Now about the Akatsuki organization. As you all notice, the member of Akatsuki wears wired coat, manicure, the forehead protector with scratch, and a ring (well, it may be only Itachi and Kisame...). The ring has one Kanji, each different.
The one Itachi wearing has , Kisames has and one that Orochimaru has (or at least the hand Orochimaru owns...) has .
(Shu) means red (slightly yellowish red)
(Minami) means South
(Sora) means sky.
But those Kanjis are widely considered to be from AzｹE (OnmyoDou Kuji), Nine sing of Onmyodou. It is hard for me to explain what is Onmyo (Onmyo-ji, Onmyo-dou). It was kind of magic thousands years ago. Well, they want to call it science.
Also, the number 9 in Onmyo-dou means the most extreme/expert. And the number 9 is the number of Akatsuki organization (before Orochimaru left).
Anyway, the Kuji, literally means nine characters.
As always, the concept and things came from China. It may be called and used differently in China or other Asian countries. But here Im talking in Japanese way. And since Im not too familiar with all those things, Im talking about basic general concept.
The Nine Kaji are:
uﾕAｺAｬAﾒAFAﾂAAﾝAOv
(Rin) ﾒ､ (Pyou) ﾆ､ (Tou) ｵ (Sha) ｩ｢ (Kai) ｶ (Jin) ﾂ (Retsu) ｴ｢ (Zai) ｺ(Zen).
Those nine characters means uﾕﾟｺAｬ､ﾒAwjﾄOﾉﾝv(Nozomeru Hei, Tatakau Mono, Jin Yaburete Mae ni Ari), which is something like we have the back up of Gods and you wont beat us, kind of thing.
Anyway, people used those with some hand sings to curse or to protect from evils or bad karma (some still do this).
It is said that Iga Ninja used this Kuji before the battle to concentrate, as well as did this everyday. So this is something to do with Ninja.
Now, you see theres no Kanji like in this nine Kanjis. That is because there are another Kuji in Onmyo-dou. Think that Onmyo-do had two major powers (like Democratic and Ripablic). One was led by Abeno Semiei and the other was by Ashiya Doman. The one above was commonly used among Seimei people, the one has (below) was used by Doman people. Even though Kaji are different, they are supposed to be for the same thing.
Anyway, the Kanji of the Akatsukis ring are from:
ﾂｴiｹ｢､,Seiryuj
ﾕiﾑﾁｱ, Byakkoj
iｷｴｭ, Susakuj
ｺiｰﾔ, Genbuj
ﾂiｭ､ｿ, Kuchinj
liﾈｶ, Nanjuj
kliﾙｭﾆ, Hokutoj
Oiｳｽ｢, Santaij
ﾊiｬｭﾉ, Gyokunyoj
Those are, as far as I know, names of Gods in China (or some chinese story). First four are fames for Guardian of Directions. Seiryu is for East, hence Spring. Susaku is for South, summer. Byakko is for West, fall. Genbu is for North, winter.
Anyway, as you can see, the first Kanji of above matches with the Kanji on rings of Akatsuki people.
