Shikamaru Nara is a fictional character in the manga and anime franchise, Naruto, created by Masashi Kishimoto. In the manga, Shikamaru is a shinobi affiliated with the village Hidden in the Leaves. He is a member of Team 10, a group of ninja consisting of himself, Choji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka, and team leader Asuma Sarutobi. Shikamaru is portrayed as a lazy character, unwilling to apply his prodigious intelligence; Kishimoto has noted that he likes Shikamaru due to his easygoing nature. Outside the Naruto anime and manga, Shikamaru has appeared in several other media in the franchise, including video games, original video animations, and six feature films.

Orochimaru (大蛇丸) is a fictional character from Naruto, a manga series created by Masashi Kishimoto. Orochimaru is a former ninja from the village of Konohagakure who is well known for work in wars which earned him the title of Sannin and becomes a terrorist as a means to cheat death, and built his own ninja village Otogakure. He succeeds to some extent in obtaining immortality by transferring between different host bodies, which became one of his driving motivations throughout the series as he targets Sasuke Uchiha for his genetic heritage. By the events of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, he has seemingly redeemed himself and has sent his experiment Mitsuki to Konoha to become a ninja. Orochimaru has appeared in media outside the Naruto anime and manga, including several video games.