Warning: The following contains spoilers for “Naruto: The Whorl Within The Spiral,” by Masashi Kishimoto, translated by Mari Morimoto, and lettered by Snir Aharon, now available in English fromViz Media.
Minato Namikaze was the Fourth Hokage of the Hidden Leaf. From a young age, Minato impressed his peers and showed them what he was capable of achieving. He breezed through the Academy and set new records. Minato wasa part of Jiraiya’s team, and he learned a lot from the Legendary Sannin.
Jiraiya expected Minato to be the Child of Prophecy who could bring peace throughout the world. Minato had a very high intellect, and it helped him create the Rasengan, one of the most powerful techniques inNaruto. However, it was unclear what inspired Minato to create the Rasengan and how he mastered it. Thankfully, Kishimoto provided the answers in the latest one-shot, covering Minato Namikaze.
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Where It Started
At the very beginning of the one-shot, fans could see Minato and his teammates fighting against two jinchuriki, namely, Roshi and Han. The two were endowed with the power of Son Goku and Kokuo. Without wasting any time,the two jinchuriki beganto create tailed beast bombs. Each bomb was the size of a meteor, and there was no doubt Jiraiya and his students would have been wiped out if the attack had connected.
Luckily, they had Minato on their side, who used his Flying Raijin Technique to teleport them away safely. They were relieved to find out that Minato had saved their lives. The experience with the tailed beasts was unforgettable for Minato, and he was quite mesmerized by their power. He understood what kind of power lay dormant inside Kushina. It seems Minato realized that Kushina would have to fight against other jinchuriki at some point in her life. So he decided that he would create a jutsu that would help her in battle. Without wasting any time, Minato got to work.
Practice Makes Perfect
The Rasengan was extremely difficult to create, and even Minato had problems while making it. He trained with Jiraiya, but he had very little success. Minato could not balance the kneading of the chakra, and for that reason, the ball was unstable. Jiraiya advised his student that maybe Minato should match the whorl of his hair. Minato considered it superstitious but decided to give it a try anyway. So he asked Jiraiya to tell him the direction of the whorl of his hair. Minato saw the glum look on Jiraiya’s face, and the latter told him about the presence of two whorls on his head. This confused Minato further, and he had no idea how he should knead his chakra.
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Jiraiya told him to take a break, and Minato obliged. He took an ice pop and divided it in two, then proceeded to ask Minato which half he wanted, to which his student answered that it didn’t matter as they were both equal. Just as the words left his mouth, Minato understood that he had to knead chakra in both directions equally. He immediately got to work and ended up creating his very own jutsu. As always, when the time came toname the jutsu, Minato came upwith an absurd one. He called it “Ice Pop Inspired Nimbus Jiraiya Twin Whorl Sphere.” Jiraiya was obviously disappointed with the poor naming choice, but he was aware of Minato’s lack of expertise in nomenclature.
The Rasengan
Minato did not rename the move to the Rasengan until after he fought against the Nine-Tails. When Kushina left the barrier to meet Minato,the Nine-Tails tried to take controlof her body. It wanted Kushina to undo all the seals so that it could go all out. However, she was an Uzumaki with a great deal of determination, and she refused to do anything of the sort. Instead, Minato and Kushina decided to fight the tailed beast together. Kushina used her adamantine chains to restrain the Nine-Tails, but it failed. The tailed beast forced her to enter the seven-tails chakra mode and attack Minato. The Nine-Tails had mostly experienced hatred throughout its life, which is why it embodied the emotion.
Even after suffering a serious injury, Minato refused to give up on Kushina. He continued to fight, which inspired Kushina to do the same. She tightened the chains around the Nine-Tails, giving Minato the opportunity to hit it with the Ice Pop Inspired Nimbus Jiraiya Twin Whorl Sphere. After the fight, Minato woke up in the hospital, where Kushina, Jiraiya, and Tsunade were waiting.
A few days later, as Minato and Kushina were walking through the Hidden Leaf, she asked him how he came up with it. Minato told her how he saw a jinchuriki’s chakra sphere, which inspired him to create something similar for Kushina. When Minato told her the name of the jutsu, she was flabbergasted. So, she asked if she could rename the jutsu as it was for her, and Minato was open to the change. As they walked up to the roof, Kushinadecided to call it Rasengan, and the name stuck. It translates to Spiraling Sphere, which reminded Kushina of her personal struggles associated with being a jinchuriki.
