Character · Naruto
Temari
The eldest of the Sand siblings arrives with a folded iron fan on her back and a low opinion of the room.
In Otakana the clue reads: Sand kunoichi who fights with a giant fan
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Naruto
- Letters
- 6 · Hard
Temari fights with a huge fan that opens in three stages, each purple moon printed on it marking how much wind she intends to spend. Fully open, one swing sends a cutting gale down the length of an arena and takes the scenery with it. Wind chakra is rare in the Leaf and standard in the Sand, and she uses it with more discipline than either of her brothers.
She turns up during the Chunin Exams as Gaara's escort, which at that point is a job much closer to handling than protecting. Both older siblings spend the early arc frightened of the youngest. What happens to Gaara afterwards changes the household, and Temari becomes a diplomat, running liaison between two villages that used to plan invasions of one another.
Her most quoted scenes are with Shikamaru, who forfeits their exam match while winning it and then spends years being outmanoeuvred by her in conversation. The pairing is one of the few the series builds slowly and in plain sight. Temari is 手鞠, the name of a traditional embroidered ball, which is a soft word for a fighter this blunt.
Spelling TEMARI
TEMARI is six letters alternating consonant and vowel the whole way, three beats: te-ma-ri. The E is sounded, like the one on the end of SASUKE. A temari is a hand-stitched ball wound in coloured thread, an old Japanese craft, so there is no wind anywhere in the name. Watch for TAMERI, which is the usual slip.