Ayame

Ayame (アヤメ, Ayame) is a citizen of Konohagakure and a waitress at her father’s restaurant, Ramen Ichiraku.

Personality

Ayame is a kind and cheerful young woman. She and her father seem to be some of the few Konoha villagers that do not see Naruto in a hostile light and consider him their favourite regular customer. She is a hard-working woman, always doing her best to serve Naruto with ramen.

In the anime, it was shown that Ayame was attracted to Kakashi Hatake, after seeing his face as he eats ramen.^[3]

Appearance

Ayame is a slender girl with long, dark brown hair and large black eyes, plus fair skin. She wears a white robe with the sleeves folded, a sort of dark blue apron with ribbon ties at the top and a bright white bandanna.

Part I

Chūnin Exams

Main article: Chūnin Exams In the anime, right before the third stage of the Chūnin Exams, Ayame and Teuchi served Naruto Uzumaki a free and expensive bowl of ramen, as thanks for him being their favourite customer and as a way of saying good luck for his first round of the Chūnin Exams, surprising Naruto in the process.

Konoha Crush

Main article: Konoha Crush In the anime, Konohamaru Sarutobi runs into her when he has to go to the bathroom, she then helps him up to his feet.

Mix it, Stretch it, Boil it Up! Burn Copper Pot, Burn!

Main article: Mix it, Stretch it, Boil it Up! Burn Copper Pot, Burn! In the anime, she was kidnapped by Hakkaku, a cooking-nin from the Land of Lightning. He would return her only if Teuchi gave him a special recipe to make people love their meals. The secret recipe was just to remove the bitter taste from the soup. When Ayame is rescued, she has grown fat due to being unable to resist the cooking ninja’s food. To bring her to her regular self, she eats Teuchi’s diet ramen that appears to be designed to make people lose weight from eating it.

Part II

Akatsuki Suppression Mission

Main article: Akatsuki Suppression Mission In the manga, after Naruto returns from his nature manipulation training session, Ayame has been replaced by two less-than-competent male cooks: Nishi and Matsu. Ayame had left for a trip sometime earlier, thus the new workers replaced her. The two are rather clumsy, seen when Matsu puts his finger in the ramen and then Nishi accidentally spills hot ramen on his co-worker.

In the anime, Ayame returns after training and seeing the cuisines of other countries and turns the Ramen bar into a Tsukemen bar. This angers Naruto when he comes to the bar, exhausted after a nature manipulation training session. Even though he is obviously tired, he bickers with Ayame for several minutes until he finally accepts the tsukemen, although he combines the two dishes to make ramen, much to her outrage. However, as Naruto ate several dishes in the same manner, meaning a larger bill, Ayame grudgingly accepted it.^[4]

Itachi Pursuit Mission

Main article: Itachi Pursuit Mission In the anime, she can be seen behind the bar with her father, Teuchi, as Naruto and Jiraiya talk about Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha.^[5]

Kaguya Ōtsutsuki Strikes

Main article: Kaguya Ōtsutsuki Strikes In the anime, after the Infinite Tsukuyomi was cast, Ayame along with everyone within Konoha was captured by the Ten-Tails roots. Ultimately, she and the rest of the world were freed from the genjutsu by Naruto and Sasuke, after they ended the war.

Blank Period

Konoha Hiden: The Perfect Day for a Wedding

Main articles: Konoha Hiden (novel) and Konoha Hiden (anime) Ayame appears at Naruto and Hinata’s wedding along with her father.

New Era

Sarada Uchiha Arc

Main article: Sarada Uchiha Arc In the anime, Ayame greeted Naruto and his son Boruto into the modernised Ramen Ichiraku before serving them.

Naruto Shinden: Parent and Child Day

Main articles: Naruto Shinden: Parent and Child Day and Parent and Child Day Arc Every year, Ayame joined the owners of Lightning Burger, Yakiniku Q, and Ankorodō in planning Konoha’s annual eating competition, alternating responsibilities for giving out the grand prize. Because this year’s competition fell on Parent and Child Day, Ayame joined the owners of Lightning Burger and Yakiniku Q in pressuring the owner of Ankorodō – whose turn it was to award the prize – to give an especially lucrative offer to the competition’s winner. Ankorodō’s owner reluctantly agreed.

Trivia

• Her name can mean iris (菖蒲) or pattern (文目). However, it can also mean “to murder” or “to wound” (危め).
• Ayame first made her appearance in the series in a short omake, published in the first databook. Her first appearance in the actual manga was in chapter 238.
• During the omake from Naruto: Shippūden episode 62, she appears serving Chōji Akimichi food during a game show.
• During the Naruto: Shippūden ending 34, Ayame appears as a little girl, hugging Kushina Uzumaki while she was pregnant, suggesting she had some kind of relationship with Naruto’s parents.

References