Ino Yamanaka

Ino Yamanaka is a childhood friend of Sakura Haruno. Sakura was often picked on due to her sensitivity about her large forehead, though
through Ino's influence, she was able to
overcome this and develop her own identity.
As Sakura's confidence in herself grew she
became aware that Ino liked the same boy as
she did: Sasuke Uchiha. Sakura soon ended
their friendship so that the two could properly
compete for Sasuke's affection, beginning a
bitter rivalry between them. The two maintain
this rivalry until the end of their match in the Chunin Exam, after which they begin to rekindle their friendship. Nevertheless, the two maintain a competitive relationship and constantly attempt to outdo the other. During their feud she became superficial, thinking highly of her looks and having no problem telling people what she thinks, such as telling Choji that he should focus more on his appearance because girls dislike overweight boys. Although both of her teammates fit the profiles of people she wouldn't associate with because of her apparent shallowness (Choji for his appearance and Shikamaru for his laziness), she actually cares deeply for their well-beings and maintains a strong bond with them.

 

As a member of the Yamanaka clan, Ino works in her family's flower shop and has become particularly talented in ikebana. The anime's filler arcs show that she's been able to find other uses for her time in the shop and can tell a person's profession by simply glancing at the condition of their hands. Being a Yamanaka, she specializes in mind-altering jutsu. With the Mind Body Switch Technique, Ino can transfer to another's body (even animals as seen in Part II) and control it as her own for a short period of time. Despite the number of times she has used this ability, the slow speed and very nature of the jutsu has caused her to have little success when using it. Over the timeskip she acquires the ability to use medical jutsu. While this is not explained in the manga, the anime shows it to be a result of Ino finding herself to be of no use to her teammates in direct combat. As such, Ino becomes Tsunade's secondary apprentice in learning medical abilities, hoping to be more useful to her friends.