Jinchūriki

The are humans that have tailed beasts sealed within them. They exhibit extraordinary powers, and in some cases are more powerful than their tailed beasts, because they have the intelligence to use the beasts' powers effectively.

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 Gaara, Killer B, and Naruto.

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 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 techniques to capture and give several tailed beasts to the other shinobi villages as peace treaties, in order to stabilize the balance of power between them. However, after Hashirama's death, the villages had trouble containing the beasts. 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 "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.

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, this was not always the case. Before the Nine-Tails was sealed into Naruto, it was said that it could actually survive its jinchūriki's death, with the only consequence being that it would take time for it to be revived. Also, rare exceptions of a jinchūriki surviving an extraction may occur, if the said host has high enough stamina.

The seal that keeps a 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 using the power of the seal, weakening 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, presumably because the body has to nurture both the child and the seal simultaneously. As a result, the child develops more slowly.

Abilities
The jinchūriki have shown to have access to great amounts of chakra and access to unique fighting styles and abilities, depending on their tailed beast: Gaara manipulates sand, Yugito breathes fire, Rōshi creates and manipulates lava, Fu is capable of flight, Killer B spits ink, and Naruto has quick regeneration. By training, they can gain additional access to their tailed beast and its chakra, such as Yugito being able to control her transformations, Killer B being able to synchronise with the Eight-Tails, and transform himself into it, and Naruto accessing the Nine-Tails' Yang chakra only when he needs it which gives him a chakra shroud that resembles the Sage of the Six Paths, and is able to sense negative emotions.

List of Jinchūriki

 * One-Tailed Shukaku
 * First Shukaku Jinchūriki
 * Second Shukaku Jinchūriki
 * Gaara


 * Two-Tails
 * Yugito Nii


 * Three-Tails
 * Yagura


 * Four-Tails
 * Rōshi


 * Five-Tails
 * Han


 * Six-Tails
 * Utakata


 * Seven-Tails
 * Fū


 * Eight-Tails
 * Killer B's Cousin's Father
 * Killer B's Cousin's Uncle
 * Killer B's Cousin
 * Killer B


 * Nine-Tailed Demon Fox
 * 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 the Nine-Tails, but the beast 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 the Nine-Tails to regurgitate them. They also had similar facial markings to those of Naruto, something that not even the previous true jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails, Mito and Kushina Uzumaki, possessed. An unnamed Kumo-nin also tried to copy their method by eating one of the Eight-Tails' 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 the Nine-Tails' 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 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 the anime, Yūkimaru had the ability to partially control the Three-Tails. The Three-Tails was not actually sealed inside of Yūkimaru however, and thus, he was not a true jinchūriki.

Trivia

 * Gaara did die when Akatsuki removed Shukaku from his body, but he was later revived by Chiyo. Although he no longer has Shukaku sealed within him, Gaara can still control sand. Similarly, when the previous jinchūriki were resurrected they were still able to use their powers.
 * Kushina Uzumaki was the only jinchūriki known to have survived the extraction of her tailed beast, due to her clan's vitality.
 * When female jinchūriki give birth, the child seems to be physically changed, an example is Naruto's cheek marks. This also seems to be the case if a tailed beast is in the child while still in the womb, an example is Gaara's eyes.
 * 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 for the "Jinchūriki inside Naruto", instead of saying "The Fox inside Naruto" or the "Tailed Beast inside Naruto".