Konan : l'Ange de papier de l'Akatsuki

Konan: The Paper Angel of the Akatsuki

4321 words | Reading time: 22 min

CharacterAkatsukiAmegakure

Only one woman in the Akatsuki, and they called her the Angel. An orphan of Amegakure trained by Jiraiya alongside Nagato and Yahiko, Konan watched the original organization take shape before becoming its most graceful figure. This read dwells on her paper ninjutsu, wings, origami, explosive tags, then on her final fight against Obito. A tragic character whose path casts the Akatsuki's beginnings in a different light.

The only woman in the Akatsuki, nicknamed “the Angel”: Konan is a character both graceful and tragic. A master of a unique paper ninjutsu, she is also one of the three founders of the original organization. Her profile.

Contents

The Orphan of Amegakure

Konan grows up in the Hidden Rain Village, and her break with childhood is dated: her family is killed during the Second Great Ninja War, leaving her to fend for herself (chapter 372, page 9). Yahiko finds her some time later, and the two children survive together. It is she who, out walking, discovers Nagato dying, accompanied by his dog Chibi; she rescues him and brings him back to their shelter. The trio gradually bonds, the animal included, until Chibi dies in the crossfire of the clash between Hanzo and the Sannin.

Tired of being the victims of circumstance, the three orphans approach the three legends of Konoha and ask them to train them. The scene plays out in two stages: the Sannin first leave them food, and Konan impresses them by folding an elaborate flower from the discarded wrappers, as a token of gratitude — the first origami the manga shows her fold, the paper dog folded for Chibi appearing only in flashback. When Orochimaru suggests killing them to spare them the horrors of war, Jiraiya instead chooses to stay and teach them to protect themselves.

Two traits date from this period. As a child, Konan is lively, compassionate and rather cheerful, while Yahiko shows a hard character and Nagato a raw sensitivity; she has romantic feelings for her rescuer, and they are mutual. And she already wears the large light-blue paper flower pinned in her bun, which will never leave her again. The events that follow will make her a serious woman, one who never speaks up during Akatsuki meetings but always places her teammates' safety before her own.

Three young people in dark high-collared coats, lined up under a blue sky: one with red hair, the middle one with spiky orange hair and a forehead protector, the third with purple hair adorned with a paper flower
Nagato, Yahiko and Konan: the three “Rain orphans” brought together by the war in Amegakure.

The Trio Trained by Jiraiya

Jiraiya stays three years with the orphans, in a shelter he sets up for them, and teaches them ninjutsu. His training regimen has a name: “water off a frog's face” (蛙の面に水, kaeru no tsura ni mizu), a Japanese expression for staying unmoved whatever happens. In practice, the four of them train outdoors, in frog costumes, under the perpetual rain of Amegakure: the point is to teach the children to keep their composure in the face of adversity.

The master also leaves behind a device, the “Hop-In” system: four wooden tags fixed to the wall of the hideout, each above a name, with a frog drawn on the white side and a fully red side. When you are in the hideout, you turn your tag to the red side; when leaving, you turn it back. A red tag while the person concerned is absent signals a capture; a tag on the frog side while the person appears to be present betrays a transformed enemy who has infiltrated. A trapdoor hidden under the floorboards completes the setup, with a concealed room and an emergency exit.

Konan immediately grasps the logic of the device, a mark of intelligence she is credited with. When Jiraiya judges them able to fend for themselves, he returns to Konoha, not without telling her that she will be very beautiful when she grows up and to come see him when she turns eighteen (chapter 373, page 14). The group then grows to the point of having to change hideouts; at the moment of departure, two Iwagakure ninja attack the hideout, Yahiko spots them in time and everyone escapes through the emergency exit (chapter 511, pages 12-15).

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In driving rain, three children in simple, stained clothes, a green backpack on their shoulders, face three adult ninja seen from behind, one of them with spiky white hair
The meeting with the Sannin: Jiraiya will stay to train the three orphans for nearly three years.

Ruling Amegakure Behind Hanzo's Face

During the Third Great Ninja War, a man who introduces himself as Madara Uchiha approaches the group and offers his help; Yahiko refuses, suspecting that he only wants to use them (chapter 607, pages 1-5). After Yahiko's death, Nagato and Konan go back on that refusal and accept the masked man's support. Then begins the recruitment of S-rank rogue ninja, coupled with a financing maneuver: the Akatsuki hires out its services as a mercenary group to the ninja villages, and the money earned this way pays for their long-term plans.

Two recruitments bear her mark. She defeats Sasori after an initial refusal on his part, according to the Creation of Akatsuki OVA from the game Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution, and the anime shows her lending a hand in the recruitment of Hidan (episode 457). When Nagato, under the alias of Pain, sets off a civil war in the village, it is she who acts as messenger and promises the inhabitants that he will bring change (episode 405). Nagato eventually kills Hanzo, and Konan takes on his identity so that the world goes on believing him alive and in command.

The anime pushes the mechanism all the way into the scenes. Disguised as Hanzo, Konan receives Kakashi, who comes to deliver the invitation to the Chunin Exams co-organized by Konoha and Sunagakure (episode 395), then sends genin teams to keep up the front, ordering them to say nothing about Hanzo's death. She tasks three kunoichi with gathering intelligence on the other ninja, in particular any jinchuriki with their extraordinary chakra (episode 404); with the exams cut short, she promotes the three and entrusts them with an S-rank mission (episode 413). The consequence is clear: neither she nor Nagato was ever a rogue ninja, their faction having won Amegakure's civil wars.

A woman in a long dark cloak with red clouds, two large wings made of white paper sheets spread behind her back, stands on a very dark metal roof facing a young girl with auburn hair seen from behind in the foreground, amid flying sheets of paper.
Konan entrusts a mission to the kunoichi Ajisai: behind Hanzo's name, she is the one who truly commands Amegakure.

341 Missions and a Favorite Word: Konan's Databook Entry

The databook puts numbers on her career: 341 official missions, broken down into 0 D-rank, 65 C-rank, 161 B-rank, 85 A-rank and 30 S-rank. The D-rank column therefore stayed empty. The personal record that goes with it is just as precise: born February 20, blood type O, 35 years old in Part II, 169.4 cm for 45.3 kg, classified S-rank, with “village leader” as her role, the Ame Orphans as her team and Nagato as her partner.

Four chakra natures are listed for her: Wind Release, Earth Release, Water Release and Yang Release. None of them corresponds to paper, and for good reason: the Dance of the Shikigami is classified as a “ninjutsu, fighting style,” not a nature transformation. The rest of the entry fits in a few lines: her hobbies are origami and flower pressing, she likes grilled fish and hates karaage, and the opponent field states that she would fight anyone who opposes “God,” that is, Nagato. Her favorite word is “Order” (秩序, chitsujo).

Three details complete the picture. The name 小南 means “little south”; Konan shares her birth date and blood type with Yahiko; and Studio Pierrot's model sheets put her at 160 cm at the time Jiraiya leaves Amegakure. Her status as a sensor-type shinobi is granted to her only by the anime (episode 457). Her debut, finally, is dated: chapter 363 of the manga, episode 125 of Shippuden, and, on the literary side, the novel Akatsuki Hiden.

Full-length illustration on a white background of a woman with short purple hair adorned with a white paper rose, wearing a long black high-collared cloak decorated with red clouds and lined in red, legs sheathed in dark blue and white heeled sandals, arms slightly spread.
The databook ranks Konan as S-rank and credits her with 341 official missions — none of them D-rank — at 169.4 cm and 45.3 kg.

Under the Cloak: Konan's Design According to Kishimoto

Konan never takes off her cloak in the story: it is the Sha no Sho, page 349, that describes what lies underneath. A midnight-blue dress with a wide front hem, leaving bare her arms, her back, the sides of her chest and her stomach, the navel being surrounded by four additional piercings. The forehead protector is not on her forehead but on her right hip, and blue pants take the place of shoes, with white high heels — the exact opposite of the organization's color scheme.

Kishimoto explains himself in the same book: he had always intended Konan as the Akatsuki's only woman and, for that reason, gave her a very revealing design. He adds, wryly, that she is indecent but stays dressed, that the cloak covers the whole thing anyway and that she turns into paper almost immediately; the concept artwork already shows the pierced navel. Over it, she follows the organization's dress code, the ring on her right middle finger bearing the kanji 白, “white.”

The two media do not draw her quite the same way: her eyes are gray in the manga and amber in the anime, her labret piercing white in Kishimoto's version and black in Pierrot's, her eyelashes drawn as a single diagonal at the corner of the eye on one side, as separate lines on the other. Her wardrobe also follows her biography: simple clothes in childhood, a karate top and a skirt with a paper pouch on the front in Jiraiya's day, then black cloak, purple leggings, high heels, abdominal guard and Amegakure forehead protector at the founding of the Akatsuki — the only period in the story where she is seen wearing it on her forehead.

A black-and-white pencil sketch sheet: a large bust of a woman seen from a three-quarter rear view, shoulders and back bare, hair pinned up with a flower; on the left a small full-length figure in a sleeveless outfit and high heels; an inset shows a pierced navel; handwritten annotations in Japanese with arrows, and two ideograms in a gray diamond.
The concept sketch reproduced in the Sha no Sho, page 349, already shows the pierced navel and the very revealing outfit Kishimoto reserved for the Akatsuki's only woman.

The Angel and Her Paper Ninjutsu

The parent technique has a name and an entry: the Dance of the Shikigami (式紙の舞, Shikigami no Mai), B-rank, a single Ram hand seal, classified as a “ninjutsu, fighting style,” introduced in chapter 368 and in episode 129 of Shippuden, listed on page 264 of the Sha no Sho. In it Konan converts her chakra into paper and turns her body and clothes into sheets whose shape and color she controls. The name plays on the shikigami 式神 of onmyodo, those paper spirits: the kanji 神, “god,” is replaced there by its homophone 紙, “paper.”

The repertoire that follows from it is dated piece by piece. The Paper Shuriken (紙手裏剣) is D-rank, filed on page 239 of the Sha no Sho, folded into a kunai (chapter 373) or into a four-pointed star (chapter 509). The Paper Clone (紙分身) appears in chapter 430 and can conceal explosive tags. To these are added the origami butterflies used to spy or to cover long distances (chapter 371), the chakra-hardened spear, the sheet that immobilizes and suffocates (chapter 422, page 2), and the wings that let her fly — she also glides without them (chapter 509, page 5) — and fire the Paper Drizzle (紙時雨).

There remains what stops her. Her paper reacts like ordinary paper: fire burns it and oil sticks it together, depriving her of any manipulation until she is rinsed off. Her entry tempers the first point, however: Jiraiya's Great Fireball Jutsu barely affects her. Rain matters too: Pain halts Amegakure's downpours in chapter 368 (pages 12-13) so that she can handle her paper more freely, whereas she uses it despite the rain in chapter 509. The anime adds an opposite nuance: her shuriken are ineffective there once wet, and she then resorts to oil to keep them in shape (episode 346).

A woman with blue hair, standing on the water in the rain, arm outstretched; white blades and sheets of paper swirl around her
Konan's paper takes any shape at will: here, into whirling blades hurled at her opponent.

Konan in Battle: Jiraiya, the Aburame, the Chakram

The duel against her former master runs from chapters 371 to 373. Pain stops the rain, then has her comb the village split into paper butterflies; once the intruder is located, he tells her to kill him if she can. Konan attacks Ryusui, whom Jiraiya is controlling from a distance, wraps him in a sheet of paper and forms a spear, which the Sannin deflects in time with his Fire Release (Katon) Great Fireball Jutsu. He recognizes her then and compliments her power. She declares to him: “I have received the will of God, and I must kill you” (chapter 372, pages 4-5).

The anime stretches out the confrontation (episode 130): the Paper Drizzle there overwhelms the Fire Release attack, but Jiraiya dodges it in time to answer with the Toad Oil Bullet, which gums up her paper and denies her any manipulation; his lengthened hair then pins her down, and it is Pain's Giant Crustacean that rinses her off. She leaves the fight on orders and rejoins her partner once Jiraiya is killed. The manga keeps one last line from her for her master: she throws at him that he has no idea what happened to them after he left (chapter 373, page 15).

During the invasion of Konoha, the manga shows her trapping a patrol in her paper to ask where Naruto is, before the kikaichu of the Aburame clan free the prisoners. The anime turns this into a fight: Shino's insects strike a paper clone, other clones appear on the rooftops, all rigged with explosive tags, and the real Konan walks through the flames soaked in water — Shibi comments on her power and her quick thinking and warns his son. The Paper Chakram, whose trajectory she bends in flight, belongs to her final duel: left unfinished in the manga, it is only thrown in the anime (episode 253).

Close-up profile of a woman with purple hair made of interlocking sheets of paper, leaning toward a man entirely wrapped in strips of white paper, of whom only the open mouth and the scratched chin remain visible, in a gray, wet street.
During the assault on Konoha, Konan imprisons a shinobi in her paper to ask him where Naruto is.

“The Flower That Does Not Wither”: The Novel Chapter Where Konan Goes Alone

Akatsuki Hiden: Evil Flowers in Full Bloom (暁秘伝 咲き乱れる悪の華) is a novel by Shin Towada illustrated by Kishimoto, 240 pages, published on July 3, 2015, the sixth and last volume in the Naruto Hiden series. Its first three chapters each follow a pair from the organization — Itachi and Kisame, Kakuzu and Hidan, Sasori and Deidara — and the fourth, “The Flower That Does Not Wither” (枯れぬ花), is the only one of the four in which Konan is the lead. Madara orders her to go alone, in the Valley of Lies, to question a former Iwagakure ninja who might know something about a jinchuriki; she protests, gives in, and Zetsu guides her.

The journey is to last ten days away from Nagato. Konan carries with her, hidden against her body, a yellowed sheet of paper holding an old pressed white flower: Yahiko had given it to her in a village near the Land of Fire, obtained for free from a merchant because it was damaged, flowers being a luxury under Amegakure's rain. On the way, Zetsu shows her the same flowers at the foot of a tree and picks her a bouquet of them. Their scent brings back a sentence of Nagato's — flowers sometimes bear fruit — whose meaning she grasps only at that instant.

The attack comes from the scent. The Illusory Flower Fragrance Technique (花幻嗅の術) is a genjutsu of the Yin Release nature unique to the novel, which takes these flowers as its medium; Yahiko appears, voices her guilt, then lays the blame on Nagato: that is what Konan refuses, and the illusion breaks on a cliff she was about to walk off. She throws away the flowers, then her impregnated cloak, and reaches the informant by turning into a shuriken the very sheet that held the pressed flower; the genjutsu falls away, she wraps him in her paper and kills him. The man had known the Four-Tails (Yonbi) jinchuriki without knowing where to find him; Obito, who was watching, regrets that she survived.

An orange and black book cover framed by ten round pencil-drawn portraits, with a large Japanese title brush-calligraphed in the center, a red band bearing two authors' names and a series logo at the bottom.
The cover of Akatsuki Hiden: Evil Flowers in Full Bloom, a novel by Shin Towada illustrated by Kishimoto; its fourth chapter, “The Flower That Does Not Wither,” is the only one in which Konan is the lead.

The Final Battle Against Obito

Obito slips into Amegakure and Konan confronts him at once: he wants to know where Nagato's body lies so he can take his Rinnegan, she refuses and announces that she was expecting him and intends to stop him herself. Her paper shuriken pass through his intangible body without harming it. She then wraps him in her own scattered form, mixed with explosive tags, intending to die with him; he vents the bulk of the explosion through Kamui, at the cost of his right arm and part of his mask.

Next comes the Paper Person of God Technique (神の紙者の術), A-rank, listed on page 241 of the Jin no Sho: Konan has disguised six hundred billion explosive tags as scenery, with enough finesse that even the Sharingan sees nothing there. She splits the lake, Obito falls into the chasm opened beneath him, the tags stick to his body and detonate for ten minutes straight — against the five minutes his intangibility lasts at most (chapter 510). The name hides a pun: 紙者 and 使者 are pronounced the same, which gives it the sense of “messenger of God,” that is, an angel.

Once the explosions stop, Konan collapses, exhausted, believing she has won. Obito reappears behind her and runs her through with a pipe: he survived thanks to Izanagi, at the cost of his left eye — the eventuality she had not anticipated in her countless simulations (chapter 509, pages 15-16). She pulls free, and Amegakure's eternal rain stops for the first time, surprising them both. He seizes her by the throat, dispels the attack she was preparing and places her under a genjutsu to tear the location of the body from her, specifying that she will die when the illusion ends (chapter 510, page 16). The anime extends the scene and lets her land a chakram strike, to no effect, before the strangling.

In the rain, above a stretch of water, an immense white paper flower opens at the top of a dark mass, in a cloud of scattered sheets
The final duel plays out above the waters of Amegakure, where Konan's paper serves as both weapon and trap.

From the Wrapping-Paper Flower to the Blood-Stained Sheet

The floral motif runs from one end of the character to the other. After the resurrection of Konoha's inhabitants, at the end of Pain's Assault, Konan wraps the bodies of Nagato and of the Deva Path in her paper to bring them back to Amegakure. She tells Naruto she is done with the Akatsuki — Nagato and Yahiko had meant everything to her — and commits her village to his side, before offering him a bouquet of paper flowers as a sign of truce, with the wish that they become for him flowers of hope that never die (chapter 449, page 16).

In Amegakure, she builds a shrine for her two friends: a large square display filled with paper flowers on which the bodies rest, a fresco of angels on the wall, two tall pillars each bearing a paper bouquet, and on the floor a circular ripple pattern recalling the Rinnegan. While she wears herself out against Obito, these flowers begin to come apart. He, once he has found the shrine, absorbs Nagato's body into his dimension and leaves Yahiko's where it lies.

The final shot closes the “Hop-In” system. One of Konan's sheets of paper, soaked in blood, is carried to the orphans' old hideout and comes to rest on her tag, fulfilling the three's promise to come back together one day (chapter 511, page 11). Two things are worth noting: the promise included inviting Jiraiya there to celebrate the work accomplished, and his own tag is turned to the red side with no explanation, even though he had left the place years earlier.

A woman in a long dark cloak with red clouds, topped by a broad wing made of white paper sheets, holds out a bouquet of white paper roses to a blond young man in an orange and black jacket, in front of ochre rocks.
Konan offers Naruto a bouquet of paper flowers as a sign of truce, with the wish that they become for him flowers of hope that never die.

Summary Table

Aspect Details
Village Amegakure (the Rain)
Status The Akatsuki's only woman, “the Angel”
Trio With Nagato and Yahiko, trained by Jiraiya
Technique Paper ninjutsu (wings, origami, explosive tags)
End Dies facing Obito while protecting Nagato's legacy

FAQ

  • Who is Konan in Naruto?
    The Akatsuki's only female member, nicknamed “the Angel,” from Amegakure and one of the founders of the original organization.
  • What is Konan's power?
    A paper ninjutsu: she turns her body into sheets that she shapes (wings, origami, spears) and rigs with explosive tags.
  • What is the connection between Konan, Nagato and Yahiko?
    The three are orphans of Amegakure, trained by Jiraiya, who together founded the original Akatsuki.
  • Why is Konan nicknamed “the Angel”?
    Because of her paper wings and her role at Pain's side, which give her an angelic appearance in the eyes of Amegakure's inhabitants.
  • How does Konan die?
    By facing Obito to protect Nagato's body and Rinnegan: she traps him under 600 billion explosive tags, but he survives thanks to Izanagi.

In summary

Faithful to the end to her childhood friends and to their dream of peace, Konan brings the Akatsuki a melancholy gravity — and one of its most beautiful characters.

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