Shikamaru Nara

Shikamaru Nara is a shinobi of Konohagakure's Nara clan. Though lazy by nature, Shikamaru has a rare intellect that consistently allows him to prevail in combat. The responsibilities that these successes leave him with cause him frequent annoyance, but he gladly accepts them so that he may be of service to his fellow members of Team 10, and to prove himself to generations of the past and future. Shikamaru is the only child of Yoshino and Shikaku Nara. When he was young, he once played "ninja" with other children his age. Chōji Akimichi wanted to play with them, but the other children refused to allow him to do so, claiming he was too stupid to participate. When Shikamaru couldn't convince the others to let Chōji join, he left the game and went to his favourite spot to watch clouds. Chōji happened to be sitting in said spot when he got there.

So Shikamaru introduced himself, offered Chōji some snacks, and invited Chōji to watch the clouds with him. From that point onward they were best friends; upon entering Konoha's Ninja Academy, they'd usually sit together in class and hang out after afterwards. Shikamaru had very little interest in the class itself, preferring to spend his time sleeping rather than listen to Iruka Umino's lessons. Shikamaru showed the same lack of enthusiasm for the tests he was given and couldn't be bothered to actually answer the questions, leading to his poor grades. Shikamaru is naturally a lazy person and his inclination is to do as little work as possible. As an Academy student and even during his early career as a genin, Shikamaru is able to get away with this, spending his days sleeping, watching the clouds, or playing games of shōgi and Go. His goal is to live unremarkably, free of anything of noticeably good or bad, and then to die just as unremarkably as he lived. When he is faced with the potential for conflict or commitment, he responds first by saying, "how troublesome," and then by trying to find some way out of it, either by pretending to be indisposed or even outright saying that he doesn't want to do whatever it is. Although Shikamaru describes himself as "the number one coward", he has a strong moral compass and dedication to his friends. It is these qualities that earned Chōji Akimichi's friendship, as Shikamaru was one of the first people to look past his weight and find value in who he naturally was. It is also these qualities that force Shikamaru to move away from his lazy pursuits, as he finds himself volunteering to do work or to sacrifice himself if it will in some way benefit his allies. Such selflessness, once displayed during the Konoha Crush, exacerbates his "troublesome" situations: he is given the responsibility of leading his friends into battle, for which reason he does everything that he can to keep them safe, for which reason he is given even more responsibility over even more of his friends, and so on. He still clings to his lazy origins as much as he can; even if he can't spend his entire day being idle, he at least avoids having long-term goals or confessing any particular pleasure in the duties he's assigned.

Shikamaru undergoes a rapid maturity after the death of his teacher, Asuma Sarutobi, whose loss forces Shikamaru to recognise that the world is not safe that he cannot be kept protected from it forever. After avenging Asuma, Shikamaru takes it upon himself to do all that he can to make things better for future Konoha generations, especially Asuma's then-unborn daughter, Mirai; such is the Will of Fire. He may still balk at the prospect of the work he must do, but he no longer runs from it, even going so far as to argue in favour of difficult choices if it will guarantee his friends' and village's survival. In Shikamaru Hiden, he describes his new goal in life as, rather than living unremarkably himself and watching the clouds all the time, to instead make a world where his children or grandchildren can live that way if they choose to. One of the more "troublesome" things that runs throughout Shikamaru's life are the women he knows: his mother, Yoshino, his teammate, Ino Yamanaka, and his frequent companion, Temari. He describes each of them as aggressive, demanding, and sometimes even scary. Shikamaru tries to treat women delicately, being non-confrontational or at least polite to them and never asking anything of them that he believes he can do himself. During Part I, he generally believes he can do anything himself, and as such is mortified if and when a woman needs to assist him in any way; his frustrations are similar when he repeatedly finds himself facing female opponents. Because his father, Shikaku, has similar views and experiences with women, Shikamaru asks him for help in understanding them. Shikaku explains that men destroy themselves without a woman's influence and that women, despite how they may act, are kind to the men they love. As with most things, Shikamaru resists entanglements with women as much as he can; his Infinite Tsukuyomi dream world sees him successfully avoiding marriage entirely. But in the end he marries Temari – who he realises in Shikamaru Hiden is one of the most important things in the world to him – and later has a son with her, Shikadai. Shikamaru takes up Asuma's smoking habit after he dies, his way of both coping with his death and keeping Asuma's spirit alive. He isn't seen smoking again in the manga after he avenges Asuma, but he is described as smoking in Gaara Hiden and the novelisation of Boruto: Naruto the Movie. In the anime and English manga, the cigarettes are either removed or replaced with Asuma's lighter as the scene requires.