There have been four Great Ninja Wars in the Naruto universe. In Naruto, the ninja villages were the best military asset of each of the Five Great Nations and were created as a way to stop local conflicts and centralize the power. Naruto Uzumaki came from the Hidden Leaf in the Land of Fire, and while the Leaf could be considered the most powerful village in the Naruto universe, it did not obtain that title without tragic, long-lasting wars. While Naruto part 1 never got into too much detail about the past of the Five Great Nations, Naruto Shippuden expanded the lore and revisited some of the most important moments in the shinobi world.
When audiences were introduced to the Hidden Leaf in Naruto, the shinobi world was going through an era of peace. The Third Hokage Hiruzen Saturobi ran a prosperous village, and Naruto’s generation of ninjas never had a true sense of how much that peace cost. Their sensei and other seasoned ninjas, however, all lived through at least one Great Ninja War, which left many of them with traumatic memories. Kakashi sensei, for example, lost his two best friends fighting a war, not to mention villains like Obito and Nagato, who were molded by war.
The Fourth Great Ninja War was the last major arc of Naruto Shippuden, right before Naruto and Sasuke fought Kaguya and saved the world. The ultimate battle against Obito and Madara Uchiha was the only ninja war to happen during the events of Naruto, but there were three other ninja wars later revealed in the series, all of which changed the shinobi world in some way. Here is a breakdown of all the four Great Ninja Wars in Naruto, with context about when did it happen, who fought it, and how it connected with the wider Naruto story.
The First Great Ninja War
The First Great Ninja War happened not too long after the formation of the most important shinobi villages. While the creation of villages like the Hidden Leaf by Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju brought an end to several local conflicts around the world, it set the stage for potential bigger wars involving the great nations. The First Great Ninja War was fought among all five hidden villages, almost half a century before the events of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden and it happened because countries were starting to compete for land and resources. Not much was revealed about how the war played out, but it was during the conflict that the Second Hokage sacrificed himself right after naming Sarutobi, and not Danzo, the next Hokage. Hashirama’s effort of spreading the tailed beasts across t the villages did not work to avoid the war, and by the end of the conflict, all five nations had suffered major losses.
The Second Great Ninja War
The Second Great Ninja War happened around 20 years after the first one, and it had a bigger impact on the story audiences follow in Naruto. It was during the Second Great Ninja War that Hanzou Salamandra fought Jiraya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru and named the Leaf shinobi the Three Legendary Sannin. It was also during that war that Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan became orphans. The tragic death of Nagato’s parents by two Leaf ninjas set the character on a path of hate, and while Jiraya tried to help the trio, the future ended up being too harsh on them. It was during the Second Great Ninja war that Yahiko found the Akatsuki, with the hope of taking the war away from the poorest villages. The reasons for the conflict were similar to that of the first war, but Nagato claimed that it was the Hidden Leaf who started it all.
The Third Great Ninja War
The Third Great Ninja War happened around 10 years before Naruto's birth in Three-Tails jinchūriki. Still, in the end, the Leaf village got the better results in the Third Great Ninja War.
The Fourth Great Ninja War
The Fourth Great Ninja War was where all the storylines and characters from Naruto Shippuden came together for one epic-scale final arc. Unlike the other three wars, the Four Great Ninja War was not fought among the nations. Instead, it saw all five shinobi villages combining efforts for the first time in history to fight for one common goal: to protect the Nine-Tails and Eight Tails’ jinchūriki Naruto and Killer Bee from the Akatsuki. While the shinobi alliance had thousands of ninjas from all five nations, the Akatsuki had countless white zetsus minions plus hundreds of resurrected ninjas, including all the previously dead Akatsuki . Not only that but the shinobi alliance would also have to face Madara Uchiha, the real one, not to mention the power of the Ten-Tails. The war was almost lost, and Project Tsukuyomi came close to succeeding, but Madara and his plans failed when the real villain of Naruto, Zetsu, was revealed.
Will There Be A Fifth Great Ninja War In Boruto?
The reason why the world seemed so peaceful in Naruto and Gaara did not hold the same grudges from the past as the previous ones, and thus a war between the nations in Boruto. There could be, however, something similar to Naruto’s Fourth Great Ninja war, with all the villages having to come together once to fight a common enemy. That said, the most important conflict currently set up in the show is the fight between Boruto and Kawaki, which has been teased since Boruto’s first scene.