Ino Yamanaka of Naruto

Ino Yamanaka is a member of Konohagakure's Yamanaka clan. She and her fellow members of Team Asuma are their generation's Ino–Shika–Chō trio.

From a young age, her father, Inoichi Yamanaka, raised her to embody the meaning of the bush clover, which symbolises a blunt, candid love. She was raised to treasure the bonds that she has with her friends, which led her to become good friends with Sakura Haruno.

Ino is described as relatively cheerful but bossy to people, especially to her team-mates when they get in her way or when their behaviour annoys her. She is also very confident, kind, outspoken, and not afraid to speak her mind. Ino also takes a great deal of pride in her appearance, which is evident even during her younger days in the Academy. She also takes great effort to keep up as well as improve her appearance, as seen from her constant dieting to lose weight in the belief it will make her more attractive.

Ino is a fair-skinned girl of average height with green eyes (blue in the anime). Her most noticeable trait in her appearance is her long, pale blonde hair, which is always seen in a high-ponytail with bangs covering the right side of her face. In Part I, her hair reached down to her waist until she cut it during her fight with Sakura, and afterwards, she wore a bun. It is shown that when she was younger, she had short hair that went to just above her shoulders, with the bangs held back from her face by two blue barrettes. In later Part I appearances, Ino's hair had grown to shoulder-length. In a Part I flashback of Sakura's, she describes her as "stylish and cute".

In Part I, Ino was noted to be an exceptional kunoichi by Asuma. She was noted by her father to potentially become the greatest member of the Yamanaka clan. In Part II, Ino became a medical-nin and a chūnin, further showing her growth. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, she gained praise from her father on her improved skills.

Though making a few brief appearances earlier in the anime, like getting mad at Naruto alongside Shikamaru for having all of them perform a technique, and racing Sakura and their rivalry towards Sasuke, Ino made her début during the Chūnin Exams. When the Rookie 9 gathered up in a room for their first exam, she threw herself on Sasuke, saying that she had missed him, much to Sakura's dismay. During the first phase of the exam, she used her Mind Body Switch Technique to enter Sakura's mind and memorise all her test answers, then sent her mind into Chōji and Shikamaru's minds to give them the answers.

After Naruto left the village to train, Inoichi began training his daughter more extensively in the Yamanaka clan techniques to better continue its traditions. Growing discouraged at the prospect of this training taking years, Ino decided to skip her training, using Chōji's discharge from the hospital as an excuse. To her surprise, Ino learned that all her friends were spending much of their free-time training. Finally, Ino decided to ask Tsunde to train her. Tsunade agreed to take Ino on as a student under the condition that she first pass a resuscitating test within three months. Despite numerous failings, she was making steady progress, due in part to Ino's continued rivalry with Sakura, until finally succeeding. Now officially a student of Tsunade's like Sakura, Ino asked Sakura what made her take this path. Sakura simply said she wanted to be an equal team-mate on missions to her allies. Amazed at everyone else's determination to improve, Ino decided to stop worrying about the time it took to grow and began training more arduously.

Ino made her first reappearance shortly after Team Kakashi and Team Guy returned from the successful saving of Gaara, having come to retrieve Chōji for their mission with Asuma. Before that, Shikamaru, Chōji, and Naruto were fighting against the new face Sai. Chōji told Ino that they were fighting against a weirdo, to which she thought weirdo was being referred to Naruto. She called out his name, happy to see Naruto since she hasn't seen him for a very long time. She appeared again after Naruto and his team returned from their failed attempt to retrieve Sasuke. Kakashi was in the hospital, and Team Asuma went for a visit. Upon meeting Sai, she quickly became interested in him, also noting that he resembled Sasuke to Sakura. Sakura agreed, but told her that his personality is different, and not in a good way.