Naruto: Why was Kakashi released from the Anbu?

Kakashi Hatake was a prodigy who joined the Anbu Black Ops at the age of 13 in the anime Naruto. He is the second youngest member to become part of this special group after Itachi, who joined at the age of 11.

However, Kakashi was removed from the Anbu Black Ops soon after the Uchiha massacre by the Third Hokage. This continues to surprise many fans, considering that the former was also very efficient in his work.

Additionally, Kakashi did not have any family left after his father's death. Therefore, nobody would have ever interfered with him even if he was involved in the worst of missions while being part of the Anbu.

Taking the aforementioned points into consideration, the article will investigate the reasons for his release from the Anbu.

---

Kakashi's dismissal from the Anbu in Naruto was to prevent another Itachi situation within the village

Before moving further, it is vital to mention that Itachi's incident and the Uchiha massacre was indeed the tipping point for Kakashi to be dismissed from the Anbu in Naruto. However, that was not the only contributing factor. There are a lot of other things that happened, which acted as a catalyst, that ultimately made Hiruzen Sarutobi go forth with this decision.

Kakashi was appointed as part of the Anbu by his sensei Minato Namikaze. This was done after Minato became the Fourth Hokage. The issue was that Rin's death had a negative impact on Kakashi's mind, and he was suffering as a result of it.

Thus, in order to protect him, Minato felt that Kakashi should be part of the Anbu to keep the latter's mind occupied with something else. However, that did not work out well as Kakashi became merciless and he killed several opponents in cold blood. As a result, Minato and Hiruzen decided that he should be asked to work as Kushina's personal bodyguard.

Unfortunately, the Nine Tails attack occurred, and Minato and Kushina both perished, so things did not turn out as expected. This had a negative impact on Kakashi's mental state even further. Nevertheless, he was invited to join Root, a special division under Anbu Black Ops.

Meanwhile, Danzo Shimura plotted a coup against Hiruzen Sarutobi. However, thanks to Kakashi, that mission failed, and Hiruzen asked the former to stay under his command in Anbu instead of Danzo Shimura.

The issue was that Kakashi had experienced so much up to this point in his life that he was unable to keep it all together. One of the main reasons he joined the Anbu Black Ops was to improve his mental health, but this objective was never accomplished.

In any case, Kakashi continued working as an Anbu and eventually met Itachi Uchiha, who also joined the group in Naruto. During this time, Hiruzen had dispatched Guy and Kosuke Maruboshi on a secret mission with Kakashi and Itachi as backups.

The mission was basically an ambush that prompted Kakashi and Itachi to take care of the accused. After this, Guy realized that Kakashi was not doing well. Thus, during this time, he asked Hiruzen to let go of Kakashi for the sake of the latter's mental well-being.

For the time being, Hiruzen did not do that, though an incident happened which prompted him to take action. Soon, the Uchiha massacre took place, where Itachi had to murder his entire clan in Naruto and flee the village. However, Itachi asked Hiruzen to also take care of Sasuke.

Following this incident, Hiruzen made the decision to relieve Kakashi of his Anbu responsibilities and have him work as a teacher for a genin team instead. This was due to the fact that Itachi, a prodigy as well, was used by Danzo Shimura to commit a horrific act.

The incident destroyed Itachi's life, which Hiruzen did not want to happen to Kakashi's. Given the events that had occurred and Kakashi's skill, it was inevitable that Danzo would go after the former within Naruto at some point.

Aside from that, the Anbu had become Danzo's personal team, which Hiruzen disliked. Thus, removing Kakashi was a wise decision on the part of the Third Hokage.