Jinchūriki

{Directory|Characters|Tailed beasts}} The are humans that have tailed beasts sealed within them. They exhibit extraordinary powers due to the immense chakra reserves they possess.

The jinchūriki are typically lonely people, viewed by those around them as the tailed beasts that had been sealed within them, leading to prejudice and being hated and feared. According to Akatsuki, the first two jinchūriki they captured loathed humanity, and their villages were in fact glad to be rid of them. However, some jinchūriki refuse to waver, even though they have been shunned, and they eventually earned respect. Such examples are Naruto, Killer B, and Gaara.

History
The first jinchūriki was the Sage of the Six Paths, who sealed the Ten-Tails within himself to save the world. However, knowing that his death would release the Ten-Tails back into the world, the Sage used his Creation of All Things ability to divide its chakra into the nine tailed beasts, before using Chibaku Tensei to seal its body away which later would become the moon.

By the time of the formation of the shinobi villages, Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage, used his Wood Release kekkei genkai to capture and give several tailed beasts to the other shinobi villages as peace treaties, in order to stabilise the balance of power between them. The Second Kazekage of Sunagakure was the first to research the jinchūriki, with the other villages following soon after, with hopes to use the beasts as weapons in human hosts, or in Konohagakure's case, keep the beasts from doing harm to their village. In order to prevent the jinchūriki from turning traitor, it is tradition for the host to be selected from the family of the village's own Kage. In this way, the jinchūriki not only has strong ties of loyalty to village and their leader, but they also serve to show off the Kage's might. For example, Gaara is the son of the Fourth Kazekage and Killer B is the adoptive brother and combat partner of the Fourth Raikage.

Sealing
Each village has used a different seal when creating their jinchūriki. For example, Konoha used the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, and Kumogakure used the Iron Armour Seal. Akatsuki, an organisation whose role in the series is to capture the jinchūriki, uses the Sealing Technique: Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals technique to extract and seal the tailed beasts within the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path for future use. They have, as of the Fourth Shinobi World War, captured seven of the nine beasts.

It's been shown some sort of compatibility between the tailed beast and the potential jinchūriki is required. If the tailed beast is removed from its jinchūriki's body, the jinchūriki will die. Similarly, if the jinchūriki dies with the tailed beast still sealed within them, the beast will die too. Because of this, the tailed beasts tend to be very protective of their jinchūriki, and will take any action whenever their lives are in danger. However, it is revealed that the tailed beasts can actually survive their jinchūriki's deaths, with the only consequence being that it will take time for them to revive without a host. Also, rare exceptions of a jinchūriki surviving an extraction may occur, if the said host has high enough stamina.

The seal that keep the tailed beast within its female jinchūriki is at its weakest when she is in childbirth, due to the nurturing of the child in the womb taking precedence over the reinforcement of the seal which weakens the seal in direct proportion. As such, a ninja is required to keep the seal intact during childbirth, and restore the seal back to full power afterwards. A full-term pregnancy for a female jinchūriki is about ten months.

Abilities
The jinchūriki have shown to have access to the tailed beasts' massive chakra reserves and, by training, develop unique fighting styles and use the tailed beasts' considerable abilities: Gaara manipulates sand, Yugito breathes fire, Yagura materialises coral, Rōshi creates and manipulates lava, Utakata creates a corrosive alkali, Fū is capable of flight, Killer B produces ink, and Naruto has quick regeneration and can detect negative emotions. In addition, the jinchūriki can use the chakra to transform themselves into the likeness of their tailed beasts, which further increases their abilities.

List of Jinchūriki

 * Shukaku
 * Shukaku's First Jinchūriki
 * Shukaku's Second Jinchūriki
 * Gaara


 * Matatabi
 * Yugito Nii


 * Isobu
 * Yagura


 * Son Gokū
 * Rōshi


 * Kokuō
 * Han


 * Saiken
 * Utakata


 * Chōmei
 * Fū


 * Gyūki
 * A's Cousin's Father
 * A's Cousin's Uncle
 * A's Cousin
 * Killer B


 * Kurama
 * Mito Uzumaki
 * Kushina Uzumaki
 * Naruto Uzumaki


 * Ten-Tails
 * Sage of the Six Paths

Similar Cases

 * At one point during the time of the foundation of the shinobi villages, the Gold and Silver Brothers of Kumogakure were assigned to capture Kurama, but the fox swallowed them whole. However, the two brothers managed to survive and gain some of its chakra and power by eating the flesh of its stomach for two weeks, which caused Kurama to regurgitate them. They also had similar facial markings to those of Naruto, something that not even the previous true jinchūriki of Kurama, Mito and Kushina Uzumaki, possessed. An unnamed Kumo-nin also tried to copy their method by eating one of Gyūki's tentacles, but instead of becoming a jinchūriki, he died as a result. It is said that Kinkaku and Ginkaku were "something special" and is stated by the Fourth Raikage that they may be distantly related to the Sage of the Six Paths.
 * In the anime, Sora only had a residual amounts of Kurama's chakra sealed into him, which made him a . Even though he was granted similar abilities to those of a true jinchūriki, his were vastly inferior.
 * In the anime, Yūkimaru had the ability to partially control Isobu. Isobu was not actually sealed inside of Yūkimaru however, and thus, he was not a true jinchūriki.
 * In Naruto Shippūden 2: Bonds, both Amaru and Shinnō had each tapped into the power of the Zero-Tails at different times, which was sealed within the Land of the Sky; however, because the Zero-Tails is not an actual tailed beast, nor was the creature sealed in either of them, Amaru and Shinnō are not considered jinchūriki.
 * In Naruto 6: Road to Ninja, Naruto's counterpart in the Infinite Tsukuyomi world, Menma, was Kurama's jinchūriki.
 * In Naruto Shippūden: Dragon Blade Chronicles, the main antagonist Kuroma Tatsushiro planned to merge with the five Genryū to become the Light Dragon so he can use its power to destroy the world, which Yamato and Naruto thought was similar to becoming a jinchūriki. Later in the game, Akari Tatsushiro instead merged with the Genryū and became the Light Dragon but was restored to normal by Naruto and the Dragon Blade.

Trivia

 * Gaara died when Akatsuki removed Shukaku from his body, but he was later revived through the combined effort of Chiyo and Naruto. Although he no longer has Shukaku sealed within him, Gaara still retains the ability to manipulate sand.
 * Kushina Uzumaki is the only jinchūriki who has survived the extraction of her tailed beast, due to her clan's vitality.
 * The children of female jinchūriki seem to display influences from the tailed beast. The sole example being Naruto Uzumaki who has whisker-like cheek markings which are also exhibited by the Gold and Silver Brothers who were swallowed by the Nine-Tails. This also seems to be the case if a tailed beast is sealed within a child while they are still in the womb. This might be the reason behind Gaara's permanent eye-markings while the same ones exhibited by his father, are temporary.
 * Takigakure is the only village not belonging to one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries known to have had a jinchūriki.
 * The dub made a few errors on what a jinchūriki is: for instance, Shikamaru says in the dub Target: Locked On that Hidan and Kakuzu are looking for the "jinchūriki inside Naruto", instead of saying the "Fox inside Naruto" or the "tailed beast inside Naruto".