Jiraiya

Jiraiya (自来也, Jiraiya) is one of the legendary three Sannin, along with Tsunade and Orochimaru, who was trained by the Third Hokage himself. He is a self proclaimed Mega-pervert, and writes popular adult book series called Icha Icha, a favorite of Kakashi Hatake. He is also known as the, because of his signature toad summonings. Jiraiya has the kanji for "oil" on his forehead protector. He was the Fourth Hokage's teacher and now is Naruto's, who calls him Ero-sennin, or Perverted Hermit or in the English anime, "Pervy Sage." He proved this in his childhood when he peeped on Tsunade in the baths, resulting in him being beaten to an inch of his life.

Despite his pervertedness, Jiraiya is a Kage-level ninja. During a war the team consisting of Jiraiya, Orochimaru and Tsunade came to battle "Salamander" Hanzo of the Rain village. They were defeated, but Hanzo was so impressed that they survived his attack that he gave them the title of Sannin, the legendary three ninjas (which he ordered they refer to themselves as in exchange for their lives). In his early years, Jiraya invented the Transparent Escape Technique to help him peek on women and not get caught.

Background
As a child, Jiraiya and his former teammates, Orochimaru and Tsunade, were students of the Third Hokage. After leaving the Third's tutelage, he traveled the world and discovered the residence of the toads, a species he proved to have a natural affinity for. During this time, Jiraiya is told a prophecy concerning him and his students, which states that they will decide the fate of the world. Once returning to Konoha, Jiraiya and his former teammates were forced into battle with Hanzo as a result of an ongoing war at the time. When they proved able to survive his attacks, Hanzo rewarded them with the title of to indicate their status as the strongest ninja in Konoha. Once the battle was over, Jiraiya encountered three orphans from Amegakure; Konan, Yahiko, and Nagato. He looked after them for a time and taught them ninjutsu before leaving them so that they could pursue their own goals. Although news of their exploits reached him from time to time, he thought them to have died during an undisclosed incident. Presumably after returning leaving the three, Jiraiya began to travel the world and write his book.

Once becoming a Jonin capable of leading a squad, Jiraiya became the teacher of Minato Namikaze and two other unknown Genin. Years later, when Orochimaru betrayed Konoha and fled the village, Jiraiya pursued him, trying to convince his friend to come back. Orochimaru refused and attacked Jiraiya, turning his back on Konoha forever. While he tried to find a reason for Orochimaru's defection, he eventually realized that his friend wasn't coming back. Feeling he was responsible for Orochimaru's escape, Jiraiya left Konoha so he could follow Orochimaru's movements as well as the organization Orochimaru eventually joined, Akatsuki. In doing so, Jiraiya was unable to fulfill the Third's wishes of taking on the role of Hokage, knowing that tracking down Orochimaru was more important. At some point after Orochimaru's defection, Jiraiya finished his first book that had failed as a seller. Minato, now the Fourth Hokage, however thought the book was excellent, he and Kushina Uzumaki decided to name their son after the main character in his, Naruto, thus making him Naruto's godfather.

Personality
Despite the fact that he left Konoha for many years, Jiraiya has maintained a strong allegiance with his hometown. During Orochimaru's invasion of Konoha, he helps fend off the invading forces in order to protect the village. When Konoha finds itself in need of a new Hokage after the Third Hokage's death, Jiraiya volunteers to look for Tsunade so that she can become the Third's successor after turning down the position himself. After he finds Tsunade and begins to suspect that she may be assisting Orochimaru, he makes it clear that he will kill her if she betrays the village.

Jiraiya is a self-proclaimed super-pervert with no equal and a frequent voyeur, going so far as to create the to allow him to spy on naked women without being caught (doing "research" as he calls it). He never actually hides his perversion and even seems proud of it, as seen when he told the Third Hokage about it when he was still a child. Despite this, Jiraiya doesn't like being called by Naruto Uzumaki in front of others.

Jiraiya's perversion has been used against him on occasion, as seen when Naruto gets Jiraiya to start training him after a simple display of the Sexy Technique. When two Akatsuki members later try to distract Jiraiya, they use a hypnotized woman to catch his eye and keep him busy. While their effort initially succeeds, Jiraiya eventually sees through their plot due solely to the fact that women do not typically express interest in him. His peeping habits have also caused him great injury on one occasion; when caught spying on Tsunade in his younger years, she proceeded to break both of his arms, six of his ribs, and ruptured a number of organs as punishment.

Some time after leaving Konoha, Jiraiya became an author of adult novels, his most popular work being, a personal favorite of Kakashi Hatake's. The novels are based on his rejections in love that he retells in a comical way. In a filler episode of the anime, Naruto ghostwrites one of Jiraiya's Icha Icha novels and the book is found to be very popular, indicating that Naruto is capable of writing on the same level as Jiraiya, or that Jiraiya's writing abilities are no better than those of a child. Tsunade seems to suspect that the latter is true, as she notes that a report on the Onbaa he wrote as a child, accompanied by crude crayon illustrations, was poorly written. The popularity of the Icha Icha series seems to have paid off well, as Jiraiya's checkbook reveals that he is fairly wealthy. Despite his wealth, Jiraiya is not above taking Naruto's money and spending it on sake and women, and frequently disappears when Naruto attempts to make him pay.

Jiraiya has also been known to show off even during a fight. This showing off typically takes the form of traditional kabuki poses, keeping with his hermit theme. He becomes annoyed if he is interrupted for whatever reason while trying to strike a pose

Chunin Exams
Jiraiya first meets Naruto Uzumaki while he was "researching" at the hotsprings in Konoha, where he flattened Ebisu when he almost exposed him. Because he knocked out his teacher, Naruto demanded Jiraiya to train him, which he initally refused. It wasn't until Naruto used his Sexy Technique did he win Jiraiya over.

When they start training, Jiraiya removes Orchimaru's Five Element Seal off the boys stomach which allowed him to tap into the Demon Fox's chakra thus allowing him to use better jutsus and allowed him to mold his chakra with ease. For special training for the last part of the exams Jiraiya taught Naruto how to use the Summoning Technique, but was met with very poor results. To this end, Jiraiya decided to force Naruto to use the Fox's chakra, by pushing him off a cliff. After Naruto survives this training and summons Gamabunta, Jiraiya stays in Konoha for the events to play out. When Orochimaru and the Sand attacked Konoha, Jiraiya appeared with a giant yellow toad to help battle one of the Sounds summoned snakes.

The Search for the Fifth
After the death of the Third, the village elders, Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane, requested that Jiraiya become the next Hokage, which he quickly turns down. Instead he volunteers to search for his former teammate Tsunade, and took Naruto with him for more training. Jiraiya would train Naruto to use his fathers technique, the Rasengan, a jutsu more powerful than Chidori.

Before they could reach Tsunade, Orochimaru contacted her in an effort to have his dead arms fixed by Tsunade's medical jutsu. Tsunade, deciding to meet Orochimaru herself, drugs Jiraiya's sake and heads out on her own. When Jiraiya, Naruto, and Shizune catch up with her, she is already in battle with Kabuto. Jiraiya goes into battle with Orochimaru, trapping Orochimaru's snake with his Underworld Swamp jutsu. Although the weakened jutsu fails to envelop the snake completely, it is still more than large enough to immobilize it. After Naruto takes Kabuto out of battle with a now-perfect Rasengan (made with the help of a clone, an innovation he came up with mid-battle), Tsunade joins Jiraiya in the battle against Orochimaru. With their ultimate summons, Gamabunta and Katsuyu, the two take on Orochimaru and his snake Manda. The healthy Tsunade proves too much for Orochimaru and Manda, defeating the two and causing them to flee. With Tsunade now accepting her post as the Fifth Hokage, they return to Konoha.

Sasuke Retrieval
Jiraiya wasn't in Konoha during Sasuke's defection and reappears only after Naruto returns after failing to bring him back. Jiraiya reveals that Sasuke and Orochimaru are very similar, in that both only lust for power and both will do anything to get it. In fact, Naruto's battle with Sasuke was very similar to Jiraiya's fight with Orochimaru when he tried to bring Orochimaru back, trying to remind his friend of their past friendship. When Jiraiya called Naruto a fool for even considering trying to rescue a friend like that, Naruto tells him he would rather be a fool than to give up on Sasuke. Taken aback, Jiraiya tells him that once he is better, he will take him to train for three years so he will be strong enough to bring Sasuke back, and protect himself from the Akatsuki.

Part II
After taking Naruto back to Konoha, Jiraiya goes off to search for info on the Akatsuki. Jiraiya would reappear later to inform an injured Kakashi and inform the current leader of Team 7, Yamato about Naruto's four tail transformation, a form so powerful that it nearly killed Jiraiya before he stopped it. It is later revealed that Jiraiya himself released it (not expecting Naruto's loss of control) with a special key passed down from the Fourth Hokage, capable of unlocking Naruto's seal. Jiraiya appears again to inform Naruto and Sakura that Sasuke has killed Orochimaru and is most likely going off to kill Itachi, before doing more research on the Akatsuki.

Infiltration of Amegakure
Jiraiya later returns to Konoha once more to inform Tsunade that he has found the location of the Akatsuki Leader, somewhere in Amegakure. After a chat with Tsunade revealing much of Naruto's history, he heads out to the Rain country. He infiltrates the village using a particular frog with a jutsu that warps in size and begins interrogating two ninja he abducted in that same frog. There is no initial response, but he is immediately spotted by Pein's rain jutsu. Upon learning that Pein singlehandedly defeated Hanzo, he summons the frog containing the key to Naruto's seal, and informs it to go to Naruto if he dies. Rather than wait for Pein to come to him, Jiraiya prepares to do battle (to forcibly extract the information).

After fighting with Pein for some time, he claims to have discovered his true identity. However Pein subsequently damages Jiraiya's throat and prevents his voicing this truth. After being severely injured by Pein's attack, Jiraiya recalls his life, noting his failures and how a the death of a ninja marks his success, not his life. He recalls how Tsunade continually rejected him, how he couldn't save Orochimaru from defected from Konoha, how he couldn't save the Third or Minato from death. In the end, Jiraiya had put these past events in story form, in the book the Old Toad said he would write, but nobody ended up buying it. Both Minato and Kushina found the book brilliant and decided to name their son after the main character, Naruto. He soon realized that Naruto was the prophecy child the Old Toad was talking about and not Pein, and willed himself back to life, and passes the secret to Pa Toad. He is last seen saying he will leave everything to Naruto. After realizing that Jiraiya left a code on Pa Toad, Pein used one of his bodies to attack the frog, only destroying the small slab of rock Jiraiya laid on. As the toad makes its escape, Jiraiya thinks this is a honorable end and finally comes up with the title of his last book, "The Tale of Naruto Uzumaki", and sinks into the watery depths of their battlefield. Pein states that he is dead, but Jiraiya's status is officially unknown.

Abilities
Though a full demonstration of his abilities has yet to be seen, Jiraiya states that he has only been brought to the verge of death twice in his life, suggesting that he is quite powerful. Jiraiya's reputation is so great that Akatsuki member Itachi Uchiha comments that if he and Kisame were to fight Jiraiya at the same time, the only way they would be able to kill Jiraiya would be to sacrifice their own lives. Even Kisame Hoshigaki suggests in this instance that Jiraiya's skills far outmatch his own. This implies that Jiraiya is in fact much stronger than Orochimaru was (before he died), as Itachi, at a younger age, was able to defeat Orochimaru on his own with relatively little effort.

Jiraiya is known as the due to his utilization of a number of toad-related jutsu. Many typically deal with summoning toads, and he has risen to a level of ability that allows him to summon Gamabunta. He can even summon the nearly indestructible esophagus of a great, fire-breathing toad with. Once the jutsu has been used to cover the area, Jiraiya can control it as he pleases and use it to trap most ninja. In desperate situations, Jiraiya is able to switch into a. Because he has not yet learned how to utilize the mode by himself, he must summon two elder toads to assist him, who further aid him by contributing their own techniques to a battle. It is interesting that while normally Jiraiya speaks in a carefree manner and has a somewhat idiotic disposition towards others, he is very polite towards the two toad elders and the elders call him "Jiraiya-chan" (-chan is an endearment attached to someone of a junior status or age), despite the fact that Jiraiya is already an elder himself. When abroad gaining intelligence, he can use one toad as a mobile base of operations that can change size and appearance to suit his needs.

In addition to calling upon toads for aid in battle, Jiraiya has a number of jutsu he can use independently. His to create a large swampland under a target that is capable of completely engulfing them. He can spit either fire or oil from his mouth, allowing him to burn or drench opponents as he pleases. Jiraiya has also been shown to use his hair for jutsu, and can grow and sharpen it to surround him as a shield, protecting him from harm and injuring attackers, or use it to bind and impale opponents. His allows him to merge with the shadows of others, and through this he is able to take complete control of their body. Jiraiya was taught how to use the Rasengan by Minato, and has since developed a variant called, though its capabilities are currently unknown. He is, however, not suited for genjutsu, and thus cannot effectively utilize it in battle. Apart from his fighting abilities, Jiraiya is able to create a barrier that detects any movement.

Jiraiya has been shown to be very knowledgeable with sealing jutsu, and has used a number of them throughout the series. When first meeting Naruto, he quickly deduces that the seal on Naruto's stomach keeps the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox sealed within him though also allows its chakra to mix with his own. He later creates a method of suppressing the demon fox's influence over Naruto through the, which activates by simply coming into contact with Naruto's body. In addition, he can utilize the to contain a fire within a scroll for future study.