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| OROCHIMARU |
Orochimaru (大蛇丸?) is one of the primary antagonists of the Naruto series. To emphasize his role as a villain, Kishimoto worked towards making him appear "pasty and sickly" as part of his theme of distinguishing villains from the protagonists. In the series, Orochimaru is a former ninja of Konohagakure and a student of the Third Hokage. During his time in the village, he distinguished himself as one of the village's most powerful ninja along with his teammates, Jiraiya and Tsunade. His desire to obtain immortality led him to conduct experiments on other Konohagakure ninja, and he eventually fled the village and joined the criminal organization Akatsuki. After attacking fellow Akatsuki member Itachi Uchiha, who defeats him, he leaves Akatsuki and establishes his own ninja village, Otogakure, in the hopes of destroying his former home. His immortality technique involves transferring his consciousness between different host bodies, and his desire for a new host, particularly Sasuke Uchiha, is one of his driving motivations throughout the series.Because of his different host bodies and the disguises he assumes, a panoply of voice actors are utilized for Orochimaru; his most common seiyū in the Japanese anime is Kujira, and the corresponding English voice actor is Steven Jay Blum.