Naruto: Black Zetsu Origins Explained

how do you manipulate the entire world at once that was the question the secret mastermind behind all the events in the first two naruto series had to contend with this is the story about the hidden hand moving the pieces behind the scenes as he manipulated everyone from the show's greatest heroes to its greatest villains the character who very nearly ended the shinobi world for good black zetsu on a dark night long before the shinobi as we know them would come to pass the unthinkable was happening kaguya otsutsuki was sealed into a celestial body that would one day be known as the moon by her own sons just before her fate was decided kaguya let slip from her sleeve a small black object that neither of them noticed this puddle of black goo formed into black zetsu the manifestation of kaguya's will its mission and entire purpose for existence was to revive kaguya and re-establish her control over the world this would be a task that would take centuries it would require the manipulation of thousands of people across history it would require an extremely powerful human to awaken the renegon and merge with the ten-tailed beast so where do you start the thing about black zetsu that sets it apart from most naruto characters is that we're only given glimpses into its true nature it's a quiet character that spends its entire time in the series as a servant of one master or another almost no one ever knew that it was the one who drove most of human history to one single point the one thing were shown about black zetsu more than its distaste for humanity or its love of eating people is that it observes and records as much as it possibly can about humans and the major moments in their history so when looking back at the ancient history of the shinobi world i think it's clear what black zetsu was doing it was watching the humans studying their nature it figured out how to manipulate them how to twist their weaknesses and passions to suit its own goals its first attempt we saw in the anime to do this very thing was when black zetsu approached indro tsutsuki kaguya's grandson and told him to pursue his true potential this led to indra fighting against his younger brother eventually he started his own clan the uchiha obviously impressed with this early success black zetsu decided right there that the uchiha would be the main players in black zetsu's plot over the centuries black zetsu would continue to manipulate the reincarnations of the brothers as much as it had successfully shaped the growing shinobi world into something interesting its strategy of gently nudging history could only go so far no what black setsu needed more than anything else was the perfect human pawn someone with vision incredible power and most importantly an ego so large that they would never suspect they were capable of being manipulated in the first place black zetsu found exactly what it needed with the arrival of madara uchiha born into a world of conflict matara lost several family members early on in his life this left a scar that would never heal he would spend his entire life in conflict against conflict itself no matter what it would cost matara would put an end to the violence even by violent means the other thing that plagued matara his entire life was his rival hashirama senju better known by his nickname god of the shinobi the two would do great things together such as found the village of konoha by uniting several clans unfortunately their friendship ended in battle as the two engaged in their legendary showdown at the valley of the end unbeknownst to either of them they were being watched black zetsu observed to the battle and as it ended with matara's supposed destruction black setsu decided this was the time to take a more active role in history it found madura's body and hid inside waiting for uchiha's fail-safe plan for revival once matara undid his demise he set about his master plan the eye of the moon one that he did not know black setsu had formed in the early days of the uchiha on a stone tablet madara would obsess over he was going to use a technique known as the infinite tsukuyomi to trap every person on the planet into an infinite dream thereby permanently ending all conflict at the cost of free will itself in order to do this he would need to capture the power of the legendary tailed beasts summon and bond with the ten-tailed beast and trap everyone by casting his vision over the moon itself for this madara would need to awaken within himself the renegon through a piece of hashirama's flesh through this power he managed to summon the demonic statue of the outer path to cultivate for himself a servant the white zetsu there was only one problem matara's time was running out he had grown old and realized he'd never lived to see his plans come to fruition so he made a plan to find a successor to finish his work he found a child badly injured and nursed him back to health he decided to corrupt the boy and mold him into his own image the young obito uchiha watched as the love of his life rin nohara was struck down by his best friend kakashi he was approached by matara who manipulated his despair into declaring his allegiance to matara's plan with his successor chosen madara left for him what he believed to be an extension of his will black zetsu he then finally perished passing to obito everything including his name eventually obito would deviate from the plan by releasing the nine-tailed fox from his old mentor's wife who served as his jinchuriki obito then used his shot and gun to control the beast into attacking konoha this led to the loss of his mentor's life along with his wife's as he sealed the nine-tailed fox into his newborn son what obito madura and even black zetsu failed to realize was that every action has an equal and opposite reaction it was this moment above every other in shinobi history that would shape things for the eye of the moon and kaguya's resurrection more than anything else though that would come much later before the nine-tailed fox incident obito set about solving the plan's biggest problem in order for this to work they would need to find a group of highly powerful shinobi it had to be more than just another team of shinobi but the team of shinobi the group had to be a symbol that would strike fear into every corner of the world luckily there was already a new group making waves a team of well-meaning young shinobi who wanted to change the world known as the akatsuki that would do obito posing as madura and black zetsu who had combined himself with white setsu deposes a simple ninja known only as zetsu arranged a meeting with a young organization while the organization had a lot of potential for their purposes their true interest was in the young nagato who had been gifted with remarkable power madaras renegot their charismatic leader yahiko declined the request for help even if nagato showed interest luckily the chaotic shinobi world has a way of working things out in the most violent way possible a plot formed by hanzo and danzo shimura to destroy akatsuki was already in the works obito and zetsu merely nudged it along so that yahiko and most of his team would get eliminated the grief-stricken nagato now found himself as the team's leader using his renegon he was able to take control over his deceased friends using yahiko as his face he renamed himself pain and committed himself to obito and zetsu's plan now all they needed to do was build the team we know how most of the members of akatsuki were recruited into the organization what we don't know is how they were discovered it's a reasonable guess to assume that zetsu with his ability to travel over great distances easily and blend into the environment would be the natural choice to find potential recruits again we can't possibly know what zetsu's criteria for shinobi would be but judging from the team he ended up with it's not hard to figure out first they needed to be s ranked each and every member must be one of the most powerful living ninja in the world second they must have no moral qualms whatsoever the task they would be assigned would come with massive collateral damage finally and most importantly each one of them must be utterly disenfranchised the group would go for people whose views didn't match up with the norms of their village rogue ninja criminals sadists and mercenaries were the akotsky's bread and butter boy did they know how to find them too they got sausary of the red sand a puppet master who had grown bored with regular creations and had moved on to more powerful puppets made of humans orochimaru of the legendary sunni he defected from konoha after they discovered his unethical experiments on his fellow villagers in the pursuit of immortality his time in the organization would be short due to his own personal ambitions juzo biwa and kisame hoshigaki were both part of the elite seven ninja swordsman of the mist though biwa wouldn't survive long as part of the team the heart-stealing money-obsessed bounty hunter known as kakuzu was paired with the immortal zealot hedon after he wouldn't stop making corpses of his own teammates they formed the so-called zombie squad de-dara a disgraced member of the explosion corps considered making clay bombs an art style he refused to join but was forced into it by losing a duel to the legendary itachi uchiha hitachi seemed like a lucky break for the organization he found the organization after he completely brutalized the entire uchiha clan his only conditions were that konoha and especially his younger brother sasuke would not be harmed by the team while this seemed like small potatoes it would prove to be a massive mistake unknown to them hitachi was deliberately allowing for information to get out about the team and was holding back on his mission to bring in the nine-tailed fox while itachi was widely regarded to be one of the team's greatest assets he was without question one of their greatest adversaries in the end combined with payne and original member conan the team went out into the ninja world to accomplish several goals they needed massive amounts of money a network of spies and double agents to act as low-cost mercenaries to destabilize other countries and most importantly to capture the tailed beasts they proved to be incredibly successful in all endeavors akatsky was shaping world events and all the while akotsky was being shaped by their residents by zetsu things with the organization didn't truly get serious for the rest of the shinobi world until the kazekage of tsunagakude was targeted and sasori managed to capture gara in order to seal the one-tailed beast a team from konoha tried to stop them and they succeeded zetsu and obito now posing as a new member named toby arrived to find sasuri deceased badeira clinging on to life from there the race to get the ten-tailed beasts heated up unfortunately just when things were getting better than they ever had for black zetsu's plan that's when one giant problem came to the surface the nine-tailed jinchuriki was not only proving to be their most difficult gut but the biggest enemy for the organization the young naruto uzumaki was quickly growing in power yes but his jutsu and escalating skill with the nine-tailed fox weren't his greatest weapon against the team uzumaki proved himself to be the true antithesis to ikotsky and black zetsu himself where black zatsu had long had success manipulating people's ambitions and fears for his own gain uzumaki was a beacon of hope and goodness akotsuki had great success targeting disenfranchised shinobi who thought the world was a truly desolate place for naruto every bit of suffering he went through only strengthened his resolve his upbeat attitude and never wavering passion proved to be infectious several akatsuki members were either taken out by uzumaki directly or by a young shinobi he had inspired sasari was defeated by one of his teammates sakura with the help of sasuri's old master kakuzu was defeated by uzumaki and his mentor kakashi hidan's earthly body was destroyed by shikimaru one of naruto's closest friends zetsu watched as even hitachi uchiha was seemingly taken out by his younger brother sasuke the former best friend of naruto's and his biggest rival it became clear that the yellow-haired shinobi and his village needed to be dealt with it was then that nagato himself sent the six paths of pain to eliminate the village once and for all uzumaki arrived to find his home decimated and his friends bodies littering the streets instead of destroying his spirit this pushed naruto to his greatest heights he managed to not only defeat pain but proved to nagato so completely that there was still hope in the world that nagato reversed all the carnage he'd inflicted on the village akotski and black zetsu just suffered their greatest defeat it was clear that a stronger direct action was needed so the organization moved forward with instigating the fourth shinobi world war during this point zetsu began to get more desperate while it spent most of its life content to live in the shadows in the time leading up to the global conflict it took a more active role utilizing things like wood release and its crafty intelligence black zetsu actually went up against the likes of naruto during the five kage summit akatsuki brought in sasuke and his new team of shinobi but the alliance was shaky at best its desperation received a reprieve when they were approached by kabuto yakushi who brought exactly the skills akotski needed kabuto was able to revive several fallen akatsuki members placed under his control while there's no telling if such a thing is possible for black zatsu one could easily imagine that it would be quite happy to see the face of its best servant matara uchiha brought back to life as confidence in akatsuki wavered a youthful matara was exactly what they needed he proved himself to be a one-man army during the shinobi war taking on legions single-handedly meanwhile the current leader of akatsuki was starting to falter he revealed his true identity as obito uchiha to his friend kakashi culminating in a battle between the two as forces closed in on obito he revives the ten tales prematurely an act matara seems particularly displeased with obito and matara control the ten tales but destroying the allied shinobi does not prove to be as easy as it should have been if obito had summoned it properly obito then defies matara's will stating that he follows his own plans now he begins attacking more viciously slaying many well-known shinobi including naruto's close friend neji hugo still not learning from akatsuki's previous bouts with naruto he tries to use this to break him this fails and the two uchiha end up getting separated from the ten tails after a successful attack obito eventually succeeds in sealing the ten tails inside himself gaining extraordinary powers in the process he goes to battle with an allied naruto and sasuke who defeat him after a lengthy struggle obito like nagato before him is defeated by naruto's words as much as his skills he relents that he was wrong all along and finally relinquishes the plane obito attempts to use the samsara of heavenly life technique to revive all those he is slain instead he is attacked by black zetsu who re-takes control of the situation it makes obito perform the technique on madura alone fully reviving him to his full strength black zetsu then tries in vain to retrieve the rinigon from obito before the shinobi alliance intervenes ultimately madura is able to join with the ten tails and reclaim his renegon from obito black zetsu gains full control over obito's body and matara begins the infinite tsukuyomi naruto's team remained unaffected even as matara's master stroke succeed it was then that black zetsu finally dropped the last of his ruse with glee it stabbed matara in the back revealing that it was never his servant to begin with but the other way around blac zetsu then took over matara's body making it absorb the chakra from the tsukuyomi madara's body shifted and expanded painfully until eventually he was replaced with princess kaguya herself black setsu then strikes at naruto and sasuke triumphantly explaining its true role behind all that they had endured at this point black zetsu likely thought it had won it being a living extension of kaguya's will it's unlikely that it could have even considered the idea that naruto and his friends could defeat her it would learn naruto's team overcomes all odds by landing decisive blows against kaguya in their fiercest battle yet against all of black zetsu's expectations they managed to seal her back into the moon ending all hope of victory as it was centuries ago black zetsu slinks away in defeat prepared to try manipulating the shinobi world to its will once again even if it takes an eternity at this moment black zetsu's greatest enemy does something to it no one else ever had he took notice as black zetsu was crawling its way from the rock it was cast upon it was confronted by naruto black zetsu then desperately unleashes all of its outrage upon naruto how it had created the entire world naruto lived in how naruto was merely one of many shinobi who existed just because of its actions instead of taking these words to heart naruto calls the secret hand behind all of shinobi history a snot-nosed brat and seals it away with kaguya for all eternity despite all of its planning manipulation and cunning over the centuries there was one thing black zetsu never accounted for the consequences of its interferences in the shinobi world it is no mistake that naruto uzumaki and sasuke uchiha the reincarnated souls of asura and indro tsutsuki were the ones to defeat it the very first manipulation it made telling young indra that he could overcome his brother sealed all of its victories and ultimately its defeat so let that be a lesson for all anime heroes out there while the charismatic and powerful big bads are certainly a challenge it's often the little guys who work in the shadows who represent the real threat underestimate them at your own peril

Channel: CBR

Views: 144,767

Keywords: Akatsuki, Black Zetsu, CBR, Gaara, Itachi Uchiha, Kaguya, Kisame, Madara Uchiha, Nagato, Naruto Shippuden, Naruto Uzumaki, Obito Uchiha, Orochimaru, Pain, Sasuke Uchiha, The Fourth Shinobi World War

Id: AV4PNJiav6I

Length: 19min 28sec (1168 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021