Chocho Akimichi as raised in her mother's village. She aspires to be a great warrior like the Fourth Raikage and trains with Killer Bee. She often teams up with Batta and Yurui who are on the Raikage's security team, led by Omoi.
Prelude: Introducing Team Omoi
Chocho is fiercely independent, often pissing off her mother. But they are both secretly sentimental about one Choji Akimichi, who remains in Konaha. Choji gives Chocho his genin scarf to remember him by and she ties it around her waist. Karui keeps a photo album from their earlier years, with pictures of them altogether.
A new cardigan club member! I thought it would be fun to join in on the Yuu Cardigan club and drew this kinda like all in one sitting. It was a lot of fun! I've been having fun messing with Rui a lot more and balancing them out.
They're wearing an eyepatch cause like myself they get migraines on one side of their head or another so it helps medigate the light sensitivity.
Thank you @rizdoodles for the club invite! They are here for the meeting lmao
How crushing stage!RO reacts if a random person approached them and asked something like “I see you’re very close to the MC! Maybe you happen to know if they are available? I have a crush on them.”
Leon (assuming war phase) would likely still be oblivious to his own crush, and hence doesn't feel the need to sabotage the other person's chances. He would confirm the mage's relationship status to them, though not without a healthy dose of teasing ("The mage? You sure are shooting your shot, aren't you?") But what's that strange throbbing in his heart he gets every time he doles out courtship advice?
Ilya (also assuming war phase) would gently advise the other person that the mage is under incredible duress as the cornerstone of Leon's rebellion--as such, they might not be in the right frame of mind to pursue a relationship. It would be a sound advice, and one that she genuinely believes in--but if there are ulterior motives to her giving it, well, who can tell?
Eli's priority is always the mage's happiness, first and foremost. They would honestly disclose the mage's relationship status and give advice on courting them as requested, all the while making the effort to woo the mage themselves.
F is unlikely to say anything to the other person, simply replying to their query with a stink eye before stalking away in a huff. They're a competitive person by nature, so they'll redouble their efforts in courting the mage (misguided though they might be). If the mage suddenly finds that the frequency of F's here's-a-gift-and-also-an-insult visits have suddenly increased, well, now you know why.
Yu will easily confess that they too have a crush on the mage, and that the other person can wait their turn--all the while implying that they're hellbent on making the mage like them back. They're rather confident in their chances, you see, so the other person shouldn't hold their breath.
The whole Lee being bald thing was just a mean hoax. It was never verified by any legit sources, just a bogus reddit post. There’s been plenty of those.
PSA: Rock Lee isn’t balding! I repeat, Rock Lee IS NOT BALDING! Here’s the Proof!
I knew that not watching Boruto would catch up with me eventually, so here’s me amending my previous statement: There’s no official confirmation that Rock Lee is actually balding in Boruto.
And BOY did I do a deep dive of the internet for this. Saddle up kids, I’m about to throw on my amateur detective hat and take you for a wild ride through the internet to end this rumor once and for all.
Warning: Long, picture-heavy post where I cross-examine multiple sources.
Part I: The situation!
Here’s a compilation of the screencaps from Boruto episode 58 that sparked a thousand rumors.
Looking at the top-left screencap, we can see a strange rendition of Lee’s hairline. Following this introduction, Boruto and Yurui begin their match. When Yurui unleashes his unnamed Bubblegum-Pop jutsu, Boruto is thrown back. Rock Lee then grabs his hair due to the heavy winds that emanate from the burst. Putting the two together, it looks vaguely like Rock Lee has a strange hairline that accompanies him frantically grabbing his own hair.
Part II: The “Sources”
Okay, I spent probably close to 4-5 hours scouring through different links and articles. Here’s a breakdown of the internet’s say on the matter:
The first major source is from a website called “Comicbook.com” It’s the website that was linked in multiple other copycat articles, blog posts, and forums, and was the first result for any Google search of “Rock Lee balding” (or variations thereof)
Okay, this isn’t so bad. I see that there are sources linked, so I should be able to logically follow the trail back to either an interview or the name of the “book” in question. First, let’s look at where these so-called linked ‘sources’ lead.
In any part of journalism, linking your sources is the most important step to ensure your audience that you cross-referenced with legitimate sourc-
aaaand YOU HAVE FAILED Journalism 101.
Hm. despite the fact that this is a Reddit post and not an actual link to ANY book whatsoever, the link’s dead. Deleted. Frankly, this whole search was an endless loop of dead ends, but I was deadset on getting to the bottom of this.
So thus far, I’ve got one lead that wasn’t solved: there’s a rumored “Book” out there somewhere, and it was referenced at “some point.” My first guess would have been a databook, but I’ve read those. Perhaps the one I read had a translation error?
Scrolling through the comments of this Reddit post, I came across this:
Important context clues here: It’s not stated in a Databook. That means Naruto’s Jin no Sho, the Fourth official databook, is NOT the source of the rumor. Also, I was able to find a scanlation of Rock Lee’s page for the very same book here:
Rock Lee’s balding also certainly wouldn’t mentioned in any of the previous databooks where Rock Lee was, y’know, a teenager. All four official databooks are off the table.
Secondly, the link posted by user “Hydrobolt” leads to a twitter post with the following:
No sources, no reference to a book, nothing. Except for a few screenshots of Boruto Episode 58. I’ll discuss these shots later, but this appeared to be yet ANOTHER dead end. (Also, this twitter thread has ZERO links or sources!)
I can see why the post was deleted by the mods, but this was troubling: Did this whole rumor start from ONE twitter post from a shipper (that had single-digit likes/reblogs?)
I didn’t think so. Even if this random tweet was picked up by a semi-popular media outlet, I still needed to answer the following questions:
What was the “book” that supposedly had Kishimoto’s confirmation? Did it exist, or was it a bluff?
Where could I find a scanlated (and hopefully English, though my husband speaks Japanese) version of the Rock Lee page?
Part III: The Search for the Non-Databook “Book”
Even if it wasn’t in a databook, there are multiple interviews and exo-textual sources that can be used to glean information about the characters. I knew I wasn’t looking for an interview–in part because the key was “book,” and also because Kishi has only given a set amount of serious interviews in the past, and most of those are available in translation. Thus, there might have been a storyboard, book, or some other source that was exclusively released that might hold this information.
The most promising lead was from a site called narutoforums.org
The original post:
Okay, first, there’s no actual link on “here”. That’s a major red flag, especially given that the post is currently only a year old (posted 7.27.18)
And it’s yet another dead end.
…Sigh.
But wait!
User “Platypus” mentions that the source was a ‘movie booklet that’s been out for three years.’ That’s a lead!
A movie booklet, huh? Here we go: Sometimes, highly-anticipated animated movies are released in Japan with exclusive manga chapters or other easter eggs, as well as other goodies.
So, let’s talk about this unnamed “Movie booklet” – Three years prior to 2018 would have marked the release of the Baruto movie in 2015. That means the booklet would have been this one: Zai no Sho
This was the most difficult piece to dig up information on. The booklet in question was only released in Japan and during the original premiere of the movie in 2015. I couldn’t initially find scalations, so I did the next best thing: Looking for a table of contents. Good ‘ol Naruto wiki was here to save the day.
Boom. It even has page numbers!
Now, I had a supposed book source and even the page numbers. All that was left to find a translation. After some deep digging, I found one—right here on Tumblr via user Emotionalrockfish.
This was the moment of truth! I opened the link for Rock Lee’s page and carefully read over the description…
Rock Lee
Tireless effort and ambition! With his hot-blooded passion, he guides a genin!!The leaf village’s pride, an expert of taijutsu. He possesses absolutely no skill for ninjutsu, but refines his taijutsu by exceeding the limits of effort with the gutsiness he inherited from his master, and does nothing but aim high. He and his son, Metal*, absolutely can’t miss their daily training!
*Metal Lee is shortened to just Metal here, so no, he’s not called Lee like his father.
(*Pterodactyl screeching*)
AND THERE IT IS: After a whole trail of vague suggestions and dead links, I‘d finally come to the final source material. And there’s nothing! Nothing there that even remotely mentions Lee’s baldness!
N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
Conclusion: RUMOR UNSUBSTANTIATED
Part IV: So where did this rumor all start? And what’s with “that” scene?
The Situation Unfolds: The whole situation is from Boruto, Episode 58: The Tournament Begins! The wind in this scene is shown to originate from Yurui’s jutsu.
The bubblegum pop emits a wind blast, throwing Boruto back. The very same blast tussles Lee’s hair.
It’s an obvious gag, but not about Lee: it’s meant to convey the sheer strength that emits from Yurui’s bubbles popping. This is a common trope in anime: Character emits a powerful attack, the audience sees/feels the “force” from the fallout wind.
The audience now knows that there are some stakes to Yurui unleashing his gum-based jutsu, because the force of the blast not only throws Boruto back, but can also reach a good distance away to where the proctor, Rock Lee, was standing.
Further Explanation: It’s also fairly obvious that Boruto (and Ikemoto’s style) deviate from Kishimoto’s, so we should expect some variation in character appearances outside of the expected “age-up” factor.
Here are some original renditions of Lee with his hair (flying) up and his younger self’s hairline:
In Part I, we see that Lee’s hair falls into a widow’s peak. Then, in concept art for the Naruto: The Last, we see a far less defined peak—in fact, the hairline is decidedly square-shaped.
Then, finally, in the Boruto animation, Lee’s hair is almost circular (but also shown from an extremely tilted perspective.)
So we see a distinct transition in the actual SHAPE of Lee’s hairline in conjunction with the evolution of SP/Kishi/Ikemoto’s style. A story written over at least 17 years and spanning over three different series has a change in style? More likely than you think.
Conclusion: It’s a change in the animation style and a throwaway gag aimed at emphasizing the fallout wind from Yurui’s jutsu. Nothing more.
