Shoton: Everything About Crystal Release in the Naruto Universe

What is Crystal Release in Naruto?

Crystal Release (晶遁), literally “crystal release”, is a rare nature seen only in the anime. Its entry classifies it as both kekkei genkai and ninjutsu, with a chakra type given as presumed Earth Release (Doton), never confirmed. Its first appearance goes back to episode 89 of Naruto Shippuden; on the games side, its debut is dated to Naruto Online. Its users convert matter into pink, jade green, red or blue crystals, and also manipulate crystals that are already there.

The element appears only in the Three-Tails’ Appearance arc, which covers episodes 89 to 112 and is the longest filler arc in the series to date. The manga tells the same events differently: the capture of the three-tailed beast happens much earlier there, at the start of the Akatsuki Suppression Mission arc, and falls to Deidara and Tobi alone. Guren, an anime-exclusive character, does not appear in it.

The boundary is not airtight, however. In the Fourth Great Ninja War: Climax arc, Isobu remembers having met Naruto during the events of that arc, at the moment when it faces him again alongside the other jinchuriki and tailed beasts. A sequence from the anime arc is thus recalled much later in the story, without Crystal Release itself reappearing for all that.

Origin and rarity

There is no ambiguity on this point: the natures that actually make up Crystal Release are unknown. No official combination is given, unlike most of the advanced natures in the manga. Only two clues appear in the article. The first comes down to a misreading: when Kiba Inuzuka discovers a crystal structure, in episode 91, he takes it for Earth Release. The second comes down to a setback: the element is shown defeated by Lightning Release on a single occasion, episode 104, which raises the suspicion of an Earth Release component.

Crystal Release sits in a separate list, that of the advanced natures that appeared in the anime, the novels and the movies, and keeps to the same caution: the element is said there to be “suggested to be composed of at least the Earth Release nature”. Guren’s entry uses a similar formula: its specifics remain unknown, but a use of Earth Release is deemed likely there. Neither of the two pages names the second nature that would complete the combination.

The rarity, for its part, is documented in the fiction itself. In episode 97, in Konoha, the crystallized insect brought back by Shino is analyzed, and Tsunade confirms her suspicions to Shizune: one of Orochimaru’s subordinates really is using Crystal Release, an ability that was believed not to exist. The village therefore discovers the existence of this nature only after the fact, from a sample brought back from the field by Team 8, sent on Orochimaru’s trail.

Comparison with other rare natures

The nature transformations page lists nine combined natures that appeared in the manga. Each one comes with components that are known or strongly implied: Ice Release (Hyoton) is born of Water Release and Wind Release, Wood Release (Mokuton) of Earth Release and Water Release, Lava Release (Yoton) of Fire Release and Earth Release, Storm Release (Ranton) of Lightning Release and Water Release, Boil Release (Futton) of Water Release and Fire Release. Explosion Release (Bakuton) is given as Earth Release and Lightning Release, Scorch Release (Shakuton) as Fire Release and Wind Release, Magnet Release (Jiton) as Wind Release and Earth Release, while Dust Release (Jinton) combines three of them and falls under kekkei tota.

Crystal Release does not figure in that list. It appears in a second inventory, that of the advanced natures shown in the anime, the novels and the movies, where the note on composition fits in a single line: “suggested to be composed of at least the Earth Release nature”. There it stands alongside Steel Release (Koton), the steel element used by Metoro Konjiki in the novel Gaara Hiden and stolen by Hiruko in the movie The Will of Fire, as well as Ameyuki’s Mud Release (Deiton), the only known advanced nature to share its components with another.

The gap between the two lists is therefore not a question of power but of documentation. For the nine natures of the manga, the reader has at least one named component; for Crystal Release, the second nature is never named. The general rule nevertheless remains the same on both sides: combining two basic natures at the same time to create a new one requires a kekkei genkai, defined as a DNA abnormality.

Why the Sharingan cannot copy Crystal Release

Episode 97 puts the question to the test inside the labyrinth. Set upon by Guren and her clones, Kakashi Hatake uncovers his Sharingan to gain the advantage, and the kunoichi counters that her Crystal Release cannot be copied. Her own entry repeats the information as is: she made it clear that her nature could not be reproduced by the eye of the Uchiha.

The refusal follows from a rule laid down by the manga itself. Combining two basic natures at the same time to create a new one demands a kekkei genkai, as chapter 316 states on pages 4 to 7, and that kekkei genkai is defined as a DNA abnormality generally passed on by blood. An ordinary ninjutsu can be observed and imitated; an advanced nature presupposes a genetic condition that perception alone does not provide.

The counterexample exists all the same. In the movie Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow, the ninja of Yukigakure use a different form of ice, which draws on the ice, the snow and the cold already present: this variant is not a kekkei genkai, and the proof put forward by the article is precisely that Kakashi manages to copy one of its techniques with the Sharingan. The same eye fails against Guren’s crystal, which the Crystal Release entry classifies precisely among the kekkei genkai.

Guren: the master of Crystal Release

Guren is the only user of Crystal Release shown in the series, but nothing makes her the only possible holder. Her entry points out that rumors were going around about this ability, which implies other bearers; the rarity of the element has simply left very little knowledge on the subject. She is a kunoichi of Otogakure and the leader of a group of Orochimaru’s subordinates; as a child, she was rejected by her home village because of her singular powers.

The covetousness this nature inspires says a great deal: Orochimaru wanted Crystal Release for himself for a time. In the field, Guren draws from it an endless source of weapons, crushing walls, snowflake-shaped shuriken, and moves about by riding or flying over her own constructions. She also watches an area from a distance by sowing flower-shaped crystals across it, whose images she reads in a crystal ball, in episode 96. Finally, she forms hand signs with a single hand.

The scale of this repertoire can be measured: Guren is the anime-exclusive character who has shown the most techniques to date. Almost all of them fall under Crystal Release; the Shisho Tenketsu, classified as a plain ninjutsu, is the exception. Her arc is therefore the only documentation available on the element: the known counters, colors and hand sign sequences all come from the same block of episodes.

Strategic advantages

The first advantage is logistical. A Crystal Release user turns into crystal any matter within reach, down to the moisture contained in the air, which gives them, in the usual phrase, an infinite source of weapons. Guren’s entry adds that the density obtained appears to be very high. No particular terrain is needed, and no stock of tools: the surrounding matter is enough to produce blades, walls and projectiles in the middle of the action.

The second advantage is a balance of power between natures. Crystallization extends to the other physical natures and makes Earth Release, Water Release and Wood Release ineffective against it, an observation made in episode 104. The demonstration takes place a little earlier: in episode 97, Yamato launches his Great Forest against Guren’s barrier and the crystal does not react. The kunoichi’s entry notes that Wood Release failed to pierce its density.

The third advantage is the most brutal. Used on the living, Crystal Release crystallizes its targets down to the cellular level: they remain trapped as long as the crystal holds, and shatter with it if it is struck, which kills them. Shino’s kikaichu detect on the victims a pattern that suggests frostbite. The user can also manipulate crystals and crystalline structures that already exist, without having to create them.

Advanced techniques

The repertoire opens as early as episode 89 with the Crystal Needles, long pink spikes fired at very high speed and with extreme precision. Episode 91 introduces the Crystal Pentagonal Prison (晶遁・結晶五角牢), which encases opponents starting from the surface beneath their feet; once broken, the bodies disintegrate along with the particles. Episode 97 gives a scaled-down version of it, the Crystal Prison, aimed at a single opponent and triggered by the Ram sign alone.

The repertoire then diversifies. In episode 98, the Crystal Dragon takes the form of a horned pink dragon with jade green irises, which serves for travel as much as for attack and which its creator can multiply. The same episode sees the appearance of the Crystal Pillars, five pink columns raised around her that amplify the power of other techniques: they boosted the ability of Yukimaru so strongly that he came to summon the Three-Tails (Sanbi), with the help of Kabuto’s drugs.

Episode 97 adds trickery to the catalog. The Crystal Mirror, a jade green plate shaped like a snowflake, serves as the support for six clones tougher than a shadow clone, able to fool a bearer of the Byakugan through their reflective nature, a flaw that can be worked around by focusing the gaze. In close combat, Guren materializes a blue Crystal Blade on her forearm, doubled if needed on both arms, extended in episode 99 by a Crystal Spear and by a Crystal Wheel that carries her at high speed, even over water.

The one-kilometer labyrinth and the attack that broke through it

In episode 97, Guren plants red crystal seeds that she makes bloom at will: the flower-shaped structures grow into a giant barrier that traps everything it encloses. The technique is called Crystal Release: Crystal Labyrinth (晶遁・翠晶迷宮の術) and requires five signs, Boar, Monkey, Horse, Dog and Ram. The ink bird of Sai brings back its measurements: a one-kilometer dome, covered at the top, without the slightest weak point.

Inside, the reflective nature of the crystal produces mirror images of the routes, the paths and the details; it disorients the prisoners and fools even the Byakugan, Hinata seeing only her team refracted over and over. As long as the barrier holds, it cannot be made out from the inside. Outside, Yamato discovers that digging is pointless, since the crystal is driven down underground as well.

The law by which the technique breaks is known. Since the crystal’s molecular structure is stable, an attack concentrated on one point stays without effect, and the width of the surface disperses the force of wide attacks: what is needed is a strike that is at once wide and powerful, delivered from the outside. It comes from the Wind Release: Toad Gun (風遁・蝦蟇鉄砲), a collaboration ninjutsu between Naruto and Gamatatsu, and the Wind Release -infused version of the Water Release: Water Gun. The labyrinth was nevertheless thought capable of taking a Rasengan.

Omiwatari: the technique named after a phenomenon on Lake Suwa

In episode 99, Guren places her hand on a surface and makes a long flow of sharp blue crystals burst from it, meant to hinder and run through her target. The technique is called Crystal Release: Crystal Bridge (晶遁・御神渡りの術, Shoton: Omiwatari no Jutsu) and is made up of four signs: Horse, Monkey, Ram and Boar. Its name, 御神渡り, is no studio invention and refers to a real phenomenon.

Its origin is identified in an “Influence” section. The omiwatari occurs on Lake Suwa, in Nagano Prefecture: in winter the surface freezes, but a hot spring beneath the lake keeps the lower waters warm and circulating. The pressure then raises on the ice ridges reaching thirty centimeters or more. Local belief sees in them the trace of the gods crossing the lake to visit the various buildings of the Suwa Taisha shrine, twelve centuries old.

The frost motif turns up elsewhere in the element, without the element being made of ice. The Crystal Mirror from episode 97 takes the shape of a snowflake; the shuriken of the Six-Bladed Shuriken Dance, seen as early as episode 89, are pink snowflakes that are set spinning and burst into fragments able to run through trees. The vocabulary is that of frost, the material that of crystal, and the two must not be confused.

Names that lie: “jade” for pink, “hexagonal” for five pillars

The gap between the names and the image shows up technique by technique. The Crystal Prison is written literally “jade crystal prison” (翠晶牢) although it is pink. The Eighth Formation Wall (翠晶壁八の陣) carries the same prefix although the wall is red. The Labyrinth (翠晶迷宮) is likewise called jade and rises in red. Three separate trivia notes flag the contradiction, which rules out an isolated mistake.

The contrast can be read in the palette actually used. Crystal Release users convert matter into pink, jade green, red or blue crystals, four shades recorded in episode 97, while the prefix 翠晶 (suisho, “jade crystal”) stays attached to several of these names. The gap is recorded, without any reason being given for it. The Crystal Mirror, for its part, really is jade green, while the Crystal Blade and the Crystal Spear are blue.

Geometry fares no better. The Hexagonal Pillars (晶遁・翠晶六角柱) carry “hexagonal” in their name, but they appear five in number and in a pentagonal formation. On top of that comes an irregularity of prefix: some techniques begin with 晶遁 (Shoton), others with 結晶 alone (kessho, “crystal”), such as the Giant Hexagonal Shuriken (結晶・巨大六角手裏剣) or the Crystal Armor (結晶の鎧). Two naming systems coexist within a single repertoire.

What Crystal Release costs the woman who wields it

The top of the repertoire is paid for in life force. In episode 106, Guren uses the Shisho Tenketsu (死傷点穴, “vital points of injury and death”): she releases two tenketsu and converts her life force into chakra, which strongly but briefly increases her reserves and her physical capabilities. The amount released becomes visible and makes the water swirl around her, an effect comparable to the opening of the Sixth Gate, known as the Gate of Joy. Her eyes momentarily turn completely white.

This opening makes possible a technique that is otherwise too costly: the Crystal Release: Arrow of Light (晶遁・一糸光明, Shoton: Isshi Komyo), from the same episode. Guren shuts herself inside a transparent blue crystal prism, able to levitate but apparently motionless, which protects her from almost every attack: it takes a continuous barrage of Rasengan before finally shattering. The prism also serves as a weapon, projecting from its tip powerful blasts of heat fed by her chakra.

The defensive register has less costly options. The Crystal Armor (結晶の鎧, episode 105) covers the skin with a thin film of pink crystal that improves defense against physical attacks and hardens her strikes; transparent, it can be detected only by the reflection of light. The Crimson Fruit (晶遁・紅の果実, episode 106) forms a pink dome, highly resistant from the outside as well as from the inside, which protects or imprisons depending on the intent of the one who raises it.

Weaknesses

The weaknesses of Crystal Release are not hypotheses: there are three of them, backed by specific scenes. The first is a limit of the nature itself. The crystal cannot crystallize raw energy or chakra, for lack of any physical mass to freeze. It follows, according to the element’s page, that those who have good chakra control, or the Lightning Release and Fire Release natures, are in a position to counter it.

The second is an elemental relationship. Crystal Release is shown defeated by Lightning Release on a single occasion, in episode 104, and the detail matters: it is that single setback, together with Kiba’s misreading, that feeds the hypothesis of an Earth Release component. So this is not a systematic inferiority stated on a data sheet, but an isolated case, carefully dated.

The third is acoustic and comes down to the physics of the material. Crystal requires a very precise stacking of molecules; an appropriate sound frequency breaks that assembly down before the crystal has been able to form properly. This is the flaw exploited by Rinji, the bat user placed in Guren’s team: his entry states that the sound produced by his bats, used as a weapon, makes him immune to the kunoichi’s crystal techniques.

The counters that worked against the crystal

The first counter is acoustic. Rinji orders his bats to produce high-frequency ultrasonic waves, a technique introduced in episode 93: the frequency breaks the crystal down at the molecular level and disperses its particles into the air. During their final confrontation, with Rinji having been killed by Kabuto then called back by the Dead Soul Technique, Guren fails to trap him and ends up crystallizing herself along with him to protect Yukimaru, which sends them both plunging into the lake.

The second is entomological. In episode 104, the kikaichu of Shino Aburame have developed a resistance to the crystal: Guren encases them one by one with the Crystal Imprisonment Wave, and they free themselves from it. Kakashi then has them focus their action on a single point of the Crystal Encampment Wall, a red barrier that is almost impenetrable because it repairs itself when damaged. It is known that only these reinforced insects weakened the wall enough for the Raikiri to finally destroy it.

The third is a question of control. Since the crystal has no hold on chakra, Hinata wraps her body in chakra before being fully caught in the Crystal Prison, in episode 97, and so escapes disintegration; one concludes from this that the technique has no effect on chakra. The entry on the ultrasonic waves nevertheless tightens the count: those waves and the adaptive strategy of Shino’s insects are given there as the only effective counters to Crystal Release.

Impact in the Naruto universe

Outside the anime, Crystal Release lives above all in video games. Its entry gives as its first appearance in a game Naruto Online, a title that also picks up the Crystal Pentagonal Prison, the Crystal Dragon, the Crystal Bridge, the Crystal Blade, the Eighth Formation Wall, the Wild Shuriken Dance and the Arrow of Light. Three other techniques debut only with Naruto Mobile: the Crystal Mirror, the Giant Hexagonal Shuriken and the Six-Bladed Shuriken Dance.

These adaptations put numbers on what the series was content to show. Guren’s profile in Naruto Online gives her 90 in vitality, 70 in taijutsu, 60 in defense, 100 in ninjutsu and 65 in resistance, ninjutsu being her highest value. Her profile in Naruto Mobile adds a piece of information absent from the series: Guren and Yukimaru saw Naruto again after the end of the Fourth Great Ninja War.

One last trace can be read on the merchandise side. The Naruto Kayou card game, published by Studio Pierrot, ranks kekkei genkai such as Crystal Release or the Sharingan at rank A, card OR-046 being precisely Guren’s. For an element that never crossed the border of the manga, the inventory remains well stocked: a twenty-four-episode arc, twenty-two techniques listed of which sixteen carry an official name, and ten of them picked up in two games.

Summary Table