It is pretty apparent from the hints in the manga that Tsunade and Dan are Minato's mother/father. The reason i think this is true is because there are just so many hints shown in the manga and Data-book thats its almost undeniable. So i'll try and keep this short and post them in a list
1-Tsunade and Minato have the same exact blood type(B).
2-Dan and Minato graduated the Academy at the Same time(When they were 10) *not literally the SAME year
3-Tsunade and Minato Share the Same Hair Color(Blond)
4-Minato and Dan are around the same height and weight as each other(they are only different by a 3-4 in both categories)
5-Naruto and Nawaki(tsunade's brother) look nearly identical. Shows possibly a family resemblance
6-Its interesting that naruto always calls Tsunade Grandma Tsunade, which would be very ironic on kishi's part if it was true
Now that the basic comparisons are over here's the real big evidance
5-Madara suggest that the Hokage line has been kept in the Senju clan for years. When he talks about this their is a picture of the hokage mountain and it shows the fourth hokage's head on it. This implies that the Hokage position was still held by the Senju even during the fourth Hokage's time, which inturn implies that the fourth hokage is a Senju.
Where else would he get the blood from the Senju clan then Tsunade.
6-Tsunade passes down the hokage necklace to naruto which was set to stay in Tsunade's family and passed down in their family since the first hokage. Since there is a big deal made out of the necklace i think this implies that Naruto might be in Tsunade's family.
7-Yamato remarks about naruto's Chakra being special because he is able to hold off the power of the 4-tails w/o dieing. This might be because naruto is related to the Senju clan and thus his chakra has the same qualities as Shodai which helps to protect him from the kyuubi chakra
8-There is a great amount of symbolism between Shodai-Naruto and Sasuke-Madara. They stood on that statues of each other at the valley of the end(Naruto on Shodai's and Sasuke on Madara's). Many people thought this implied that Shodai is like naruto and sasuke is like Madara. But Sasuke is actually and Uchiha so i don't see why this wouldn't also imply that naruto is a Senju.
9-And i think this is the biggest telling piece of information eventhough some people might read the dialog differently then i did. Now remember the chapter where Jiriaya tells Tsunade that he is going to Ame to look for AL and they have Sake. Well when their discussion turns to minato alot of things bother me about the way Jiriaya talks to Tsunade.
First look at Tsunade's face when she says Minato-Namikaze on page 10 chapter 367 (
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)seems very sad about saying his name. Now this can be explained away by her just having been friends with him or something and being sad thinking about how he died, but it creates a very wierd mood for what happens next. First Jiriaya goes on to brag about Minato and what he was like and his amazing Genius.
Which let me say its weird that Jiriaya even brought up Minato at this point in the conversation because previously they were talking about how Tsunade has lost so many people in the past and about how she rejected Jiriaya's advances. Then Jiriaya seems to imply that he thought of Minato as a son and brags about him to which he says that if Minato had been his son he would have bragged about him constantly.
But what makes this suspect to me is he says i never had any kids of my own while looking at Tsunade and then says if Minato had been my kid...etc.. Doesn't this sound like what some one would say to a mother who lost their child...just replace minato with your son and doesn't the whole dialog seem right.
For example i will redo the dialog this way
"Tsunade you son had talent only seen once in a decade at best. He was a genius...No one like him has been born in awhile." "He was such a nice kid yet his guts and desire to succeed were the fiercest i have ever seen." "and in the blink of an eye he was our fourth hokage." "I never had kids so i don't know what its like, but if he had been my son i would have bragged about him all the time."
Now i want you to think about what kind of character Jiriaya is. He's the guy who failed all his life at love and he failed to Dan. Now think about it if Jiriaya had succeeded with Tsunade he would have been Minato's father instead of Dan. Its basically like Jiriaya is saying he always thought of Minato as his son because he could have very well been his father if it wasn't for a simple twist of fate. Basically that whole converstation made me think that Jiriaya was talking about Minato as if he was Tsunade's son and if you read the flow of that conversation from its start to finish with the idea that Minato is Tsunade's son alot of Jiriaya's jokes and ways that he talks makes alot of sense.
So whats my theory on how Minato is Tsunade's son. I think that Tsunade got pregnant by Dan a little bit before he went off on the mission that killed him. She also was doing missions because she didn't know that she herself was pregnant yet. After Dan Died she found that she was pregnant with his child which caused her to go even more into the depression that led her to leave the village. I think after Dan died she stayed in the village long enough to give birth to Minato and then she put him up for adoption and left the village.
Years later Jiriaya trained Minato because he loved Tsunade so much. Basically Jiriaya felt like Minato could have been his kid and he wanted to be a father to Tsunade's kid becuase of his love for her. So he trained Minato and they did gain a father son bond which later resulted in Jiriaya ironically becoming naruto's God Father. Tsunade probably never told Minato that he was her kid, but all the elders of Konoha knew because they knew she put him up for adoption as a baby, which made Minato a member of the Senju clan which helped increase his chances of becoming hokage.
The genius of kishimoto can truly be seen if this theory is true. For many reasons:
1-It will be important in naruto becoming a full pledge ninja because he might develop some of Shodai's power to allow him to control the demon fox or it might help explain why he is able to finally control the demon fox with his own chakra. It would also build up the tension between Sasuke and Naruto if naruto was a true Senju clan member.
2-It fit perfectly with the irony of Jiriaya's story/character. Jiriaya failed in love eventhough and Dan won out. Jiriaya could have been Minato's father, but he ended up becoming Minato's Sensei and Foster father figure anyway. Eventhough he failed in love with Tsunade he was still able to become part of Minato's family and even became naruto's God father.
3-It would fit perfectly with Tsunade's dynamic with naruto and her troubled past storyline. It would also be amazing if naruto did find out Tsunade was his grandmother right before she died. Also Tsunade would then be in a position to be the one to reveal naruto's entire lineage to him. It would also make sense why she was so willing to bet the necklace with naruto because he is part of the Senju clan as well
