Shino Aburame is one of the main supporting characters in the Naruto anime/manga series and the Boruto: Naruto Next Generations anime/manga series. He is a friend of Naruto and a few others such as Shikamaru and Hinata. He is a member of the Aburame Clan which means they use small flying beetles to get into enemies bodies so the beetles could feed on the enemies chakra. He has quite a few jutsus including Parasitic Insects Typhoon and many others. He has been in lots of the Naruto video games one being Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution 2. He was known for killing one of the minor villains in Naruto who worked for Orochimaru named Zaku Abumi. In Boruto: Naruto Next Generation, he became an instructor of Konoha Academy to replace Iruka Umino.
He is voiced by Derek Stephen Prince in the English Version.
Personality
Since his early childhood, Shino has been a calm, collected, and solitary person, who is quite mysterious. Shino is portrayed as being somewhere between merely stoic and matter-of-fact, rarely ever smiling or showing emotion at all; rather than thank his team-mates for congratulating him on his victory in the preliminaries, he told them that he expected them to do the same. He also has a tendency of holding grudges and being rather intimidating, such as seen when Naruto failed to recognize him at the start of Part II (which is fair as the only visible part of his face were his sunglasses), but easily recognized Kiba and Hinata. He still holds that grudge to this day.
Shino seems to be aware of these odd personality traits; in the anime, when he ate food poisoned with a chemical that forced him to laugh, he menacingly told Naruto to forget it had ever happened. His interest in insects only helps him strengthen this viewpoint; by spending most of his spare time watching them, and often making analogies to insects when talking, people have come to identify Shino as "creepy", and tend to dislike being in his company for prolonged periods of time. In his Infinite Tsukuyomi dream, Shino dreamt that he found a new giant-sized species of bugs and tamed it as his own.
Despite occasionally arguing with Kiba, Shino has a very strong sense of connection with his team-mates and allies. This was first seen when he promised Sasuke Uchiha to help him fight Gaara after dealing with Kankurō, but regretted not being able to uphold that promise. Shino is also very fearless as he and his team-mates were terrified after seeing Gaara's powers during the second stage of the Chūnin Exams, but he still resolved to help Sasuke in any way he could with Gaara. He also regretted being unavailable and therefore unable to help with retrieving Sasuke. From that point onwards, he resolved to work on his teamwork skills with Kiba and Hinata. He even helped Hinata to improve her abilities, and is one of the few people, besides Naruto, who openly professes confidence in her. The fruits of his efforts are seen in the anime, where Shino was able to carry out a mission successfully while also keeping others safe. He also proves to be able to understand his team-mates' inner workings, sensing when the slightest of things is wrong with either of them. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, he also went out of his way to keep his team-mate's chakra flow active through the use of his insects.
Shino speaks in a curious fashion, as noted by both Naruto and Kiba. He speaks in a manner most simply described as "nitpicking" and uses the word 'because' a great deal. To others, his manner of speaking seems like over concern with the trivial points of a conversation which could be left unsaid, or, providing information that will leave questions that could possibly be asked — already answered.
Shino is fairly confident in his abilities and that he will win a battle, and tends to try to communicate this to an opponent for their own well-being. Still, Shino enjoys fighting, and dislikes being denied a chance to battle a skilled opponent, as seen when he went out of his way during the Konoha Crush to fight Kankurō, after the latter had forfeited to avoid revealing his puppets' secrets.
In the anime, it was shown that Shino will panic when confronted with insectivorous animals or plants (with Shino himself likening it to psychological torture). He will also fall into despair showing saddened expressions — atypical of him — to the point where he almost cries and even refuses to continue his mission to avoid losing any more insects.
Appearance
While Shino was in the Academy, he wore a similar outfit to the one he does now in Part II except his jacket then was of a light grey colour.
Shino is a fair-skinned ninja and the tallest member of his graduating class. He has dark, bushy, brown hair and dark, narrow eyes, the latter of which has only been shown in the anime. Shino is regularly seen sporting the same style as the rest of his clan, consisting of dark sunglasses and a sea-green jacket with a high, upturned collar.
In all of Shino's appearances, he has been shown wearing his signature round and dark glasses. Even Hinata, his team-mate, did not know what his eyes truly looked like. However, for a brief moment, Shino's eye profile was shown. Shino seems to have somewhat narrow dark eyes that point near the end.
During Part II, his appearance became even more mysterious, with his jacket hanging down to his knees and the addition of a hood that obstructs his face even more and a satchel on his back. This current appearance makes it harder for people like Naruto to recognize him right away. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, he wears a flak jacket under his jacket.
In The Last: Naruto the Movie, two years after the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Shino now sports a flak jacket with his regular shinobi attire and a new set of sunglasses. His outfit consists of a grey shirt with matching pants under his light-grey button-up jacket. The jacket also has a hood which he keeps over his head.
Years later, now as a grown man, his attire is less layered. He wears a flak jacket, with two bug-like emblems on the neck, and a full-body suit underneath. Instead of the generic sunglasses, he wears a three-strip optic visor which wraps around his head.
Background
Shino at one time grew up alongside Torune Aburame as his family took him in under guardianship after Torune's father, Shikuro Aburame, passed away. Despite their different views about friendship, Shino grew close to Torune, viewing him as an older brother. Torune even revealed to Shino his unique breed of microscopic insects. One day, Danzō Shimura approached the two young Aburame with the desire to recruit another young member of a secret technique-using clan for Root. While Danzō had the authority to do so and expressed interest in Shino, not wanting Shino to live a life of loneliness, Torune offered himself, appealing to Danzō by revealing who his father was. Knowing that he would probably never see Torune again but wanting to remain close to his brother-figure in some way, Shino harvested some of Torune's insects and spent years refining his bug breeding technique to produce new beetles that inherited traces of Torune's insects.
During a training session at the Academy, he watched on alongside Kiba and Akamaru as Shikamaru and Chōji refused to fight each other even during training. When Kiba commented that Shikamaru, who had found the process to be too troublesome, would be a genin for the rest of his life, Shino noted that that may not be so as Shikamaru could go on to live a long life and many things could happen, but before he could finish his statement, he was cut off by Kiba who had become annoyed with the young Aburame's nitpicking.
Trivia
- His English Voice Actor, Derek Stephen Prince is best known voicing as Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Uryū Ishida from Bleach, DemiDevimon, Digitamamon and Piedmon from Digimon Adventure, Veemon and Ken Ichijoji from Digimon Adventure 02, Impmon from Digimon Tamers, Grumblemon from Digimon Frontier and Jeremy Tsurgi from Digimon Fusion.
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