Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Why the finales of My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece feel like the end of an era in manga
• Why is One Piece more popular now that the anime is 25 years old? We asked around and found out
• Dan Da Dan is weird, profoundly inappropriate, and the perfect anime this season
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect anime hero for the dark times ahead
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Among all the enemies that Naruto faces in his journey to becoming Hokage, few are as powerful and intimidating as Pain. The fellow student of Jiraiya serves as a dark reflection of what Naruto could have become if he had grown up in a time of war rather than a time of peace. But the faces we most often see aren’t the real Pain – they’re puppets being used by someone else.

Who is Pain and what makes him one of the deadliest opponents Naruto ever faced? Spoilers for both the Naruto manga and anime lie ahead as we delve deeper into this fascinating but sometimes confusing character.

Who is Pain in Naruto?

The true name of Pain is Nagato, who was a war orphan taken in by Jiraiya before the Naruto manga began. Nagato was brought into Madara Uchiha’s plans at a young age when the legendary ninja implanted his two Rinnegan eyes into Nagato, giving him access to the most powerful and sought-after ocular jutsu in the Naruto setting.

After his parents were inadvertently killed by Konoha ninja during the Second Shinobi World War, Nagato used the Rinnegan to exact revenge on their killers. Nagato eventually fell in with other war orphans. They were eventually found by Jiraiya, who offered to teach them ninjutsu after he noticed Nagato’s eyes, believing the young man was the reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths who would usher in a world of peace. Together, the orphans would form the original Akatsuki organization, which was intended to be an advocate for peace.

Over time, the organization grew until they were betrayed by the leader of their village, who killed Nagato’s best friend and crippled his body. From that moment, Nagato took a darker path; he formed the Six Paths of Pain to act as his body, leading people to believe he was an unkillable god. Nagato’s new mission was to break the cycle of war by ruling the world through fear, a twisted interpretation of Jiraiya’s original intention that led him to turn the Akatsuki into a dangerous group of outcast ninja.

What are the Six Paths of Pain?

Part of what makes Nagato so dangerous is his utilization of the Six Paths of Pain. These figures are animated corpses that Nagato controls, each one exemplifying one of the Six Paths laid out by Hagoromo Otsutsuki, the famous Sage of Six Paths, who happens to be an ancestor of both Naruto and Nagato. However, these corpse puppets work differently than most others in the series. Not only is Nagato able to directly control all six of them at the same time, but he is able to see through their eyes – and through the eyes of the creatures they summon – giving him an unparalleled view of the battlefield.

Each of the Six Paths of Pain was created by embedding a black receiver into the body, allowing Nagato to use his chakra to control them. Because of Nagato’s incredible control of the technique, he can control these figures from a great distance.

The Six Paths of Pain are:

• Deva Path – Able to manipulate attractive and repulsive forces
• Asura Path – Able to augment their body with mechanized limbs, weaponry, and armor
• Human Path – Able to read a person’s mind and remove their soul
• Animal Path – Able to summon a wide variety of creatures
• Preta Path – Able to absorb all forms of chakra
• Naraka Path – Able to call upon the King of Hell

There is also a seventh path, called the Outer Path, that allows the user to control both life and death. This is the path that Nagato originally used to create his puppets.

What are Pain’s powers in Naruto?

As formidable as the Six Paths of Pain are, they are just the start of Nagato’s incredible power. From his Uzumaki bloodline he has inherited an incredible amount of chakra; enough to perform multiple, powerful techniques in a single day. He also was trained by Jiraiya himself, meaning that he has learned many of the famous ninja’s abilities. Before his legs were damaged, Nagato was a formidable fighter who had mastered most physical combat techniques.

However, it is his Rinnegan eyes that make Nagato and Pain so dangerous. With them, he can see the flow of a person’s chakra clearly and can master almost any technique after seeing it only once. Though he was not the original owner of the eyes, he made more effective use of them than anyone save for Madara Uchiha. It is considered the most powerful and rare of the ocular jutsu in Naruto.

Using the Six Paths of Pain as well as his other abilities, Nagato was able to not only fight legendary ninja like Jiraiya and Kakashi but was able to destroy the entire village of Konoha single-handedly.

Beyond the threat he poses to the characters, he also serves as a dark reflection of Naruto himself. Both were orphans who aspired to greatness, sharing a teacher in Jiraiya. However, where Naruto grew up isolated but in a peaceful village, Nagato faced the horrors of war and had his family taken from him as a result, making him a grim reminder of how it isn’t just those who fight in battle who suffer the effects of war.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

• Why the finales of My Hero Academia, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece feel like the end of an era in manga
• Why is One Piece more popular now that the anime is 25 years old? We asked around and found out
• Dan Da Dan is weird, profoundly inappropriate, and the perfect anime this season
• Why One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy is the perfect anime hero for the dark times ahead
• 40 years after its debut, Dragon Ball is a pop culture force like few others