Rock Lee
is a fictional character in the
anime and
manga series
Naruto.
|
A young Rock Lee. His current look was primarily influenced by Might Guy. |
Lee is portrayed as somewhat of a ridiculous character from the get-go, particularly his relationship with his sensei,
Might Guy; their emotional hugging, overstated posing, and odd mannerisms weird out
Naruto Uzumaki,
Sakura Haruno, and even
Sasuke Uchiha to the point of blankly staring with disbelief when they witnessed them for the first time. Lee's bond with Guy is by far the strongest student-teacher relationship described in the series; Lee owes a large part of his character to Guy's guidance, including his dedication to hard work, taijutsu prowess, outfit, and haircut (Lee already had the large eyebrows). Guy himself believes that Lee has "beautiful eyes," and also calls him his "cute student."
Rock Lee is a very spirited
taijutsu (hand-to-hand combat) specialist and is the
paragon, or "genius", of hard work. Incapable of using
genjutsu or
ninjutsu, he only fights using taijutsu. He is able to open five of the eight "chakra gates" inside a ninja's body, and has speed and strength far beyond that of most ninja.
No matter who the opponent, Lee always shows respect and never attempts to demean them. As an academy student, he was teased for his inability, leading him to spend all his time and concentration on taijutsu under the guidance of his
sensei,
Might Guy. Through practice, he has become so overcompensatingly strong in the taijutsu discipline that he was allowed to graduate the ninja academy with his teammate and rival
Neji Hyuga. Neji originally claimed that Lee was not really a ninja since he can't use genjutsu or ninjutsu, saying that just because Lee is the first student who graduated from the academy with only
taijutsu doesn't mean that he is amazing, just unusual.
Lee always keeps a pair of very heavy weights on his legs (dropping them from even waist-height causes them to bury themselves several meters underground) and has trained himself to be amazingly fast despite this hindrance. The possibility of taking off the weights is a huge trump card for him, as his speed increases drastically beyond its already impressive normal level when free of them (to the point that he moves faster than the blink of an eye). Guy has restricted him to only taking them off in a situation when protecting people who are important to him, but made an exception during Lee's battle with
Gaara. Kakashi ridicules this type of training, calling it 'sentimental' and 'old-fashioned', and also points out that Guy went a little overboard with the amount of weight. Lee is also seen training with stone sandals in a filler episode of the anime. Lee has actually trained to the point that he fights while sleeping on occasion, which occurs through muscle memory.
The greatest of Lee's "trump cards" are five of the eight chakra gates. He is the only known person below Jonin capable of opening any of these gates. Using this technique is forbidden and Lee was taught to open these by Might Guy, which Kakashi disapproved of. The gates are the endogenous chakra limits. The gates, in order, are: Initial, Heal, Life, Harm, Limit, View, Wonder (also translated as Insanity, implying that the user could possibly lose their mental stability if the gate is opened), and Death. By opening these gates one can release the mind's limits on chakra use at the expense of the body. Lee can open the first five gates, and has done so when performing Reverse Lotus, the final and most powerful of Lee's attacks. Guy and Kakashi (shown in a brief flashback of his training) are the only other people who have demonstrated usage of the chakra gates. Guy can open at least six of the gates, as shown during his fight against a clone of
Kisame Hoshigaki.
The basis for the idea of the chakra gates come from the body's limits on the functions within it. This makes the body much weaker, but it keeps the body from expiring too soon. The gates and what they release are listed below.
* Initial releases the brain's ability to limit the strain on the muscles, giving the user five times their normal strength.
* Heal releases the brain's limit on the body's stamina, making a battle worn person become miraculously ready to fight as if the fight had just started.
* Life is located on the spinal cord, and releases the limit on the nervous system, which makes information travel at a faster rate and creates even more stamina.
* Harm releases the limit on oxygen intake in the lungs, creating much more oxygen for the body to use.
* Limit releases the limit on the amount of chakra released at one time.
* View removes the limit on how much fat and proteins the intestines can digest, and releases otherwise useless energy resources, giving the body even more power and stamina.
* Wonder/Insanity removes the limit on how fast the body can move, removes wastes from dead skin cells to feces, and gives the body a much cleaner system to work with, producing more power and stamina.
* Death uses up all the body's energy and opens the final gate located at the heart. It makes the heart pump at maximum power and exceeds the power of the last gates. This uses up all the cells energy and gives them power close to infinity, well above that of any Kage. This "big bang" effect lasts only for a while and ends up with the muscles, including the heart, being completely destroyed and killing the user.
Lee has manifested a natural predisposition towards
Suiken (Drunken Fist); when he drinks as little as one drop of alcohol, he becomes an unpredictable and unstoppable force of destruction and chaos. As Guy explains to
Tsunade during the Sasuke Retrieval arc, after Lee accidentally drank a small amount of Guy's sake during a congratulatory dinner, he proceeded to lay waste to the pub they were in. It took the combined effort of Guy and Neji to hold him down. When drunk, his moves have an extra edge of unpredictability to them, much like the actual Drunken Fist fighting style.
Lee has also shown signs of above average intelligence. He has a near textbook knowledge of the Hyuga clan (as shown before the fight between Hinata and Neji), and is able to understand the strategies of his comrades through mere observation.
Kishimoto Masashi says:
"Lee's theme is hard work. People think that hard work is lame these days but that's not the case. I wanted to express that hard work pays off."Chunin Exam arc
Lee is first introduced during the very beginning of the Chunin exam arc, posing as a weak ninja in order not to draw attention to himself and his two teammates, Hyuga Neji and
Tenten. Soon enough, however, he is revealed as far superior than he made himself out to be; he appears before Team
Kakashi, proclaims his undying love for Sakura minutes after seeing her for the first time. After a display of exaggerated affection, in which Rock Lee blows hearts at Sakura through winks (she dodges all of them), he challenges Sasuke to a battle. Naruto gets annoyed with all the attention Sasuke is getting and insists on challenging Lee himself, but Lee easily deflects his attack and sends him spinning straight into a nearby wall with his whirlwind kick.
After seeing this, Sasuke decides to accept the challenge. Sasuke is defeated just as easily, though to his credit Lee took longer to do it. This teaches Sasuke the main weaknesses of the
Sharingan: it is useless to have enhanced perception of the opponent's movements if your own body cannot keep up with them. Lee explains that Sasuke is just a test for a much stronger opponent. He doesn't give a name, but the opponent is shown to be Neji. During the fight, Lee gets too carried away and almost uses one of his trump card techniques,
Front Lotus, to secure his win. At this point, Guy stops the fight and berates Lee for trying to use the technique. After a moment of theatrical punching, hugging, and crying (complete with sunset background and crashing waves), they bid a mightily dumbfounded Team Kakashi farewell.
Lee appears again during the second stage of the exam, set in the
Forest of Death. When his team split up for a scouting mission, he encounters a desperate Sakura, hopelessly trying to fend off the three Sound-nin attacking her and her two unconscious teammates (knocked out during their encounter with
Orochimaru earlier). He does his best to help her, even using Front Lotus against
Dosu Kinuta, but fails as there are three of the Sound-nin and he has no experience fighting against sound-based attacks. Ultimately it is the
cursed seal-empowered Sasuke that drives them away (almost killing Zaku in the process).
In the third stage preliminaries, Lee finds himself having to fight
Gaara, easily the most difficult opponent for him to have been matched against. During this fight, Lee's many attempts to beat his rival, Neji Hyuga, are shown, each one ending in failure. He almost loses faith in himself, but Guy's guidance gives him hope again. The entire history is actually fractured across several story arcs. In the battle, trump card after trump card is pulled out only to be nullified against Gaara's various defenses. Lee opens the first five chakra gates in an attempt to defeat Gaara, which he had actually hoped to save for Neji, but Gaara manages to just barely save himself. In the end, Gaara avenges his wounds by crushing Lee's left arm and left leg. Guy steps in to save Lee before Gaara can finish the job, disqualifying Lee. Despite his wounds, Lee stands up in his combat stance to continue fighting. Guy informs him the fight is over, only to discover that Lee is unconscious and fighting by muscle memory alone. After Guy stops Lee, the medics inform Guy that Lee's wounds have crippled him and destroyed his career as a ninja. Lee was the first person to ever physically hurt Gaara, demonstrating his extreme potential. Despite the injuries and his subsequent hospitalization, Lee insists on training anyway, sneaking out of the hospital and doing one-armed
push-ups and one-legged
squats on his broken arm and leg.
Search for Tsunade arc
While Naruto and
Jiraiya search for Tsunade, Guy tries various home remedies to cure Lee, none of which work. When Tsunade is finally brought back, Guy, who has heard of Tsunade's legendary
medical abilities, asks her whether there is anything than can be done about Lee's condition. Tsunade looks into it and concludes that an operation that would mend his bones is possible in theory, but would be very risky; he has bone fragments scattered near vital nerves, and the slightest wrong movement would mean his death. She estimates the chance of success at about 50% and Lee almost experiences a mental breakdown when presented with the morbid choice of whether to undergo the operation or not. On the one hand, his life is meaningless without his ability to prove his nindo ("path of endurance", refers to one's chosen path in life) - that he can become a great ninja even without ability to use ninjutsu or genjutsu. On the other hand, the only method to recover his nindo is to risk death.
Eventually, after a heartfelt conversation with Guy, Lee decides to take the operation (the anime has Tsunade doing a bit of research and raising the success chance to 58%, but this does not happen in the original manga).
Sasuke Retrieval arc
At the start of the mission to retrieve Sasuke, Neji is seen helping Lee move about. Lee, having survived the operation, is still in physical therapy. After Sakura pleads with Naruto to bring Sasuke back, Lee reassures her by saying that Naruto definitely will, since he made the promise with the "nice guy pose" (Guy and Lee's common mannerism of giving a thumbs up and smiling, though Naruto's teeth don't glint).
Lee eventually lends his assistance to Naruto by taking over the fight against
Kimimaro, thus allowing Naruto to continue pursuing Sasuke. Lee was still using a crutch to walk just two days before when Shikamaru's team left for Sasuke. According to Tsunade, Lee was not supposed to even leave the hospital, but given his character, it is not surprising that he did so when he heard his friends could use his help.
After a few exchanged hits, Lee briefly seizes the advantage over Kimimaro when he drinks what he thinks is his medicine but is actually a bottle of
sake he took by mistake, revealing for the first time in the series Rock Lee's natural abilities in the powerful Drunken Fist style. Drunken Lee's power and unpredictability soon becomes too much for Kimimaro to handle on his own and he is forced to tap power from his
cursed seal, reversing the situation as he is now able to counter and stop Lee's attacks with his bones alone. Lee attempts the Lotus attack, but, having just left the care of the hospital, it was a vain effort. When his death seems inevitable, a cloud of sand creates a powerful blast between the combatants, knocking the two away from each other. More sand rises to allow Lee a soft landing. Gaara, now Konoha's ally and his attitude changed by his earlier battle with Naruto, has arrived to aid in the battle. Gaara fends off Kimimaro, using his most powerful attacks just to keep Kimimaro at bay, but is almost overcome and killed. Lucky for Gaara, Kimimaro's sickness finally catches up with him, and Kimimaro dies with a spear held directly in front of Gaara's eye.
Having just been saved by Gaara, Lee tells him that he doesn't hold a grudge, and they have a friendly conversation about the ideals that fueled Kimimaro before they go back to Konoha to meet up with everybody else and see how the mission played out. In the epilogue to the first part of the manga, he is shown much more muscular training with Guy, who can't seem to keep up.
Raiga arc
In the Raiga arc, Lee takes the rest of Team Guy and Naruto to the Curry of Life shop while on their way to their mission. The shop specializes in a super-spicy form of curry that can supposedly cure anything. Lee loves the curry, but the others aren't quite used to it. During his battle with Raiga, Lee ends up drunk after being fed some curry accidentally spiked with liquor. Despite this, he is eventually repelled. After the incident, the shop owner makes an even spicier curry for Lee (it's "super spicy bright red" in color), but the others drag him off before he can taste it.
Hoshigakure arc
During a mission to the Land of Bears, Lee and Tenten show off a more goofy side by trying to follow two ninja of Hoshigakure in a wooden barrel. It's quite obvious to the ninja that they're being followed, but they humor it for a while. Later on, when they're trying to sneak into a house, Lee uses a technique called
Kabe Nuke No Jutsu (Wall Removal Technique) to get inside. He labels it as ninjutsu, despite his inability, which momentarily freaks Tenten out. It is only after he reappears that she realizes what it really is. Lee simply used his speed to run inside the house, creating the illusion of ninjutsu.
Lee's Dojo arc
In this episode, Lee builds a dojo after seeing one while on a mission. The location he builds it in, however, is fairly difficult to reach, and as such no one comes to challenge him. Naruto is the only one to bother taking the entire trip, convincing Lee that he wants to challenge the dojo. Naruto would rather not, so he tries to get Guy to do it in disguise (the "disguise" being a mustache and an afro wig). When Guy is called away on a mission, a ninja spy decides to impersonate him, and is quickly pulled into a fight with Lee by Naruto. The spy is nowhere near as strong, so he convinces Naruto to take his place. Naruto relents and challenges Lee while disguised as Guy.
During the battle, Naruto uses a variation of his
Haremu no Jutsu (Ninja Harem) to surround Lee with Sakura clones (still clothed in this instance). This causes Lee to break into one of his odd, tear-filled moments, which Naruto uses to get an attack in. After Guy returns and the ninja spy disguises himself as Lee, a good portion of the dojo is destroyed by the two subsequently fighting (Guy kicks the ninja through two walls, and causes several holes by himself). The spy is eventually delivered to Tsunade, who has a warrant for his arrest.
|
Lee two and a half years later, with his Sensei Might Guy. |
Two-and-a-half years later, Team Guy is sent as backup for Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi on a mission to rescue Gaara from the hands of
Akatsuki. Lee has yet to display any major new techniques, but it stands to reason that he at least knows some, if not all, of Guy's more advanced techniques. In terms of his appearance, he now sports a ninja vest (further increasing his comical resemblance to Guy). He also seems to be more suited to teamwork now, no longer letting his thirst to prove himself lead him head first into a fight. If it weren't for the fact that Guy is almost twice as old as Lee, they'd be identical. Much of his personality remains the same; he still looks up to Guy and tries to follow in his footsteps. When Guy is forced to carry Kakashi back to Konoha (he carries him piggy-back style), Lee mistakes this for training. Lee then attempts to do the same with Neji, who naturally refuses.
* Rock Lee resembles
Bruce Lee and shares his birthday of
November 27.
* Rock Lee's haircut is the same as his sensei, Guy's. Like his sensei, the shine on his hair reads "Nin," repeatedly, all around his head.
* Rock Lee's habit of wearing his Konoha symbol around his waist bears an odd resemblance to the belt
Kamen Rider wears.
* According to the official databook, Rock Lee's favorite food is medium-spicy curry rice and curry udon, revealing his taste for curry in the "Raiga Arc". Like his sensei, when asked about his least favorite food, he replies "There is no such thing!"
* His hobby is hard work. He has been called a
genius at hard work.
* According to an interview with Kishimoto Masashi, the creator of the manga series, in Shonen Jump's 'Naruto Anime Profiles Episodes 1-37', Rock Lee is his most fun character to draw.
* Rock Lee's
weighted clothing is a training method that allows him to move faster once it is removed, a common concept in martial arts
shōnen manga. Such methods are also practiced among some martial artists, although the practice is dangerous and controversial.
* In an episode of
Attack of the Show!, a fan sent a picture of Rock Lee to
Kevin Rose, the host of the show, claiming Lee resembled him.
* Rock Lee, who speaks in formal Japanese even to his friends, is one of the characters with a unique style of speech. Similarly, in the dubbed English version, Lee almost never uses
contractions.
* In Volume 5 of the
Viz English adaptation of the manga, the preface incorrectly states that Rock Lee is "one of the many students from foreign villages who have traveled to Konohagakure for the Junior Ninja Selection Exams," while he is in fact a native of the village. However, this could mean he is from a different part of the village, such as a
ghetto or a
slum.
* In an interview in the May 2006 issue of U.S. Shonen Jump Magazine, Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of the manga series, stated Sakura and Rock Lee were meant to symbolize human weakness (at least in the beginning).
* Lee is one of the few Konoha ninja that didn't see Naruto use the Kyubi power in the fight against Neji.
* Rock Lee was the tallest of the Leaf Village Genin during Naruto I. Neji was the second.
* Before the Chunin Exam started, Rock Lee had completed 22 D-rank, 12 C-rank and no B, A, or S-ranked missions.
* In Shonen Jump's character popularity polls, Lee consistently ranked in the Top 10 in the first four polls, even making the Top 5 once. In the more recent polls, however, Lee has fallen out of the Top 10.
