Super Beast Imitating Drawing

The Super Beast Imitating Drawing is a technique that allows the user to animate ink drawings, which act upon the user's will.

Usage
Using chakra-infused ink, the user can quickly and expertly draw objects onto their scroll. The moment the brush is removed from the scroll, the images leap from the paper, grow to life-size, and act according to the user's will. Because they are made of ink, a single blow is usually enough to dispel them. For discreet communiques while undercover, Sai is able to turn the words he writes into small animals, allowing them to travel unnoticed to the intended target, after which the ink animal requires a scroll to revert back into written information. In addition to the animals it is normally used to create, Sai can produce explosive tags. In the anime, for the drawings to retain stability upon emerging, the user's emotional state must have a true passion for them. Otherwise, the drawings will immediately splatter.

Influences
This technique is in reference to the Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (lit. Animal-person Charicatures), or Chōjū-giga for short, a set of four picture scrolls belonging to the Kōzan-ji Temple in Kyōto, Japan and sometimes credited as the first manga. The scrolls depict various anthropomorphic animals dancing and playing about in a lively ceremony, which seems to be the basis for Sai being able to animate his own drawings for various purposes.

Inojin Yamanaka's usage of the technique differs from his father's in terms of the aesthetic design. Unlike Sai's round drawings, Inojin's have sharp, straight lines. Inojin remarked that his father's sense of style appears to be "old-fashioned" compared to his own. Appropriately, his design is named.

Trivia

 * According to both users of this technique, it does not work as well in rain. Despite this, in the anime, Sai was shown using this technique to create a fish and an umbrella.
 * In Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth Full Power Ninja Chronicles, Rock Lee was able to paint mice with the head of Might Guy. Tenten painted a large, "cute", humanoid bunny and panda bear. Sai still had to perform the technique to animate their drawings.
 * In the anime, Inojin uses coloured ink for his Super Beast Imitating Drawing creatures in addition to the black ink Sai uses.
 * In the anime, Sai noted that Boruto Uzumaki's passion and love of his drawings could possibly make him well-suited for this technique.