The Naruto franchise features an impeccably designed world, with extensive detailing of its continents and the various nations that reside within them. While the primary focus of this worldbuilding always remained on the Five Great Nations, other lesser known nations were also given their due spotlight, with one nation even playing a significant part in the series’ overall plot – the Hidden Rain Village.
The Hidden Rain Village is situated in an unnamed nation, yet its strategic location allowed it to play a crucial role in shaping the Naruto world’s political landscape. The Village has also produced many exceptional shinobi, some that have even shaped the course of the entire shinobi world. Despite its significance, the nation had to endure a series of tragic events, leading to the village becoming internally destabilized and completely closed off from the outside world.
A Battleground for War
Much of the Hidden Rains tragic past originates from its location between three of the five great nations; the Land of Earth, the Land of Fire, and the Land of Wind. In almost every Great Ninja War, the Village Hidden in the Rain and its outskirts became a battleground for war and destruction, as the Great Nations wanted to avoid bringing chaos within their own lands. Being at the crossroads of the three nations, it was quite convenient to use it as a frontline for fighting off the enemy shinobi, all the while ensuring their own respective nations and villages were never harmed.
The war brought a lot of pain and suffering for the people of the Hidden Rain as well, since warring shinobi would loot and raid innocent civilian populations and kill any that showed resistance. This also gave rise to lost war orphans who were left to fend for themselves, as seen in the case of Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan. The overall state of affairs left from the wars turned an already weeping nation into a symbol of misery and anguish.
Hanzo’s Isolationist Policies
From the ashes of this war-torn nation came many exceptional shinobi who had witnessed the hardships their nation had to endure, prompting a will to rehabilitate their village. Hanzo of the Salamander was one such shinobi, who even became the leader of the Hidden Rain, albeit unofficially. Hanzo’s fighting prowess was renowned throughout the entire shinobi world, and his skills were said to be at Kage level, yet he was never able to achieve that title as the Hidden Rain was never stable enough to officially elect a Kage.
To protect his homeland, Hanzo came up with an isolationist policy, closing off the Village from every single outside entity. None were allowed to enter the Hidden Rain’s premises, and those that entered were kept under strict surveillance. He battled any enemy shinobi that set foot on his homeland, even wiping out an entire Hidden leaf platoon, sparing only the three Legendary Sannin. While his policy was intended to keep his own nation safe from external threats, it backfired as this left little room for peace talks and dialogue.
The Rise of the Akatsuki
A few war orphans that were trained by Jiraiya banded together to form their own peace organization known as the Akatsuki. Their intentions behind forming this group was to maintain peace in their nation, yet their means of creating this peace was through dialogue only. This unique notion spread rapidly throughout the Hidden Rain, prompting many shinobi to join the cause.
The Akatsuki’s success eventually reached Hanzo, who initially approved of their peace agenda, even going as far as calling them the Hidden Leaf’s gift. However, upon concerns of the Akatsuki’s growing support and Danzo’s manipulation, Hanzo feared that the group might overthrow his de facto government. Hanzo planned to assassinate the Akatuski’s leader in a bid to destabilize the organization altogether, which was partially successful as was able to kill off Yahiko. Unbeknownst to him, however, his actions gave rise to an even bigger threat that became his own undoing.
Pain's Complete Takeover
Upon Yahiko’s death, Nagato’s beliefs and ideals changed, viewing the world as a place of pain and suffering, which also reflected through the Akatsuki’s newfound goals and intentions. This gave rise to the persona known as Pain, who was actually being controlled by Nagato through his Rinnegan. After almost two years, when the Akatsuki had finally spread out, Pain killed Hanzo, and assumed leadership of the Hidden Rain Village.
The people of the village accepted Pain as their new leader, as he had brought an era of pain and misery to an end. He was also able to completely stop the rain that had long plagued the village, and rays of sunshine finally reflected off of the war-torn land, giving people a newfound hope. However, after Pain’s invasion of the Hidden Leaf Village, Nagato died and Konan took over, who was also later killed by Tobi when she refused to hand over Nagato’s Rinnegan. After Konan’s demise, the Hidden Rain Village remained leaderless, creating a power vacuum and sending the slightly rehabilitated nation back to the pits of misery and torment.