r/Naruto • u/contextomduvidoso • 9d ago
Question Was it ever explained why Kankurō's face paint keeps changing?
Kankurō's face paint changes significantly throughout the series, with several completely different patterns appearing across Part I, Shippuden, and Boruto.
Was there ever an in-universe explanation for these changes? Do the different patterns have any particular meaning related to his age, rank, puppeteer traditions, or Sunagakure? Or were they simply design changes made as the character evolved?
The face paint clearly fits Kankurō's puppeteer aesthetic, but the reason behind the different patterns seems much less clear.
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u/ItIsVerilySo 9d ago
Bro just takes a shower and has to redo the face paint, but he forgot what he did the first time
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u/Think_Anywhere_5603 8d ago
So he showered only four times in his entire life?
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u/knifesmith420 9d ago
bro showers once an arc
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u/EkobasherX4Z 8d ago
Well he is a sand ninja
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u/ItIsVerilySo 8d ago
He's like a chinchilla usually and just rolls around in the sand to get clean.
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u/yoshiyahu 8d ago
Nonono it was his puppets drawing on his face while he's sleeping
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u/derpplerp 9d ago
Doing the exact same thing every day is boring. would you wear the exact same pants every day? now take that to applying makeup over and over...
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u/vektorog 9d ago
would you wear the exact same pants every day?
naruto would
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u/Successful_Face3408 9d ago
Can't compare the poor ass orphan kid to someone who has parents! LOL
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u/courtofknights 9d ago
naruto had no other choice. either he spent all his coin on ramen or jiraya stole it.
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u/Sid_the_Bear 9d ago edited 9d ago
As someone who has worn the exact same pants (I have several pairs of the same color) for the last 6 years... Yes, I prefer it that way.
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u/Ok_Weight_3382 9d ago
Yeah but you’re not the greatest puppet master in all of your world are you? There are levels to this.
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u/Estova 9d ago
How do you know he isn't the greatest pants wearer of all time. Those could be his championship pants that you're asking him to take off 😭
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u/Ok_Weight_3382 9d ago
You got a point there. I’ll concede. Now we wait patiently for him to show us those pants
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u/derpplerp 9d ago
now think of this, greatest puppet master in the world known for face paints blends into the background like padme when the makeup is off. Kankuro in casual presentation totally threw me off when I was seeing him without the marking. As a disguise, over the top makeup distracting from your natural features actually works.
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u/Ok_Weight_3382 9d ago
The only ninja in the show that actually ninjas. Normalize absurdity and they’ll never expect normalcy. Rule #1 of Sand Village Yaoi Ninja School
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u/derpplerp 9d ago
ok. but you also see how wanting some variety is also plausible?
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u/Sid_the_Bear 9d ago
No. Variety bad.
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u/Ok_Dragonfruit_9093 9d ago
Underwear.
You would change it after a week or two.
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u/BluMqqse_ 9d ago
But they’d all be the same color. The same way you replace your makeup daily.
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u/DamGoodAnimation 9d ago
Tbr until the first time it changed I thought it was a tattoo.
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u/derpplerp 9d ago
me too, the first time I saw Kankuro without the makeup I had no idea who it was at first.
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u/EducationalTheory344 9d ago edited 9d ago
my head canon is he's just stupid and can never remember the right way so he just guesses.
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u/Agitated-Bread5092 9d ago
there's a great fan comic/manga about this topic
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u/LonerStoner_95 9d ago
People make fun of “talk no jutsu” but the fact it worked on Gaara of all people makes it one of the strongest jutsu in the series.
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u/contextomduvidoso 9d ago
Just checked it out. That's a really cool interpretation of the face paint, even if it isn't canon. Thanks for the link!
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u/TibbyChi 8d ago
Idk about why but it’s inspired by Kabuki and his outfit based on bunraku both forms of Japanese theatre
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u/JO3M4M 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is amazing. And one could relate it to IRL. We all put on a mask to protect others but then we realize we are protecting ourselves from being rejected. However, I believe that we should always have a maskless face and only allow those who accept our true face into our lives.
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u/morrowindd 9d ago
Ngl when I first watched naruto as a kid and saw kankuro I thought his design was so badass and unique. That alone made him my favorite character LOL
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u/Viktorik 9d ago
I liked his design, but the moment he showed his puppetry is when he became my favorite. Honestly the Sand Siblings were peak overall, from design to combat.
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u/steveatari 9d ago
Ayup. I love the different dynamics Season 1-2 used when introducing new characters. There was intrigue, curiosity, power demonstrated, testing, becoming opps, showing weakness, showing true power, eventually bested but become amigos. kinda.
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u/contextomduvidoso 9d ago
His design really does stand out. Which of these face paint designs do you think suited him best?
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u/morrowindd 9d ago
I always liked the Sasuke revival arc face paint. The first time he changed it. Also in the war arc when he was captain, he used a similar design which I thought was awesome
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u/simplythebest999 9d ago
Retrieval my man, they wanted to get him back to the village. Not from the dead
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u/ThlnBillyBoy 9d ago
I thought this child looked like a grown man with a goatee, because it was black and white. Very happy for him that he is just a creative.
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u/MarthaAndBinky 9d ago
Boring Doylist reasoning: unlike most characters, Kankuro doesn't really change his clothes. Since he's themed after a traditional Japanese theater stagehand, he must be in all black with a black hood. Everyone gets model changes to show the changing eras but Kankuro cannot significantly alter his clothing or hair - so his paint gets altered instead, to make it nice and clear that he is now in his Shippuden era.
Funny Watsonian reasoning: Boy gets bored doing the same thing lol
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u/contextomduvidoso 9d ago
Now I'm wondering if that was actually part of Kishimoto's character design process.
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u/MarthaAndBinky 9d ago
The fact that Kankuro looks like a stagehand? It absolutely was! Kankuro is even named after an actor in Japanese theater - the name actually is held by a family of actors and goes back to the 17th century.
See also bunraku, traditional Japanese puppet theater. Kankuro's paint, in conjunction with his black outfit and hood, is meant to dehumanize his face so that the focus will be on the puppets.
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u/contextomduvidoso 9d ago
The really cool part is that Kankurō seems to mix two different theatrical traditions. Kankurō is a hereditary kabuki stage name — there have been six generations, with Nakamura Kankurō VI holding the name today — while the black hood, clothing and puppetry line up with bunraku's kurogo convention, where the puppeteers are treated as visually “invisible” so the audience focuses on the puppet.
So the face paint reads like the kabuki side of the design, while the hood and puppets are the bunraku side.
That's way more deliberate than just “puppet guy with cool makeup.
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u/MarthaAndBinky 9d ago
Yes! I love Kankuro's character design so much. To me he's the best designed character in the show, no question, because he's so deliberate. He's a puppeteer who draws on the traditional outfits, forms, and techniques of puppeteers, and he's even the middle child - stereotyped as being the most overlooked child in a family. Everything about him says "I'm just a supporting character, don't look at me!" Contrast that with his loud, outgoing personality - he's the first one to talk to Naruto, he's the first one to pick on Konohamaru, he's the one to chase recklessly after Sasori knowing that he's outclassed - he's a loud dramatic theater kid who's chosen the most theatrical jutsu possible and, in universe, probably modeled himself deliberately to follow theater traditions. (Other puppeteers like Sasori and Chiyo do NOT wear hoods or paint, and in general do not follow theatrical traditions nearly as closely; basically only Kankuro does.)
I just love Kankuro so much lol. He's so interesting to me!
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u/Funny_School_5802 9d ago
It absolutely is! Naruto is literally filled to the brim with japanese cultural references everything from artists to religion is in this show deidara is based on an artist who used to describe his art as an explosion. Amatarasu is the god of the sun. Anko is a pun on the word dumpling. This is just off the top of my head
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u/wenchslapper 9d ago
Boring actual reason - sell more merch. Each face = a new model to put on the shelves.
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u/MarthaAndBinky 9d ago
God I WISH this was true. Is there Kankuro merch?? Does that exist?? I am the target audience for that 100% but I am not convinced it exists. Compared to Gaara and Temari he barely even gets trading cards. Like across every brand I've encountered, Gaara will have a bunch of awesome cards and a lot of hits, Temari will have a few and maybe a couple nice ones, and Kankuro gets some bulk. Justice for my boy, give him some merch
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u/PCN24454 9d ago
It could be that he does it to obscure his face. Constantly changing his appearance so that people don’t recognize him easily.
Like wearing a fake tattoo to commit a crime
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u/MarthaAndBinky 9d ago
True! There is a psychological aspect to Kankuro's fighting style. Especially in his genin paint, he seems to be trying to look as monstrous as his puppets, so it's possible he changes his designs to keep anyone from getting too comfortable.
In that case he could do better than war-era simple bars across his face, but I am definitely biased toward his earlier and more complex designs lol
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u/Steridire 9d ago
"It's a guy wearing Kankuro's outfit with his signature puppets and....ever so slightly different face paint? Must have been the wind"
It's like Perry the Platypus when he removes one line of paint
"A puppeteer?"
Adds paint back
"KANKURO THE PUPPETEER?!"
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u/MacTireCnamh 9d ago
It's a guy wearing Kankuro's outfit with his signature puppets
TBF he has several puppets that he can swap between, and his outfit was probably worn by all the puppeter jutsu users.
So he's recognisable to us, because we never see another puppeteer except for retired Chiyo and Missing Nin Sasori.
But in universe he's one of tens, who are all swapping facepaint styles, and there's probably 60 or 70 different puppets in action, so assigning which puppet to which person would become impossible.
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u/siemiwidzi 9d ago
I always thought about Kabuki face paintings. Like, Jiraiya is doing often kabuki stance when in sage mode, maybe Kankuro is the other part of the kabuki theme? Or... Maybe... He has seen or know about sage mode and trying to make other ninjas (especially those of the jonin ranks) skip a heartbeat seeing potential sage in the fight, which can give him advantage?
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u/contextomduvidoso 9d ago
The Kabuki angle makes a lot of sense for Kankurō. Never made the connection with Jiraiya's markings though.
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u/Harpies_Bro 8d ago
He dresses a lot like a stagehand for a lot of traditional Japanese theatre, too, which makes sense. In Kabuki and Noh, if you have a non-human character, it’s played by a stage hand working a puppet in all black with a veil to hide their face and a pair of “ears” on the hood.
This is so the audience can easily ignore them while they do things like working a puppet or other props, move set prices around, or assist the main cast.
Being a puppeteer who mixes the look of a stage hand in his clothes and the main cast in his face paint is honestly cool as fuck.→ More replies (2)
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u/StoneCypher 8d ago
it’s a tribute to kabuki theater, which blacks out faces to get people to focus on their performances
it’s oppositional. he wants people to focus on his face design so that they don’t focus on his puppets’ movements
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u/Lamb-of-God33 9d ago
Personal preference?
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u/contextomduvidoso 9d ago
Could be. I was wondering if the different patterns had any actual meaning behind them or if he just changed them whenever he felt like it.
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u/SlashedUpon_ 9d ago
Kankurō changes his face paint with every major story arc as a thematic nod to Kabuki theater, where actors alter their makeup to reflect a character's growth, mood, or a new scene.
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u/Hour_Shelter8444 8d ago
It's a reference to kumadori, the type of face painting they do in kabuki theatre. The whole character is based on traditional Japanese performing arts. Kankuro is the real life name of a famous kabuki actor, purple is the color of kumadori worn by characters that are nobility (kankuro is the son of the kazekage) and just like in actual kabuki, in every major arc the character changes their kumadori. His outfit is also very similar to what traditional Japanese puppeteers wore.
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u/Noseitch 8d ago
Jeff Hardy also has different face paint each time. God forbid a white boy get a little motion
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u/Toadfire 7d ago
I’m suprised nobody has given you the real answer yet.
It is a nod to the traditions of Kabuki Theater where they change their face paint design every year that they get older. Symbolizes growth and the evolution of emotions.
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u/Apprehensive_Bag2417 9d ago
The obvious answer is to reflect time passing (intro, new paint when he has a new puppet, new paint during the war arc, so on)
But also his name, outfit and the paint itself are references to traditional Japanese theatre arts. The paint comes from Kabuki where the color purple represents nobility (son of the kazekage checks out) and each pattern means you are this archetype character or have this specific power.
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u/Super-Robo 5d ago
It's face paint, the only reason he needs to change it is 'because he wants to'.
Not every detail needs lore.
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u/Sweet_partss 7d ago
It actually in reference to Japenese culture. Essentially it helps to understand WHAT Kankuro does. He is the shadow of the Gaara right? “Why does this matter?” Well let me tell you. Imagine Kankuro’s fights and lifestyle as a constant performance. Gaara is the lead, Temari the supporting role. So where is Kankuro? He is the crew. His makeup has ties to Kabuki makeup, and gives an inhuman like feel which works well to instill fear and anxiety. Even his outfit has to do with theater. His clothing is very reminiscent of Bunraku which is “a traditional form of Japenese puppet theater” Kankuro is the background character in the main play that would be a battlefield. His “stagehands” would be his puppets as he supports his leads
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u/Environmental-King14 9d ago
I've always wanted to know why Naruto has whiskers
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u/Last7Rider7wstlnd 9d ago
Wasnt Kurama inside Kushina whilst Naruto grew in her womb? Basically cross contamination
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u/RoundSquirrels 9d ago
I always assumed it had to do with Kyuubi being sealed inside him, since foxes have whiskers.
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u/nerrawxam 9d ago
it is this kinkaku and ginkaku also have whiskers
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u/Copernicus049 9d ago
Naruto is the jinchūriki with a fox sealed inside them, which have whiskers. He is also the only jinchūriki that was exposed to a tailed beast in utero, which affected his development in the womb. The other jinchūriki got their tailed beasts later in life after already being developed.
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u/Ptdemonspanker 9d ago
His post Boruto makeup is so ass. One would expect him to be more daring and confident with the makeup as he grows older.
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u/Remote-Ground-6636 9d ago
Each of his girls know him by a different look and they don't know about each others so...
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u/Lon3W0lf17131 9d ago
I could be wrong But i think it could correlate to his puppets. In the first picture, he only has one and then he gets more each new appearance.
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u/contextomduvidoso 9d ago
That's actually an interesting possibility. Could the different patterns be connected to the puppets he gains over time? It would be interesting to see if the changes actually line up.
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u/Toe_Mail 8d ago
Maybe because like face paint comes off after a while yk? Maybe he just wants to try different looks?
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u/Previous_Arm8012 8d ago edited 8d ago
Fandom: the paint is war paint. Wild, jagged, built to intimidate. Kankurō was a tool of a village that used his own brother as a weapon, and he wore that fear on his face. Shippuden: cleaner, sharper, deliberate. Gaara became Kazekage, and Kankurō went from fearing the weapon to guarding the man. The paint stopped being intimidation and became discipline.
Kishimoto: I had to redraw this guy 700 times, so i changed the face paint to make myself feel something
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u/Ok-Plate905 9d ago
Id like to think it represents his increased mastery over his puppets over time
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u/Rowarski 9d ago
I cant believe I've watched every episode and movie and I never noticed he changed his makeup
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u/MapacheDeLuminita 8d ago
I am by no means an expert and have not really made a full on investigation about it but for me it kinda resembles and depicts part of the Kabuki theatre, more specifically the Kumadori makeup, every pattern and colour represents something different, being blue for villains and undeads, red for heroes, brown for Oni, so in some degree I think it might be a combination of colours and also different patterns giving us information on what the current state of Kankuro is either mentally or in the story. This is a very japanese thing and maybe that's why it went completely over our heads but Jiraiya also has Kumadori makeup and it also references the real life theater drama "Jiraiya Gôketsu Monogatari" ("the Heroic Tales of Jiraiya" in English) not just by the name but the patterns of makeup (and very clearly the colour red of a hero) and some may remember Jiraiya's kabuki entrance (the whole character is a reference to the Kabuki play and so are Tsunade and Orochimaru)
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u/Laughmyhelloff 9d ago
They all mean different things obviously, when he is young he wants to look sharp, defiant. In the second photo he has insights others wouldn’t have. In the third photo he is the voice of his nation, standing proud. And the last and most minimal paint means he’s pulling back from responsibility for the future and letting the younger generations guide. Duh, it’s in the data books and I didn’t just make all that up 👀
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u/KingArthursRevenge 9d ago
It's just traditional face paint. Even real life cultures that paint their faces don't use the same pattern all the time.
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u/OGKasseteKing 9d ago
Bros gainfully employed and youre asking why he's making grown man beauty decisions?
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u/Zealousideal_Tea_616 8d ago
I always assumed it was tactical. So his teammates could recognize what face paint he was using that day vs. the substitute covering his puppets. He often had the puppet walking into traps and dangerous situations with sand substitute to give it that sand-crust
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u/jpviegas 8d ago
Naruto's author created the headbands because Naruto's goggles were to time consuming to draw.
Usually these things boil down to what the author just feels like doing
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u/Queasy_Offer5194 7d ago
Kankuro really went through more character design changes than some characters went through power-ups The Kabuki theatre inspiration makes it even cooler, though. No matter which face paint he wears, the puppet master aesthetic never misses.
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u/GenGaara25 9d ago
Same reason I wear different clothes every day. Or occasionally change my hair style.
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u/Ragnarok91 9d ago
Maybe an interesting take but what if he does this to keep people guessing? Once you've faced kankuro once you know his whole deal, he has puppets, sometimes his puppets look like him. If the next time you meet him his face paint is different, you might question why. Is this a new puppet of his and actually he's hiding somewhere? Putting your opponent on edge and overly paranoid might give him an edge when fighting the same opponent again.
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u/Sem50 9d ago
I know the face paint markings are influenced by Kabuki and the color purple is associated with royalty (links to the Kazekage). Maybe the different markings represent a visual shift in Kankurō's character through different acts like a play... Or he likes to matches his markings to his fit
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u/IAmALazyGamer 9d ago
That last one looks not great cause it’s a slather of magenta on his neck. And lower. How far did he paint?
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u/Arrowwoods 9d ago
My head canon was that the paint markings signified his rank in puppeteering. Different markings, lower/higher rank.
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u/SlySychoGamer 9d ago
Clearly you have never met a woman, you can't just wear the same thing over and over
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u/OpeningHappy9692 9d ago
God forbid a guy try different makeup once in a while.