The Databook is Wrong: Why Hydrification is a Kekkei Genkai
So, the databooks, for some reason, slapped the little symbol on Suigetsu’s jutsu to say it’s hiden -- a secret technique, like that of the Yamanaka etc.
However, this makes little to no sense logically, thematically, and in conjunction with other details from the databooks.
Point the first: this is not the only mistake in that databook. It’s not even the only mistake in his entry. The databooks give his height as 177.4cm, but he is never on page depicted as being significantly taller than Sasuke, who databooks give a height of 168cm. The animation reference, by contrast, gives Suigetsu a height of 170.4cm, which is much more reasonable when it comes to how he’s drawn -- and honestly, I think someone just misread that reference, and it was perpetuated from there.
Point the second: he’s not the only one who doesn’t get the kekkei genkai tag -- Jūgo gets senjutsu, but not kekkei genkai, even though it is his clan’s kekkei genkai that gives him access to senjutsu chakra. Which is why the curse marks are based upon his bodily fluids. And Deidara’s clay bombs are referred to as Hiden, even though his explosions are fuelled by Bakuton, a kekkei genkai.
Point the third: this contradicts his description from the text of databook three. There, the text describes him as “Born with his family’s peculiar ability”, which is the kind of phrasing you’d expect from kekkei genkai, surely.
Point the fourth: Gengetsu, the Second Mizukage, is given the kekkei genkai tag on his entry, but the only abilities we see him actually use are variants on existing jutsu: summoning, the water clone modified with oil, and hydrification modified, likewise, with oil. If he had a kekkei genkai, we ought to have seen it... unless we did, and it’s the same ability as the rest of his clan. What’s more likely? That a clan full of hiden users would somehow produce a kekkei genkai user who has their abilities, but with a slight twist? Or that a clan full of kekkei genkai users would produce one who was able to take their jutsu even further? We do see the latter with the Uchiha, in a way -- they can awaken the Sharingan, but the Mangekyo etc take the Sharingan even further and give it more abilities.
Point the fifth: This wouldn’t be the only kekkei genkai that doesn’t involve two chakra natures in the conventional sense: Kimimaro has one, too. Like Suigetsu, he can modify his body in unusual ways.
Point the sixth: Suigetsu isn’t showed using hand signs for any of it, at any point in Naruto. (The only hand signs you will ever find associated with his jutsu come from a piece of Boruto filler, and he is shown using his various techniques without a single sign at multiple points throughout that same filler.) Generally, we associate some kind of seal with hiden techniques -- the Nara, for example, and the Yamanaka, have their own distinctive hand signs that are shown when they use their techniques. You know who don’t have to use hand seals? A selection of kekkei genkai users throughout the series.
Point the seventh: Suigetsu’s abilities work even when he’s taken by surprise. They work even when he’s unconscious. At that point he turns into a watery blob. We see as far back as chapter 87 what happens when you knock out a hiden user who’s using a technique: Choji, expanded into a ball, is stunned by soundwaves, and reverts back to his normal size and shape. For Suigetsu’s abilities to persist when he’s unconscious, they must be far more intrinsic to his body than Choji’s are.
Point the eighth: Suigetsu is captured and experimented on to gain the secrets of his jutsu: if it was hiden, would that really be necessary? Or, indeed, possible? If it was merely something he’d been taught, then perhaps one might use genjutsu to compel him to talk, or some kind of torture... but it is, explicitly, experimentation, and Kabuto integrates Suigetsu’s abilities into his body the same way he does the others from Team Taka.
Which brings us to tail point the ninth: The same chapter in which we learn the aforementioned point, Kabuto is linking for Sasuke the attributes he has taken from the bodies of Sasuke’s erstwhile companions: things they were born with. Thematically, they are linked together -- and linked to Sasuke, too, who chose this team based upon their unusual abilities. Sasuke’s team, including Sasuke himself, are a group of strong shinobi linked together by the meeting-place of Otogakure, with all its horrors... and the powers, inherent in their bodies, that caused them to be brought there.
Sasuke’s team is a kekkei genkai team, and no collection of frequently-flawed data most likely compiled by Kishimoto’s assistants can convince me otherwise. The databooks are, at times, useful, but they should never be considered to be faultless.
In conclusion, in light of the logical and thematic reasons for Suigetsu’s technique to be a kekkei genkai, and taking into account the number of times the databooks have contradicted each other and the manga itself, I reject the idea of this jutsu being hiden, and I hope you will too.
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