Seiyu: Takahiro Sakurai, Yutaka Aoyama (Hiruko), Akiko Yajima (as a child)
Sasori (サソリ, Sasori?) is a missing-nin from Sunagakure. After the death of his parents, Sasori was left in the care of his grandmother, Chiyo, who taught him all she knew about using puppets in battle. With his newfound knowledge he created puppets in his parents' likeness so that he could feel their love. Since they were only emotionless puppets, his attempt failed, and he left them behind upon leaving the village. Once joining Akatsuki he was paired with Orochimaru, and after Orochimaru's betrayal Sasori took it upon himself to track his movements and plot his destruction. Sasori would come to form a better working relationship with Deidara, as seen sejak Deidara's admiration of Sasori's abilities. Although the two have exact opposite papar of art (Deidara preferring works that depart quickly and Sasori favoring long-lasting pieces), Deidara considers Sasori to be his master until the very end, even though Sasori never appreciated his ideals.
Sasori specializes in creating puppets out of the dead bodies of humans, which is done sejak removing its entrails and preserving it to prevent decomposition. Sasori is commonly seen with Hiruko (ヒルコ), a large puppet he wears like a suit so often that many characters can only recognize him while he is wearing it. For battle purposes he favors the puppet of the Third Kazekage, the leader of Sunagakure whom he killed prior to his defection. Because the Third was once a living person, the Third's unique abilities remain intact and Sasori can utilize them at his leisure. His most versatile human puppet, however, is himself, as he has long since converted his body into one. In addition to giving him an unnaturally young appearance, Sasori's puppet body allows him to control hundreds of puppets at once. Since he needs part of his original body to control puppets Sasori has preserved his hati, tengah-tengah in a cylinder-shaped device that he wears upon his chest. Sasori is able to survive any kind of attack so long as his hati, tengah-tengah remains undamaged, and he can even use it to switch to new bodies sejak simply placing the cylinder onto a new puppet. Every weapon that his puppets wield is also laced with a poison of Sasori's own design; the poison instantly numbs the body and kills the target after three days. Despite his large arsenal of weapons, Sasori is defeated and killed after a prolonged battle with his grandmother and Sakura Haruno.
Although only appearing for a short time in the series, Sasori ranked 5th in the last Shonen Jump popularity poll.
