The legendary Sannin, Orochimaru, grew up an orphan and was taken in as a pupil of the future Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. An exceptionally bright and extremely skilled student, young Orochimaru's morbid fascinations unsettled his fellow students.
As a young adult, Orochimaru distinguished himself fighting with tremendous valor and guile during the Second Shinobi World War. He and his peers, Jiraiya and Tsunade, were offered the title of The Konoha's ‘Three Legendary Shinobi’ in recognition of their service in winning the war. Orochimaru would go on to fight in the Third Shinobi World War, with his performance in the war being so great that he was considered as a candidate for Fourth Hokage alongside fellow war hero Minato Namikaze.
Orochimaru would go on to abuse the privilege his esteem had earned him so to conduct secret and unethical experiments. He sought to gain immortality so that he might live all of the lives necessary to accomplish his task of learning all knowledge. After being caught performing illegal experiments, Orochimaru defected from Konoha rather than be persecuted for his ambitions. Enraged, Orichimaru spent years plotting the village's destruction.
He staged an attack on the village wherein Orochimaru succeeded in killing his former mentor, The Fourth Hokage. He was severely injured in the battle and forced to flee. He then plotted to transfer his life essence into the body of Sasuke Uchiha so to fully recover from these injuries and continue his work. Sasuke was ultimately able to break free from Orochimaru’s sway and he killed the serpentine villain.
Orochimaru managed to facilitate his own resurrection, but the experience had altered him and he began to rethink his strategies for gaining all the knowledge he sought. He even ended up choosing to aide the Allied Forces rather than fight them during the Fourth Shinobi War.
Following he war, Orochimaru created a cloned son whom he named Mitsuki. He entrusted this son to Konohagakure to be trained in the village alongside the children of his former adversaries, Sasuke and Naruto.
Actors Kujira, Yuriko Yamaguchi and Mayumi Yamaguchi provided the voice for Orochimaru in the original anime (with Steven Blum, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and Doug Erholtz voicing the character int he English language dub). The villain first appeared in the twenty-seventh episode of the Naruto anime, airing on April 2nd, 2003.
