#just some musings lol i’m thinking about ninja ranks for headcanons rn

[erumai-maadu]

I was reading through a list of the konoha 12’s canonical final shinobi ranks and noticed that most of them remain chunin. While a lot of people in fanfic like to make all of them jonin, i think leaving most of them as non-jonin makes sense for what kishimoto wanted the rank of jounin to be. it’s supposed to be incredibly difficult to achieve and in manga canon, you can only become jonin through recommendation by enough shinobi, and then the Hokage will promote you if they believe you worthy.

The anime mentions a “jonin exams” but i think this doesn’t make sense given how bloody even the chunin exams is. they’d lose out on so many perfectly good soldiers by allowing all of them to get in an arena and kill each other.

Different villages may have different requirements for their jonin, so for now I am only discussing Konoha.

Konoha jonin are generally required to be able to use at least 2 nature transformations, though I do believe there are exceptions to this. They are often sent on A and S-rank missions, and are the only shinobi allowed to take on missions alone, without a team. Most jonin get assigned to lead/teach a squad of 3 genin.

interestingly, being an ANBU member does not carry a prerequisite of being a jonin, as it is stated that ANBU scout for members from any ranks, the only prerequisite being that they are at least 13 years old.

Of the main and notable people we follow in Naruto’s generation (so the k12), the following are the ones who make jonin by the end of shippuden: Neji, Shikamaru, Sakura, Rock Lee. This is also (I believe) in order of promotion as well. Shikamaru and Sakura were promoted at the same time.

Naruto and Sasuke being the exceptions, with both of them still technically being genin even by the end of the series, this leaves everyone else as chunin.

Konoha has the rank of tokubetsu jonin, aka tokujo aka special jounin. These are jounin that specialize in one particular aspect of being a jonin. examples include Ibiki Morino, who is the head of T&I, Genma Shiranui, Hayate Gekko, and Anko Mitarashi.

They are often sent out on as the team leaders on the missions that require their particular skill set, or as squad members under a jonin.

The members of the K12 specifically are quite exceptional for their age, and while they might not be on the same level as Team 7’s god-killing level, some of them are still notably stronger than the level of other chunin we see.

Hinata retires at chunin to be a housewife, which I am not upset about because she clearly doesn’t want to be a shinobi if she doesn’t have to be. If she did not retire, I would keep her as a chunin.

Choji staying a chunin also makes sense to me, as I do not see him actively attempting to be promoted to jonin, as does Shino, since all Academy teachers are chunin.

Kiba should end up as a tokubetsu jonin, with a specialty as a tracker. His mother Tsume is also a tokujo and I assume she does the same thing. Given that tracking and other such reconnaissance is very common for Shinobi, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a division of tokujo headed by the Inuzuka that are called on for various tracking needs.

Tenten is my blorbo and I am deeply biased about her so everything I say here is through the blorbo lenses, but I think that her canonical ability level is solidly chunin and stays there, but with the sealing expertise that I often give her in fics, she comes up to tokujo level, and I think she works with all sorts of seals, whether transportation or supply runs, but primarily with the Barrier Team and maintains a sealing barrier around the village.

Ino should be a tokujo for the same reason that Ibiki is a tokujo. Ino’s dad is the head of the Analysis Team, a subset of the Konoha Intelligence Team that works with T&I to extract information from prisoners’ minds. As a Yamanaka and the next clan head, Ino absolutely fills in her dad’s role, specializing in interrogation, and is granted the rank of tokubetsu jonin for this.

so this would leave the final rankings as follows.

Jonin: Shikamaru, Neji, Sakura, Lee

Tokubetsu Jonin: Tenten, Ino, Kiba

Chunin: Hinata, Shino, Choji

Genin: Naruto, Sasuke

this is skewed compared to the general shinobi population, but that’s okay with me since the K12 are special and the main characters and whatnot.

Generally, we see sort of a bell curve in terms of the amount of population in each category, with most shinobi being chunin or tokujo and the fewest being jonin.