SASORI : AKATSUKI MEMBER

Sasori (サソリ?) is a former ninja of Sunagakure and known as "Sasori of the Red Sand" (赤砂のサソリ, Akasuna no Sasori?). His parents died when he was young (killed by Kakashi Hatake's father), leaving him in the care of his grandmother, Chiyo who taught Sasori the art of puppetry, which he refined to fit his needs over the years. Lacking the love of parents, Sasori left Sunagakure when he got older and joined Akatsuki where he is initially partnered with Orochimaru. After Orochimaru's defection Sasori teamed with Deidara, who looks to him and his artistic knowledge with reverence. In due time he devised a way to convert the corpses of humans into puppets, allowing him to use any of the ninja abilities they possessed during their life for himself. In time he even converted his own body into a puppet, which essentially gives him eternal life and allows him to control hundreds of puppets at once. Each weapon in his puppets'


SASORI : AKATSUKI MEMBER

extended arsenal is laced with an extremely potent poison of Sasori's own design that causes extreme pain to the inflicted until they die. Sakura Haruno is able to create an antidote for Sasori's poison, allowing her and Chiyo to fight him much less inhibited. They eventually destroy his heart, the only part of his humanity he kept when converting himself to a puppet, resulting in his death, but not before telling Sakura about his rendezvous with one of Orochimaru's henchmen who had been working for him as a spy. His body is now being used by Kankuro as a puppet, possibly in the same way Sasori used corpses as his puppets. After being resurrected by Kabuto, Sasori fights Kankuro alongside Deidara, but is defeated and released after being captured. In the Japanese anime, Sasori is voiced by Akiko Yajima as a child; and in the English version he is voiced by Kari Wahlgren and as an adult, he is voiced by Takahiro Sakurai and the English version by Johnny Yong Bosch. His scorpion-like puppet body, Hiruko, is voiced by Yutaka Aoyama in the Japanese version and in the English version by J. B. Blanc.