Rock Lee Overview

According to an interview with Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of the manga series, in Shonen Jump's 'Naruto Anime Profiles Episodes 1-37', Rock Lee is his most fun character to draw. He also has stated that Sakura and Rock Lee were meant to symbolize human weakness (at least in the beginning).

In Shonen Jump's character popularity polls, Lee consistently ranked in the Top 10 in the first four polls, even making the Top 5 once. In the more current polls, however, Lee has fallen out of the Top 10 due to his lack of recent appearances. Despite this, he still ranks at a relatively high position.

Background Information

As an academy student, Rock Lee was teased for his inability, leading him to spend all his time and concentration on taijutsu under the guidance of his sensei, Might Guy. Through practice, he has become so overcompensatingly strong in the taijutsu discipline that he was allowed to graduate the ninja academy with his teammate and rival Neji Hyuga. Neji originally claimed that Lee was not really a ninja since he can't use genjutsu or ninjutsu, saying that just because Lee is the first student who graduated from the academy with only taijutsu doesn't mean that he is amazing, just unusual.

Lee's relationship with his sensei, Might Guy, is emotional to the point of comedy; their hugging, overstated posing, and odd mannerisms weird out Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and even Sasuke Uchiha to the point of blankly staring with disbelief when they witnessed them for the first time. Lee's bond with Guy is by far the strongest student-teacher relationship described in the series; Lee owes a large part of his character to Guy's guidance, including his dedication to hard work, taijutsu prowess, outfit, and haircut (Lee already had the large eyebrows to match). Guy himself believes that Lee has "beautiful eyes," and also calls him his "cute student."