How many tailed beasts (Bijū) are there in Naruto?

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9 tailed beasts. There are 9 tailed beasts in Naruto, from the One-Tail up to the Nine-Tails sealed inside the series' protagonist. Each beast is named for its number of tails, and the entire plot of the later Naruto Shippuden series revolves around an organisation trying to capture and combine all 9 of them. The naming scheme is the answer. The beasts are named by their number of tails, running from one upward, so the count is whatever the highest-numbered one is — and the most famous of them is the Nine-Tails. When a fictional set is numbered sequentially, the top of the sequence is the count. Nine is also the conventional size for an escalating set in this genre, sitting alongside the seven of collection quests and the ten of elite groups elsewhere on this site. A sequence that escalates needs enough steps to build across an arc and few enough to remain distinguishable. The plot function in the explanation is what makes the count load-bearing: the later series revolves around an organisation trying to capture and combine all of them. A numbered set of objectives is a ready-made narrative structure — the audience knows exactly how much story remains by counting what has been collected.

Source	Shueisha, Naruto manga
Figure refers to	2023
Last checked	September 2, 2026
Unit	tailed beasts

How many tailed beasts (Bijū) are there in Naruto?

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