Koharu Utatane: The Former Elder Advisor of Konoha

Stern, traditionalist and loyal to the village above all else: Koharu Utatane is, along with Homura, one of the two Elders who advise the Hokage of Konoha. Here is her profile.

One of Konoha's two Elders

Koharu Utatane is a Konoha kunoichi, a former member of the now-disbanded Team Tobirama, who sits on the Konoha Council with her teammate Homura Mitokado. The first databook, page 69, gives the Japanese name of this body: 木ノ葉ご意見番, Konoha Go-Ikenban, which renders literally as "honored watch over the opinions of the Leaf". Its purpose is to help the village leader govern and to make sure that every decision is taken in the interest of Konoha and its people.

The Hokage always keeps the final say, but the Naruto Quiz Book, page 21, spells out the advisors' exact function: to give their opinion so that decisions remain fair and consider every possibility, and to prevent power from becoming too concentrated in the hands of the Hokage. Naruto: One Decade, One Hundred Ninja goes further. On page 61, the two Elders are credited with a social standing and an influence similar to those of the village leader; on page 90, they are designated as "the supreme Will of Konoha", to the point that a Hokage cannot simply ignore their wishes.

The third databook, page 73, describes her as stern and determined, Konoha's interest always foremost, and attached to the idea that the group counts for more than any of its members — the same source also calls her humble, a nuance rarely granted to her. Physically, she keeps the twin buns of her youth all her life, minus the bangs and held by a traditional pin whose beads have multiplied; her hair only turns white in the era of the Seventh Hokage. She has taken to squinting to the point of almost never opening her eyes.

Tobirama's unit

Two formations stand apart, and are readily confused.Team Tobirama (扉間班) has only four members: Tobirama Senju, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Homura Mitokado and Koharu herself. Naruto: One Decade, One Hundred Ninja, page 120, presents them as the disciples of the Second Hokage and of his brother Hashirama. This team appears in chapter 122 of the manga and in episode 72 of the anime. Under Tobirama's guidance, the three students string together missions and become close friends.

The Escort Unit (護衛部隊), listed by the fourth databook on page 171, is another matter: the enlarged formation that adds to the team Danzo Shimura, Kagami Uchiha and Torifu Akimichi, and which is followed only for the span of a single mission in the First Great Ninja War. It enters the story much later, in chapter 481 of the manga and episode 211 of the anime. Confusing the two amounts to crediting Koharu with companions she stood alongside only once.

When Hiruzen becomes Third Hokage, Koharu and Homura become his advisors, a duty they will keep under every one of his successors. Their influence rests explicitly on a combination: years of experience, knowledge and a continuous effort to make Konohagakure a better village. Her official profile in fact recognizes no occupation for her other than that of advisor: from her first appearance to her last, Koharu never leaves this role, whoever the sitting Hokage may be.

Chapter 481: the ambush she proposes against the Kinkaku Force

The manga grants Koharu only one military decision, on pages 4 to 10 of chapter 481. During the First Great Ninja War, the Second Hokage's Escort Unit is surrounded on the battlefield by the Kinkaku Force, a formation of at least twenty Kumogakure shinobi. Where Homura judges the fight lost given the balance of forces, Koharu proposes waiting and setting an ambush: the enemy does not know their exact position or their number, which, in her estimation, gives them a certain advantage.

Her proposal is not adopted. She watches the outcome, with Hiruzen, then Danzo, then Tobirama himself offering themselves in turn as decoys, and it is the Second's sacrifice that opens the breach. The panel also fixes the look of the kunoichi of that era: black outfit, gray chest plate, arm guards, mesh under a skirt, a bandage pouch strapped to her back, shinobi sandals, and bangs covering her forehead protector, the twin buns already held by the traditional two-bead pin.

The only scene where the manga shows her in combat is dated to chapter 503, page 7: during the Nine-Tails attack, she fights alongside her teammates and many other shinobi to contain the beast and drive it out of the village, dressed like Hiruzen and Homura, a gauntlet on her right arm and chain mail armor. The anime adds two earlier scenes that the manga ignores: a class shared with Homura and Torifu Akimichi shortly after the village's founding, then a training session of Hiruzen against Danzo that she watches in the company of Torifu and Kagami.

A single recorded technique, and the anime alone is responsible for it

Only one technique is listed under Koharu's name, and it exists only in the anime: the Object Extraction Technique, a short-range support ninjutsu performed with the Ram seal alone. Its principle is clear: the user must first detect the concealed object, after which the technique pulls it forcefully into her hand, the object passing through whatever stands in its way. It appears in episode 200, and no other use is known for it.

It is the only moment where she is seen acting as a kunoichi during the era of the series. Tsunade learns that the village is riddled with explosive tags; Koharu and Homura volunteer for the search and are sent into an abandoned district, where they spot a tag lodged in the wall of a building. They bring it back as evidence and date it to several decades earlier from the handwriting of the seal. It is thanks to them that the arc establishes that Genno had placed most of the tags more than thirty years earlier (episodes 197 to 201).

Against this single demonstration stands the judgment passed on her in a novel. In Itachi Shinden: Book of Bright Light, written by Takashi Yano, illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto and published in 2015 — the first half of the story devoted to Itachi Uchiha —, Danzo states that she and Homura are not particularly gifted, that they have never accomplished anything notable on a battlefield, and that they have lived so long only through luck and by knowing how to fall in behind more talented allies. It is a character's opinion, in a side medium.

Hard line and the Uchiha clan

Politically, Koharu is described as harder than the Hokage she serves, close to the line of thinking of Danzo Shimura. She is one of the few people aware of the aborted coup by the Uchiha clan: along with Homura, she supported Danzo's proposal to eliminate the clan, against Hiruzen's wish for peace. She approves it, without being its instigator. The two Elders hold Danzo in high esteem, see in him one of Konoha's strongest ninja in chapter 488, page 14, and often follow his political advice.

Reducing them to mere relays would nevertheless be wrong. On the day Danzo blames Hiruzen for the Fourth Hokage's death, Koharu counters with his own conspicuous absence from the fight against the Nine-Tails. She also has her own intelligence channel: in the anime arc of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, she interrupts an interrogation to reveal that the informant Tatsuji was not reporting only to Danzo, but to the Council as well. How far their actual knowledge of Danzo's dealings went finally remains unknown.

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Tsunade's succession

After Hiruzen's death, Homura and Koharu go to find Jiraiya, whom they catch spying on women at the baths — which Homura holds against him. The conversation turns first to the situation between Konoha and Sunagakure, about which the Sage says he is perfectly informed, then Koharu gets to the heart of the matter: no one knows when another nation will attempt a new invasion. An executive committee must be convened, but a Hokage must be named first, because danger can come from any direction.

She sets out to report to him the decision taken the day before in a meeting; Jiraiya cuts her off and declines the post. Homura insists, the matter is settled, he is the most eligible man. Jiraiya then puts forward another candidate, in his eyes more qualified than himself. Koharu grants that Tsunade is indeed eligible, but that no one knows where she is. When Jiraiya announces that he will go and find her, Homura wants to assign him three Anbu; he refuses to be followed, having no intention of running away.

Contrary to a widespread idea, it is therefore not the Elders who go to find Tsunade: it is Jiraiya, and he takes only one person with him, Naruto Uzumaki. The arc that follows starts from this refusal, and Koharu never appears in it again. Her role in the episode comes down to three gestures: proposing a name, taking the refusal, and recording a candidacy she had not selected.

"Naruto is a shinobi of Konoha, not a tool of the village"

The dispute with Tsunade has a precise trigger and a single object. It begins when Shizune, increasingly uneasy about the latitude the Fifth gives Naruto and about missions that constantly expose him to the Akatsuki, goes to open up about it to the two Elders. They immediately call a meeting. Koharu tells Tsunade that Naruto is not an ordinary boy; Homura follows on: he should not leave the village at all and should live under constant surveillance.

When Shizune points out that Kakashi, still recovering, must be replaced at the head of the team, it is Koharu who brings Danzo into the room, and it is she who approves his proposal to entrust the interim to a member of the Anbu. The scene plays out again more harshly during Pain's assault: Tsunade tasks the toad Kosuke with bringing Naruto back from Mount Myoboku, the two Elders stop him before he leaves, Koharu objecting that this time the enemy is the man who killed even Jiraiya.

Tsunade physically grabs them, Koharu demands that she let go, and the Fifth counters with the phrase that sums up the disagreement: Naruto is a shinobi of Konoha, not a tool of the village. She adds that, unlike Jiraiya, Hiruzen and even Chiyo, they have no faith in the younger generation; stunned, they give up on making her change her mind. A divergence between media appears here: in the anime, Danzo comes to warn them in person; in the manga, he waits for the room to empty and kills Kosuke.

She is the one who puts Kakashi's name on the table

On the return from the Land of Iron, Kakashi Hatake informs the Council that Danzo is dead. Koharu's reaction is immediate: a session must be held without delay to name a new Hokage. Then she turns to him and tells him that they have no other choice than to appoint him. So it is she who puts the Copy Ninja's name on the table — a detail rarely recalled when telling how Kakashi became Sixth Hokage, and a practical application of the prerogative granted to the Council since the Third's death.

The investiture will not run its course. At the following session with the daimyo of the Land of Fire, just as the Council is about to make Kakashi the Sixth Hokage, a ninja bursts in to announce that Tsunade has come out of her coma — the anime credits this entrance to Might Guy, which the manga does not. After the invasion, it was already Koharu who had informed the daimyo and his delegation of the Fifth's coma, taking the opportunity to place part of the responsibility for the village's destruction on her.

Koharu then reappears at the war council convened by Tsunade, in a strictly administrative role: she first calls for the acquisition of tools and provisions, then for the splitting of the forces into a combat division and a support division, and finally for the list of all the village's ninja — three lines of logistics on the eve of the Fourth Great Ninja War. The novel Sakura Hiden gives one last glimpse of the same role in peacetime: when the Sixth Hokage meets the daimyo to discuss Konoha's annual budget, it is Koharu who accompanies him.

Boruto era: she calls for Boruto's execution

In the era of the Seventh Hokage, Koharu has aged considerably: deep wrinkles, whitened and lengthened hair, heavy eyelids, and a cane to get around. The anime brings her back on stage during the disappearance of Mitsuki. After two chunin on guard duty are attacked, the village is sealed off; once the condition of one of them is stabilized, the Elders supervise the mind probe performed by Ino Yamanaka, and it is discovered that Mitsuki left of his own free will with the attackers.

When Naruto reveals to them that he is Orochimaru's son, the Elders are outraged that such a secret was kept from them and, invoking the Sannin's unpredictable nature, demand that the child born in Otogakure be treated as a threat. The manga hardens the position further. After the swapping of Boruto's and Kawaki's places in the world's memory and the apparent death of the Seventh Hokage, Shikamaru is appointed Eighth Hokage on a provisional basis, for three years; Koharu and Homura press him to accept the title permanently, and argue that they must kill Boruto to appease the daimyo on whom the village's budget depends.

They then attend the interrogation, demand more intelligence and remind the prisoner that, as a Hokage killer, he is already sentenced to death, and that what he gives up can only make his death less painful. When Shikamaru has Mitsuki free Boruto, Koharu announces that there will be consequences, then goes to promise Ikkyu Madoka that she will settle the "threat". In the Mamushi arc, she mocks Konohamaru , who pleads the boy's innocence, and rails against Kobu's theory that Boruto staged the attack to win back the village's trust.

Registration number 000256: the oldest known of all Konoha shinobi

Her official profile contains a number that carries an argument: her ninja registration number, 000256, is the oldest known among all the shinobi of Konohagakure. Along with the other members of Team Tobirama, Koharu is one of the very first ninja trained in the village, which gives a material basis to the influence she exerts over Hokage born long after her. She enters the manga in chapter 93 and the anime in episode 55.

The rest of the figures are more discreet. The profile gives her as 153 cm and 46.3 kg in both parts of the series, at 68 years old in Part I and 72 to 73 in Part II. The Studio Pierrot model sheets, on the other hand, place her at 160 cm at the time of Tobirama's death: seven centimeters separate the kunoichi of the battlefield from the advisor seated in a meeting.

There remains the sense of her name. "Koharu" (小春) is rendered there as "late summer", and her family name "Utatane" (うたた寝) means "nap". The thing takes on a particular relief in episode 281 of Shippuden, where Ebisu gathers the Elders and the villagers to discuss the risk of an attack: Koharu and Homura openly sleep through it, and only wake up when the mothers of the Allied Forces speak up. Nothing indicates, however, that the parallel is intentional.

Summary Table

FAQ

• Who is Koharu Utatane?
  A Konoha kunoichi and, with Homura Mitokado, one of the two Elder advisors to the Hokage. In her youth, she belonged to the elite unit of the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju.
• Who were her teammates?
  She served in Tobirama's guard unit alongside Hiruzen Sarutobi, Homura Mitokado, Danzo Shimura, Kagami Uchiha and Torifu Akimichi. Hiruzen, Homura and she are longtime friends.
• What is her role in the village?
  Advisor to the Hokage: she and Homura steer Konoha's major decisions, the Hokage always keeping the final say.
• Does she have a connection to the Uchiha clan tragedy?
  Yes. She was one of the few people aware of the Uchiha coup and supported, with Homura, Danzo's proposal to eliminate the clan, against Hiruzen's wish for peace. She approves it, without being its instigator.
• Did she bring Tsunade back to make her Hokage?
  No. With Homura, she offered the post to Jiraiya, who refused and named Tsunade. It was Jiraiya, accompanied by Naruto, who went to find Tsunade — not the Elders.

In summary

The voice of tradition and of reasons of state, Koharu Utatane runs through the whole saga — a stern witness to a village she served long before its heroes were born.