14 Characters Who Are The 'Kakashi Hatake' of Their Anime
Not only is Gojo a teacher who leads a team of three young students at Jujutsu High, he's also an extremely powerful and competent sorcerer. Much like Kakashi, he has a nonchalant personality and a reputation for being a skilled fighter. However, Gojo is definitely more playful and optimistic than Kakashi.
Personality aside, Gojo's appearance reminds many fans of the Copy Cat Ninja. He has spiky, silver hair and appears to be quite tall and athletic. The biggest similarity is Gojo's blindfold. Instead of wearing a mask over his mouth, he wears one over his eyes.
The funniest thing about the comparison is that according to one source, Gege Akutami actually based Gojo's characters on a completely unknown Naruto character called Tonbo Tobitake. The physical similarity is definitely there, but if you go deeper there's another connection. Tonbo is Japanese for “Dragonfly” and Gojo can be seen wearing a yukata with dragonflies on it in one chapter…pretty neat!
Aizawa and Kakashi are so similar that there's a high chance that Horikoshi intentionally modelled Class 1-A's homeroom teacher after the leader of Team 7. Both of them have an "unprofessional" demeanor - they're both perpetually grumpy, they do things that aren't appropriate to do in front of students like sleeping in class (Aizawa) or reading adult literature (Kakashi), and they expel kids that they don't want to deal with instead of trying to teach them. But beneath their casually gruff demeanors, both men care deeply for their students and are willing to sacrifice their lives for them if necessary.
The reason they aren't totally professional all the time has less to do with not caring about their job and more to do with being exhausted from working too hard - and the reason for the constant expulsions involves not wanting to put children in dangerous situations that they know all too well.
Kisuke Urahara is a high-ranking, competent member of Soul Society with a complicated past that you wouldn't guess from his laid-back attitude and irreverent approach to mentoring Ichigo. Urahara also has his warped side - he and Kakashi could probably bond over the Icha Icha books no problem. But just like the Konoha jounin, Urahara is perfectly capable of getting serious when there's real danger afoot.
For those who focus on Kakashi's more laid back characteristics, Levi Ackerman might seem like an odd choice. But Kakashi's chill vibes are only a small part of his character - and the rest of it has a lot in common with Levi. Like Kakashi, Levi is at the top of his field - he's been fighting Titans since his teenage years, and his track record is beyond reproach. He's put in charge of trainee cadets, not because of any innate teaching ability, but because he's the best at what he does. Some of his methods are unorthodox, and he isn't always nice - but when a crisis hits he can be relied on to step in and save the day. Though he may not act like it, he genuinely cares for his cadets - just as Kakashi does for his in-training ninja.
Izumi Curtis is one of the most talented alchemists in the world - and she's also one of the harshest mentors a person could possibly train under. Kakashi might not be quite so aggressive, but he's every bit as exacting in his expectations for his students. Why do both of them go so hard? Because they know that the consequences for not doing so are absolutely dire. In Kakashi's case, he knows that his students will perish if they aren't fully trained for the wars ahead. Meanwhile, Izumi lost several organs while using alchemy improperly, and she wants to make sure her students leave their perilous path toward losing more than they already have.
Despite their attitudes toward education, both of them have silly, relaxed modes - whether it's Izumi cooing over her husband or Kakashi laughing to himself about one of Jiraiya's books, they aren't all business all the time - but when they are, watch out.
Gintoki is what you get when you make Kakashi ten times more twisted and twenty times more ridiculous, then make him the protagonist. Like Kakashi, Gintoki is a war veteran whose trauma makes it hard for him to to relate to other people. He often does things that other people think are totally inappropraite, weird, or immature - but when facing an actual threat, he'll go into samurai mode and fight to protect the people he cares about - kids who he's kind of adopted, but not really.
The people who Gintoki must protect his kids from are many, but primary ones are former friends who became his enemies thanks to some of the same terrifying warfare that Gintoki himself endured - which is pretty much exactly what Kakashi had to do when fighting Obito in Naruto Shippuden. Finally, and least important, both of them are relatively young, but have silver hair.
Koro-sensei and Kakashi are both teachers who instruct their students in the fine art of assassination - but the two actually have more in common than just their subject matter. Both of them began life as child soldiers living under truly gruesome conditions. Both developed personalities that hardened their hearts and distanced them from the people around them. But you'd never know any of this from how either character is introduced - both of them have laid back, silly attitudes toward teaching their students. That attitude completely disappears when it's time to get serious and protect the kids in their care.
Keishin Ukai might not have to prepare his charges for life-threatening battles like Kakashi does, but he approaches his high school volleyball team with the same combination of intense resolve and utter disinterest. He genuinely cares about the students on the Karasuno volleyball team, and will do whatever he can to help them improve their game - but he sure as heck isn't going to act like it. Most of the time, he complains about having to be there at all - just as Kakashi does when he has the responsibility for Team Seven thrust on him.
Hatake Kakashi wasn't into the whole teaching thing for its own sake - he wanted to find someone who could learn the specific techniques he'd honed over time. That's part of why he rejects so many students before arriving at Sasuke Uchiha, who not only possessed a sharingan and could be taught how to use it more effectively, but who could also use lightning chakra, Kakashi's specialty.
By virtue of age, Genkai is significantly more experienced in her craft than Kakashi is in his - but both of them are motivated to pass along what they know to a worthy student. To determine worthiness, both of them use tests with hidden intentions - Kakashi claims to be testing his students' ability to take bells from his hands, but what he's really focusing on is their teamwork. Meanwhile, Genkai eliminates half of the people competing to learn from her by "lottery" - really, she's using paper that detects spiritual power. Though both of them are great teachers to those they deem worthy, they have no interest in anyone who can't measure up.
Meme Oshino is introduced as Koyomi Araragi's mentor when it comes to all things supernatural. Without him, Koyomi would have been completely unable to handle his own transition into a vampiric lifestyle, and he'd have even less idea of what to do to help the girls he encounters with their supernatural problems. Meme makes it clear that while he's happy to help Koyomi for now, eventually he's going to have to figure things out for himself.
While Kakashi seems to feel a little more personal responsibility toward his students, he does want to get them to the point where they can function without him - in part because he has plenty of his own problems to deal with. Like Meme, Kakashi's past is shrouded in mystery and informs both his compassion for his mentees and his distance from them.
Ozen is a White Whistle - one of the few people capable of descending the depths of the Abyss, a process that takes the lives of most who attempt it. She manages the Seeker Camp, a base for people exploring the fourth layer of the Abyss and beyond to return to. She is a strict and terrifying person who believes in weeding out the weak through rigorous tests, because she knows from experience that most people who try to explore the Abyss will suffer immensely. While she refuses to admit that she's putting people off out of kindness, she is.
Kakashi expels an innumerable number of would-be ninja before ever letting them go through training. While part of his reasoning was a lack of interest in training anyone who wasn't Sasuke, he also didn't want to see any more unskilled ninja being thrown into the Konoha ninja machine - suffering pointless trauma the way that he and many of his friends did. While his demeanor is typically more cheerful than Ozen is, his role as self-appointed gatekeeper is much the same.
Both Reigen and Kakashi appear to be confident, functional adults who have their stuff together. To some degree, they do - nobody hustles like Reigen does, and Kakashi is one of the most powerful ninja in all of Konoha. Still, Reigen is a messy millennial who eats nothing but McDonald's and is lying about his psychic powers, while Kakashi hasn't even approached tackling the heaping helping of war trauma that informs his every action. Despite having a smooth veneer and a massive store of personal problems, both of them do their best to provide young people with advice and guidance. Sure, sometimes they have no idea how to help - Kakashi is much better at supporting his students in battle than he is helpng them through emotional issues, while Reigen has the opposite skill-set - but damn do they try their best.
Like Kakashi, Kai Shimada is an expert in his field who passes on his wisdom to someone younger and equally if not more talented. In Shimada's case, that field is shogi, a form of Japanese chess. While he helps the protagonist, Rei Kiriyama, to a degree, the primary focus of his mentoring is Harunobu Nikaidou, Rei's self-proclaimed rival. While he definitely provides insight into shogi strategy, he's also advising him on something more personal.
Both Nikaidou and Shimada have chronic health problems that interfere with their ability to play the game, and Shimada tries to help Nikaidou handle it. He doesn't handle it well himself - actually, he pushes himself to the point where he can barely function. If this reminds you of how Kakashi imparts vague advice to Sasuke about handling childhood trauma all while completely ignoring his own advice, that's because it's a less intense version of the same thing.
Kikuhiko is a master at rakugo - a form of Japanese storytelling. Over the course of his long career, many have asked him to take them on as an apprentice - but he refuses until Yotaro, a cheerful ex-yakuza member fresh out of prison - somehow manages to win him over. Even then, it's difficult - Kikuhiko's rakugo career has been a painful one, and he isn't exactly eager to revisit it. Rather, he wants rakugo to fade away when he does
Kakashi is a little less moody than Kikuhiko is, and he's a little more eager to pass on his skills - but that's because he knows his students need them to survive. He still has mixed feelings about it, and revisiting the past elicits a similar reaction from him that it does for Kikuhiko. If you want to know what Kakashi would be like in a literary anime that deep-dives into his psyche, watch Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu.
