Gamamaru: The Prophecies of the Great Toad Sage

The wording of chapter 376 names no one, gives neither an era nor a village, and does not say how many students are involved. Everything else is a matter of interpretation: it is interpretation that leads Jiraiya to designate three successive disciples, then to return to Amegakure to kill the one he believed had been foretold. The toad would not correct this reading until much later, in front of Gamabunta.

The elder of Mount Myoboku

Gamamaru is the oldest and most respected of the toads of Mount Myoboku, of which he appears to be the ultimate authority. His title is Ogama Sennin, the Great Toad Sage; the other toads call him Ojiji-sama, which the English version renders as "Great Lord Elder". The manga gives him a third name in chapter 489, page 12: Deka-jiichan Sennin, the giant grandfather Sage. His entry sums up his reputation in one line: he is renowned for the great accuracy of his prophecies.

His debut is dated separately depending on the medium: chapter 376 for the manga, episode 127 of Naruto Shippuden for the anime. The databooks document him twice, in the third on page 51 and then in the fourth on page 83, and give him a birthday, March 8. His personality tempers the image of the oracle: he is described as senile, often outside the present and quick to forget — Fukasaku calls him senile in chapter 378, page 11 —, but capable of complete precision as soon as he is reminded.

He also acts as an arbiter. When Fukasaku and his wife Shima squabble, he interrupts them; in chapter 379, page 7, he urges the two elders to cooperate with Jiraiya, toward whom he shows a respect that most toads do not have. This benevolence toward a human stands as an exception, and it sheds light on the place the prophecy will give the character in the rest of the story.

A divination with vague outlines

Caution is in order about the nature of his gift: the Great Toad Sage sees the future, but "to a limited extent", and it is unknown whether this faculty comes from his status as a sage. No rule, no cost, and no scope are specified. The two examples given to illustrate it are the announcement made to Jiraiya about his future student and the one made to Hagoromo about a boy with blue eyes: two statements with no name, no date, and no place.

This divination must not be confused with the Telescope Technique, which he also practices. Ranked A in the first databook, page 210, it consists of observing through a crystal ball the current activities of anyone whose chakra signature is known, with no limit of distance or obstacle; Hiruzen Sarutobi uses it to watch over the people of Konoha. This is observation, not prediction, and the distinction will weigh heavily at the moment of the resolution.

His great age, for its part, is documented: he passes for the oldest known living being native to Earth, predating the arrival of Kaguya, which leaves room for the long chain of oracles the anime lends him. The rest of his entry belongs to another register — the senjutsu he has mastered, along with the Sage Mode and the Water Release (Suiton) that only the anime grants him — and never enters into the wording of a prophecy.

The prophecy made to Hagoromo, an anime scene

This part belongs to the anime, under the note "in the anime". Episodes 461 to 467 of Shippuden recount a meeting between Gamamaru and the twin sons of Kaguya Otsutsuki: the toad approaches Hagoromo and Hamura, reveals to them that the God Tree drains the world's natural energy, shows them through the Memory Stone the history of that tree and the coming of their mother, then teaches them senjutsu — which he had intended to do from the start, episode 461 specifies.

Episode 464 has him deliver a second announcement: while Hagoromo travels the world to find lands that will take in the tailed beasts, the old toad tells him of a boy with blue eyes who would one day bring them together and change the world, then takes his leave. That is where the prediction is put in his mouth, and not in the manga: the manga reports these words as the last words of the Sage of the Six Paths, which Kurama remembers during the war.

The fulfillment, for its part, is indeed in the manga: in chapter 671, pages 12 to 14, the tailed beasts recognize in Naruto the one those words foretold. The difference in source is not a scholarly detail. It decides who spoke first: in the animated version, a chain of oracles links Gamamaru to Hagoromo and then to Naruto; sticking to the manga, Hagoromo predicts with no intermediary and the toad only enters the scene centuries later.

The prophecy made to Jiraiya: three parts, not one

The manga stages it in full, in chapter 376, pages 10 to 15 — a chapter titled "The Child of the Prophecy". It has three parts that are often reduced to the last one. First, Jiraiya would become a talented ninja and an unmatched pervert. Then he would roam the world as a sage, "observing all of creation, watching nature take its course", and he would write a book. These first two parts came true without any character having to interpret them.

The third is the one that drives the story: Jiraiya would one day have a student with the power to save the world or to destroy it, and it is Jiraiya's actions that would decide which path was taken. The wording names no one, gives neither an era nor a village, and does not say how many students are involved. It shifts the responsibility from the disciple to the master, which turns an announcement into a permanent obligation: with every newcomer, the question arises again.

The anime adaptation places the scene in episode 131, which covers chapters 375 and 376. Fukasaku was present that day, in chapter 376, page 11. Much later, when Jiraiya summons him with Shima to face Pain, the two toads are at first surprised to be called; it is he who tells them that his opponent bears the Rinnegan and that he takes him for the foretold student. They then understand that it falls to him to kill him, since this student has taken the path of destruction.

Jiraiya's three candidates

Jiraiya named three people, in an order that is often reversed. Minato Namikaze comes first: Jiraiya had been given his genin team before meeting the orphans of Amegakure, and chapter 503 shows him suspecting one of them, Minato, because of his natural genius, then making him his disciple. Minato remembers it decades later and draws his own reading from it during the Nine-Tailed Fox attack: Tobi would bring destruction, his son would save the world.

It is this reasoning that decides him to seal Kurama inside Naruto. Nagato comes next: after the battle against Hanzo, three war orphans approach the Sannin, and Jiraiya, who feels responsible for the conflict, stays in Amegakure to look after them. He discovers shortly afterward that one of them possesses the Rinnegan, the eye the Sage of the Six Paths had used to save the world. Chapter 373 makes this single ocular coincidence the reason for his conviction.

Naruto comes last, and too late. Sixteen years after the Nine-Tailed Fox attack, Jiraiya returns to Amegakure to investigate the Akatsuki, discovers that Nagato leads it and, still convinced that he is the foretold child, tries to kill him before he carries out the predicted revolution. He fails. It is as he dies that he reaches Minato's conclusion and identifies the choice that was his to make: to give up or not. None of these three designations rests on the text of the prophecy, which named no one and counted no one.

The child was two children

The reversal comes from the prophet himself. During Pain's assault, Gamamaru watches the meeting between Nagato and Naruto through the crystal ball. When he sees Naruto convince Nagato to give his life for the people of Konoha, he tells Gamabunta that both he and Jiraiya were wrong: the prophecy pointed to Nagato and Naruto together. The scene takes up chapter 449, pages 5 and 6, and episode 174 of Shippuden.

The correction fits in a single sentence: Jiraiya was not going to train the child of the prophecy, he was going to train the children of the prophecy. The plural does not correct the wording, it corrects the reading that was made of it. Nothing in chapter 376 required a single student; it is this implicit assumption, shared by the master and by the toad, that had led Jiraiya to Amegakure to kill his former disciple.

The phrase also circulates in two senses that are better kept apart. Gamamaru's refers to Jiraiya's students. The other, broader one, refers to the reincarnations of Indra and Asura, that is Naruto and Sasuke, to whom belong the sealing of Kaguya and the lifting of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. The two uses coexist on the same words without overlapping, which explains a good part of the confusion.

The foretold book, which became the key

The second part — Jiraiya would write a book — long passes for a picturesque detail. It becomes operative twice. In the anime first: in episode 154, Tsunade recalls that the Great Toad Sage had predicted these novels, and that it is they that have just made it possible to decipher the message left by Jiraiya. The code rested on the page numbers of Icha Icha Tactics, whose first word made up the message; one still had to recognize the volume behind a writing quirk, a katakana "ta" drawn like a 9, that only Naruto, a reader of his novels, could decipher.

In the manga next, through the novel itself. The line where the hero swears to break the "curse" of hatred is exactly what Nagato had said to Jiraiya years earlier, and the book is dedicated to him for that reason. Facing Nagato, Naruto takes it up just as he read it. Watching the scene, Gamamaru wonders whether this book was not the key to the foretold change and whether everything did not come down to Jiraiya's decision not to give up: the prophet is reduced to hypotheses.

Naruto draws a direct consequence from it in front of him: not knowing how to write novels, he will make his life the sequel to the book and act like the character. The order here is the reverse of what one assumes — it is Naruto who bears the hero's name, and not the other way around —, since Jiraiya had found that name while eating ramen and Minato, who loved the book, had named his unborn son after it. The title of the sequel, chosen by Jiraiya before his death, gives episode 174 its name.

The prediction made to Naruto

The last prophecy in the manga fits into two panels. Gerotora, the scroll-toad who keeps the key to the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, comes to ask the Great Sage whether he should hand it over to Naruto. Rather than answer, the latter has the boy brought before him in order to make a prediction. He announces a meeting, then a fight: an "octopus-tentacled creature", and a "young man with powerful eyes". Chapter 489, pages 13 and 14.

Both statements can be read immediately: Gyuki, the tailed beast sealed inside Killer Bee, and Sasuke. What follows, however, differs depending on the medium. The manga makes the key something already seen: the Sage had also seen that Naruto would receive it, and for that reason orders Gerotora to give it to him. The anime makes it a test: Naruto answers that he would not stray from his path, and it is satisfied with this answer that the toad has the key handed over.

The episode is named after the character — "The Prophecy of the Great Ogama Sage" —, number 220 of Shippuden, aired on July 21, 2011, and it covers chapters 488 and 489. This is the toad's last appearance in the main manga chronology: no later prophecy is attributed to him, and his entry depicts neither his death nor his departure from Mount Myoboku.

What falls outside the manga: a movie and an anime arc

Two occurrences fall outside the manga and deserve to be kept apart. In the movie Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie, Gamamaru's appearance is brief: it sits at the moment when a prophecy about the masked man's defeat is spoken, with Fukasaku present when the Great Toad Sage talks to Jiraiya. The whole scene belongs to the genjutsu world, the one where the local Jiraiya died searching for the Red Moon Scroll, meant to help save the world.

The other is an anime arc, "Jiraiya Shinobi Handbook", which covers episodes 432 to 450 and stages a novel by Jiraiya dreamed by Tsunade caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Episode 439 there is titled "The Child of the Prophecy", like chapter 376: after immobilizing a four-tailed Naruto, the Jiraiya of that story thinks back to the toad's announcement. Nothing in this arc belongs to the manga, and it is indexed separately.

Summary Table

FAQ

• Which prophecies of Gamamaru does the manga actually depict?
  Two scenes: the announcement made to Jiraiya in chapter 376, pages 10 to 15, and the prediction made to Naruto in chapter 489, pages 13 and 14. To these is added the correction of chapter 449. The prophecy addressed to Hagoromo, for its part, is brought to the screen by the anime, in episodes 461 and 464 of Shippuden; the manga reports these words as the last words of the Sage of the Six Paths.
• Did Jiraiya's prophecy come true?
  Yes, but not according to the reading that had been made of it. In chapter 449, pages 5 and 6, Gamamaru admits in front of Gamabunta that both he and Jiraiya had been wrong: the announcement pointed to two students, Nagato and Naruto. The talent, the perversion, the life of a sage, and the book, for their part, had come true without any character having to interpret them.
• Why did Jiraiya believe that Nagato was the child of the prophecy?
  Because Nagato possessed the Rinnegan, the eye of the Sage of the Six Paths, a figure who is said to have saved the world long ago. Chapter 373 makes this single clue the reason for his conviction. He had previously suspected Minato for a motive of the same kind, his natural genius, according to chapter 503: his genin team does sit before his meeting with the orphans of Amegakure.
• How does Gamamaru see what is happening far from Mount Myoboku?
  Through the Telescope Technique, ranked A in the first databook, page 210: a crystal ball makes it possible to observe the current activities of anyone whose chakra signature is known, with no limit of distance or obstacle. Hiruzen Sarutobi uses it to watch over Konoha. This is observation, distinct from his faculty of divination, limited and of unknown origin.
• "Children of the prophecy": does it refer to Naruto and Nagato or to Naruto and Sasuke?
  Both, depending on the sense. With Gamamaru, the phrase refers to Jiraiya's two students, Nagato and Naruto. In its broadest sense, it refers to the reincarnations of Indra and Asura, that is Naruto and Sasuke, to whom belong the sealing of Kaguya and the lifting of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. The two uses bear on the same words without overlapping.
• What is Gamamaru's last appearance in the manga?
  The prediction made to Naruto in chapter 489, adapted in episode 220 of Shippuden. No later prophecy is attributed to him. His entry has no "status" field and depicts neither his death nor his departure: one therefore cannot state that he is alive at the end of the series, only that there is no further recorded appearance.

In summary

The wording did not change, the reading did. Gamamaru himself corrects the singular into a plural in chapter 449, and no later prophecy is attributed to him, his entry depicting neither his death nor his departure from Mount Myoboku.