Shino Aburame

Background

Shino at one time grew up alongside Torune Aburame as his family took him in under guardianship after Torune's father, Shikuro Aburame, passed away. Despite their different views about friendship, Shino grew close to Torune, viewing him as an older brother. Torune even revealed to Shino his unique breed of microscopic insects. One day, Danzō Shimura approached the two young Aburame with the desire to recruit another young member of a secret technique-using clan for Root. While Danzō had the authority to do so and expressed interest in Shino, not wanting Shino to live a life of loneliness, Torune offered himself, appealing to Danzō by revealing who his father was. Knowing that he would probably never see Torune again but wanting to remain close to his brother-figure in some way, Shino harvested some of Torune's insects and spent years refining his bug breeding technique to produce new beetles that inherited traces of Torune's insects. After enrolling into the Academy and being placed in Iruka Umino's class, he met Kiba Inuzuka, whom he numerously became irritated at due to the pair having polar opposite personalities. During breaks in between classes, he would let his bugs walk on his desk. During a class training session, he watched on alongside Kiba as Shikamaru Nara and Chōji Akimichi refused to fight each other even during training. When Kiba commented that Shikamaru, who had found the process to be too troublesome, would be a genin for the rest of his life, Shino noted that that may not be so as Shikamaru could go on to live a long life and many things could happen, but before he could finish his statement Kiba cut him off.

Personality

Since his early childhood, Shino has been a calm, collected, and solitary person, who is quite mysterious. Shino is portrayed as being somewhere between merely stoic and matter-of-fact, rarely ever smiling or showing emotion at all; rather than thank his teammates for congratulating him on his victory in the preliminaries, he told them that he expected them to do the same. He also has a tendency of holding grudges and being rather intimidating, such as seen when Naruto failed to recognise him at the start of Part II (which is fair as the only visible part of his face were his sunglasses), but easily recognised Kiba and Hinata regardless. He still holds that grudge to this day. Shino seems to be aware of these odd personality traits; in the anime, when he ate food poisoned with a chemical that forced him to laugh, he menacingly told Naruto to forget it had ever happened. In his adulthood, however, Shino seems to have outgrown these traits, openly smiling and laughing in front of others. Shino speaks in a curious fashion, as noted by both Naruto and Kiba. He speaks in a manner most simply described as "nitpicking" and uses the word 'because' (なぜなら, nazenara) a great deal. To others, his manner of speaking seems like over concern with the trivial points of a conversation which could be left unsaid, or, providing information that will leave questions that could possibly be asked — already answered.

Appearance

Shino is regularly seen sporting the same style as the rest of his clan, consisting of dark round sunglasses and a sea-green jacket with a high, upturned collar. While Shino was in the Academy, he wore a similar outfit to the one he does now in Part II except his jacket then was of a light grey colour. Shino is a fair-skinned man and the tallest member of his graduating class. He has dark, bushy, brown hair and dark, sharp eyes (which has only been shown in the anime). As with other members of his clan, Shino constantly keeps his eyes covered to others, as even his teammate did not know what his eyes truly looked like. During Part II, his appearance became even more mysterious, with his jacket hanging down to his knees and the addition of a hood that obstructs his face even more and a satchel on his back. This current appearance makes it harder for people like Naruto to recognise him right away. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, he wears a flak jacket under his hooded-one. Two years after the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Shino sports a flak jacket with his regular shinobi attire and a new set of sunglasses. His outfit consists of a grey shirt with matching pants under his light-grey button-up jacket. The jacket also has a hood which he keeps over his head. He also changes his forehead protector to a bandanna-style. As an adult, he wears a flak jacket with two bug-like emblems on the neck, and a full-body suit underneath. While on duty he wears a three-strip optic visor which wraps around his head, and while off duty he wears sunglasses.

Abilities

Shino showed great potential as a shinobi since early age, having drawn the attention of Danzō, a man with exceedingly high standards, in the anime. As a genin, he easily managed to defeat Zaku Abumi, and later fight Kankurō, a skilled shinobi to a stalemate. During the time-skip, he was promoted to Chūnin alongside his teammates. During the War, he was able to fight and defeat several White Zetsu despite them being Jōnin-calibre in power, and was able to defeat the reincarnated Torune Aburame. A decade later was acknowledged by several individuals as being jōnin-level in skill.

Ninjutsu

Shino has shown considerable skill in shurikenjutsu, able to manipulate his shuriken's trajectory mid-flight. By the Fourth Shinobi World War, he possessed Earth, Fire and Yang Release. He could also use the Summoning Technique, which in the anime, he uses to summon a giant insect.

Aburame Clan Techniques

Shino and the insects inside him. As a member of the Aburame clan, Shino was infused at birth with a special breed of insects, called kikaichū, that use his body as a nest and feed on his chakra, living in a form of symbiosis. In return, they attack and do other tasks as he commands forming his main fighting style: in battle, he boxes in opponents with his bugs and then consumes their chakra once they cannot escape. In the anime, Shino is able to transfer this accumulated chakra into a new target. Shino has shown to be able to create insect replicas of himself, which can reform once struck. Offensively, Shino could encase his enemies in a cage of insects, preventing them from moving and depriving them of their chakra; as well as could use a special breed of insects called kidaichū to devour the chakra and even flesh of their victim. In the anime, Shino could also use his bugs defensively by having them swarm around himself and his allies, creating a dome. Shino could use his bugs to spy and gather information. Since the bugs make little to no noise, Shino have them scout an area and return with any useful information. Shino could leave a female bug on his target to track them down by the scent picked up from a male bug. To stop himself from being tracked, Shino could use the Insect Jamming Technique to create false chakra patterns, which would confuse sensor-type opponents. While the kikaichū only have a lifespan of a few hours, their life-cycle ensures that there will always be females with eggs. In the anime, it was demonstrated that his bugs are always undergoing evolutionary adaptation through mutation and natural selection; so to cultivate for this ability, Shino can accelerate the growth of his insects. Also, having bred insects with the rinkaichū of Torune, Shino cultivated insects that can simulate the same toxic effect as Torune's, or even produce antibodies against the said potent toxins.

Taijutsu

Shino attacks Suika with Iron Mountain Leaning. Although favouring the use of his insects in battle, Shino is shown to be quite capable in taijutsu. During the Chūnin Exams preliminary matches, he calmly blocked an incoming strike from Zaku and later defeated him with one punch. Shino was also fast enough to avoid a sneak attack from Kankurō's Karasu puppet. In the anime, after training more with Kiba and Hinata, Shino's taijutsu greatly improved to the point where he could fight on par with Suika and overpower him in their second encounter.

Intelligence

Shino has shown himself to be quite intelligent, being able to use his analytical and observational skills to make shrewd decisions with pinpoint reasoning. Like Shikamaru, Shino prevails in battles by systematically staying several steps ahead of the enemy, as well as keeping a good distance away to avoid his enemies' attacks. Shino can also tell the number of people in an area by putting his ear to the ground. Since becoming an Academy teacher, Shino has become well-versed in the various basic attack patterns and battle methods of shinobi combat, able to easily anticipate most tactics his opponents launch on him.