Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto has some of the most incredible characters who have made quite an impression on the fans over the years. Being such a successful author, it goes without saying that his story has a wide variety of characters who fans love for different reasons.
While some, like Naruto Uzumaki, are unreasonably kind at times, others, such as Orochimaru are known to be extremely vile. Similarly, there are quite a lot of characters who have a petty side to themselves and they simply can't let the little things go.
Updated by Rei Penber on April 29, 2022: Masashi Kishimoto has introduced a plethora of unique personalities in Naruto. One of his biggest skills as a writer is to add great depth to his characters and let their personality define who they are. When it comes to petty characters in Naruto, Kishimoto has certainly written quite a few of them and, at times, their trait of pettiness has affected the plot in significant ways. Although this list goes over the 8 most petty characters in Naruto, there are certainly others who deserve a mention as well. With that in mind, we've expanded the list with two more such characters.
10 Sakura Haruno
Sakura Haruno is a character with many good and bad traits. She is someone who deeply cares for those close to her most of the time and would even risk her life for her loved ones without any second thoughts. However, Sakura also has a bad side and her pettiness is one of her biggest character traits. Usually, Sakura's petty side manifested with her Inner Sakura, where she didn't really care who she was talking to, friend or foe, and lashed out at everyone.
Sakura has, at times, wished bad upon her own friends, and been incredibly mean to people who were close to her. Thankfully, with time, her pettiness reduced a bit and she has, since then, been much more of a positive influence than a negative one. Regardless, Sakura is, undoubtedly, one of the pettiest characters in Naruto.
9 Izuna Uchiha
Izuna Uchiha was the brother of Madara Uchiha and lived way back during the Warring States era. As a member of the Uchiha clan, he was born with incredible power and skill. Despite being a kid, Izuna had killed several adults and shown that he, along with his brother, was destined for the peak of warcraft. Izuna held great power in his eyes and just like his brother, he awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan as well.
However, with the Mangekyo Sharingan comes a growing negative influence on the body and mind. Izuna's pettiness kept growing with time and he could never look past the differences between the Uchiha and Senju clans. He was dead set on revenge and even after he was injured by Tobirama Senju in a war, he made sure to use his brother to attack the Senju again by riling him and continuing his job in his stead.
8 Naruto Uzumaki
Although Naruto Uzumaki is one of the kindest characters in Naruto, he also has other traits that, in one way or the other, define who he is as a person. Pettiness isn't one of his biggest characteristics, but it certainly does define him to an extent.
Naruto Uzumaki's prank on Kakashi Hatake simply for being late is proof enough that he is, in fact, quite petty. At the same time, his constant need to one-up Sasuke Uchiha at trivial things once again goes to show that he's quite petty at times.
7 Deidara
Out of all the Akatsuki members, Deidara is definitely the pettiest of them all. When he was taken in by them, he continued to hold a grudge against Itachi Uchiha for being better than him.
He spent a significant amount of his time trying to perfect his "art" and get the better of everyone else who considered themselves an "artist" as well, even when his art was something as ridiculous as blowing things up. Deidara was also petty enough to take out the anger he held against Itachi on Sasuke when the two met.
6 Sasuke Uchiha
Just like Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke is a man of many great qualities like loyalty and fierce love. What defines his character the most is his role as a protector. However, back in the day, Sasuke was incredibly petty as well.
Sasuke always wanted to one-up Naruto Uzumaki perhaps even more than the latter wanted to do to him. At the same time, he never acknowledged Naruto's effort just because he didn't want to admit that he was an equal to him, or better than him. When Naruto and Sasuke fought on the roof of Konoha hospital, he realized that he was inferior to him and this only made him more annoyed with Naruto.
5 Madara Uchiha
Quite a few Uchiha are known to have been petty in the Naruto series and Madara certainly is one of them. Ever since his introduction, Madara was known to be a petty character who was known to hold grudges over trivial things. When he lost, he was unreasonably harsh on Hashirama Senju, and later, even when they joined hands, Madara banned the likes of Mu and Onoki from speaking Hashirama's name in his presence.
When Hashirama was made the Hokage, Madara failed to see the bigger picture and at some level, wanted power for himself, and this was enough for him to turn on his only friend.
4 Danzo Shimura
Danzo is certainly one of the most hated characters in the Naruto series and his actions have been nothing short of hateful over the years. At the same time, Danzo was an extremely petty character as well. In his attempt to get the better of Hiruzen Sarutobi, he went to extreme lengths.
In his mind, he was always protecting Konohagakure, however, he manipulated people for his own gain and to feel more important than Hiruzen at times. What's more, Danzo even stole Shisui's Sharingan and prevented him from stopping the Uchiha coup because it would take a certain degree of authority away from him and make him feel less special.
3 Tobirama Senju
The Second Hokage of Konohagakure, Tobirama Senju was a character with both good and bad sides. Although he did great things for Konoha, such as establishing the Academy, introducing the Chunin Exams, and creating the ANBU, he also had quite a few negative traits.
Perhaps the biggest one was his petty side. Tobirama was never able to let go of the past and never wanted to trust the Uchiha in his life simply because they were once his enemies. Even when the two lived in harmony, he tried his best to ostracize them and strip them of power because they held the Sharingan and he was simply too petty to let his grudges against them go, even when Hashirama begged him to.
2 Indra Otsutsuki
Indra Otsutsuki was the eldest son of Hagoromo Otsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths. Just like Sasuke Uchiha, Indra was quite a friendly and lovable character at first, however, with hatred, he grew into a very unlikable character. Indra always wanted to be the superior son and he cared about something as trivial as stature so much that he was ready to kill his own brother over it.
When Hagoromo declared Asura as his successor, Indra decided to attack both instead of accepting the decision just because he felt he knew better and thus couldn't let it go. A simple decision haunted him so much that he decided to reincarnate over and over again until he had killed his brother simply for being kind and strong.
1 Kaguya Otsutsuki
Kaguya Otsutsuki was, perhaps, the pettiest character in the world of Naruto, which isn't surprising, given that she's also one of the worst written ones. After Kaguya Otsutsuki ate the Chakra Fruit on earth, it is believed that her mind was corrupted and she wanted all power for herself.
When she had two children, Hagoromo Otsutsuki and Hamura Otsutsuki, Kaguya hated the fact that her chakra was present in them. At one point, she waged a war against them and all others who had chakra because according to her, it belonged to her alone. She could potentially have destroyed the entire planet just to reclaim a bit of chakra from her own sons, which is incredibly petty, to say the least.