In the Naruto franchise, both the manga and anime, there exists a ninja affiliated with the Hidden Leaf Village by the name of Shikamaru Nara, who is proven to be highly intelligent. He is a member of Team 10, a group of ninjas consisting of himself, Choji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka, and his leader and mentor, Asuma Sarutobi.
Despite the fact that he is incredibly smart, Shikamaru is portrayed as lazy, unmotivated, and rebellious. As he’s become more pivotal in the Naruto universe, Shikamaru has also gained popularity points with the Naruto reader base, placing high in several popularity polls.
The creator of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto, originally created Shikamaru to be the only winner of an early Naruto arc: the Chunin Exams, due to his prodigious intelligence. In the Naruto Character Official Data Book, Kishimoto noted that he likes Shikamaru due to his easygoing nature and would marry him if he were a girl. During Part II of the series, Shikamaru begins smoking cigars. Kishimoto considered censoring these scenes due to a fear of negatively influencing the target demographic, but he decided to keep them in.
But how intelligent exactly is Shikamaru Nara?
Due to his lack of enthusiasm, Shikamaru enjoys cruising through life with minimal effort. However, his teacher, Asuma Sarutobi, attested to his intellectual prowess by determining that Shikamaru’s IQ was over 200. In fact, Nara was believed to have one of the highest IQs of any Naruto character.
Shikamaru became such a popular character that he inspired his own line of merchandise and has even appeared in numerous other aspects of the franchise outside of the manga and anime, including video games, original video animations, and six feature films.
