The world of Naruto is all about elite ninja, and these ninja have a few things in common, even if they fight for different villages and use different types of jutsu. Most ninjas wear open-toed sandals, for one thing, and kunai knives and shuriken are standard-issue weapons. Forehead protectors are also standard issue, and these headbands always have special designs on them.
A forehead protector is a metal plate on a tough cloth that is worn as a headband, and these headbands not only protect the brain, but they also mark the ninja's village of origin. Some of these headband designs are more famous or distinct than others, while some are downright forgettable or represent underwhelming villages. How do the most common headband designs rank?
10 The Rain Village Headband Is Very Plain
The Rain Village is found in a small and impoverished nation that often serves as the battleground for larger nations, owing to its central location. Despite these hardships, the Rain Village manages to train its own ninja, and they have an official forehead protector as well.
Functionally, these Rain headbands are the same as any other, but the design on them is simply four vertical lines, to represent the ever-present rain of this land. It's an appropriate yet boring design for Rain ninja to have. Yahiko is a noted Rain ninja, along with his friends Nagato and Konan.
9 The Grass Village Headband Is Also Forgettable
The Grass Village is also located in an unnamed country in the Naruto universe, and few, if any, notable ninja come from this particular village. During the Chunin Exam arc, though, a few Grass ninja participated, and Orochimaru himself posed as a Grass ninja.
The Grass headband is like the Rain headband, in that its design is appropriate but otherwise dull and forgettable. There is really no way to make ordinary blades of grass look interesting on a forehead protector, though the designers clearly tried.
8 The Waterfall Village Headband Design Barely Resembles A Waterfall
Kakuzu of the Akatsuki was a former ninja of the Waterfall Village, and he drew a horizontal line across his headband's plate to represent his broken allegiance with that village. However, it's easy to see what the original design was like, despite that scratch mark.
This headband's design is a very simple waterfall design, a wide symbol that grows wider at the bottom to represent water splashing everywhere at the bottom of a typical waterfall. That works, but it's a plain design otherwise.
7 The Mist Village Headband Has Four Little Lines
The Hidden Mist Village is one of the five powerhouse villages of the entire world, located deep in the Land of Water, the birthplace of Kisame Hoshigaki and the vicious Zabuza Momochi. In all fairness, it would be difficult to represent something bland like mist with a single symbol, so Mist graphic designers got creative.
The final design features four little lines that look a bit like stretched-out S marks, arranged in a two by two pattern. It doesn't look anything like mist, though. Perhaps the designers could have used water drop marks for this symbol instead.
6 The Cloud Village Headband Features Unusual Clouds
The Village Hidden in the Clouds is home to the mighty Raikage and his brother, Killer Bee, and the latter ninja helped introduce this village's unique forehead protector design. Although this village is noted for its heavy use of lightning release jutsu, the headband design features no lightning bolts.
This design features some stylized clouds, with the two larger clouds connected and the third, smaller cloud being nearby but detached. This design only vaguely represents clouds, but it does look more interesting than the Rain or Grass designs, at least.
5 The Stone Village Headband Features Two Boulders
The Land of Earth is a dry and rocky place, as expected, and features many badlands and gorges, perfect for earth release jutsu of all sorts. This village is defended by its elderly Tsuchikage, Onoki, and he has many loyal followers who proudly wear the Stone Village headband and its thematic design.
The Stone Village headband features two boulders, one larger than the other, and they are partially overlapped. That's a simple but effective and clear way to convey the village's earthy nature, and having the stones be different sizes was a good call, too.
4 The Sand Village Design Has A Few Interpretations
Formerly the Leaf Village's enemy, the Hidden Sand Village is now an ally, largely due to Naruto and Gaara's newfound friendship and mutual understanding as jinchuriki. The Sand Village's design is more creative than it looks, and there are at least two ways to interpret it.
Perhaps the Sand symbol is an hourglass, a classic way to use sand for a practical purpose, and it also ties into the phrase "the sands of time." Another interpretation is that this symbol is a gourd with a lid on it, which would mirror Gaara's trademark gourd backpack, loaded with sand.
3 The Allied Shinobi Headband Needed No Special Symbol
When the Fourth Great Shinobi War started, ninja from many diverse villages united into a single army to face Madara Uchiha's own army, and this meant having a symbol to rally around. For a time, all regular forehead designs were set aside, and one particular design replaced them.
Every ninja in the alliance had a headband with the character for "shinobi" on them, which is a word, not a mere graphic design. It clearly stated "we are one as shinobi," a wonderfully symbolic and inspiring thing to wear on one's forehead. For a time, the role of ninja united all these fighters instead of dividing them.
2 The Sound Village Headband Has A Cool & Recognizable Symbol
Orochimaru founded his own village, the Hidden Sound Village, and gave special headbands and gear to all his followers. This headband features dark purple cloth and a metal plate with a musical note symbol on it, which is instantly recognizable.
A musical note is a classic and clear way to represent sound, and not just any sound. It represents music in particular, something that is appreciated everywhere. In manga, these notes sometimes represent a cheerful and playful tone in dialogue, and perhaps that can tie into the cruel, playful smugness that Sound ninja feel in battle.
1 The Leaf Village Headband Defines The Franchise
This particular headband design is not only the most compelling one within the Naruto universe, but it's also emblematic of the entire franchise. Any anime fan would easily recognize it, after all. This symbol actually represents the union of the clans that helped create the Leaf village, making it highly meaningful.
The symbol looks like a stylized leaf, from its stem to its point at the opposite end, and the symbol's spiral can allude to Naruto's last name and indeed, the entire Uzumaki Clan, which his mother Kushina hails from. Spirals also play into the Rasengan technique, Naruto's jutsu of choice. For many reasons, this is the #1 headband design in the Naruto universe.
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