Ranton: Everything About Darui's Storm Release in Naruto

What is Ranton?

Ranton (嵐遁, "Storm Release") is an advanced nature transformation, obtained by simultaneously combining Lightning Release (Raiton) and Water Release (Suiton). It is classified among the kekkei genkai and ties it to Kumogakure, where several shinobi use it, Darui being the most notable one — chapter 612, page 6. Its first appearance goes back to chapter 464 of the manga and to episode 203 of Shippuden, when Darui joins his attack to that of the Sunagakure delegation against Sasuke, at the Five Kage Summit.

The manga documents nine combined nature transformations: Wood Release, Lava Release, Boil Release, Explosion Release, Scorch Release, Magnet Release, Storm Release, Ice Release, and the Dust Release of the Second and Third Tsuchikage, which counts as kekkei tota because it blends three of them. For Storm Release, Darui's entry describes the concrete result: by combining his water and lightning natures, he fires beams of light that he guides freely, like missiles. None of the other eight rests on the same pair of natures: Storm Release is the only one that combines lightning and water.

Ranton, Storm Style, Gale Style: why the name lies

One and the same thing carries three names here. In Japanese, 嵐遁 reads Ranton. The manga published by Viz translates it as "Storm Style", while the English dub of the anime keeps "Gale Style." The Laser Circus is therefore announced as "Gale Style: Laser Circus" on screen and "Storm Style: Laser Circus" elsewhere, for one and the same technique. These discrepancies explain part of the confusion that trails this chakra nature among French-speaking readers.

The name itself is misleading, and that shows from the outset: despite its name, Storm Release manipulates no real storm; it manipulates beams of electricity that flow like water. No cloud, no rain, no thunderclap in the canonical uses of this nature: only a luminous matter projected and then steered. The only version that makes real storms belongs to a movie, explicitly set apart from the rest of the series.

The full name of the flagship technique pushes the game further. The Laser Circus is written 嵐遁・励挫鎖苛素, kanji glossed レイザーサーカス to imitate English; read normally, they would give "Reiza Sakaso" and would mean something else entirely. This device is a habit of Kumogakure techniques: Darui's Black Panther, 雷遁・黒斑差, would read the same way as "Kurohansa" or "Kokuhansa." In games, Storm Release first appears in Naruto Shippuden 3D: The New Era.

Laser Circus: five hand seals, a halo, beams that turn in flight

The technique calls for five hand seals: Rat, Tiger, Dog, Snake and Dragon. The manga then describes the sequence: a halo of luminous energy unfolds around the user's hands on activation, tightens around a single hand, then the beams burst from it toward the enemy — chapter 527, page 14. Only one user is named, Darui, and one team, the Allied Shinobi Forces.

The decisive property comes right after. The user can change the direction of the beams after firing, which lets him strike several opponents with surgical precision and curve around a hostage held right against them — chapter 527, page 15. He can also sharply increase the number of beams to pin a target in place, in chapter 528, page 12. A beam that turns in flight: it is this anomaly that stuns Kinkaku and Ginkaku, who understand too late that the projectiles are guided.

The timeline is worth setting out: the technique appears as early as chapter 464 of the manga and episode 203 of Shippuden, but how it works is not detailed until sixty-three chapters later, in chapters 527 and 528, during the clash with the Gold and Silver Brothers. Two game techniques are attached to it as derivatives; the Light Fang used by Madara, on the other hand, does not descend from the Laser Circus but from Six Paths Senjutsu.

Darui: the two tattoos that announce the kekkei genkai

Darui is designated as the most notable user of Storm Release. It credits him with three basic chakra natures — Wind Release, which only the fourth databook documents, then Water Release and Lightning Release — and it is by combining the last two that he obtains his kekkei genkai. The technique entries also give him as the only named user of the Laser Circus, which fed the idea of a strictly personal art: the data on the nature itself says something else.

Two tattoos signal it before he even attacks. Darui wears the stylized character for water, 水, on his right shoulder, and the one for lightning, 雷, on his left shoulder: the second artbook, page 199, specifies that they denote his two chakra affinities as well as the possession of a kekkei genkai. Kishimoto explains that he drew them as a challenge thrown at the opponent as much as the signature of this kekkei genkai.

The left-shoulder tattoo carries a second piece of information: it also signals that Darui inherited the Black Lightning of the Third Raikage. The rest — his status as right-hand man to the Fourth Raikage, his succession at the head of the village, his kenjutsu — belongs to his own character page rather than to the technique. What matters here is that Storm Release is never presented as his creation: he is its most visible wielder, not its inventor.

Ranton and Black Lightning: two different things

A stubborn confusion deserves clearing up: the Kuroi Kaminari (黒い雷), Black Lightning, is not Storm Release. It is classified as a legendary form of Lightning Release, developed by the Third Raikage, who passed it on to Darui alone. It appears in chapter 526 of the manga and in episode 268 of Shippuden. Its lightning is jet black and its destructive power clearly superior to that of ordinary lightning — little more is known about it.

It is in fact by this tattoo that Kinkaku and Ginkaku recognize, in chapter 526, page 17, that Darui holds Black Lightning. The technique derived from it, the Black Panther (雷遁・黒斑差), remains classified as pure Lightning Release: a single hand seal, the Ram, and a panther of black lightning launched at the opponent. Video games later crossed the two registers, in a technique that exists nowhere else.

Darui is not alone: the unnamed wielders of Kumogakure

There is no ambiguity on this point: Storm Release is used by several shinobi of Kumogakure, with a reference to chapter 612, page 6, Darui being only the most notable of them. The classification of nature transformations drives the point home: it is a kekkei genkai shared by Darui and by many other unnamed ninja of Kumogakure. The art is therefore not one man's signature, but a village's.

The scene that shows it takes place in chapter 612, episode 363: the battle plan devised by Shikaku Nara against the Ten-Tails is relayed telepathically to the entire Allied Shinobi Forces, and its first phase falls to the ninja of Kumogakure. They first blind the enemy with Lightning Release, then several Storm Release wielders fire the Laser Circus together. Darui's entry specifies that they aim at the beast's eye; the entry for the Allied Forces Technique assigns that same volley another purpose, raising a cloud of dust that the ninja of Sunagakure immediately manipulate with Wind Release.

None of these wielders is named by the story, which leaves Darui the only identified holder of the kekkei genkai. The other bloodlines attested at Kumogakure belong, moreover, to other natures: Lava Release, which the village shares with Iwagakure and Kirigakure, and the Magnet Release of Toroi, that renowned shinobi Kabuto reanimates during the Fourth Great Ninja War and who magnetized his square shuriken so that the following ones would home in on the target.

Rarity and heredity: why Ranton cannot be learned

The idea that a gifted enough shinobi would end up producing Storm Release simply by mastering lightning and water is contradicted by the texts. Using two natures in turn is commonplace — most jonin master at least two, according to chapter 315, page 5, and the Sha no Sho, page 214. But combining them simultaneously to create a new nature requires a genetic aptitude, a kekkei genkai: chapter 316, pages 4 to 7, and Sha no Sho, page 217.

The corollary is documented. Shikamaru Shinden establishes that a bearer of kekkei genkai has two chakra affinities where an ordinary shinobi has only one, which opens up techniques inaccessible to others; the anime, in episode 55 of Shippuden, states the same rule by saying that whoever combines natures possesses an affinity for each of the ones he has to use together. Darui's two tattoos are exactly that double affinity made visible.

That leaves the question of the clan. Kekkei genkai are generally passed down within a single bloodline, Hashirama's Wood Release standing as the exception. Yet Storm Release ties to no clan, but to Kumogakure. It documents the same configuration for Lava Release, used by natives of Iwagakure, Kirigakure and Kumogakure with no known kinship between them — an advanced nature can therefore belong to a village, not only to a bloodline.

The technical profile, and what it does not say

The fourth databook devotes an entry to the Laser Circus, page 328, and another to the Light Fang, page 321: these are the only two databook entries for Storm Release. The Laser Circus entry classifies the technique as offensive kekkei genkai ninjutsu and assigns it three ranges, short, mid and long, which makes it usable up close as well as at a distance.

Two side notes round out the picture without committing it. Darui's profile in Naruto Mobile presents the Laser Circus as the marriage of the destructive power of Lightning Release and the control specific to Water Release. The Naruto Kayou card game, published by Studio Pierrot, for its part ranks the technique A, on the Darui SSR-122 card. Neither of the two is a source drawn from the manga, and it is on that basis alone that they appear here.

On the other hand, nothing puts a figure on the chakra cost of Storm Release or on how hard it is to learn: these two claims, common in second-hand summaries, rest on no reference at all. The contrast is sharp with the Black Panther, to which the fourth databook, page 304, explicitly grants a B rank: the Laser Circus, for its part, owes its A rank only to the card game, never to a databook.

The duel against the Gold and Silver Brothers: what Ranton really does

The fight against the Gold and Silver Brothers is the only place where the manga details Storm Release in action. Reanimated by the Edo Tensei (Reanimation Jutsu), Kinkaku and Ginkaku strike Atsui and Samui with the Kokinjo and sever their word soul; Atsui is sucked into the Benihisago, Samui taken hostage. Darui apologizes to her before acting, cuts off Kinkaku's arm, then launches his Laser Circus, which hits both brothers.

The assault ends in a half-defeat: Samui is absorbed in turn, Darui hit by the Kokinjo and his word soul severed by the Shichiseiken. He nonetheless escapes the gourd by changing the word he says most often, then goes back on the offensive in chapter 528: he throws Ginkaku into the Kokinjo, seizes the Shichiseiken and the Benihisago, hurls his sword at Kinkaku and immediately follows up with a second Laser Circus to knock him off balance.

A word about what comes next, often misreported. Having become Raikage, Darui faces Momoshiki in Boruto: Naruto the Movie, and there he is credited with kenjutsu pressing enough to put the Otsutsuki on the defensive, not a use of Storm Release. The documented contribution of the kekkei genkai to the war therefore comes down to three moments: this duel, the massed volley of the Kumogakure ninja at the Ten-Tails' eye, and an attack launched against Obito, immediately repelled by the beast once it had reached maturity.

Madara in chapter 674: Ranton without a kekkei genkai

The Senpo: Ranton Koga (仙法・嵐遁光牙), "Storm Release Light Fang," appears in chapter 674 of the manga and in episode 424 of Shippuden; the fourth databook devotes its page 321 to it. The user infuses Storm Release with senjutsu chakra and fires from his mouth a thin, cutting thread of light, powerful enough to slice clean through a Truth-Seeking Ball (Gudodama), in chapter 674, page 4. The databook adds that it travels at the speed of light and describes it as impossible to dodge.

The anomaly lies elsewhere. Madara Uchiha did not possess this kekkei genkai: he has it only once he has become the jinchuriki of the Ten-Tails, in chapter 674, and the technique's entry files it under Six Paths Senjutsu. The same transformation opens up Yin Release (Inton) to him, with which he produces lightning bolts. In his case, then, Storm Release is not a matter of heredity, but the consequence of a power he has just absorbed.

Two verifiable details close the file. In the color edition of the manga, the beam is drawn in white. And although this Light Fang is a sage art, in the same way as the other senjutsu techniques Madara uses, the fourth databook does not list him among the users of senjutsu, an inconsistency noted without being resolved. The Sage Mode he has at that point came to him without training: he absorbed Hashirama's senjutsu chakra, in chapter 657.

Hiruko's Ranton, the one that makes real storms

The only Storm Release that produces storms belongs to a movie. In Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Will of Fire, released on August 1, 2009, kekkei genkai bearers disappear from Kumogakure, Iwagakure, Kirigakure and Sunagakure. Hiruko, a rogue ninja from Konoha born without any particular gift, takes them for himself through the Chimera Technique, a kinjutsu of his own invention: he steals four of them, Storm Release, Dark Release, Steel Release and Swift Release, the first coming to him from a shinobi the story does not name.

This version stands explicitly apart, with significant differences from those used elsewhere in the series. Where canonical Storm Release produces no storm at all, Hiruko's generates clouds charged with lightning, able to electrocute his opponents or to drain their chakra. One of his two Storm Release techniques, the Ranton: Raiunkuha (嵐遁・雷雲腔波), raises around him a thick ring of clouds and electricity that serves at once as a rampart, an electrified perimeter and a firing platform. The seals: a hand seal specific to the technique, then Boar and Horse.

The other goes further. The Ranton Ogi: Rankiryu (嵐遁奥義・嵐鬼龍) brings into being a giant cloud that absorbs chakra indefinitely in order to grow in size, in strength and in ferocity, Hiruko then being able to channel that energy into himself. The seals are Rat, Dragon, Hare and Tiger; by changing seals during the effect, he raises red chakra pillars or sucks up entire techniques through his mouth. Written 乱気流, "rankiryu" means "turbulence."

The episode 203 mistake and the game-only techniques

One animation blunder is worth pointing out, because it lastingly skewed the perception of the technique. Episode 203 of Shippuden is the one that introduces the Laser Circus on screen, and in it the beams detach from their source in Darui's hands. This never happens in the manga, where the link with the user's hand is maintained, and that the depiction was corrected in episode 269.

Two Storm Release techniques exist, moreover, only in the video games. The Ranton: Burakku Hantingu (嵐遁・漆黒斑纏遇), which appeared in Ultimate Ninja Storm 3, applies the maneuverability of the Laser Circus to black lightning panthers: guided toward the opponent, they slash him in passing, then merge behind him into a giant panther that bites and explodes. A single hand seal, the Ram — and the same ateji as elsewhere, these kanji reading normally as "Shikkoku Hantengu."

The Ranton: Seishujin (嵐遁・青鷲刃), the Blue Eagle Blade, is for its part exclusive to Naruto: Shinobi Collection Shippu Ranbu: in it Darui fires his energy beams at the opponent, leaps, then finishes with a blow from his cleaver-sword charged with electricity. Both attach to the Laser Circus as their parent technique, and recognizes no medium for them outside the video games.

What Remains Blank

Three areas remain blank, and it is better to name them than to fill them in. The first: no Storm Release wielder is named apart from Darui. The Kumogakure shinobi of chapter 612 fire together, then leave the story without an identity. The second: the movie version stands apart, so far does it differ from the rest of the series, which rules out describing canonical Storm Release from Hiruko's clouds.

The third has to do with Madara's case: it is the only documented use of Storm Release by someone who did not possess the kekkei genkai, and it ties back to the Six Paths Power rather than to the nature itself. No rule of acquisition can therefore be drawn from it: the exception rests on the status of jinchuriki of the Ten-Tails, not on a training that others could repeat.

All told, the manga documents only two Storm Release techniques: the Laser Circus and the Light Fang. The four others listed — Hiruko's Raiunkuha and Rankiryu, the Black Hunting and the Blue Eagle Blade attributed to Darui — belong to the movie or to the games. The corpus is therefore narrow, and two thirds of that corpus do not belong to the manga canon.

Summary Table