Handseals and elements

[sanYos]

I've always been fascinated by the incorporation of handseals. I also became quite perturbed by how some handseals people satrted using were not listed among the twelve.

This issue was raised on the narutoFan.com forums and one person mentioned that his friend had a magazine that explained that some of the many handseals the audience aren't familiar with are actually different forms. For instance, Kabuto, Orochimaru, and Sasuke each do the tiger seal differently.

My question is, does anyone have direct information from this magazine concerning the handseals.

[DarkManSharingan32]

No idea, or any leads on that particular magazine.
But I have seen certain handseals that are just augmentations of one of the core 12. (I.e. Shikamaru's shadow jutsu all look like variations on the Rat Handseal.)

[Toad Sage]

I have to say DMS that your knowledge of and attention to the jutsu functions, handseals, and names is incredible. I dub thee the jutsu lore-book.

[kyubisharingan]

umm, also, Kishi got the hand seals from the meditation techniques in YOGA. of course, yoga is based on India meditation. So, maybe the normal 12 hand seals are the basic hand seals. then there r the ones that r more advanced?

[DarkManSharingan32]

I have to say DMS that your knowledge of and attention to the jutsu functions, handseals, and names is incredible. I dub thee the jutsu lore-book.


Well, i thank you for that...
But now my level or dorkness has just risen about two or three notches.
lol :p
---

But to add on...
There seem to be more than just the twelve as well... look to Naruto's forbidden handseal used when he first learned the Kage Bunshin no jutsu. The origin of these are unknown, but we can infer that stronger jutsus require more than just the core 12. (Kakashi's seemingly self-created hand seal used in Chidori/Raikiri... the claw-like one... is a perfect example of this too)

[renrutal]

More I read about it, more I believe these hand seals are BS:

http://members.shaw.ca/duraiden/narutofan/Final%20Ultima's%20Hand%20Seals%20List.htm

The Byakugan one is ridiculous. Suiton Suiryuudan No Jutsu you can both use the 44 seal version, or the 1 seal version. They don't even try to make it consistent with the manga.

[sanYos]

Thanks to lion at narutoFan.com forums to leading me into the right direction into solving all this.

http://www.ninjaa.com/kuji2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuji-in
http://mobilemouse.co.nz/ninjutsu/kujiin.html

Handseals are derived from the ninja kuji-in. Very interesting concept.

[Absolutio]

Well, I thought about it a bit, and couldn't find an answer by my own.
We all know there are 12 seals, and we also know that there are 5 elements. And apperently each seals belongs to a different group of an element. Here are some examples for that:
http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/5/naruto_v01_ch005_135/
Here we can see Sakura thinking it's the seal of tiger, and Sasuke says that this seal is a seal of fire.

http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/333/09/
http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/333/16-17/
Here we can see part of the fight of Team 10 (led by Kakashi) against Hidan-Kakuzu. Kakuzu used a jutsu that hardens his body, and Kakashi says that he saw this seal, and it's an earth element one.

http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/361/13/
Here at the fight of Sasuke vs. Deidera, Sasuke figures out Deidera is only using earth techniques based on his seals.

So my question is, how are the seals divided to the groups of elements? 12 does not divide by 5, so the seals-elementry system must not be symetric? Or is there another explanation?

Merged from another thread.

[noonethere]

http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/29/naruto_29_15/
It shows the seals used by kakashi to summon his dogs during zabuza arc.

http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/92/18/
Here jiraiya tells naruto which seals to use to summon frogs.

http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/30/naruto_30_03/
This shows the seals for chidoriLast one is the one for lightning


http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/17/Naruto2-10-16/
Here sakura gives a simple explanation on chakra

http://www.narutocentral.com/information/seals/
It tells you the name of the different seals(related to animals of chinese zodiac)

I believe (i may be wrong) that the seals determine the amount of chakra needed to give the chakra a specific form for the jutsu(chakra manipulation like giving it the form of a dragon and maybe also the ying/yang aspect). Only the ending seals represents the elements in ninjutsu. By ending with seals not representing any elements,one will be using genjutsu or summons or fuin jutsu. Anyway this will surely be explained later on.Also there are other seals(like kage bushin,shikamaru's shadow control, haku's needle) that are not given any name yet

Hope it helps and is not too confusing.

[jerger]

*spoiler from manga*

well 12 does not divide evenly by 5, but it does by 6, which is how many elements are in naruto world (pein has 6 elements)

[Absolutio]

@jerger
It had been stated that besides of the normal 12 seals, there are also hidden or special seals (like Haku's one hand seal), so I'm pretty sure that if there is a 6th element, its seals will be special ones.

@noonethere
First of all, your theory of not all the seals having elemental attributes, and only the finishing one is the one that matters is reasonable. It had been stated that there can be more than one seal to one element (sasuke said to deidera "all of your seals were earth ones"), so if we go at the symetric lvl, each element having 2 seals, leaves only 2 non-elemental seals. So it's absolutly symetric - each element has 2 seals, and non-element has 2 seals too.

And about Naruto's Kagebunshin, it's the ram (sheep) seal, which is part of the 12 seals.

[noonethere]

http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/1/naruto_v01_ch001_053/
It shows naruto using the seal for kage bunshin fo the first time and it does not seem to be the ram seal.
I have just noticed that but according to the site above(narutocentral), the tiger seal can be used as finishing seals for both water and fire jutsu though i stilll have not found evidence in the manga supporting the presence of the tiger seal as the last seal in water ninjutsu. So unless the site is wrong, my theory above will be invalid...

[Absolutio]

well.. don't forget that a manga is a storyline always in progress, and maybe back then, where the seals were shown, kishi didn't have a setted system of seals and their elements, so it could've been randomly chosen by kishi. so your theory might still be possible.

[Alterno]

:blink When kakashi summoned the dogs against zabuza he invoked a earth jutsu.

[Gold Knight]

http://www.narutocentral.com/information/seals/
It tells you the name of the different seals(related to animals of chinese zodiac)

What's interesting about that site (which I think only covers Part 1 seals) is that the Earth jutsus that they showed, none of them ended in a Snake seal like Kakuzu's and Deidara's. I guess Kishimoto didn't really settle on an Earth-specific seal until Part 2.

Although, when Yamato does his Earth-specific jutsus, his seals actually ends in a Tiger seal too...

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9656/ch316ukpage03ya2.png

And his Water-specific jutsus end in a Dog seal.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7699/ch316ukpage04cr8.png

Hmm.


I believe (i may be wrong) that the seals determine the amount of chakra needed to give the chakra a specific form for the jutsu(chakra manipulation like giving it the form of a dragon and maybe also the ying/yang aspect). Only the ending seals represents the elements in ninjutsu. By ending with seals not representing any elements,one will be using genjutsu or summons or fuin jutsu. Anyway this will surely be explained later on.Also there are other seals(like kage bushin,shikamaru's shadow control, haku's needle) that are not given any name yet

Hope it helps and is not too confusing.

I agree.

[Absolutio]

What's interesting about that site (which I think only covers Part 1 seals) is that the Earth jutsus that they showed, none of them ended in a Snake seal like Kakuzu's and Deidara's. I guess Kishimoto didn't really settle on an Earth-specific seal until Part 2.

Although, when Yamato does his Earth-specific jutsus, his seals actually ends in a Tiger seal too...

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9656/ch316ukpage03ya2.png

And his Water-specific jutsus end in a Dog seal.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7699/ch316ukpage04cr8.png

Hmm.

So I guess Kishi is just messed up with all those seals and elements stuff. Way to go Kishi! ("Bad kishi! Bad bad kishi! :p )
Still, it's kinda weird he made people say in the manga stuffs about seals being affinited with elements, yet not having any order or system in it at all. Kishi hadn't done his homework :p

[Gold Knight]

Well...

It may be that people with specific elemental affinities only have to concentrate on one seal - notice that Yamato only seemed to need one seal for his earth and then one for his water jutsu.

So it could be different for various people with bloodline limits.

Either that or Kishimoto is just now finally figuring out his seal pattern methodology. I actually don't think he had "elemental affinities" in mind early on in Part 1, hence why we're only now getting information on that in Part 2.

[segua]

It seems that it's more complicated now. To use elemental ninjutsu, not only must you get the right hand seals but also the right chakra.

[noonethere]

It seems that it's more complicated now. To use elemental ninjutsu, not only must you get the right hand seals but also the right chakra.

http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/223/08/
I agree with you and the above shows how an elemantal ninjutsu (here katon goukakyuu no jutsu)will be formed if used without mastering the proper elemental chakra. Similarly in the 1st chapter, naruto had to train to be able to use the kage bushin seal.

The only time we have seen naruto using normal seals is for summoning for which the only requirements were to sign a contract and to have enough chakra. There was no training that would enable him to know which frog he was summoning nor which parts of frogs(like the stomach) or do something like this (http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/359/03/)(summoning the animal at a specific place such as to replace a wing as in this case).
This makes me think there are different ways to summon the same animal.(although this is mainly speculations)

First is the contract: using the appropriate seals and blood, we can unleash a pattern on the ground. Depending on the amount of chakra provided, an animal of a certain size will appear.

Second is summoning using scrolls and is similar to the first(kakashi and suigetsu used these). I believe both these methods enable the user to unseal the contract(hence the pattern on the ground) and requires no expertise.

The third one consisits of jutsu involving the animals and using them as some sort of base(similar to elements) for their ninjutsu. Orochimaru's jutsus which involve snake and Jiraiya's jutsu involving frogs(like the snake and frog sealed in the mouth, snake hands, frog stomach, senin mode, oro's white snake form) are examples.This requires some mastery of summoning and may have been part of the naruto's and sasuke's training during the timeskip.

Also i want to point out that seals and ninjutsus seem to be just as important to the story as chakra and that there is no way kishimoto would not already have planned this before writng the manga especially when there is a main character(Orochimaru)who is obsessed by seals and jutsus.
:darn Sorry for the long post, I hope it is not pointless:oh

[kyuubifrique]

These are the 12 main hand seals used by ninjas to perform jutsus. Each different jutsu has a unique combination of seals and each different seal represents an animal of the Chinese Zodiac. there are 2 types of jutsus: elemental jutsus and chakra recombination jutsus. chidori is an elemental jutsu using lightening chakra and rasengan is a chakra recombination type. the rasenshuriken is a fusion of naruto's wind element chakra with the rasengan. the use of the seals appears to be used strictly for elemental jutsus since most jutsus start with a specific hand seal. eg seal of the tiger for fire based jutsus.

[IchigoSoul]

I think the ending seal is to help you to do the technique without having the element affinity. I rather think of affinity being to use the technique easily without learning. So for example if you dont have fire element, you ahve to forcibly remeber the seals for the technique and use it but if you have it, i think only a single seal is needed.

[patedecarne]

one thing I never understand is: to do a specific technique or skill, all you have to do is the right order of the seals, see this example: to do shiki fuujin, the only thing to do is the hand seals in right order? any other requirement? then everyone could do the shiki fuujin and the genryuu kyuu fuujin from pain! I know that elemental jutsus needed the right chakra, like segua said, but jutsus like the shiki fuujin?

[Absolutio]

Maybe those jutsus require the right training for ying&yang jutsus..