Bio
Neji was born with an unmarked forehead, but when his cousin Hinata, the main branch's heir, turned three years old, he was branded with the Hyūga Main Family's Juinjutsu by his uncle Hiashi. All branch members carry this curse mark, as it is a symbol that one lives only to serve the main branch.
Neji's father Hizashi was well aware of Neji's natural talent, and he was frustrated that despite Neji's skill, Neji still carried the fate of a servant. Hizashi openly showed his anger; consequently, he was punished through Hiashi's activation of his curse seal. Around this time, the Leaf and Cloud Villages had signed an alliance treaty. However, that treaty only served as a ticket into Konoha and a lowering of Konoha's guard so the Head Cloud ninja could abduct Hinata and steal the secrets of the Byakugan. The attempt failed, though, as Hiashi intervened and killed the man in his tracks.
When word of the murder reached the Hidden Cloud Village, they demanded Hiashi's body as compensation (as his body would hold the Byakugan as well). The Hidden Leaf Village was prepared to comply to this request until Hizashi stepped in and offered to give himself up instead. Due to him being bound by the Hyūga Main Family's Juinjutsu when he dies, the Byakugan will be sealed away. Hizashi made this sacrifice willingly in order to protect his brother, family, and village. However, Neji came to believe that the main branch had forced him to do so. This misconception became the primary basis of his grudge against the main branch and of his concrete view on one's unalterable fate. He would grow up bearing an arrogant personality, becoming infamous among the children of his age and making them think the Hyūga were snobs. This perception would lead to Hinata being bullied by other children, only to be saved by Naruto Uzumaki.[4]
A year before the start of the series, Neji graduated at the top of his class, and was placed in Team Guy, with Might Guy as the Jōnin leader, and Rock Lee and Tenten as his teammates. After officially being promoted to Genin, Neji declined to reveal his dream, and laughed at Rock Lee for claiming that he could become a great ninja with just taijutsu. During their first year in Team Guy, Lee challenged Neji many times, but always lost. Guy decided to have his team wait a year before taking the Chūnin Exams, in order to ensure that they were prepared. At some point before his first Chūnin Exam, his animosity towards the main branch became apparent to Guy, who made him promise not to let the issue influence his feelings during the Chūnin Exams.
edit Personality
Outside of his initial feelings towards his clan, Neji has been shown to be extremely mature for his age, and to have great self-control. In battle, he is able to stay relatively calm in most situations and carefully look at the situation at hand. As stated by Tsunade, Neji has excellent instincts, both on the battlefield and as a leader. When forced to make difficult decisions on missions, he shows himself able to make a decision through keen observation and analysis.
While under the belief that his father had died because he was a member of the branch house, Neji concluded that fate is something decided at birth and that no matter what one does, people cannot escape their destiny. Neji often applied this to people he viewed as weaker than himself, such as his cousin, Hinata. During his match in the Chūnin Exams, he told Hinata that she was unfit to be a ninja, due to being too kind and not confident enough. When she was eventually able to turn his philosophy against him, telling him that she believed that he was suffering from trying to become worthy of the main house, despite him being born into the branch family, Neji became enraged, and attempted to kill Hinata. He was stopped by multiple Jōnin, but Hinata nevertheless was left in critical conditions from his earlier attacks. In this instance, Neji's only concern was that he could not complete his attack, and he accused the Jōnin of giving special treatment to the head family members. He disregarded Hinata's personal growth in the match, concluding that, because she was defeated, "a failure will always be a failure".
Neji displayed similar efforts to condescend others during his match with Naruto Uzumaki who, despite being repeatedly struck down, continued to try and fight him. While Neji tried to show Naruto that fate cannot be fought, and that someone who is weak will always remain weak, Naruto was unwilling to accept this mindset, arguing that Neji, for all his belief in fate, had not accepted his own destiny. Naruto went on to defeat Neji, suggesting that, if a "failure" like himself could change his destiny, a "genius" like Neji could, too.
With this example of overcoming "destiny", as well as finding out the truth about his father's death soon afterwards, Neji abandoned the concept of inescapable fate. No longer bound by the idea that he was stuck at his current status, Neji resolved to become strong enough to never again lose a battle. To do so, he began putting more emphasis on working well with his team, and started to value a mission's successful completion and his teammates' safety over his own betterment, even encouraging Rock Lee to continue pursuing his own dream. In addition, Neji began trying to remedy the estranged relations between himself and the main house members, most particularly by being kinder to Hinata. His efforts seem to be effective, as he begins training with Hiashi, and, in Part II, even starts to wear traditional Hyūga robes. He similarly has great confidence in Naruto's capacity to change others, as he stated that the latter could redeem Sasuke and bring him back to Konoha.
When Team Guy was first formed, Neji dismissed Lee's dream of becoming a great ninja, due to his inability to mold chakra, as hopeless, and suggested that Lee could never defeat him. Because of this, Lee accepted Neji as his rival, though Neji never replied or agreed with it. After abandoning his fatalistic philosophy, he suggested that he would not have persevered in Lee's situation, and believed that, if Lee worked hard enough, he could surpass the gifted. They became good friends because of this, though Neji tends to spend most of his time with Tenten, as neither of them can compete with Lee or Guy's antics. He also is shown to be training with her most of the time.
edit Appearance
Neji has noticeably long dark brown hair, typical of males in the Hyūga clan. In Part I, his hair reached the middle of his back and was tied back a few inches above the end, while two straps (perhaps from his forehead protector) framed the sides of his face. In Part II, he got rid of these straps, and allowed his hair, which is now longer, to frame his face instead. Like the rest of his clan, he has very fair skin and possesses the renowned Byakugan, which when activated, stimulates the veins and arteries immediately around his eyes to protrude more prominently. His eyes have a gray tint to them.
In Part I, Neji was seen with a black headband that he wore snugly over his forehead. He wore a khaki shirt and dark navy blue shorts. He also had bandages wrapped around his right arm, chest, and right leg. In Part II, Neji abandoned the bandages and is clad in traditional white and black Hyūga robes. This may or may not have been to facilitate easier execution of his techniques, or to symbolize his warming relations with his clan. Neji is usually seen with a large tan and black drawstring bag, which he carries over his shoulder.
Before his fight with Naruto during the Chūnin exams in Part I, Neji's facial expression was composed, but stern, hard, and cold. As the series progressed, however, his expression relaxes. While still composed, Neji looks to be more calm, confident and poised, rather than challenging and haughty.
edit Abilities
From a young age, Neji has been hailed a natural genius. In Part I, he was labeled the top-ranked rookie in his class. His father even stated that with his talent, he could potentially surpass all other members of their clan. Over the time-skip, when most of the former Konoha 11 Genin reached Chūnin rank, Neji was the only one advance to Jōnin.
[edit] Byakugan
Neji's Byakugan.
As a member of the Hyūga clan, Neji possesses the Byakugan, an occular Kekkei Genkai which grants him x-ray vision, nearly 360-degree vision, and the ability to see chakra networks. The Byakugan has a small blind spot at the nape of his neck, a weakness of which Neji is acutely aware and takes extra precaution in concealing it from opponents. While the Byakugan naturally has only a 50 meter field of vision, Neji is able to increase its range several times by the start of Part II, to at least 800 meters. He is also noted to have a particularly strong Byakugan relative to other members of the Hyūga clan.
[edit] Taijutsu
As a member of the Hyūga Clan, Neji specializes in close-range, taijutsu combat. In battle, Neji has shown tremendous agility and dexterity, capable of simultaneously dodging and striking a person with no wasted movement. His attacks are fast and fluid, striking in rapid succession to leave very little time for his opponent to find an opening to counter, but also deliberate.
Neji's fighting style is the signature style of his clan, the Gentle Fist or Jūken, which takes advantage of the Byakugan's insight into people's Chakra Pathway System. Jūken allows for severe internal trauma with minimal external force as it relies on surgical injection of chakra into an opponent's chakra network nodes, or tenketsu. As the Byakugan can see the 361 tenketsu of the Chakra Pathway System, Neji can use Jūken to not only damage opponents, but control their chakra flow as well. Using the Gentle Fist, Neji can attack his opponent's heart directly and send them into cardiac arrest, killing an opponent with but a single strike. In Naruto Shippuuden the Movie, Neji was able to incapacitate a person with a mere tap to the forehead. Training in the Gentle Fist style implies superior chakra regulatory control and mastery of the human chakra network. As a result, Neji can eject chakra from any tenketsu in his body as a means to slow or impede incoming projectiles. He can also release himself from chakra-based substances using this technique. Continuously maintaining this expulsion of chakra allows Neji create a sensory barrier around himself to detect anything that enters his immediate area, although it rapidly depletes chakra reserves as seen when this tactic was employed against Kidōmaru.
[edit] Gentle Fist Techniques
Neji using the Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin against Kidōmaru's attacks.
As a member of the Hyūga clan's branch house, Neji is forbidden to learn the clan's secret techniques, but managed to deduce their workings simply through observation. He has learned many of these techniques, such as Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin and Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms. Since mastering these techniques, Neji has begun to refine and strengthen them for more specialized needs. In Part II, he learned the Eight Trigrams Empty Palm, a more focused version of the Kaiten, with which he can expel chakra from his palm to attack opponents out of his physical reach. In the anime, he was able to increase the number of strikes in Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms by doubling it. Neji has also demonstrated another technique in the anime called Eight Trigrams Mountain Crusher
