Tsunade Senju

Background

Like her former teammates Jiraiya and Orochimaru, Tsunade studied under Hiruzen Sarutobi. She appears to be a beautiful, buxom woman in her twenties but is actually in her fifties, keeping her youthful looks with a transformation technique. As the granddaughter of Hashirama and Mito Uzumaki she is often addressed with the honorific "hime", princess, yet when first introduced she despises the office of Hokage: her lover Dan Katō and her brother Nawaki Senju both died chasing the dream of holding it, and she lost faith in the title and in dreams themselves. Meeting Naruto Uzumaki, who overcomes every obstacle in his own pursuit of the office, restores that faith, and she accepts the post of Fifth Hokage to protect the village for everyone she has loved, later taking Sakura as her apprentice.

Tsunade tends to idle and leave everyday duties to her assistant Shizune, but takes her role seriously whenever Konoha is threatened, leading the village against the Akatsuki throughout Part II. She is a compulsive gambler with terrible luck who regards her rare winning streaks as bad omens.

She can heal injuries others consider incurable and has superhuman strength enough to reduce buildings to rubble; the peak of her skill is the Creation Rebirth jutsu and the Strength of a Hundred Technique derived from it, which she passed on to Sakura, both using mitotic regeneration to make them nearly impossible to kill. She retires after the Fourth Great Ninja War, giving the title to Kakashi, and is last seen in the epilogue at a meeting of retired Kage. Masako Katsuki voices her in Japanese and Debi Mae West in English, with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn in several video games.