Might Guy

is the extremely zealous leader of Team Guy, consisting of Rock Lee, Neji Hyuga, and Tenten. Fansubs have often dubbed his name as Maito Gai, a direct and unaltered transliteration of the character's name, but the second official Naruto data book (Hiden: Tō no Sho) states his name as Might Guy. The English version of the anime and manga both use Might Guy as well.

Personality
Known for his thick eyebrows, green jumpsuit, and shiny bowl haircut, Guy often refers to himself as. He has many mannerisms unique to him in the series that are meant to be seen as corny and old-fashioned, a reference to common clichés of anime. He is best known for his "nice guy pose", which consists of giving a thumbs up, winking, and smiling with teeth so white they give the proverbial "ping". This action is often used by both Guy and Lee to indicate commitment to a statement they had just made, their highest form of a promise.

Guy is on good terms with all of his students, though seems to have a particular interest in Lee, who reminds Guy of himself when he was younger, in that they were both considered to be losers and have had to earn everything through hard work. As such, Guy puts much more interest in Lee's training than Neji's or Tenten's, continuing to train Lee long after the others have given up for the day. Because of this, and due to Lee's unyielding desire to master the art of taijutsu, Guy has taught Lee a number of dangerous and forbidden techniques, giving the stipulation that Lee can only use them under specific circumstances. Although Guy knows of the dangers that teaching the techniques to Lee entails, Guy wishes for Lee to be able to prove himself to be a splendid ninja, and, as such, turns a blind eye to the repercussions. However, overall, Guy is a very attentive and dedicated instructor, who does everything in his power to make sure that all three of his prized students receive proper instruction in their own particular fields.

Guy, and, by extension Lee, lives his life by his own "My Rules" philosophy, which involves setting tougher goals for failure so something good comes of it. For example, he vowed to walk 500 laps around Konoha on his hands if he lost a contest with Kakashi, and proceeded to do so upon losing, even though people stopped paying attention eventually. Lee's willingness to train in the same manner as Guy seems to have caused him to surpass his master's stamina, as, by the end of Part I, Guy has difficulty keeping up with Lee, lamenting that he is not as youthful as he once was.

Guy's teacher-student relationship with Lee also carries distinct attributes, such as when Guy will punch Lee for a slight infraction of a rule. After Guy assigns Lee an arduous training task as punishment, meant to recapture Lee's focus and discipline, the two may then burst into tears and embrace, in brief regret for the strong blow Lee was given. Guy often attempts to act in a similar way towards his other two students, although Tenten is usually more willing to take part in his antics than the more stoic Neji.

Guy is the self-proclaimed rival of Kakashi Hatake. Kakashi, however, is indifferent to their rivalry, which annoys Guy to no end. Guy randomly challenges Kakashi to contests of skill, and has acquired a record of 51 wins and 49 losses in doing so. Given that the contests that make up this figure are so varied (ranging from Rock, Paper, Scissors to sumo-wrestling), this is not much of an achievement on Guy's part. Nevertheless, Guy is proud of his record. Their competitions seem to, in part, be founded on the fact that the two are polar opposites. Guy has shown to be more easily excited compared to the more laid back Kakashi. He also relies mainly on taijutsu, in contrast to Kakashi's ninjutsu specialties, and had to work tremendously hard to reach his level of prowess, whereas Kakashi's natural talent and Sharingan made it easier for him to improve.

Chunin Exam arc
Guy made his debut shortly before the start of the Chunin Exams, stopping Lee from using the Front Lotus on Sasuke Uchiha. He punished Lee for attempting to use a forbidden jutsu before having an emotional embrace with him, much to Team 7's disgust. He appeared again during the preliminaries to watch his students' matches. He showed anger of Temari's treatment of Tenten after their match, and disappointment with Neji when he tried to kill Hinata Hyuga, having earlier instructed him to not make the match into a vendetta with the Hyuga clan.

Guy then took the role of Lee's coach prior to his match with Gaara, giving him general advice on what to do. During the actual fight, Lee continually found his fighting level to be inadequate in defeating Gaara, and each time Guy gave his consent for Lee to increase the strength of his attacks. When Lee began to run out of options, Guy allowed Lee to open the first five chakra gates in order to defeat Gaara. Although Lee did so, his efforts were unsuccessful, and he was left heavily injured. When Gaara was about to kill Lee, Guy stepped in to stop the match, not willing to allow anything to happen to Lee. As Lee was taken away to be healed, one of the medics informed Guy that the injuries to Lee's body were so severe that he would never be able to fight as a ninja again. Guy was crushed by this prospect, and regretted ever teaching Lee so many dangerous techniques.

A month later, when Gaara tried to finish off a hospitalized Lee, Guy once again intervened to save his beloved student. When Lee recuperated to the point of being able to watch other matches, Guy accompanied him to the final round matches, only to be surprised that Neji was defeated by Naruto Uzumaki. He later marvelled at Sasuke's ability to have replicated Lee's speed from their sole encounter.

When the invasion of Konoha began, Guy teamed up with Kakashi in repelling the invading forces and protecting the unconscious spectators. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Guy still made clear that he was considering this another challenge against Kakashi over who could take out the most enemy ninja.

Return of Itachi arc
When Kakashi was about to be defeated by Akatsuki members Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki, Guy arrived in time to repel Kisame and save Kakashi. When Guy stated that he had called for back-up, the two left, unwilling to start a war. Guy got Kakashi medical attention, before following the two. When he finally caught up to them, he made an attempt at a sneak attack in order to avoid Itachi's Sharingan. In doing so, he accidentally attacked Jiraiya, Itachi and Kisame having already left. After apologizing for his mistake, Guy learned that Jiraiya was looking for the talented medical ninja Tsunade, and asked that Jiraiya be sure to find her, in the hopes that she would be able to heal Lee. Before leaving for Konoha with an unconscious Sasuke Uchiha, he gave Naruto his spare green jumpsuit, as a reward for his determination. Jiraiya was, naturally, unsettled by this, but Naruto was ecstatic.

Search for Tsunade
Once Tsunade was found, and returned to Konoha, she found that the operation that would heal Lee had a 50% chance of death. Although Lee was reluctant to risk his life, since that would mean he couldn't be a ninja, Guy convinced Lee to go through with the operation, saying that all the work Lee had done meant that he would definitely survive. In the event that Lee did die during the operation, Guy said that he would die too, as he had no point in living if he couldn't help Lee become a great ninja. Lee's operation was a success, and Guy visited him daily until he was ready to start training again.

Anime filler arcs
During the course of the filler arcs, Guy was the only adult to receive a considerable amount of screen time. When Lee's dojo went unchallenged in one arc, Guy challenged Lee himself disguised as a stranger. Although the disguise was very bad, Lee never caught on that it was actually Guy. In The Third Great Beast arc, Guy began training a visiting ninja named Yagura. Yagura trapped Guy and Lee in a castle together, and forced them to fight each other through artificial, mute proxies - they figured this out by communicating through Morse code, then broke out by opening the first five gates, the stress of their high-speed attacks causing the constructionss to break apart. Later, in the Konoha 11 arc, Guy led Konoha's available Jonin to stop a suspected invasion by Takigakure, though in reality the Takigakure forces were just having a training exercise.

Rescue Gaara arc
Team Guy was assigned by Tsunade as back-up to assist Team 7 in rescuing Gaara. On their way to meet Team 7, Guy again encountered Kisame Hoshigaki, who wanted to take revenge on Guy for hitting him during their last encounter. Guy, however, didn't seem to remember Kisame, which greatly agitated the Akatsuki member. Kisame was strong enough to overcome the entire Team Guy, but when he succeeded in imprisoning Guy's students in respective water prisons and nearly drowned Tenten, Guy opened the sixth chakra gate and used his Morning Peacock to defeat Kisame. As the group examined Kisame's corpse, they found that it was not Kisame, but merely a body double; namely a former Sunagakure ninja called Mukade.

Upon reuniting with Team 7 and reaching the Akatsuki hideout, Team Guy was assigned to disable a barrier surrounding the hideout's entrance. Although they completed the task, they were forced to fight clones of themselves, though each member eventually succeeded in defeating their lookalikes. After Gaara was rescued, Guy carried Kakashi back to Konoha via a piggyback because the latter was too exhausted to walk there under his own power, due to his overuse of Mangekyou Sharingan. Their students were deeply irritated by the disturbing sight, although Guy didn't seem to notice, and instead had a race with Lee to see who could reach Konoha first.

Invasion of Pain
When Pain's invasion of Konoha began, Team Guy was away on a mission. During a pitstop on their return home, they noticed a number of birds apparently escaping from the village. They rushed to the village, and found it to be in ruins. They found Hinata Hyuga badly injured, and got her medical attention. They were then later present with the other villagers to praise Naruto for defeating Pain.

Abilities
Guy is one of Konoha's top ninja, and a specialist of taijutsu. Through his "My Rule" philosophy, Guy has gained a strong and enduring body by constantly pushing his own limits, allowing him to utilize the style known as Strong Fist to its full potential. In addition, his intense training has given him such tremendous speed that his movements can seem like he's disappearing to untrained eyes, and strength capable of plowing a full-grown man through a solid wall with ease without the aid of chakra-enhancement. He is also skilled in using nunchaku, but only resorts to using them when absolutely necessary.

Despite considering himself a loser as a child, Guy is a talented ninja, graduating from the Academy at age 7 and becoming a Chunin at age 11. Itachi Uchiha has, on numerous occasions, warned others against underestimating Guy. Given that Itachi and his accomplices are extremely dangerous ninja, such a warning is an indicator that Guy is an excellent combatant.

Eight Inner Gates
Like Lee, Guy is able to utilize and open the Eight Gates, a feat that is difficult for even the most talented ninja, and has shown the ability to open at least six of the eight gates. During his fight with Kisame Hoshigaki, he opened the sixth gate and utilized the Morning Peacock, a technique so fast that his hand was set ablaze by sheer speed and friction. However, since opening the gates can cause severe damage to the user's body, Guy has, like he has told Lee, decided that he will only open the gates if it is a life-or-death situation, or he is protecting someone dear to him. In this particular incidence, Tenten was on the verge of drowning due to Kisame's water imprisonment. Despite the danger of it, Guy's intense training has allowed him to handle the after-effects with no visible damage beyond extreme exhaustion, which he has shown to recover from shockingly fast.

Other abilities
Unlike Lee, who specializes in taijutsu because he cannot use ninjutsu and genjutsu, Guy is fully capable of using the other two forms of ninja abilities. He makes a conscious effort not to, however, going so far as to use regular disguises instead of the Transformation Technique. In the few instances that he has used ninjutsu, it has always been offscreen, such as when he summoned Ninkame prior to his first appearance.

In his rivalry with Kakashi, Guy has developed an effective counter against Sharingan-users: by focusing on their feet, Guy can both predict the movements of the enemy and negate the Sharingan's necessity of having eye-contact for genjutsu techniques. Currently, Guy is the only ninja who can use this technique, though he has taught the basics of it to Asuma and Kurenai, and presumably Kakashi.

Trivia

 * In the Shonen Jump magazine, Viz rendered Guy's name as "Mighty Guy" in some of the earlier chapters; this was changed back to "Maito Gai" in most of the graphic novel stories, and later changed to "Might Guy" when the guidebooks were released.
 * The name "Might Guy" is a joke aimed at the "hot-headed hero" archetype that appears in many movies and anime.
 * Guy's appearance and mannerisms seem to be based off Bruce Lee.
 * Guy's favorite foods are super-spicy curry rice and curry udon, though he finds it impossible to dislike food.
 * His favorite phrase is "Bursting with youth!" or "Let the power of youth explode!" in the English version.
 * Some fans have speculated that Rock Lee and Guy may be related in some way because of their similar appearances. However, it should also be pointed out that Lee had a different hairstyle and outfit before he started training with Guy, and that he changed to resemble Guy out of respect. Also, if Guy was Lee's father, he would have had to be 13 when Lee was born.

Quotes

 * "Look deep into my eyes and accept my sincere apology! Also notice my handsome manly features."
 * "''That's it, Lee! Run ... run towards the setting sun! ... But don't mess up your hair!"
 * "The lotus of Leaf Village blooms twice!"
 * "People call me the Leaf's Noble Gentleman!"
 * (To Neji) "I was a failure when I was your age, but now I can even beat Kakashi, the elite genius. It's only a matter of time until Lee finally surpasses you!"
 * (To Lee) "You put in so much effort, the operation will definitely succeed. For sure, the way to success will open. Just in case... no, suppose the worst happened... we will die together. Since I met you, my purpose has been to make sure that you become a great ninja. That's a promise."
 * (To Kisame) "''That sword! ... It's your weapon, isn't it?"
 * "Behold the power of youth!"
 * (To Kakashi) "Gahh! Kakashi! Why do you have to act so cool?!"
 * "If you do not believe in yourself, hard work is useless."
 * "When a man struts around like a peacock, acting like Mr. Big Stuff, he should keep his promises. Even if it kills him."