Gaara Shura

Gaara, by Ben Seery.

Gaara is the son of the Fourth Kazekage and the younger brother of Temari and Kankuro. Because of Sunagakure's decreases in funds, Gaara's father ordered Chiyo to seal the One-Tailed Shukaku within Gaara during his birth in the hopes that he would become the ultimate weapon for the village. Because a sacrifice was needed, Gaara's mother, Karura, was used. Before she died, Karura cursed Sunagakure, hoping Gaara would avenge her death.
Gaara was trained by his father, but raised mainly by his uncle, Yashamaru. Because of the power of Shukaku, the villagers of Sunagakure hated and feared Gaara, seeing him only for the monster sealed within him. For a time, Yashamaru seemed to be the only person who cared about Gaara. When Gaara would mistakenly harm others due to the subconscious abilities granted to him by Shukaku, Yashamaru would be the only one who understood that Gaara hadn't intended to harm anyone. Gaara's father, however, did not see Gaara in the same light, and viewed Gaara's frequent attacks upon villagers as a result of a failed experiment that was a threat to the village.
Because of the danger Gaara imposed, his father began sending assassins to kill him, though when all attempts met with failure, the Kazekage asked Yashamaru to kill Gaara. As a result, Yashamaru tried to assassinate Gaara, though Gaara's abilities defeated Yashamaru with ease, saddening Gaara. Although Gaara tried to dismiss Yashamaru's attack as an order of the Kazekage, Yashamaru corrected him by saying that he had willingly accepted the mission. Having never truly loved Gaara, Yashamaru hoped that killing Gaara would avenge the death of his sister, who had named Gaara after the phrase "a self-loving carnage" (我を愛する修羅, Ware wo ai suru shura?), a sign of her hate for Gaara. In a last ditch effort to kill Gaara, Yashamaru detonated a number of explosive tags covering his body, asking Gaara to, "Please die." Gaara survives the blast and loses the only person he thought had cared for him.
While Gaara had initially tried to be friendly towards others despite their fear of him, Yashamaru's actions and words changed Gaara. Realizing that nobody loved him, Gaara used his sand to create the kanji on his forehead (愛, "Love") as a symbol of a "demon loving only himself". Gaara became emotionally withdrawn, all but silent, and consumed with a bitter loathing for everyone but himself. He learned to find pleasure and eventually a reason to live in annihilating the numerous assassins sent to kill him – and by extension, anyone who threatened his existence. Gaara's insomnia, forced upon him by the fear that the demon inside him would eat away at his personality if he were to fall asleep, only furthered his instability and desire to kill. In time, Gaara's father would come to appreciate Gaara and the uses he could serve, and canceled all assassination orders in the hopes that Gaara would become an effective tool.
Gaara's childhood was somewhat similar to Naruto Uzumaki's, albeit more unfortunate due to his lack of anyone to call a friend. Both were lonely and desired to be liked, loved, and acknowledged as an individual, free of others' prejudices — they are themselves, not the demons they were forced to "contain" — and both were driven into a desperate state. While Naruto consequently developed the misconception that pranks and mischief would bring him the attention he sought, Gaara came to the conclusion that he could preserve and confirm his own existence by killing any and all who challenged it, securing an extreme form of existentialism as his key personality trait. In the absence of others' acknowledgment, he could compensate by valuing only himself to the exclusion of everyone else. Furthermore, while Naruto eventually had Iruka Umino and Team 7 to acknowledge him, Gaara never had anyone to bond with and did not understand the concept of fighting for anything other than himself until his confrontation with Naruto.

Gaara and Shukaku