Learn Everything You Need To Know About Sasori

Sasori is one of the most intriguing and mysterious characters in the anime Naruto Shippuden. He is a former ninja of the Hidden Sand Village and a member of the Akatsuki, a criminal organization that seeks to capture the tailed beasts. Sasori is also known as Sasori of the Red Sand, because of his mastery of puppetry and his ability to turn his enemies into puppets.

All about Sasori

• Birthdate: November 8
• Sex: Male
• Age: Part II: 35
• Status: Deceased
• Height: Part II: 164.1 cm
• Weight: Part II: 47.3 kg
• Blood type: AB
• Classification: S-rank/Missing-nin
• Affiliation: Sunagakure/Akatsuki
• Team: Puppet Brigade/Surprise Attack and Diversion Platoon
• Partner: Orochimaru/Deidara

Sasori’s Background

When Sasori was young, his father and mother were killed by Sakumo Hatake in battle, leaving him in the care of his grandmother, Chiyo. When Chiyo attempted to cheer him up by teaching him puppetry, Sasori’s innate aptitude for the art became apparent, and he even began to devise masterful ways of eliminating a puppet master’s weaknesses in battle.

His skills even allowed him to create two puppets in the image of his parents in an attempt to discard the terrible loneliness he felt. However, as the puppets were unable to give him the real parental love that he desired, Sasori lost interest in them, and they later fell into Chiyo’s possession. Sasori created many other ingenious puppets, including Kuroari, Karasu, and Sanshōuo.

During the Third Shinobi World War, the effectiveness of his puppets in spilling his enemies’ blood on the sand gave rise to Sasori’s moniker “Sasori of the Red Sand”.

However, motivated by his desire to make works that last forever, Sasori began experimenting to create puppets out of people. In the anime, his only friend, Komushi, lost his right arm during his border control duty, so Sasori gave him a new puppet arm as a prosthetic limb.

After Komushi perished, having accidentally ingested some of Sasori’s poison, Sasori proceeded to turn him into one of his first human puppets.

Twenty years before his introduction in the series, Sasori left Sunagakure it was around this time he converted his body into a puppet with his core of living flesh remaining as his only human part, thus appearing to maintain the youth of the time of his departure.

Over ten years before his own death, Sasori secretly assassinated the Third Kazekage and made him into one of his human puppets. Despite this, Sasori noted the Third Kazekage did not die without giving Sasori a struggle.

Sometime after becoming a missing-nin, Sasori was confronted by Konan and recruited into Akatsuki. Initially declining, Konan opted to fight him, proposing if he lost he would join. Sasori complied and despite using his puppet body, he ultimately lost and joined the organisation, being partnered up with Orochimaru.

After joining the Akatsuki, he utilised his skills to create numerous spies like Yura and Mukade from Suna as sleeper agents. Sasori was paired with Orochimaru, who shared his desire of an everlasting existence.

Later, Sasori joined his group in recruiting Deidara into Akatsuki. After Orochimaru left the Akatsuki following his failed attempt to take Itachi Uchiha’s body, Sasori bore a grudge towards his former partner and sent Kabuto Yakushi to be his spy in Otogakure.

Nevertheless, Sasori was unaware that Kabuto was working for Orochimaru long before he posed as an Akatsuki spy, as he and the rest of the Akatsuki thought that Kabuto joined Orochimaru’s side after being dispelled of Sasori’s brainwashing.

In the anime, Sasori later learned of Orochimaru’s whereabouts and joined Deidara to find him. Once tracking him down in the Land of Wind, Sasori unleashed his Third Kazekage puppet.

Orochimaru, however, surprised Sasori by countering with a reincarnation of the actual Kazekage. The two missing-nin then pitted their respective pawns against each other and eventually the Third Kazekage proved stronger than the puppet.

However, the Kazekage soon regained control of himself and forced a release of the technique, prompting Orochimaru to retreat. Deidara then unleashed a series of bombs on Orochimaru’s hideout, hoping to kill the Konoha-nin. Sasori was left very annoyed that despite a thorough search, they could not find a body.

Sasori’s Personality

Sasori grew up in a sad and lonely environment due to the absence of parental love. When introduced to the art of puppetry by his grandmother, Chiyo, he grew a little happier.

He eventually created puppets in the likeness of his parents, but when he realised that the puppets could not give him the actual love that he desired, he became cold, aloof and led to his general disregard for human life.

Sasori even went so far as to state that he would feel nothing if Chiyo died, as he claimed that his heart had become like his puppet body: without any emotions.

Neither did Sasori have any loyalty for his village, as he defected to pursue personal interests and even kidnapped the Third Kazekage, which caused severe damage for Sunagakure, and then attack the village again twenty years after leaving.

Despite his cruel and nihilistic nature, Sasori was also known to possess a very down-to-earth outlook on life, rarely getting worked up over obstacles that impeded his way. He rarely gave way to any strong emotions, and such instances that happened were often short-lived.

Sasori was also known for his impatience, as he repeatedly noted that he did not wish to wait or keep others waiting. Despite this, he took his time in battling Kankurō when they first met due to his interest in fighting his old creations, which were handed down to a puppet master of the next generation.

Sasori and his second partner in Akatsuki, Deidara, both had conflicting views on art, and they frequently argued about their differing perspectives.

Deidara maintained his belief that art was something transient that departs quickly, whereas Sasori believed that fine art was everlasting and remained far into the future.

This reflected their individual natures Deidara made clay sculptures which exploded, while Sasori created long-lasting puppets out of humans that never died. Nevertheless, although Deidara outwardly seemed to respect Sasori’s beliefs, Sasori never respected Deidara’s.

Sasori’s ambition was to become an exquisite piece of art himself by turning his body into one of his own puppet works. Sasori adhered so strongly to his belief that true art was ever-lasting that he even went as far as to have his spy retrieve information on the Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation and human experiments.

Sasori abandoned this ambition after Kankuro told him that it was his creations that he put his heart and soul into that would last forever. After accepting Kankur’s view on eternal art, he entrusted his Mother and Father puppets to Kankuro and told him to pass them on to the next generation after he dies. In this moment, Sasori is shown to have an emotional side as well.

Sasori was also willing to accept the views of others on certain topics in contrast to Deidara, who stubbornly stood by his beliefs until the end. Sasori spared Kankuro during their first confrontation after the latter made a last attempt to attack him, but he notes that Kankurō’s envenomed state would eventually lead to his death.

Possibly stemming from his lonely childhood, Sasori was entirely loyal to Akatsuki, so much that he vowed to kill his former partner, Orochimaru, for betraying the organisation.

Sasori’s Appearance

Sasori had wide greyish brown eyes which he inherited from his mother, and short, mousy red hair which he inherited from his father. He was usually seen with a hazy, dreamy look on his face.

As a child, Sasori wore dark green robes with a pale poncho around them. As a teenager, while living in Sunagakure, he wore a purplish robe with the Sunagakure forehead protector.

After leaving the village he was seen wearing the Suna flak jacket with a sleeveless undershirt, bandages around both arms, brown pants with an attached colster where he held his puppet summoning scroll, and brown shinobi sandals.

After joining the Akasuki and converting himself into a puppet in the likeness of his original body, Sasori’s hair became slightly more messy, and wore his Akatsuki robe along with a purple Akatsuki ring on his left thumb that bears the kanji for “jewel” or “sphere” (玉, gyoku).

He also wore teal nail polish on his fingernails. Even though Sasori still possessed his Sunagakure forehead protector that was slashed out in the middle, he kept it on his person instead of wearing it.

Sasori’s puppet body consisted of a pair of spinning claws attached to his lower back, a holder for four scrolls on his back, a stinger in the empty and open stomach cavity, a compartment in his right chest, and a ‘core of living flesh’ (生身の核, namami no kaku) in the left which had the kanji for “scorpion” (蠍, sasori) painted on it. In his exposed state, Sasori’s eyes would also be wide open in a maniacal way, as opposed to his normal calm looking eyes.

After Kabuto reincarnated him, Sasori displayed the black sclerae and darker irides seen in other reincarnated shinobi. In place of his previous clothing, Sasori, like the other reincarnated Akatsuki members, wore a maroon cloak with beige lining. Despite being 35 years old at the time of death, his reincarnated form takes that of his teenage years, how he looked before he converted himself.

Sasori’s Abilities

Sasori was a very powerful shinobi, being able to, with effort, defeat and kill the Third Kazekage, the strongest ninja in Suna’s history. His use of his puppets was greatly feared throughout the Third Shinobi World War as he turned the sand red with blood, giving him the nickname, “Sasori of the Red Sand”.

His legacy was such that Kankurō knew of and feared him despite being born after Sasori already left the village. Deidara himself even admitted that Sasori was the stronger of the two of them.

Puppet Mastery

Trained by his powerful grandmother, Chiyo, in the art of puppetry, Sasori was an extremely powerful puppeteer and had great skill in creating and controlling his puppets.

He created a number of ingenious ones including the three main puppets that Kankurō uses, which were made in Sunagakure before he fled. At the time of his final battle with Sakura and Chiyo, Sasori had 298 human puppets in his collection.

His status as a puppet master offered him a tremendous advantage against other puppeteer shinobi, especially if the puppets they were using happened to be ones that he created, as seen in his battle against Kankurō. As puppets are usually installed with long-range weapons, Sasori was an expert at fighting at long distances.

He had tremendous skill with chakra threads, suppressing them to the point that they became invisible and he could control upwards to 100 puppets – a feat thought impossible for ordinary shinobi.

Sasori can also control living people as puppets, even against their will, if they are weakened enough. His usage of puppets was at such a high level that he made mere techniques appear as an artistic performance, which he called his “Red Secret Technique”.

Human Puppetry

Sasori’s puppets were unique in that they were made from the still-living bodies of humans. These human puppets were more versatile than regular puppets, since, in addition to having many dangerous devices installed within them (as is common with regular puppets), they were also able to use chakra and perform any techniques or kekkei genkai that they possessed during their life. Being the developer of this form of puppets, Sasori is also the only one who knows how to create them.

Hiruko

In the anime, Hiruko is said to have been a human puppet from a once famous Sunagakure shinobi that Sasori converted upon death. Hiruko was Sasori’s eleventh puppet, and used as both a weapon and armour.

Having worn the puppet, Hiruko served as a means to eliminate the puppeteer’s weakness of being a separate and exposed target. Never having to leave from within the puppet, Sasori managed to use his techniques through it, such as the Sand Clone and chakra threads.

Hiruko had a long mechanical, scorpion-like tail (an allusion to Sasori’s name meaning “scorpion”) extending from the mouth of what appeared to be a demon mask on its back, of which Chiyo said was a recent addition by Sasori to act as an extra defence to a weak point in the puppet.

The tail worked as Hiruko’s main offensive weapon and was laced with Sasori’s speciality poison. The tail could also be used defensively by spinning around Hiruko’s body at a rapid speed. Hiruko’s left arm was also rigged with a projectile launcher capable of firing poisoned shrapnel and needles, and its mouth could also be used to serve a similar function of firing poisoned needles.

As Hiruko was one of his favourite puppets, Sasori adorned it in Akatsuki attire for nearly the entirety of his tenure in the organisation. Because of this, only certain members like Orochimaru, Deidara, or relatives like Chiyo knew Sasori’s true face while others like Zetsu and Kabuto had no idea that Hiruko was not his actual body. While within Hiruko, Sasori maintains the ability to see through the puppet’s eyes and speak through it in a deeper and hoarser voice.

Third Kazekage

Sasori’s favourite human puppet was the Third Kazekage, which retained its Magnet Release, which in turn grants Sasori access to the Iron Sand techniques.

When mixed with Sasori’s poison, the Iron Sand was given a more lethal edge. The Iron Sand could also be used to fill up the joints of other puppets, thus immobilising them.

Due to the Iron Sand being derived from the Third’s ability to convert chakra to magnetism, this grants Sasori immunity from metallic weapons.

The Third’s puppet’s right arm held several poisoned blades, while the left arm could open up to reveal several summoning seals that summoned thousands of similar arms to attack the target.

These arms were capable of crushing an opponent, emitting poisonous gas clouds, and releasing wires that dragged the opponent into the gas cloud. If these arms were cut off, a small buzz-saw took their place.

Puppet Body

Although Sasori was thirty-five years old, he maintained the appearance of a teenage boy. His unnaturally young appearance was a product of the immortalisation of his design.

Aside from his core, Sasori’s body was actually a puppet and it is suggested in the manga that Sasori created more than one puppet body in his image.

In place of his intestines was a thick cable coiled around a pole, allowing him to use it as a stinger and retract it if necessary. Attached to his back was a scroll holder, containing four scrolls that stored extra armament.

The first scroll allowed him to expel powerful streams of fire, and the second scroll was used to store numerous puppets for the Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets.

The capabilities of the third and fourth scrolls were not revealed in the manga, though in the anime, the fourth scroll was used to fire jets of water with enough force to cut through rock.

Sasori also has a pair of poles attached to the back of his hips, each equipped with five large blades that could spin like a propeller, granting him both an equipage for greater speed and a monstrous close combat weapon.

Sasori also had pipes on each of his palms that could spew out intense fire, hot enough to melt rock, or, in the anime, powerful water jets with such pressure that they were capable of cutting through rock.

Being a fully-armed puppet himself, Sasori did not suffer the weakness of being vulnerable to close-range combat that other puppeteers suffer. When smashed apart, he could simply draw the pieces back together. Additionally, Sasori could transfer his core to other puppets in a split second, allowing him to abandon a body that was damaged beyond repair.

Despite being loaded with weapons, Sasori kept them (and his true form) hidden within his Akatsuki robes, which were large enough to conceal them without problem.

Curiously, when using “himself”, Sasori’s eyes were always wide open, giving him a somewhat insane look. In contrast, prior to revealing his puppet body, Sasori’s eyes were always half-closed, making him appear calmer and more aloof. Sasori had claimed that he had not used “himself” since joining Akatsuki, until his last battle with his grandmother and Sakura Haruno.

Installed in the right part of Sasori’s chest was a mechanism that could spin numerous chakra threads, allowing him to exceed his previous capabilities and control well over a hundred puppets.

Doing so also allows him to use his Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets. With it, Sasori was given a drastic advantage over other puppeteers, having once taken down a small nation with it.

The left part of Sasori’s chest held the lone human part of him and thus, the only necessary part of his body capable of controlling chakra: a cylinder-shaped device containing his ‘core’ (核, kaku).

Because Sasori’s core was the only living part of his body that he still contained, his puppet body was virtually indestructible, allowing him to survive the poison mist Kankurō bombarded him with, as well as the impact from Sakura’s punches.

As such, the core was his only weakness and its destruction would mean his death. He was also able to fight for extended periods of time without hindrances that would normally affect a human’s body, such as fatigue, muscle failure, loss of blood, wounds, or pain.

His conversion has allowed him to forgo the need for food. Despite removing all of his organs, Sasori’s puppet body maintained awareness and other natural faculties, such as the ability to speak, see, and hear. After his death, Kankurō would later take the body and use it as his puppet.

Intelligence

Repeatedly, Sasori has demonstrated to be a highly analytical and cunning man, able to handle situations with various traps and misdirection.

He is also shown to quickly determine his opponent’s strengths and combat methods. Like his grandmother, Sasori has a great knowledge of the human body, as shown from his brainwashing technique and his mastery over creating different types of poisons.

His unique poisons, that he laced nearly every weapon in his arsenal with, took effect instantly, and one such poison could kill the target after three days of suffering; according to Sakura, this poison is refined with heavy metals, which intrude the muscles and destroy healthy cells.

This poison was so complex that Sasori himself acknowledged that no one in Sunagakure could counter it and believed its complexity made it incurable altogether.

However, to his surprise, Sakura came up with a successful antidote for the poison; Sasori even noted that creating the antidote requires extreme precision, with no room for failure, something difficult even for himself.

What is Sasori’s fate?

Sasori’s fate is sealed when he encounters Team 7 and Chiyo in the Hidden Sand Village. They are sent by the Hidden Leaf Village to rescue Gaara, the Fifth Kazekage and Naruto’s friend, who has been captured by Deidara and Sasori.

Sasori fights against Sakura Haruno and Chiyo, who use their own puppetry skills to counter him. Sasori reveals his true puppet form and unleashes his 100 puppets against them.

Sakura and Chiyo manage to destroy most of his puppets and expose his heart container. Sasori then uses his Third Kazekage puppet against them, but they manage to defeat it as well.

In the final moments of the battle, Sasori makes a surprising move. He allows Chiyo to stab him through his heart container with her puppets that resemble his parents.

He does this out of respect for Chiyo and Sakura’s abilities, and out of nostalgia for his parents’ embrace. He also reveals some information about Orochimaru and the Akatsuki before he dies.

He tells them that he has a spy who will meet with Orochimaru in 10 days at the Tenchi Bridge. He also tells them that the Akatsuki’s leader has a mysterious power that can control people’s minds.

Sasori’s death is mourned by some of his former comrades, such as Deidara and Kankuro. Deidara respects Sasori as an artist and a friend, and vows to avenge him by killing Naruto. Kankuro is Gaara’s brother and a puppet master who admired Sasori’s work.

He inherits some of Sasori’s puppets and uses them to honor his legacy. Sasori’s death also has a profound impact on Sakura, who learns from his example that true strength comes from the bonds with others, not from the pursuit of eternal life.