| “ | Unbelievable...to think that there's someone identical to me in this world. That must be why I can't stand you! Your very existence made every hair on my body standard! But at least this solution is easy, I just have to erase you! | „ |
| ~ Menma Uzumaki to Naruto. |
Menma Uzumaki is the main antagonist in Naruto Shippuden Movie 6: Road to Ninja, who happens to be a version of Naruto Uzumaki from an alternate universe which Naruto and Sakura ended up as the result of being subjected to Obito Uchiha's Infinite Tsukuyomi. Unlike Naruto, Menma fully embraced his world's version of Kurama and became evil. Obito took Menma's body as his own to interact with the world he created while using the youth to battle Naruto.
He was voiced by Junko Takeuchi in the Japanese version and Maile Flanagan in the English version, who both also voice his main universe counterpart.
Biography[]
Menma Uzamaki was born to his universes' counterparts of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzamaki. He grew up living a happy and healthy life with his loving parents and enrolled in Konohagakure's ninja academy, eventually becoming a genin and chūnin over the years. At some point, this universes counterpart of Kurama, the Black Nine Tails, was safely removed from Kushina and transferred to Menma, making him the jinchuriki of the Nine Tails. For unclear reasons, Menma defected from Konoha and became a missing nin, an event that was somewhat recent as no one in Konoha realized he was missing at the time of Naruto and Sakura's arrival to his universe. Despite these facts Menma committed numerous crimes under the identity of the Masked Man with villages marking him as an S-rank criminal. Menma is first introduced wearing his signature kitsune mask attacking a village, carrying a defeated shinobi with him. Tobi arrives and makes a deal with Menma by giving him the genjutsu world's jinchuriki and they agreed to work together. At some point, thanks to location information from Tobi, Menma managed to defeat genjutsu world's counterpart of Yugito Nii; around the same time, he also lost the Red Moon Scroll from Jiraiya whom he manages to kill later.
Later, he attacks the Hokage's office and forces his worlds Tsunade to give the scroll back to him. He overpowers Minato, Kushina and Tsunade. Naruto and Sakura fought him but overpowers them too and then kidnaps Sakura in exchange for the scroll. He uses his Great Spiraling Ring, destroying a large part of Konoha and leaves.
After Naruto confronts Tobi, Menma attacks him and asked for the Red Moon Scroll. He summons his Nine Masked Beasts and tries to kill Naruto but is foiled by the genjutsu world's counterpart of Akatsuki, who manages to fight his Nine Masked Beasts. He starts to fight Naruto himself and clashes with his Spiralling Ring with the latter's Rasenshuriken. Upon doing so, their chakra resonates to create a large sphere of energy with Menma and Naruto in it; the energy destroys Menma's mask and he then revealed himself to be Naruto's genjutsu counterpart.
While Naruto is shocked, Menma sneers at him, acknowledging their similarities, yet feeling that makes him want to kill Naruto even more.
Menma called forth his Nine Masked Beasts, which recombine and summons the world's counterpart of Kurama, the Black Nine Tails. He then overpowers Naruto. Naruto in turn, makes a truce with Kurama and fights alongside with him. As the fight comes to an end, Naruto and Menma exchange their final blows and Naruto knocks out Menma out.
Tobi then possess Menma and attempts to personally extract Kurama out of Naruto, causing Naruto to look into his Sharingan, triggering a jutsu that erases Naruto's memories. As Kurama is beginning to get extracted, Sakura steps in & stops the extraction. From the spiral of the partially furled Red Moon Scroll, Naruto is reminded of the Rasengan, then Jiraiya, after which Naruto's memories of his real parents surface, which eventually restores his mind; Naruto gets up defeats a Tobi-possesed Menma, similar to how his father defeated him 16 years earlier. Tobi leaves Menma's body and dryly remarks on how history had repeated itself against him, after which he retreats into the real world.
Minato and Kushina then quickly arrived and checks upon Menma, whose black hair reverts to the natural blonde; the genjutsu world Minato and Kushina farewell to the two alien ninja, as Naruto and Sakura gradually fade into light, returning the duo back into the real world.
Personality[]
From context clues, it can be assumed that Menma was similar to Naruto to some extent. He was impulsive, quick to jump into danger without consideration, although brave, aiming to face a threat to spare others. He was also sociable, at least being well-liked by his peers, and also inspired love from his version of Hinata. Menma had a positive relationship with his parents, apparently according to Minato and Kushina; while Kushina's legendary temper would flare at Menma's misbehavior, it was still a loving and supportive relationship.
Menma suffered none of the tragedies or losses that befell Naruto, so it is unclear how he descended into criminal and terrorist activities. Due to Minato and Kushina never suffering the Nine Tails attack at his birth, it isn't known whether he became the Black Nine Tails Jinchuuriki as a baby or if it was a more recent transference. Whenever it happened, it seemed apparent that Menma succumbed to the beast's rage, yet was able to remain in control (if still possessed by anger). Since Naruto had to work hard to master his abilities, perhaps the mirrored nature of the genjutsu world meant that Menma was a prodigy, who was able to effortlessly achieve extraordinary talents without struggle.
Whatever triggered Menma's villainy, by the events of the film, he was a world-threatening missing ninja, although nobody in the world nor even his village was aware of his masked self's real identity; Naruto's appearance seemed routine to the genjutsu world people, thus implying Menma's departure was relatively recent or tactically periodic enough to avoid notice. He was power-hungry and callous, seeking Tailed Beasts and heartlessly killing their Jinchuuriki to obtain them. He was mistrustful of others, yet his desire for strength made him willing to listen to offers for more from Tobi (despite the Akatsuki leader not previously existing in the genjutsu world).
Perhaps due to the Black Nine Tails, Menma was on the constant verge of rage; also because of his beast's own fury upon sensing Kurama, becomes disgusted at the concept of a duplicate self, which indicates either self-loathing issues or egomania. He was vengeful and spiteful, as he was able to destroy his own village without remorse or concern, just because they withheld the Red Moon Scroll he sought. While a less serious crime in comparison, he was capable of kidnapping Sakura, threatening her to extort the scroll from the others.
Menma became incensed at Naruto and Kurama, yet wasn't intimidated by a similarly strong figure due to both his arrogance and anger at their existence. Even when Naruto gained the upper hand, Menma remained certain in his own triumph. Menma is defeated, though his body is puppeteered by Tobi, during which he has an evil grin, but it isn't clear if that is Menma's or just a manifestation of the controller's emotions. Regardless of the ratio of awareness, Naruto defeats him like the Fourth Hokage had beaten Tobi years prior. Once freed, despite still being unconscious, Menma's black hair reverted to its original blonde, which presumably displays he was liberated from Black Nine Tails' rage, and he may return to being a decent person, if that was ever true.
In the anime-exclusive Naruto: Shippuden story, the Infinite Tsukuyomi world experienced by Tenten appears to be the same as the genjutsu world; as such, Menma - free from corruption - appears as a person oddly similar to the main reality's Sasuke, but prior to his defection; Menma is an aloof prodigy, who is widely popular, although acts disinterested in the passionate attention from Hinata and Sakura, but does voice annoyance when their rivalry makes them bicker.
Powers and Abiltites[]
Menma has all the abilities Naruto possesses, but with better control over his Black Kurama to create living constructs from the Nine Tails's chakra. With Obito using his body, Menma gained the Sharingan and able to use it to his benefit (though implied that he used them without him realizing it as Tobi was controlled his body). However, the way Menma developed his powers appeared not in the same way with Naruto's, given that Menma's Spiraling Ring was alternate version of Naruto's Ranseshuriken.
Menma has a talent for sensing chakra, at least in regards to Tailed Beasts, since he was able to detect Kurama within Naruto, as well as feeling his rage.
Nine Masked Beast[]
The Nine Masked Beasts are entities created by Menma through the used of Black Nine Tail's chakra. Five of these beast are described as divine beast while the other four are described as divine priests. They are very similar to the Six Paths of Pain. Menma summons them by forming a tiger seal and chanting the kuji-kun, which conjures a massive mandala featuring each kanji of the kuji-in encircled by nine rings, arrayed in the same cross pattern he wears in his cloak. Each of the masked beast emerges from a specific ring. The rings are somewhat similar to the ones Akatsuki wore. One defeated, they reverted to their true forms, which are nine masked fox kits that each possess a single tail. They can also convert back into chakra that will arc through the air from their present location back to Menma. Once they collided with Menma, they reform Black Nine Tails.
- Seiryuu (Azure Dragon), a dragon that resembles a seahorse.
- Byakko (White Tiger), a lean and slender white tiger.
- Suzaku (Vermillion Bird), a bird with elegant and dramatic plumage.
- Genbu (Black Tortoise), a tortoise with a shell with overlapping plates.
- Kinja (Golden Snake), a serpent with massive golden scales. It can bind on its opponents wrapping its body around them.
- Tennyo (Celestial Maiden), an angelic priestess with overlapping robes. It uses translucent ribbons to whip enemies. Like Kinja, it can also bind its opponents.
- Shinigami (Grim Reaper), a skeletal priest that bears a striking resemblance to the Grim Reaper. A swing of its scythe unleashes sickle-like energy waves which drain targets of their chakra once they have passed through them. The waves can be bypass the barriers set up by Hakuto Sennin and Nanto Sennin.
- Hakuto Sennin (Northern Sage), a priest with a fox staff. In unison with the Nanto Sennin, it can trap opponents in purple cylindrical barriers.
- Nanto Sennin (Southern Sage), the matching counterpart of Hakuto Sennin. In unison with Hakuto Sennin, it can trap opponents in purple cylindrical barriers.
Spiraling Ring[]
A dark technique with is very similar to Naruto's Rasengan, except being darker. It creates a dark purple Rasengan-like orb of chakra that orbit the main sphere. These rings then align into one disk-like shape around the orb, causing the rings to look like planetary rings. It matches Naruto's Rasenshukiren in Sage Mode in power. A much more powerful version of it, Great Spiraling Ring is also used which can cause a massive destruction in the impact.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Menma can be compared to Naruto's dark aspect, which he faced while training for his confrontation with Kurama. This was due to them sharing similar personalities, and had Naruto given in to the hatred and turned to the dark side, he would have ended up like Menma.
- Unlike Naruto, Menma had a more stable and happy childhood, as seen in his family album that was examined by Naruto.
- His kitsune mask had an element that modulated his voice to be deeper, so that even his own parents didn't recognise his speech.
- Menma destroying Konoha with Great Spiraling Ring is very similar to how Pain destroyed Konoha using Almighty Push.
- Menma's Nine Masked Beasts are named and based on the five celestial beasts mentioned in the Chinese constellations (Byakko, Seiryuu, Suzaku, Genbu and Kinja) and the two divine priests are based from the angel and grim reaper of Japanese mythology. The Hokuto and Nanto Sennin are based from the Northern and Southern Dippers.
- Given the fact that his parents were unaware that he had turned to the dark side while at the same time his position was unknowingly taken by his real-world counterpart Naruto (whom Kushina and Minato mistook as Menma), Menma's fall to the dark side was likely recently occurred albeit not specified when.
External Links[]
- Menma Uzumaki on the Naruto Wiki
