mick Wingert (Shippuuden Ep. 500)

all information on Mizuki is form http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Mizuki