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180px-Neji's Byakugan
300px-Neji

Neji Hyūga (日向ネジ, Hyūga Neji) is one of the main supporting characters of the series. He is a jōnin-level shinobi of Konohagakure's Hyūga clan and a member of Team Guy.

Personality Edit[]

Outside of his initial feelings towards his clan, Neji has been shown to be extremely serious and mature for his age, and to have great self-control. In battle, he is able to stay relatively calm in most situations and carefully look at the situation at hand.

While under the belief that his father had died because he was a member of the branch house, Neji concluded that fate is something decided at birth and that no matter what one does, people cannot escape their destiny. Neji often applied this to people he viewed as weaker than himself, such as his cousin, Hinata. During his match in the Chūnin Exams, he told Hinata that she was unfit to be a ninja, due to being too kind and not confident enough. When she was eventually able to turn his philosophy against him, telling him that she believed that he was suffering from trying to become worthy of the main house, despite him being born into the branch family, Neji became enraged, and attempted to kill Hinata. He was stopped by multiple jōnin, but Hinata nevertheless was left in critical conditions from his earlier attacks. In this instance, Neji's only concern was that he could not complete his attack, and he accused them of giving special treatment to the head family members. He disregarded Hinata's personal growth in the match, concluding that, because she was defeated, "a failure will always be a failure".

Neji displayed similar efforts to condescend others during his match with Naruto Uzumaki who, despite being repeatedly struck down, continued to try and fight him. While Neji tried to show Naruto that fate cannot be fought, and that someone who is weak will always remain weak, Naruto was unwilling to accept this mindset, arguing that Neji, for all his belief in fate, had not accepted his own destiny. Naruto went on to defeat Neji, suggesting that, if a "failure" like himself could change his destiny, a "genius" like Neji could, too.

With this example of overcoming "destiny", as well as finding out the truth about his father's death soon afterwards, Neji abandoned the concept of inescapable fate. No longer bound by the idea that he was stuck at his current status, Neji resolved to become strong enough to never again lose a battle. To do so, he began putting more emphasis on working well with his team, and started to value a mission's successful completion and his team-mates' safety over his own betterment, even encouraging Rock Lee to continue pursuing his own dream. In addition, Neji began trying to remedy the estranged relations between himself and the main house members, most particularly by being kinder to Hinata. His efforts seem to be effective, as he begins training with Hiashi, and, in Part II, even starts to wear traditional Hyūga robes. He similarly has great confidence in Naruto's capacity to change others, as he stated that the latter could redeem Sasuke and bring him back to Konoha. However, it seems that he given up hope for Sasuke, and given up his thoughts that even Naruto could bring him back.

When Team Guy was first formed, Neji dismissed Lee's dream of becoming a great ninja, due to his inability to mould chakra, as hopeless, and suggested that Lee could never defeat him. Because of this, Lee accepted Neji as his rival. After a year of being team-mates, Neji shows frustration at Lee's progress and during the Chūnin Exams shows confidence in Lee's abilities. After abandoning his fatalistic philosophy, he suggested that he would not have persevered in Lee's situation, and believed that, if Lee worked hard enough, he could surpass the gifted.

Although he has expressed silence and controlled feelings toward his team-mate's and sensei's eccentricities during Part I, in Part II, he calmly told Tenten to leave them on their own after she openly expressed exasperation on their part. This goes to show that he has gone on to understand his team-mates better, and he himself has changed his views and beliefs to the point of opening up at times. In the anime, while catching up with Guy and Lee's race back to Konoha, he voices out against their childishness, but becomes visibly flustered when Tenten teased that he was half in mind to join them, embarrassedly denying her statement.

Abilities Edit[]

From a young age, Neji has been hailed a natural genius. In Part I, he was labeled the top-ranked rookie in his class, and was said by Rock Lee to be the strongest genin to take the Chūnin Exam that year. His father even stated that with his talent, he could potentially surpass all other members of their clan. Over the time-skip, when most of the former Konoha 11 genin reached Chūnin rank, Neji was the only one to advance to the rank of jōnin. As stated by Tsunade, Neji has excellent instincts, both on the battlefield and as a leader. When forced to make difficult decisions on missions, he shows himself able to make a decision through keen observation and analysis.

Byakugan Edit[]

[1]Neji's Byakugan.

As a member of the Hyūga clan, Neji possesses the Byakugan, a dōjutsu kekkei genkai which grants him x-ray vision, nearly 360° vision, and the ability to see chakra networks. The Byakugan has a small blind spot at the upper thoracic vertebrae, a weakness of which Neji is actually aware of and takes extra precaution in concealing it from opponents. While the Byakugan naturally has only a 50 meter field of vision, Neji is able to increase its range several times by the start of Part II, to at least 800 meters. He is also noted to have a particularly strong Byakugan relative to other members of the Hyūga clan.

===Gentle Fist Edit===

As a member of the Hyūga clan, Neji specialises in close-range, taijutsu combat. In battle, Neji has shown tremendous agility and dexterity, capable of simultaneously dodging and striking an opponent with no wasted movement. His attacks are fast and fluid, striking in rapid succession to leave very little time for his opponent to find an opening to counter, but also deliberate.


[2]Neji's fighting style is the signature style of his clan, the Gentle Fist, which takes advantage of the Byakugan's insight into people's chakra pathway system. Gentle Fist allows for severe internal trauma with minimal external force as it relies on surgical injection of chakra into an opponent's chakra pathway system. As Neji's Byakugan is stronger than most, and is able to see special nodes on the chakra network, called tenketsu, Neji can use Gentle Fist to not only damage opponents, but control their chakra flow as well. Using the Gentle Fist, Neji can affect internal organs, and is capable of killing an opponent with a single strike should he aim to harm the heart. In Naruto: Shippūden the Movie, Neji was able to incapacitate a person with a mere tap to the forehead. Training in the Gentle Fist style implies superior chakra regulatory control and mastery of the human chakra network. As a result, Neji can eject chakra from any tenketsu in his body as a means to slow or impede incoming projectiles. He can also release himself from chakra-based substances using this technique. Continuously maintaining this expulsion of chakra allows Neji create a sensory barrier around himself to detect anything that enters his immediate area, making up for the Byakugan's blind spot, although it rapidly depletes his chakra reserves as seen when this tactic was employed against Kidōmaru.

[3]

As a member of the Hyūga clan's branch house, Neji is forbidden to learn the clan's secret techniques, but managed to deduce their workings simply through observation. He has learned many of the clan's most powerful techniques, such as the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven, which allows him to repel every attack. He can also use the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, an extremely strong offensive move with which he's able to rapidly dispatch enemies by striking many of their tenketsu in fast succession, making it hard for them to both move and control chakra. Since mastering these techniques, Neji has begun to refine and strengthen them for more specialised needs. In Part II he has learned the Eight Trigrams Empty Palm, a more focused version of the Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven, with which he can expel chakra from his palm to attack opponents out of his physical reach. In the anime, he was able to increase the number of strikes in Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms by doubling it. He can also collaborate with Hinata, using Eight Trigrams Empty Wall Palm. When trapped by an enemy, he could use the Gentle Fist Art One Blow Body, to release chakra from the tenketsu to free himself.

Stats Edit[]

Databook Ninjutsu Taijutsu Genjutsu Intelligence Strength Speed Stamina Hand seals Total
First 2.5 3.5 2 2.5 2.5 3 2 3 21
Second 3.5 4.5 2 3 2.5 4 2.5 3 25
Third 4 4.5 2 3 2.5 4.5 3.5 3 27
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