He also spent a great deal of his time tending to the clan's deer. Since Shikamaru became a chūnin, Shikaku had taken a greater interest in his son's training and started teaching him the clan's more secret techniques. He instead encouraged Shikamaru to do what he thought was best. It was also revealed that he was amongst the few parents who did not order his son to stay away from Naruto Uzumaki. During the Konoha Crush he had no qualms about choking the Suna shinobi to death, even when one of them was clearly cowering. Unlike his son, his resolve was much stronger, as even during the most depressing or dangerous of situations, he had been shown to maintain great determination and understanding, as shown from how he had repeatedly helped Shikamaru regain his sense of worth. Like his son, he thought that women should be tender and sweet, but, as his son says, his wife had him "whipped", though he appeared to have a few things hidden away that he did not want her to see. In the anime, when he was first seen, he was portrayed as a bit of an alcoholic, and, at times, used some of Shikamaru's catchphrases ( "What a drag" in English and "How troublesome" in Japanese). He wondered if it was Minato who had deflected the Nine-Tails' Tailed Beast Ball. During the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's Attack, Shikaku and his team-mates assisted in the village's defence. Anticipating the Iwa shinobi to turn hostile, the meeting was strategically held at the borderline of the Land of Wind, knowing that the Fourth Kazekage would oversee the meeting should a battle breakout on his land. In the anime, nearing the end of the Third Shinobi World War, his team was assigned to deliver a request for a peace treaty between the Konoha and Iwa. When he became a genin, Shikaku was partnered with Chōza Akimichi and Inoichi Yamanaka.