Kabuto Yakushi: The Boy Without An Identity

at face value kabuto yakushi shares a lot of the traits of the slimy mischievous two-faced stereotype villain that you often will come across in most shown in anime but as the show progresses in the same fashion as most naruto characters we begin to see the intricacies and depressing backstory kabuto has been subjected to in his life throughout the anime he has this mysterious aspect to him that in each fight or encounter he would take part in he always had the snide confidence and exerted this feeling that he was always holding back which excelled him into a much more intriguing and complex character in my eyes even when it seems like he's been defeated or captured with no holes to crawl out of each time there was this calm ominous look painted on his face and as the show progressed forward i constantly found myself asking the question of what does that face mean looking at it at face value that probably sounds like a dumb question but once we get a deeper look into the life of a young spy who desperately is searching for purpose meaning and most of all identification the question begins to get a lot more convoluted so why don't we take a look together to see if there's an answer that question as we venture inside the mind of kabuto yakushi the boy without an identity [Music] [Applause] to get a full grasp on the philosophy and understand the way kabuto lives his life we must take a look at his origins where we can see the roots of many flaws that plague his life and mind as a child kabuto was found by nono yakushi accompanied by members of a nearby orphanage in the outskirts of an unknown city that recently got destroyed in battle the five-year-old had no recollection of anything not his name his upbringing his parents nothing but an injury atop his head nono took him into the orphanage where he would grow a very strong attachment to her and the kids within it since they were all he knew this small orphanage with the small group of kids was his whole life they even gave him his name kabuto based off of the japanese helmet one of the most insightful scenes that show us how desperate and unknown the sense of belonging was to kaputo at such a young age is when nono gives him her glasses so he can clearly be able to tell the time [Music] just something so primitive from a third party point of view as giving a young kid glasses to see is all kabuto needed to break down in thankfulness which fully demonstrates the innocence within him for one but also adds on to the identity crisis that ends up snowballing later down his life everything kabuto has in life has been given to him and with no past memories of his childhood he begins to only identify himself with things that are given to him by others to earn money for the orphanage nono teaches kabuto medical ninjutsu to help out wounded leaf shinobi during times of war this is where rojimaru first comes into contact with the kid the signing compliments him on his medical skills and asks if he would ever be interested in becoming a shinobi one day kabuto quickly replies declining saying he only wants to help raise money for the orphanage which is an important thing to note as all these goals and traits that he has are all based around no no and what she desires idolizing her but hey he's still just a kid right this is just a phase right however even with the money the orphanage was able to garner from assisting injured shinobi it still wasn't enough to keep the facility running and relied on money from the leaf aware of this danzo shimura shows up one night threatening to cut off funding for them if they don't agree on his conditions which were that one of the orphans to be offered over and be entered in danto's organization overhearing the conversation being held kabuto volunteered himself to leave for the sake of the orphanage and was turned into an intel gathering spy who performed special undercover missions gathering information from every great shinobi nation posing as a ninja from each village right after kabuto had seemingly volunteered to leave danto told nono his real reason and his real intentions for leaving the orphanage in hopes of saving it by leaving no no admired and shocked by this she wanted to liberate the young child from being forced to join the organization and after raising this concern to donzo he tells her the only way he would be able to fulfill this request is if she takes on a mission to assassinate a certain ninja in the five years he had spent successfully accomplishing these highly complex missions kabuto had gained a strong resolve he still thought of the orphanage as his one and only home referring back to bedtime rules as he was on missions and holding on to his glasses and name giving him the feeling of belonging he was so grateful to have by mother and other kids from there consequently due to the vast knowledge both kabuto and nono had gained from their missions working as spies the organization run by donzo decided it would be best to get rid of both of them for they know too much for their own good this was no rash decision either this specific tragic case of events was planned out five years earlier the day donzo paid the orphanage a visit while kabuto was assigned to a mission in the hidden stone village simultaneously nono was also assigned one in the hidden stone to assassinate a certain shinobi during his mission kabuto finds himself in a pinch surrounded by the enemy briefly checking his pocket watch to see what time it is he notices the glare of a kunai from above swiftly moves out of the way as the enemy pursues him kabuto quickly swipes backwards using his chakra scalpel technique piercing the enemy pursuing him but notices that something is off mother [Music] [Music] got mother [Music] just when he thought he had found himself had somewhere to call home and someone to call mother kabuto's whole world falls apart once more sending him into an elongated identity crisis which would last the rest of his life everything kabuto had and identified himself as was revolved around mother no no his name his glasses his home all advantaged in an instant with a single swipe of an arm but the fact that kabuto had killed her doesn't nearly have as much as an impact on him as the fact that she didn't even know who he was the one person who he felt his existence actually mattered to didn't even recognize him if she doesn't know me then who am i what were all those things i received from mother my name being one of mother's children even these glasses who are you taking advantage of a vulnerable broken kabuto orochimaru appears before him tempting him with information and explanations on why mother went after him in the first place and as well as not being able to recognize him with no other option or purpose left kabuto follows as orochimaru explains the organization's plan to dispose of both him and nono for being too dangerous with the knowledge they possess as a result of their missions not only do they plan on using him as their own personal puppet and disposing of it whenever they pleased but also rochimaru tells kabuto that nono was deceived into assassinating him as she didn't recognize the target she had been given because over the years kabuto was serving as missions the organization slowly started morphing kabuto's face in pictures as they showed to nono gradually brainwashing her into believing he grew up to look like how he did in the photos which is much different than how he actually looks in real life explaining why she never even recognized him at her deathbed feeling betrayed kabuto rushes orochimaru stabbing him numerous times out of rage the organization took away everything from it even his identity he has nothing left except emptiness just a shell with no further purpose of course this is until orochimaru rises from the ground and persuades kabuto to embark on a new journey to find meaning and identification as a member of the hidden sound village and providing protection from danzo if he serves under him as his rage slowly fades away while listening to rochimaru kabuto with little to no choice in the matter as he feels he has nowhere else he can go agrees and falls into the same hole he got himself into when he identified himself in the view of what others see him as nono and now rochimaru kabuto doesn't have any self-identity he only latches on to the identity others give him all it took was orochimaru to say he recognized his talent and kabuto was immediately on board he's desperate for belonging and meaning and who can blame him this is all he's ever known ever since he was a child kabuto lives out the next following years of his life serving under orochimaru while idolizing him and his power greatly very similar to his relationship with no no kabuto had found a new version of himself as a disciple of orochimaru a new identity a new purpose and for now somewhere to call home as sasuke grows stronger under the wayne of orochimaru the saani's body starts to fail him in need for another vessel knowing this sasuke jumps orochimaru taking advantage of the condition he's in and is able to overpower him absorbing his master into his own body kabuto is back to square one it's all happening again everything kabuto identified himself with has all come crashing down once more with the absence of rochimaru but he doesn't break down this time unlike in the past instead he takes on a different approach and embarks on a new journey to gain vast amounts of strength in hopes of finding who exactly he is and what he wants to be he injects the remains of orochimaru's body into his as a sign of what he must overcome and spends the next following months molding himself into for lack of a better word a monster fusion of the remains of several ninja including the sound 5 and kimimaru as well as learning senjutsu from the white snake sage he's become obsessed with gaining power to hopefully find himself an identity on the way one of the best moments that truly captures the mindset of kabuto this time has to be in episode 122 when he approaches naruto hinata and yamato a few days after he injected orochimaru's cells into his own the first time viewing the scene this early into the series we can get the impression that kabuto is losing it a little after the departure of rochimaru and is having a tough time moving on but after the fact when looking back in hindsight and being able to read in between the lines getting to see the road that brought kabuto to this point it ties together all the loose ends needed to make this much more fascinating and a masterpiece of a scene this look on kabuto's face fully shows where he was at mentally at this time in the story and where he has been brought to after all these events have occurred with recently orochimar's departure and the way that the anime and manga visualize this is truly beautiful yet frightening at the same time once kabuto is confident in mastering all the new abilities he's garnered he approaches obito of the akatsuki with the one for an alliance between the two in the fourth shinobi war he uses the reanimation jutsu with the body of matara uchiha and other dead ninja as bates in exchange for sasuke after the war has been won being indecisive at first obito then agrees to these conditions not being able to turn down the reincarnated body of moderate uchiha all in search of belonging and identification kabuto has brought himself to being a main factor in a world war causing the deaths of thousands just to attempt to figure out who he wants to be instead of trying to identify himself through serving and taking after others he is now trying to define himself through strength and power kabuto of course has justified an understandable animosity towards the leaf village for how they betrayed him and tore his life apart but the motives for his actions can't be strictly because of that he's committing mass murder against the whole world strictly to find himself with this great power he's demonstrating at the expense of people from all over the shinobi world dying when sasuke and reanimated hitachi who broke free from kabuto's control attempt to stop him from using the reanimation jutsu during the war kabuto seems adamant on his path and decision to find himself refusing to listen to hitachi's attempts to persuade him in terms of the war and what kabuto seeks this is the only fork in the road left to overcome for him the two legendary uchiha sas danny taji vs kabuto yakushi and his newfound power with the result of this battle inevitably affecting the shinobi world at large one way or another and more importantly kabuto's endeavors only one side of this battle can come out as the victor [Music] [Music] [Music] with the cost of hitachi's left eye the izanami is cast on kabuto despite his efforts of shielding his eyes from genjutsu the izanami is able to effectively work despite of the enemy's five senses or lack of usage of them kabuto is sent into a self-reflection in result of the jutsu and is only able to escape the infinite loop of events in the izanami is if he acknowledges and accepts his fate while the technique is still cast itachi uses another genjutsu on him to finally release the reanimation jutsu kabuto is left to reflect on his life as he gets left alone to ponder on the decisions he's made to get where he's at now all for the sake of the search of an identity eventually he's able to snap out of the genshutsu once he's accepted his fate and finds an injured sasuke on the battleground which he decides to heal with the power that he has left it's implied that after this kabuto has now come to his senses and has finally gotten onto the right path as it is shown he is now working at an orphanage for the leaf village after the war ends but at the end of the day does he truly still know that what he's doing is the right path and that's what suits him does he really know who he is and finally found his identity how can we be certain and more importantly how can he be kabuto spent his whole life latching onto the coattails of others and serving them to try to find some form of identification for himself that way but isn't that still what he's doing to this day he's working an orphanage just like noto yakushi the parallels are too clear to ignore isn't this just back to square one for kabuto no matter how strong he gets no matter where he goes no matter what he does he will always be the boy without an identity you

Channel: Laraze

Views: 160,917

Keywords: naruto, kabuto, yakushi, kabuto yakushi, orochimaru, anime, nono yakushi, sasuke, uchiha, obito, madara, danzo, boruto, akatsuki, Naruto shippuden, itachi, analysis, senjutsu, sage mode, reanimation jutsu, jutsu, identity, ninja, missing-nin, snake, fourth Shinobi world war

Id: uzF00B9saBA

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 08 2021