Akatsuki Capturing Tailed Beasts: Members and Order?

Here are the Akatsuki members and the order in which they captured a tailed beast:

Kakuzu, Hidan, Didara, Sasori, Tobi, Kisame, and Pain all captured tailed-beasts.

The order of capture was five tails, seven tails, one tail, two tails, three tails, four tails, and then six tails.

Arguably, Obito and Madara were leaders of the organization when they captured the eight and nine tails.

So if you want to learn all about the Akatsuki members and the tailed beasts they caught, then you’re in the right place.

Let’s get right into it.

Akatsuki Capturing Tailed Beasts: Members and Order?

What Is the Akatsuki?

This whole discussion revolves around major plot components in the Naruto storyline.

For those who don’t know, Naruto is one of the most popular Japanese manga of all time (manga are basically Japanese comic books with their own themes and tropes).

The Naruto anime was adapted from this manga, and it’s one of the most popular anime of all time as well.

In fact, Naruto was split into two anime: Naruto and Naruto Shippuden.

Shippuden takes place roughly two years after the end of the original anime.

The reason I’m going into all of this is so that you understand what exactly is at stake in terms of spoilers.

To explain the Akatsuki and tailed beasts, I have to go into major spoilers for the Naruto manga as well as both anime series. Consider this your formal warning.

With that said, let’s talk about the Akatsuki.

This is an evil organization of world-class ninjas.

Their goal is to raise money and capture tailed beasts (more on that later) so that they can basically ransom the world into peace.

Goals of world peace might not sound evil, but the key members have all done some pretty horrible means, and they literally don’t care how many people they have to murder to achieve their goals.

One thing that is worth noting is that Akatsuki does not translate well into English.

In some cases, you’ll see it referred to as simply “Akatsuki.” In other cases, it’s “the Akatsuki.”

Both mean the same thing, so you can consider them interchangeable.

What Is a Tailed Beast?

There’s one more bit of world building we need to cover for this discussion to really make sense.

In the world of Naruto, there are nine legendary chakra beasts.

Each has a separate number of tails, from one to nine.

Each beast is so incredibly powerful that it is basically a walking disaster.

On top of that, the beasts are more powerful based on the number of tails.

So, the one-tailed beast is a walking natural disaster, and the nine-tailed beast is even more devastating.

To control the beasts, ninjas in the world of Naruto figured out how to seal all of their chakra into a host ninja.

Such a ninja is called a jinchuriki, and as an example, Naruto is a jinchuriki.

It means that all of the chakra of the nine-tailed beast is locked inside of Naruto’s body.

This gives Naruto access to the beast’s chakra, which provides potent power to Naruto.

The same is true for other jinchurikis.

So, when the Akatsuki set out to capture all of the tailed beasts, for the most part, they were setting out to fight against and capture all of the jinchurikis.

Ultimately, the Akatasuki had a way to extract beast chakra from jinchurikis, which was the real plan.

The point is, when I explain which members captured which beasts, there will be jinchurikis involved in most of the incidents.

Which Akatsuki Member Captured a Tailed Beast and in What Order? (8 Events)

Ok. That’s the background information that you need.

This is the order in which members of the Akatsuki captured tailed beasts.

#1 Han

We’re going to talk about Han first because this part of the story is actually unclear.

It all happens off-screen, so it’s not entirely obvious who captured what.

We only know that it had to happen based on later events in the story.

First off, Han is not a member of the Akatsuki.

He’s a jinchuriki.

More specifically, he hosts the five-tailed beast.

We know that at the beginning of Naruto Shippuden, the five-tails is already sealed.

So, at some point, Han was captured, but we don’t know who did it or when.

#2 Kakuzu and Hidan

The first clear case where members of the Akatsuki capture a tailed beast involves Kakuzu and Hidan.

They go up against Fu, who is the seven-tails jinchuriki.

This also mainly happens off-screen, but we get some flashbacks that provide enough information that we know Kakuzu and Hidan were the ones to do it.

We also know that this was the second case of the Akatsuki capturing a tailed beast.

This is also a good chance to point out that Akatsuki members tend to work in pairs.

In most cases, you’ll see that pairs of members captured each tailed beast, with a couple of exceptions.

#3 Deidara and Sasori

The third capture was done by Deidara and Sasori, and it’s the saga that kicked off Naruto Shippuden.

This takes place after Naruto goes away to train for a couple of years.

As soon as he comes back, he finds out that Gaara was captured, and there’s a whole saga where the Leaf and Sand villages work together to rescue Gaara.

To set all of that up, Sasori and Deidara attack the Sand Village.

Primarily, Deidara has an epic fight with Gaara while Sasori watches as a backup.

Deidara defeats Gaara, the Akatsuki successfully extract the one-tails from him, and then the rescue saga takes place.

#4 Hidan and Kakuzo (Again)

After Gaara’s capture, Hidan and Kakuzo are able to locate another tailed beast.

In this case, they come up against Yugito, the jinchuriki for the two-tailed beast.

Once again, this event doesn’t get a ton of attention.

We only know that these two engage with Yugito, and ultimately, the two-tails is captured.

Clearly, they succeeded in capturing a second beast.

#5 Tobi and Deidara

In the Gaara rescue saga, Deidara and Sasori end up fighting with rescue teams comprised of Leaf and Sand ninjas.

Deidara barely escapes with his life—after losing an arm to Kakashi in combat.

Meanwhile, Sasori is completely defeated and killed.

Because of that, Deidara needs a new partner.

He is assigned to work with Tobi, the newest member of the Akatsuki.

We find out later that this is a ruse.

Tobi is actually Obito, and he’s the secret leader of the organization who is controlling everything from the shadows.

With all of this background, Tobi and Deidara are able to find the three-tailed beast.

This beast does not have a jinchuriki, so the two fight and capture it in its natural form.

#6 Kisame

At this point five of the nine beasts have been captured, and the story is really moving.

Kisame and Itachi were longtime partners in the Akatsuki, but at this point in the story, Sasuke is chasing after Itachi in order to kill him.

Because of that, Itachi and Kisame separate (Itachi knows that he won’t survive his encounter with Sasuke).

While separated, Kisame manages to find Roshi.

Roshi is the four-tails jinchuriki, and the two have an epic fight.

This is where we start to see just how powerful Kisame is.

He defeated the jinchuriki alone, and the organization has yet another captured tailed beast.

#7 Pain

This part of the story only happens in the anime.

It is never covered in the manga.

Instead, in the manga, we just know that the six-tails was captured at some point.

We never knew who accomplished it.

In the anime, though, Pain is able to track down Utakata, who is the six-tails jinchuriki.

Pain is easily able to overcome Utakata, and he captures the six tails as a result.

#8 Obito and Madara

That’s seven of nine, and the rest of this revolves around the eight tails and nine tails.

Those are in the jinchurikis B and Naruto.

Multiple attempts are made to capture both B and Naruto, but they all fail. 

Sasuke even tries to capture B with a whole team behind him, and they can’t pull it off.

Meanwhile, Pain himself, the leader of the Akatsuki, is defeated by Naruto.

At this point, it becomes clear that the Akatsuki lacks the firepower to capture the eight and nine tails by force, and things change a bit.

This is when we find out that Madara and Obito were actually pulling the strings the whole time.

They took over the Akatsuki in order to gather the tailed beasts as a ploy to take over the world.

Since the secret organization can’t accomplish the mission, they declare war on the whole ninja war.

This leads to the Fourth Great Ninja War, and the entire reason for the war is for Obito and Madara to capture the eight and nine tails.

Eventually, the plan works.

Over the course of the war, both the eight and nine tails are captured and sealed by Obito and Madara.

It’s a bit of a team effort.

With that, they are able to restore the 10-tailed beast, and that’s a whole other storyline.

You can argue whether or not it’s right to count Obito and Madara as members of the Akatsuki.

I went ahead and included them here for the sake of thoroughness. 

Author

  • Theresa McDonough

    Tech entrepreneur and founder of Tech Medic, who has become a prominent advocate for the Right to Repair movement. She has testified before the US Federal Trade Commission and been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, helping influence change within the tech industry.