In anime, some characters are easy to dislike, but not always becausethey are evil. Sometimes, it is the sense of betrayal, wasted potential, or the frustration of seeing a character with great narrative depth choose the worst possible path that can be exasperating.
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In the Naruto series, I admire the heroes and even grow to love characters that I misunderstand, yet some characters still leave lingering discomfort in my mind. Some of these characters can be cruel, challenge our patience, betray expectations, and make us feel that not every redemption arc is deserved.
Here is a list of the most hated characters in the series:
The Father Who Made His Son A Monster
The fourth Kazekage sealed Shukaku, the one-tailed beast, inside his son, Gaara, as an infant to use him as a weapon for the Sand village. However, the sealing went sideways, and his son gave in to the monster, and in response to his failure, he ordered multiple assassination attempts on his son.
Rasa did a lot ofdamage to Gaara, and his hatred taught him how to hate himself. During the Fourth Great Ninja War, Rasa and Gaara had moments of reconciliation.
He apologized and showed regret for what he did, and while some fans might see that as redemption, for me, that moment was not enough to wash away years of pain.
8Sakura Haruno
A Growth That Came Too Late
Naruto adored Sakura and often acted foolishly to gain her attention, yet she responded with eyerolls, verbal abuse, and emotional manipulation. At one point in the series, she exploited his feelings by falsely professing her love for him to prevent Naruto from pursuing Sasuke.
While loving someone can be complicated, Sakura’s obsession with Sasuke was like a dependency wrapped in delusion because Sasuke insulted her, ignored her, and tried to kill her many times. Through it all, she kept chasing after him, like it was her destiny.
Sakura became a great medical ninja with her strong punches and earned her place among the top shinobi in the series. However, the growth did not undo the jealousy and bickering with Ino, prioritizing her feelings over the safety of her peers, mockery of Naruto, or the emotional manipulation that defined so much of her early character in the series.
A Wasted Potential
The red-haired Karin frustrates me more than she offends me, which is exactly why she made the list. She is a skilled tracker with remarkable healing ability, which is incredible for ninjas.
However, she reduces herself to a girl who bites her arm and loses her senses around Sasuke every time. Her personality was written around Sasuke, and she made Sakura look normal in this regard.
Her infatuation was not even a problem, but she never grew beyond it. Hence, when a character spends episode after episode ignoring betrayal, losing her dignity, and offering nothing new to the plot except dramatic outcry, fatigue sets in.
6Orochimaru
The Predator
Orochimaru chooses cruelty repeatedly, which is why his redemption still feels weird to me. Heexperimented with children, used forbidden jutsu to steal their bodies, betrayed Konoha, and assassinated the third hokage.
His hunger for knowledge is admirable, but the level of manipulation he uses in pursuit of power and immortality is hard to forgive. He treats people like empty shells and never apologizes for this.
Hence, the fact that he never paid for the minds he broke and the bodies he stole makes him someone who deserves all hatred.
5Black Zetsu
The Author Of Betrayal
It is difficult to describe the level of anger mixed with intrigue that I felt when Black Zetsu revealed that Madara was just a pawn in the grand scheme of things. He twisted Indra’s hatred towards Asura, created a curse that followed the Uchiha, engineered the creation ofAkatsuki group, and planned the betrayal of Madara.
He then used Obito as a tool to incite the Fourth Great Ninja War to bring his mother, Kaguya, back. By the time Kaguya returned, it felt like the story had been hijacked.
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More than anything, Black Zetsu reduced the pain and sacrifice of characters such as Itachi, Naruto, and many others in the series to a detour in someone else’s scripts, and I hated Zetsu for it.
4Kabuto Yakushi
He Believed Power Would Make Him Whole
Kabuto was raised as a spy by Danzo, and then later became an apprentice of Orochimaru. He lived all his life through layers of deception, and pretended to be loyal to Konoha while feeding intel to the enemies.
AsOrochimaru’s right-hand man, he participated in inhumane experiments, torture, and desecrated bodies, all in the name of becoming someone. He also perfected Edo Tensei and unleashed an army of the dead to fight for Akatsuki.
In this way, he made friends fight against each other and fathers against their sons. Although he found clarity while being trapped in Itachi’s Izanami loop, the damage had already been done.
3Hanzo the Salamander
The Tyrant
The salamander was once regarded as a legend, and facing him would mean death. However, in his later years, he grew paranoid and became more obsessed with keeping his grip on Amegakure.
His obsession with control led to one of the most unforgivable decisions in the series. At the time when Yahiko, Konan, and Negato were leading a peace movement for the war-torn Amegakure, he felt threatened and orchestrated a trap that led to Yahiko’s death.
Hanzo’s death at the hands of Negato was the brutal ending a tyrant like him deserved.
2Hiruzen Sarutobi
The Man Who Looked Away
The third hokagewas a leader who wanted peace but refused the cost of real accountability. Therefore, when I think of his role in Naruto, I feel disappointed.
Sarutobi was not the one who pulled the blade on the Uchiha clan, but as the leader of the village, he let it happen. He knew Danzo manipulated events from the shadows, but refused to act.
If he refused to act out of fear to maintain the forced peace in the village, then he was never fit enough to be a leader. Also, Naruto, the son of the fourth hokage, and the hero who saved the village, grew up hated in the village his father died to protect, and he did nothing to change the narrative.
The Architect Of Unseen Atrocities
In Naruto, I always attempt to see things from every character’s perspective, but no matter how many times I revisit the series, Danzo always sits wrong with me. He is obsessed with power, and his fingerprints are on almost every tragedy that befalls Konoha Village.
He ordered the Uchiha massacre by manipulating Itachi into slaughtering his own clan under the guise of peace and stealing Shisui’s eyes. As if that were not enough, he embedded many stolen Sharingan eyes of slaughtered Uchiha clan members in his body.
He also groomed child soldiers such as Sai into secretBlack Ops named Rootsand robbed them of their emotions, identities, and free will. What makes him truly detestable is that he sees himself as the village’s unsung hero, and Sasuke striking him down is one of the most beautiful sights in the series.
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