We have heard Kushina's back story, yet we have heard almost nothing about Minato's back story.

A few things we know:

- He is considered the greatest of the Hokage, and considering the group that includes it is saying something monstrous about him.
- He was ridiculously collective and calm as a child, despite his physical appearance as that of a weakling. This confidence/ability at a young age must have come from somewhere...
- He had multiple experiences with tailed-beasts (he developed Rasengan prior to his death facing off against Kyuubi, so he had to have had a confrontation/experience with a tailed beast prior to that. Since Kyuubi was sealed inside Kushina, it would have to be another of the tailed beasts unless he were to have Sharingan type abilities to see within the Jinchuriki to where they hold the tailed-beast and somehow learned about the beast bomb), meaning he was strong enough to survive an experience with a tailed beast and gain enough information to form an ultimate technique off the experience.
- He used time-space jutsu, with his skill being around the same level of skill as Madara and Tobirama, a good class of people to be compared with.
- He created the only jutsu (Reaper-Death Seal) that is nearly a complete mystery to the rest of the ninja world. Only Sandaime knew about it, but he referred to it as Yondaime's jutsu so he must have learned it from him, as he was said to have learned every jutsu.
- He had incredible foresight, I would say on the level of and possibly even past that of Itachi. To plan for the combination of justu with the beast bomb for his son, planting his chakra in Naruto if the 8th tail appeared and Kushina's chakra for when he tries to control the nine-tails, that takes foresight especially considering some of that was done on the spot while near death.
- He is said to be a once in a generation genius by Jiraiya, and this has been shown to be in many areas (foresight, creating justu, recognizing/diagnosing justu as he did with Kakashi, only one to find Kushina when kidnapped. I'm sure I am missing others)
- He was feared around the entire ninja-world so much so that entire armies were told to flee if they saw him on the battle-field
- Aside from him, we do not know of any other Namikaze in either Konoha or the rest of the world, which could be seen as a parallel between the Uzimaki clan whose heritage and culture, while living on in Naruto, ended with the death of Kushina. I say this as Naruto didn't know his parents, so didn't know of his Uzimaki background until he finally met his mother.


I'm sure this list isn't exclusive, but just what comes to mind. I'm curious as to how this is going to play into Naruto's story, whether it is somehow tied into the Rikudo Sennin. He clearly is on another level than almost all other ninja, and based off of the history of the Naruto world there has to be some reason for him being on this level.

I have a theory that he may be the only son of an uchiha and a senju having procreated, but given his limited backstory there is not much to support or deny this.