Hidan

Hidan (in Japanese: 飛段) is a villain of Naruto. He is the partner of Kakuzu (despite having mutual dislike for each other) and was the second newest member of Akatsuki, at the time of his introduction. Kisame Hoshigaki laughingly referred to Hidan and Kakuzu as the "Zombie Brothers".

He served as one of the two main antagonists in the Akatsuki Supression Mission arc.

Background
Hidan hailed from Yugakure. After it deteriorated from a shinobi village to a tourist site, Hidan became infuriated with how things were turning out. He believed that the shinobi that resided there were meant to kill, and thus slaughtered his neighbors before leaving Yugakure, and joining the cult-like faith known as Jashin, a religion that worshiped a deity of the same name. The primary teaching of this faith appears to be kill thy neighbor, where anything less than utter destruction is considered a sin. Through experiments with Jashin's secret technique, Hidan was also granted immortality.

Eventually, he joined the Akatsuki after seeing Kakuzu, a man who he saw as a pioneer in immortality and eventually was partnered with.

Part II
After he and Kakuzu defeat Kumogakure's Yugito Nii, the Jinchūriki of Matatabi the Two-Tails, and handed her to Zetsu, Hidan makes his way to the Land of Fire to capture Naruto. However, Hidan begrudgingly joined Kakuzu in attacking a temple so his partner could the bounty on the head monk, Chiriku. While he waited for Kakuzu to collect the money, Hidan was ambushed by a ninja group led by Asuma Sarutobi and his apprentice Shikamaru. In the battle that ensued, Hidan manages to get his hands on Asuma's blood and creates out the ritual to kill his opponent by stabbing himself in the heart despite Shikamaru's attempt to stop him. When reinforcements from Konoha arrived as Shikamaru collapsed, Hidan is reluctantly called back by Pain to aid in the extraction of Matatabi.

Once the sealing was over, Hidan and Kakuzu headed for Konoha, eager to continue their battle before being jumped by Shikamaru with the rest of Team Asuma and Kakashi Hatake. But with Kakuzu aiding him, Hidan overpowers Team Asuma, until Shikamaru leads him away from the battle and engages him one-on-one. Once led to the Nara Clan Forest, Shikamaru's shadow possession wears off, and Hidan takes the opportunity to draw his blood and kill him. However, Shikamaru tricks Hidan into unwittingly harming Kakuzu using a vial of his blood that Kakashi had filled earlier. Soon after, Hidan finds himself covered in explosive tags as Shikamaru detonates them all to literally blow Hidan to bits as what remained of his still living body parts are buried. Hidan curses his opponent, telling him he will eventually escape and kill Shikamaru, but he denies this, telling him that the deer guarding the forest will prevent his escape.

During the Fourth Great Ninja War, a reanimated Kakuzu reveals that Hidan still lives but slowly dying from lack of nutrition.

Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals
Hidan made an appearance in the chibi spin-off Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals. Unlike in the original series, his jutsu is rather portrayed as useless as seen in the series, despite it doesn't hurt anybody. He first appeared in Episode 38, alongside with his partner Kakuzu wherein they arrived at their hideout, much to Tenten's surprise. Much like Sasori & his partner, he also mistook Lee as a new recruit. After Kakuzu insults him as well as his religion and jutsu, Hidan proves that his jutsu is useful by showing them how he pray, by stabbing his own shoulder, much to his pleasure & to Tenten's horror, thus introducing Jashinism to Lee. Lee upon seeing this, decided to try it, much to his pleasure as well, but is hit by Deidara in the head.

Later, when Pain arrived to introduce himself to the new recruit, he accidently tripped & then introduces himself and says he is a god. Hidan starts to make fun of him, only to end up getting hit by the latter's Shinra Tensei. Pain then states that he wants to test Lee, Hidan mistook this for a Jashin Ritual so he ends up getting hit again. Later, after Deidara unintentionally starts a fight, Kakuzu untintentionally hits him as well as Pain. Much to his anger, he transforms into his Voodoo Jutsu and joins the fight by doing nothing but to self torture himself, where Tenten sees how dumb he is. Later, when Tobi & Zetsu arrived & Sasori blames him for "recruiting" Lee & Guy. Zetsu tells him that he didn't recruit anybody. Hidan proves this by describing Lee's appearance, which Tobi easily recognises. After Tobi tells the truth, Hidan and the rest of Akatsuki beat up Deidara for not telling Lee was a spy.

Appearance
Hidan has medium length silver hair slicked back with distinctive pinkish-purple eyes. He wears his Akatsuki cloak open with no shirt, only pants under it revealing his Yugakure forehead protector around his neck and Jashin amulet. He wears dark green nail polish and his Akatsuki ring on his left index finger, which bears the kanji for Three (三, san). He is always seen with his Triple-Bladed Scythe on his back. His left ear also appears to be torn or cut after his fight with Asuma. Also, after his battle against Asuma's unit, he did not replace his torn Akatsuki robes.

Personality
Hidan was one of the most foul-mouthed, disrespectful characters in the series; he frequently swore and complained at allies and opponents alike, contrary to being a "religious" person. He rarely used honorifics when speaking, and, even then, usually as a form of sarcasm, for example when he called Deidara "Deidara-chan". He was the only member of Akatsuki who did not respect their leader, Pain, and openly declared his willingness to kill him around others, which is notably shown in Rock Lee & his Ninja Pals where he make fun of him only to get hit by the latter's Shinra Tensei.

The only respect he ever seemed to give was to his god, and, even then, he was quite willing to use his name as an insult. He openly held his partner, Kakuzu, in contempt for his habit of blasphemy, love of money, and Kakuzu's frequent ridicule of Hidan's religion and battle style. Despite this, whenever Hidan was in the mood to kill, the two worked together flawlessly in battle, and one can infer that he did care somewhat for his partner, from his panicked reaction when he almost killed Kakuzu while being possessed by Shikamaru's technique.

Hidan had absolutely no moral restraints regarding the people he killed; he considered slaughter a religious calling, and often took considerable pleasure in making his opponents' deaths as painful as possible. Given the requirements of his voodoo-like curse ritual, he was quite willing to inflict pain and injuries on himself, and openly relished the shared pain between him and the cursed victim, strongly suggesting that he was a masochist.

Despite this, he reacted "normally" (that is, he didn't enjoy the pain) to being injured by someone else, or when the opponent didn't share the pain.

Hidan's behavior in the anime bordered on insanity; he was frequently heard shrieking loudly while attacking, and laughed maniacally when he was about to kill Asuma Sarutobi. Hidan also appeared to be quite spiteful towards his enemies (and nearly everyone else), even commenting to Shikamaru Nara that "I've been waiting for this" ("this" referring to using his ceremony to kill Shikamaru).

However, his immortality had made him arrogant, and he frequently engaged opponents with no regard for strategy, save to acquire some of their blood. Although ridiculed for his foolishness by Kakuzu and Shikamaru alike, and being obviously inferior in tactical acumen to either of them, he was able to analyze the nature and limits of Shikamaru's Shadow Imitation Technique, and conducted battle accordingly (though he retained his arrogant attitude even under these circumstances). Interestingly, he seemed to panic when Shikamaru took control of his body, shouting at Kakuzu to do something in a rather frantic voice. He didn't particularly like it when Kakuzu assisted in his battles, and only called for his help when he decided he needed it. Kakuzu tended to return the favor by coming in "late" and letting Hidan be beheaded (though still alive) as punishment for underestimating his opponents. After his head was reattached he showed a great hatred towards Asuma.

Immortality
Hidan's primary ability was his inability to die, a result of extensive experimenting with the Jashin religion's various jutsu. His immortality allowed him to survive numerous fatal injuries, and almost any form of dismemberment; he even retained his ability to speak after having his head cut off. However, his head still needed to be connected to his body in order to control it, so Kakuzu reattached it, and other body parts, when needed. Despite Shikamaru's attempt to blow him into smithereens using hundreds of paper bombs adhered to his entire body, the former only succeeded in decapitating him (after weakening the tendons that Kakuzu used to re-attach his head) with the full impact of the explosion. Even though he was impervious to most physical attacks, as well as survive the injuries that actually got through to him, he was still susceptible to pain, which he came to find pleasure in at the expense of his opponents. This inability to die was the primary reason for his partnership with Kakuzu. Since Kakuzu couldn't kill him, Kakuzu didn't need to find new partners after his fits of rage. Although the two disliked working together, this advantage made them the ideal team. His immortality was exploited in mutual advantage by Kakuzu, where the pair would perform a combo involving one of Kakuzu's hearts using a wind release jutsu in unison with Hidan striking at an opponent. Such an attack would maim the victim but leave Hidan unimpaired. Despite being "immortal", he is still capable of dying from a lack of nutrients.

Triple-Bladed Scythe and Fighting Prowess
In battle, Hidan wielded a large crimson triple-bladed scythe, that he used as a multi-purpose attack. He wielded it as a short and long-range weapon. Despite its large and dangerous shape, Shikamaru speculated it was intended to draw blood, instead of doing damage. He controlled it with a long cable, that was connected to a coil hidden under his robe. He was exceptionally skilled at wielding it, capable of deflecting a swarm of shuriken thrown at close range. He has also demonstrated tremendous aim and control of where and how it will strike, making it highly difficult for his opponents to predict the weapon's path. The unusual curvilinear trajectory that it took made it even more unpredictable, and Hidan was shown to be capable of causing the scythe to swerve perpendicularly and unexpectedly at a target even though the scythe was quite far from him. However, during his final battle against Kakashi and Team Asuma, the cable was destroyed by a paperbomb attached to a kunai thrown by Shikamaru. Hidan stated that the large size inhibited his attack speed, claiming he was the slowest attacker in Akatsuki. Nevertheless, Hidan was extremely agile, having tremendous acrobatic prowess and dexterity in avoiding attacks. He was shown to be capable of dodging a chakra blade aimed at him in mid-air, by thrusting his scythe into the trunk of a tree and using it as a stand, halting his fall and making the blade miss by a margin.

Jashin Ritual and Curse
Using a weapon, Hidan made every attempt to acquire an opponent's blood, where upon consuming it he drew the Jashin symbol on the ground. This process somehow "linked" his body with his opponent's. Once this link was established, Hidan took on a Grim Reaper-like appearance, with black skin and white bone-like markings. In this state, he was essentially a living voodoo doll for his opponent; any damage that was done to him was also inflicted on the opponent. Hidan referred to this as his "curse", and he was fond of toying with his victims by inflicting non-fatal injuries with his retractable spike, while taking obvious pleasure in their shared pain. Once he was done toying with the opponent, or if he wanted to kill them quickly, he impaled himself through the heart, killing them and relishing in intense satisfaction.

Despite its effectiveness, the curse had many requirements, and could be a slow technique to employ. The curse could be avoided if the opponent happened to know what to look out for, and knew of Hidan's inability to die. The link between Hidan's curse and his opponent could be broken prematurely if Hidan was removed from the symbol; however, Hidan would remain in his transformed state, allowing the curse to be easily re-established by him simply entering the symbol's borders once more.

In Rock Lee & his Ninja Pals however, the Jashin Ritual & Curse has been portrayed as a useless jutsu.

Trivia

 * Hidan's Japanese voice actor is Masaki Terasoma, who also voiced Shadow Moon.
 * Hidan's annoyed face during his fight with Team 10 after Kakuzu mocks him has been parodied across the internet, even featuring him in a Youtube video meeting a dinosaur while doing a mockery song of the Jurassic Park theme song.
 * Hidan's design when he is in his Jashin Ritual Mode as well as wielding a scythe makes him loosely based from the Grim Reaper. However, Hidan opposes the grim reaper's silent personality.
 * Another suggest for Hidan's design in his Jashin Ritual Mode as well as his Voodoo Jutsu also makes him based from Baron Samedi, the Haitian Loa of Death, who is affiliated with Voodoo. It can also be stated that Jashin, Hidan's pagan god might be loosely based from Baron Samedi.
 * The religion and philosophy of the cult that Hidan joined known as Jashinism is loosely based from the Thuggee, an Indian cult that commits murders in honor of the Hindu goddess Kali.