Matatabi

Matatabi (又旅, Matatabi), more commonly known as the "Two-Tails" (ニ尾, Nibi), is both a fictional character and deuteragonist from the Dragon Naruto series created by Akira Toriyama and Masashi Kishimoto. She is one of the nine tailed beasts. It was last sealed within Yugito Nii of the Hidden Cloud Village.

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 * —Matatabi.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Cristina Vee (English), (English), Ryōko Shiraishi (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Turkish), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Appearance
Matatabi is two-tailed, like a bakeneko, and is completely engulfed in flames, like a Kasha (though it's flames are an animated cobalt blue and black). It also has heterochromatic eyes, the right being yellow and the left being green, similar to an odd-eyed cat without pupils. When forced to transform by Tobi, Matatabi increased in size compared to when Yugito unleashed it. During the last remaining days of the Sage of Six Paths' life, Matatabi was a young flaming kitten much smaller than its present-day self, but was still much larger than the Sage.


 * Hair Color: N/A
 * Skin Color: Not Known
 * Eye Color: Yellow (right), Green (left)
 * Age: Not Known
 * Birthday: Not Known
 * Height: Not Known
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
Compared to most of the tailed beasts, Matatabi has shown to be respectful and polite towards others, speaking in a formal manner using "watashi" (私) when referring to itself and using honourifics when addressing Naruto while introducing itself to the young shinobi.

Family

 * Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki (Creator)

Abilities
As a tailed beast, Matatabi has an enormous supply of chakra ki that it can transfer to others and can create the Tailed Beast Ball. As its appearance suggest, it can use Fire Style, which it can lend to its jinchūriki to create fireballs. Matatabi also has flexible muscles, which grant it great speed despite its large size. Matatabi's raw strength can easily crush an opponent or send them flying with one swipe of its paw. When combined with the other tailed beasts' tails, it could shatter and completely obliterate a Sage Jutsu-enhanced complete Susanoo.

Jutsu

 * Cat Claws


 * Flaming Cat Roar


 * Chakra Ki Transfer Technique


 * Great Cat Claws


 * Tailed Beast Bomb


 * Tailed Beast Full Charge


 * Deeper Tailed Beast Psyche

Past
Matatabi and the tailed beasts first came into being in the waning days of Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, who used his Creation of All Things Technique to divide the Ten-Tails' chakra into nine separate bodies and giving each a name. Some time after being created, the Sage explained to the young tailed beasts that a link existed between them despite their separation. He also foretold of a day when they would be brought together again - though not as they were - and that at that time someone would emerge to show them what true power is. In the anime, before his death, Hagoromo sent Matatabi to live in a temple built for the purpose of protecting it in a canebrake region. Over time, many people came to believe that Matatabi, like Shukaku, was once a human that turned into a living ghost (生霊, ikiryō).

During the First Great Ninja War, Hashirama Senju captured eight of the tailed beasts and sold Matatabi and Gyūki to Hidden Cloud Village at the Five Kage Summit, as a sign of friendship and to ensure a balance of power amongst their new villages. In a cavern behind the Falls of Truth, where jinchūriki learn to control their tailed beasts' power, there are wall murals of Matatabi and Gyūki, which indicates how long they were associated with the Land of Lightning.

The tailed beast would end up being sealed within Yugito Nii when she was two years old. She was placed into a detestable training program in order to learn to control Matatabi's power. In the anime, Yugito agreed to have Granny Cat collect Matatabi's paw print for the Paw Encyclopaedia.

Etymology

 * 'Matatabi' (又旅) literally means 'travel again', which is probably an adaptation to not only the nekomata (猫又), but also the Japanese name for silver vine, a plant noted for having an effect on cats much like that of catnip.

Notes & Trivia

 * A monster cat (化け猫, bakeneko) is a popular animal yōkai in Japanese folklore, and is known for its abilities to speak the human language and shape-shift. It was also believed that when ever a monster cat have then reaches a certain age, it grows larger and its tail then splits in two, becoming a forked-cat (猫又, nekomata). These yōkai were said to have gained the powers of necromancy, and had been associated with strange fires and other unexplainable occurrences. This may be related to Matatabi's nickname and its fire-breathing abilities.
 * A Kasha is another popular animal yōkai in Japanese folklore, depicted as a giant, flaming cat.