Five Elements Seal

From Narutopedia

Five Elements Seal[1]
Name
Kanji	五行封印
Rōmaji	Gogyō Fūin
Literal English	Five Elements Seal
English TV	Five Pronged Seal
Debut
Manga	Chapter #49
Anime	Naruto Episode #29
Data
Classification	Fūinjutsu
Rank	A-rank
Class	Supplementary
Range	Short-range
Users Orochimaru

This jutsu produces a powerful seal that is used to block or disturb the flow of chakra in a target. Once the seal is completed, the target will become unconscious and unable to fight for a short time. Orochimaru performed this jutsu to tamper with the seal on the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. The original seal allowed the Nine-Tails' chakra to seep out into Naruto Uzumaki, but the additional seal disturbs this, preventing Naruto from using the Nine-Tails' chakra or even controlling his own chakra properly. This is because an odd-numbered seal creates an imbalance when placed on top of an even-numbered seal. When Orochimaru later notices that the seal has been removed, he remarks that there are very few ninja capable of doing so.

The five elements in the name of this jutsu don't refer to the elemental chakra used in many other jutsu (earth (土, tsuchi), water (水, mizu), fire (火, hi), wind (風, kaze), and lightning (雷, kaminari)). Instead, they refer to the Chinese five elements: metal (金, Chinese: jīn), wood (木, Chinese: mù), water (水, Chinese: shuǐ), fire (火, Chinese: huǒ), and earth (土, Chinese: tǔ), suggesting the elements are merely symbolic.

[edit] References

1. ↑ First Databook, page 183