Tenten

is a kunoichi from Konohagakure. She's the female member of Team Guy, the teammate of Rock Lee and Neji Hyuga, and specializes in throwing weapons by summoning them from specially prepared scrolls. The change in her outfit from the manga to the anime was her shirt was blue not pink. The animators thought she should have "warmer" colors.

Personality
Little is known about Tenten's past or personality. She strongly believes that female ninja can be as strong as male ninja. Tenten's personal dream is to become as strong as Tsunade. She is the only weapon specialist of the Konoha ninja that was in the Chunin Exams, so its safe to assume her training with Might Guy mostly consisted of weaponry training. She can be quite fierce sometimes, especially with Lee, or in some instances, Naruto. She is strong and determined, but not above showing a softer side when it comes to her teammates. Tenten also has shown a strong distaste for weakness or being overly dependent for other people, and during a filler arc yells at Naruto for his compassion towards Ranmaru who had never learned to take care of himself. She holds great respect for her teammate Neji, since she always praises his skills, especially when Neji was fighting Naruto in the third round of Chunin Exam. She eventually recognized Naruto's skills and gave him her respect after he defeated Neji in the Chunin Exam Finals.

Chunin Exams


Tenten is pitted against Temari during the preliminaries of the Chunin Exams. Since their fight goes unseen in the manga, the anime adaptation explains the circumstances, Tenten began the match by throwing wave after wave of weapons at Temari, though Temari easily blew them away with her fan. As Tenten ran out of weapons, Temari used her fan to trap Tenten in a cyclone and propel her into the air. She finished off the match quickly, as the cyclone dispersed and Tenten fell to the ground, Temari made it a point to have Tenten land on her closed fan, knocking Tenten unconscious. Kankuro pointed out to Gaara, that Temari made it look easy and can put up a good show. Even after she was declared the winner of the match, she threw Tenten off of the fan in attempt to have her land on the many weapons on the ground. However, Rock Lee jumped in to save Tenten before she hit the ground. (It should be noted that the fight was entirely skipped in the manga, cutting from the start to the victory without showing what happened in between.) She later helps Neji train his Heavenly Spin before the finals, and admires the prowess he shows in his battle against Naruto. She also greatly recognizes Naruto's skills for being able to defeat Neji, a feat that she herself has yet to accomplish.

Anime Filler arcs
During the Konoha 11 arc, Tenten is shown to be a very keen observer, picking up on facts that others overlook. She shows compassion for her teammates and is tough when she needs to be. During a filler arc Tenten shows disgust for Ranmaru, a young cripple who could not take care of himself. She then saves his life by taking him to the curry of life shop, and teaches him that life is worth living and that you don't need to be to dependent on other people. She later has a brief one-on-one fight with the Arc's main antagonist, performing well but losing in the end. She scolds Naruto for his impulsive actions and actually smacks him for faking his own death in the Bird Country filler arc. She claims that she was worried about him, which is an example of her compassionate nature. Although this could have also been an example of her stubborn and inquisitive nature because she was also upset that Neji had caught on to Naruto's plan and she was the only one left in the dark. In the last of the filler arcs, Tenten is the only one of the Konoha Genin to be left out of the mission, and Tenten scolds Lee because of it. Rock Lee explains that Tenten was away on another mission and so couldn't have come, though Tenten attacks him anyway, using Dynamic Entry to defeat him.

Rescue Gaara arc
Team Guy is sent to assist Team 7 in rescuing Gaara. Along the way, the group encounters Akatsuki member Kisame Hoshigaki. Tenten tries to attack Kisame with a spiked bomb, but he is able to avoid the explosion. Seeing that Neji, Lee and Tenten are in the way, Kisame quickly creates three water clones who captures the three team members in a water prison, leaving the original Kisame to fight Guy in peace. This does not go well for Tenten who is about to suffocate due to lack of oxygen in the small sphere of water. She was saved when Neji broke out of his own sphere and released Lee who took out the Kisame clone holding her captured.

After Kisame is defeated and Team Guy reaches the Akatsuki hideout, the team disperses to remove a number of seals in the surrounding area that are making entrance to the lair impossible. Although they succeed, they are each forced to fight exact copies of themselves, with the handicap of the them tiring out, while the clones seems to have infinite energy. However Lee realizes that while each clone is as strong as themselves when it was created, they have no emotions and hence no drive to surpass their current limits. Realizing this, they each pushed to surpass themselves and using a new stronger jutsu, each defeats their lookalike in time. After Gaara is rescued, Team Guy returns to Konoha with Team 7.

Three-Tails Arrival arc
Tenten next appears training with Lee on synchrozing their taijutsu attacks. She becomes tied up back to back with Lee. Unfortunately for her, Lee's usual over-enthusiastic nature gets the better of him, causing Lee to swing her around. Much to her joy, the training gets haulted suddenly as she is then ordered by Tsunade to act as further backup for Kakashi's team against the newly emerged Three-Tailed Beast. After arriving, she is placed under Kakashi's command as a primary defense against anyone interferring with the sealing of the Three-Tails.

When Guren's team finally appeared, Tenten used several bombs to blow away the enemies' smokescreen. After defeating the enemies, Tenten went with Lee to guard the sealing team. Despite their best efforts, they were then attacked by Guren who managed to stop the sealing process. After which, Tenten was given orders to watch over the recently retrieved Yukimaru while the rest of her team searched for Naruto.

After learning that Naruto was in the Three-Tail's belly, Tenten was assigned as a front defense from another attack by the enemy while the rest of the team dealt with the Three-Tails. To her surprise, Guren's men returned, ready to fight again. Unprepared for her opponent's enhanced might, Tenten and her team were defeated and barely survived.

Invasion of Pain arc
Team Guy was in a mission during the invasion, not knowing that their village was under attack. Weary from their mission, Tenten stops her team, saying that they should take a break. However, Guy states that birds were flying from Konoha as if to escape, and Neji says that he has a bad feeling and that they should head back right away, much to her annoyance and dismay. Later, as they head back for Konoha, they notice Gamabunta laying there. When Team Guy reached Konoha, she immediately checked Hinata's injuries and stated that they weren't fatal, but she needed direct medical attention.

Abilities
Tenten specializes in weapons, and as such has not been shown to use many Genjutsu or Ninjutsu. Tenten carries these weapons in a number of scrolls though in Part II, she instead carries a single large scroll and a lot of little scrolls, which demonstrates considerable strength as its sheer size doesn't appear to affect her mobility. Tenten primarily uses Projectile Weapons in battle. She has occasionally launched directly from her scrolls at a force as though they had been thrown in a manner similar to rhythmic gymnastics. In Part I, her arsenal is composed mostly of steel projectiles, though in Part II she is shown using a spiked bomb.

In the anime, Tenten has demonstrated capable taijutsu skill and also conjured close-combat weapons from her scrolls, such as a bo staff, tonfas and even a heavy flail, as well as displayed knowledge of exploding tags. Originally a Genin level ninja who graduated the academy a year before Naruto did, Tenten is a student of Might Guy together with Rock Lee and Neji Hyuga.

Her favored method of strength attack is to throw her scrolls in the air in such a way as to cause them to spin above her, then jump between them and toss a myriad of weapons at her opponent in rapid succession, otherwise known as Twin Rising Dragons. She also uses strings to control and guide the direction of her weapons. However, this technique is useless against opponents who use wind attacks, as seen in her short battle against Temari.

Later in Part II, Tenten carries around only one giant scroll on her back. Tenten uses a powered up version of the Twin Rising Dragons. This is later called Dragon Scattering Destruction. She uses her scroll to summon one large dragon into the air and fires projectile weapons at twice the speed of the Twin Rising Dragons technique.

Other Media

 * Tenten appears as a playable character in 7 out of the 9 games in the Clash of Ninja Series. She also appears in 7 out of the 8 games in the Ultimate Ninja Series.

Trivia

 * "Ten", in Japanese means heaven or heavenly so in this case, it means "heavenly, heaven".
 * "Tenten" could also mean 'ten out of ten', based on her accuracy rate.
 * "Tenten" can also mean, "little by little" in Japanese, or "this and that." (or moving from place to place)
 * Together with Shino Aburame, Tenten is one of the only characters whose backstory has never been given, and she has not appeared in any flashbacks that are focused on her past specifically.
 * Tenten has slowly improved her ranking in the Naruto character popularity polls. She has placed 29th, 24th, and 22nd in the last three polls.
 * Creator Masashi Kishimoto favors her character design over all of the other female ninja in the series and plans to use her more.
 * Like the rest of her team, Tenten's character seems to draw inspiration from Chinese culture as seen from her attire and hairstyle.
 * Tenten's Rising Twin Dragons mirrors each member of Team Guy's tendency to utilize rapid spinning movements in his or her signature jutsu (ie: Lee's Hidden Lotus, Neji's Heavenly Spin)
 * She often tries to wake up an unconscious Lee in a rough manner; shaking him violently until he comes too.
 * According to the third databook, Tenten would like to have a rematch with Temari and also fight Sakura.
 * Tenten and Neji have the same theme in the anime, but Tenten's has a slower beat, and Neji's is more upbeat.
 * It appears that one of Tenten's hobbies in fortune-telling.
 * Three Tails Arrival arc is the first arc Tenten has appeared in without Neji.
 * Tenten is the only Konoha 11 to not be on the cover of a Naruto manga volume.

Quotes

 * "I always hit my target!"
 * "Not again!"
 * "Mmhmm, cute."
 * "I'm not gonna hold back!"
 * "Okay, if you insist, remember you asked for it!"
 * "Lee, calm down!"
 * "Sheesh, get it together, Lee!"
 * "Whether you're a boy or girl means nothing on the battlefield."
 * "I'm fired up!"