Mangekuo

Kakashi's personality is further emphasized by his generally lazy expression, aloof manner, relaxed voice, and minimalist attitude. In serious situations, however, he is shown to have a very stern and intense look. He is almost always seen in his Konoha ninja uniform, along with iron guard gloves reminiscent of his ANBU days. The cover page for chapter 16 also shows him wearing a chain necklace. Another noticeable feature to Kakashi, other than his unique left eye, is the thin scar running over it and down to his cheek. He is a tall, fit ninja, is characterized by his tall and spiky white hair, forehead protector regularly covering his scarred left eye, and his chronically visible mask. He was once mistaken by Chiyo for his father Sakumo Hatake, who he is considered to greatly resemble.

While it has yet to be revealed why, he has, since a young age, always been seen concealing the lower half of his face. What he looks like remains a point of interest for his students, who try to find out what he looks like in various omake specials in the series. Episode 101, which is devoted to Team 7 trying to remove their sensei's mask, and suggests that he is in fact very handsome, as seen from Teuchi and Ayame's reaction to seeing his face. In the few instances that he is seen without his mask, it has been seen that he has a narrow jaw-line; in these instances the parts of his face normally covered by his mask are obstructed from view.

Kakashi is the only son of Sakumo Hatake, also known as the "White Fang of Konoha". His mother apparently died when he was young. Kakashi has been known since a young age as an extremely gifted prodigy, regarded by many as the best of his generation. He had received top marks and had showed an innate aptitude for the ninja arts while in the academy. This permitted him to graduate from it in a single year at the top of his class at the age of 5, and then becoming a chūnin a year later. Despite his own success, his father fell into disgrace after choosing to save his comrades rather than complete an important mission, causing Konoha to suffer in the war effort. Dishonored, Sakumo took his own life after a deep depression and a drop in his skills, which caused Kakashi to lead his life strictly by the ninja code.
After graduating, Kakashi was then teamed with Obito Uchiha and Rin under the leadership of Minato Namikaze, the future Fourth Hokage. Kakashi's relationship with Obito and Rin was noted to be very similar to that of Sasuke's relationship with Naruto and Sakura respectively, as he is known as the indifferent genius who shared a complicated relationship with his team-mates, that later developed into a close friendship.

Team Kakashi, also known as Team 7, is a team led by Kakashi Hatake, which was formed after the members became Genin. The members were selected in order to balance out their talents: Naruto, the worst student in his graduating class, would benefit from Sakura's intelligence and Sasuke's proficiency with ninja skills. Sakura would similarly benefit from her more battle-capable team-mates, whereas Sasuke would benefit from being forced to work with others.

It was later revealed that Kakashi was chosen specifically to be the leader of Team 7, because of Naruto and Sasuke. Kakashi's duty, in addition to training the team, was also to keep the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox in Naruto contained, and to keep Sasuke from walking down a dark path, since they had similar traits that would allow Kakashi to better understand him.

When Sasuke defected from Konoha at the end of Part I, Team 7 was disbanded for the next two and a half years. The remaining members reformed as Team Kakashi at the start of Part II in order to go and rescue Gaara. After that mission was completed, Sai was added to the team as Sasuke's replacement under Danzō Shimura's suggestion, and Yamato briefly led the team when Kakashi was hospitalized. Although intended to be a temporary replacement, all of Team Kakashi's subsequent missions have been led by Yamato. According to Sakura, Team Kakashi also has the best teamwork with Team 10. The Yamato-led Team Kakashi, otherwise known as "Team Yamato", was later part of the Eight Man Squad led by a recovered Kakashi.

For the first half of Part II, the remaining members of Team 7 tried their best to bring Sasuke back to Konoha. They first track him to one of Orochimaru's bases, but he escapes. Later, with the help of Team 8, they try to intercept him in his search for Itachi, but they lose his trail. After this failure, Sasuke affiliates himself with Akatsuki and becomes an international criminal. Konoha decides to break ties with Sasuke because of this and Sakura and Kakashi separately attempt to kill him to prevent him from implicating the village in any of his future crimes. When Sasuke does not hesitate to try and kill them both during the first reunion of the original Team 7 since his defection, Naruto also concludes that Sasuke must be stopped. However, he insists that only he can fight Sasuke