Jiraiya

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This article is about the folk ninja featured in Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari. For the ninja of the same name featured in Naruto, see Jiraiya (Naruto). For the tokusatsu series, see Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya. For the cicada genus, see cicada.

Jiraiya , with a heavy gun, overcoming a huge Snake which has preyed on his friends the Toads.

Jiraya riding a giant toad, depicted in an 1866 print by Yoshitoshi.

Jiraiya (児雷也 - literally "young thunder"), the title character of the Japanese folktale Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari (児雷也豪傑物語, "The tale of the gallant Jiraiya"), is a ninja who uses shapeshifting magic to morph into a gigantic toad. The heir of a powerful clan in Kyūshū of the same name, Jiraiya fell in love with Tsunade, a beautiful young princess who masters snail magic. His arch-enemy was his one-time follower, Orochimaru, who mastered snake magic.

[edit] Influences on Fiction

In the first game of the Tengai Makyou series, Tengai Makyō: Ziria for the PC-Engine console, Jiraiya's name is spelled Ziria. He's a ninja from the Fire Clan who fights with a kodachi sword and has a pet frog which grown several times its size when Ziria summons it in combat. Tsunade is a ninja girl from the Roots Clan (the archenemies of the Fire Clan) who uses snails and a huge axe in her attacks and is in love with Orochimaru, a wandering warrior and poet who wields a naginata and snake magic. These characters all returned in a spin-off fighting game called Kabuki Klash for the Neo-Geo.

Akimitsu Takagi's detective novel The Tattoo Murder Case uses the character representations in tattoos worn by three of the main characters: Kinue Nomura (Orochimaru, the snake), her brother Tsunetaro (Jiraiya, the frog) and sister Tamae (Tsunade, the slug; translated as Tsunade-hime), all set within a series of murders that takes all three's lives.

In Naruto, a popular manga and anime television series, Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru appear as three legendary ninjas known as the Sannin. Naruto's Jiraiya can transform into a toad, also summon toads into battle, up to and including Kaiju-sized monsters. This summoning ability is predicated on Jiraiya having established a blood-contract with all species of toad-kind.

In the tokusatsu movie The Magic Serpent, Jiraiya (also known as Ikazuchi-Maru) was the protagonist. He and his arch-nemesis Orochimaru transform into two daikaiju, a toad and Oriental dragon, respectively, and have a duel to the death.

In the tokusatsu superhero series Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya, Jiraiya is the protagonist of the series. A Japanese professional wrestler uses the Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya character appearance as his gimmick.