vice's shutdown.

Besides the anime television series, Pierrot also developed 11 animated films
and 12 original video animations (OVAs). Other Naruto-related merchandise includes light
novels, video games, and trading cards developed by several companies.

Viz Media licensed the manga and anime for North American production and serialized Naruto in
their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The anime series began airing in the United States
and Canada in 2005, and in the United Kingdom and Australia in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
The films and most OVAs from the series were also released by Viz, with the first film premiering
in movie theaters. The story of Naruto continues with Naruto's son, Boruto Uzumaki, in Boruto:
Naruto Next Generations: Boruto wishes to create his own ninja way instead of following his
father's.

Naruto is one of the best-selling manga series of all time, having 250 million copies in circulation
worldwide in 47 countries and regions, with 153 million copies in Japan alone and remaining 97
million copies elsewhere. It has become one of Viz Media's best-selling manga series; their
English translations of the volumes have appeared on USA Today and The New York
Times bestseller list several times, and the seventh volume won a Quill Award in 2006.
Reviewers praised the manga's character development, storylines, and action sequences,
though some felt the latter slowed the story down. Critics noted that the manga, which has
a coming-of-age theme, makes use of cultural references from Japanese
mythology and Confucianism.

Plot
Part I
See also: List of Naruto chapters (Part I)
A powerful fox known as the Nine-Tails attacks Konoha, the hidden leaf village in the Land of
Fire, one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries in the Ninja World. In response, the leader of
Konoha and the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, at the cost of his life, seals the fox inside the
body of his newborn son, Naruto Uzumaki, making him a host of the beast.[i] The Third
Hokage returns from retirement to become the leader of Konoha again. Naruto is often scorned
by Konoha's villagers for being the host of the Nine-Tails. Due to a decree by the Third Hokage
forbidding any mention of these events, Naruto learns nothing about the Nine-Tails until 12 years
later, when Mizuki, a renegade ninja, reveals the truth to him. Naruto defeats Mizuki in combat,
earning the respect of his teacher, Iruka Umino.[ii]

Shortly afterward, Naruto becomes a ninja and joins with Sasuke Uchiha, against whom he often
competes, and Sakura Haruno, on whom he has a crush, to form Team 7, under an
experienced sensei, the elite ninja Kakashi Hatake. Like all the ninja teams from every village,
Team 7 completes missions requested by the villagers, ranging from doing chores and being
bodyguards to performing assassinations.

After several missions, including a major one in the Land of Waves, Kakashi allows Team 7 to
take a ninja exam, enabling them to advance to a higher rank and take on more difficult missions,
known as Chunin Exams. During the exams, Orochimaru, a wanted criminal, invades Konoha
and kills the Third Hokage for revenge. Jiraiya, one of the three legendary ninjas, declines the
title of Fifth Hokage and searches with Naruto for Tsunade whom he chooses to become Fifth
Hokage instead.

During the search, it is revealed that Orochimaru wishes to train Sasuke because of his powerful
genetic heritage, the Sharingan.[iii] After Sasuke attempts and fails to kill his older brother Itachi,
[iv]
who had showed up in Konoha to kidnap Naruto, he joins Orochimaru, hoping to gain from him
the strength needed to kill Itachi. The story takes a turn when Sasuke leaves the village:
Tsunade sends a group of ninja, including Naruto, to retrieve Sasuke, but Naruto is unable to
persuade or force him to come back. Naruto and Sakura do not give up on Sasuke; Naruto
leaves Konoha to receive training from Jiraiya to prepare himself for the next time he encounters
Sasuke, while Sakura becomes Tsunade's apprentice.

Part II
See also: List of Naruto chapters (Part II, volumes 28–48) and List of Naruto chapters (Part II,
volumes 49–72)
Two and a half years later, Naruto returns from his training with Jiraiya. The Akatsuki starts
kidnapping the hosts of the powerful Tailed Beasts. Team 7 and other Leaf ninja fight against
them and search for their teammate Sasuke. The Akatsuki succeeds in capturing and extracting
seven of the Tailed Beasts, killing all the hosts except Gaara, who is now the Kazekage.
Meanwhile, Sasuke betrays Orochimaru and faces Itachi to take revenge. After Itachi dies in
battle, Sasuke learns from the Akatsuki founder Tobi that Itachi had been ordered by Konoha's
superiors to destroy his clan to prevent a coup; he accepted, on the condition that Sasuke would
be spared. Devastated by this revelation, Sasuke joins the Akatsuki to destroy Konoha in
revenge. As Konoha ninjas defeat several Akatsuki members, the Akatsuki figurehead
leader, Nagato, kills Jiraiya and devastates Konoha, but Naruto defeats and redeems him,
earning the village's respect and admiration.

With Nagato's death, Tobi, disguised as Madara Uchiha (one of Konoha's founding fathers),
announces that he wants to capture all nine Tailed Beasts to cast an illusion powerful enough to
control all humanity and achieve world peace. The leaders of the five ninja villages refuse to help
him and instead join forces to confront his faction and allies. That decision results in a Fourth
Shinobi World War between the combined armies of the Five Great Countries (known as the
Allied Shinobi Forces) and Akatsuki's forces of zombie-like ninjas. The Five Kage try to keep
Naruto, unaware of the war, in a secret island turtle near Kumogakure (Hidden Cloud Village),
but Naruto finds out and escapes from the island with Killer Bee, the host of the Eight-Tails. At
that time, Naruto—along with the help of Killer Bee—gains control of his Tailed Beast and the
two of them head for the battlefield.

During the conflict, it is revealed that Tobi is Obito Uchiha and not Madara as he claimed. Obito
is a former teammate of Kakashi's who was thought to be dead. The real Madara saved Obito's
life, and they have since collaborated. As Sasuke learns the history of Konoha, including the
circumstances that led to his clan's downfall, he decides to protect the village and rejoins Naruto
and Sakura to thwart Madara and Obito's plans. However, Madara's body ends up possessed
by Kaguya Otsutsuki, an ancient princess who intends to subdue all humanity. A reformed Obito
sacrifices himself to help Team 7 stop her. Once Kaguya is sealed, Madara dies as well. Sasuke
takes advantage of the situation and takes control of all the Tailed Beasts, as he reveals his goal
of ending the current village system. Naruto confronts Sasuke to dissuade him from his plan, and
after they almost kill each other in a final battle, Sasuke admits defeat and reforms. After the war,
Kakashi becomes the Sixth Hokage and pardons Sasuke for his crimes. Years later, Kakashi
steps down while Naruto marries Hinata Hyuga and becomes the Seventh Hokage, raising
the next generation.

Production
Development
In 1995, Shueisha released Karakuri, a one-shot manga by Masashi Kishimoto that earned an
honorable mention in the Hop Step Award in 1996. Kishimoto was unsatisfied with his
subsequent drafts for a follow-up, and decided to work on another project. [2] The new project was
originally going to feature Naruto as a chef, but this version never made it to print. Kishimoto
originally wanted to make Naruto a child who could transform into a fox, so he created a one-shot
of Naruto for the summer 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump based on the idea.[3][4] Despite the positive
feedback it received in a readers' poll, Kishimoto was unhappy with the art and the story, so he
rewrote it as a story about ninjas.[5]
The first eight chapters of Naruto were planned before it appeared in Weekly Shōnen Jump, and
these chapters originally devoted many panels of intricate art to illustrating the Konoha village.
By the time Naruto debuted, the background art was sparse, instead emphasizing the characters.
[5]
Though Kishimoto had concerns that chakra (the energy source used by the ninjas in Naruto)
made the series too Japanese, he still believed it is an enjoyable read.[6] Kishimoto is a fan
of Godzilla, and the tailed beasts mythology was introduced because Kishimoto wanted an
excuse to draw monsters.[7] He has said that the central theme in Part I of Naruto is how people
accept each other, citing Naruto's development across the series as an example. [8]

For Part II of the manga, Kishimoto tried to keep the panel layouts and the plot easy for the
reader to follow, and avoid "overdo[ing] the typical manga-style".[9] He considers that his drawing
style has changed from "the classic manga look to something a bit more realistic." [9] Because of
wishing to end the arc involving Sasuke Uchiha's search for his brother, Itachi, in a single
volume, Kishimoto decided that volume 43 should include more chapters than regular volumes.
As a result, Kishimoto apologized to readers for this since volume 43 was more expensive than
regular volumes.[10]

Characters
Main article: List of Naruto characters
When he created Naruto, Kishimoto looked to other shōnen manga as influences for his work
and tried to make his characters unique, while basing the story on Japanese culture. [11] The
separation of the characters into different teams was intended to give each group a particular
flavor. Kishimoto wanted each member to have a high level of aptitude in one skill and be
talentless in another.[12] He found it difficult to write about romance, but emphasized it more
in Part II of the manga, beginning with volume 28.[8] He introduced villains into the story to have
them act as a counterpoint to his characters' moral values and clearly illustrate their differences.
[13]
As a result of how the younger characters were significantly weaker than the villains,
Kishimoto made the ellipsis in order to have them age and become stronger during this time.[14]

Setting
Kishimoto made use of the Chinese zodiac tradition, which had a long-standing presence in
Japan; the zodiac hand signs originate from this.[6] When Kishimoto was creating the primary
setting of the Naruto manga, he concentrated initially on the designs for the village of Konoha.
The idea of the setting came to him "pretty spontaneously without much thought", but admits that
the scenery became based on his home in the Japanese prefecture of Okayama. Since the
storyline does not specify when it is set, he was able to include modern elements in the series
such as convenience stores.[15] He considered including automobiles, planes and simple
computers, but excluded projectile weapons and vehicles from the plot.[15][16]

Conclusion
Masashi Kishimoto's home was close to Hiroshima where his grandfather lived. He would often
tell his grandson stories of war and how it was related to grudges. In retrospect, Kishimoto
commented he could not criticize anyone as a result of the war based on it was built. [clarification
needed]
Upon further researching, Kishimoto decided to create world war story arc for the manga's
finale. However, unlike the stories he heard from his grandfather, Kishimoto wanted to give the
war covered in Naruto a more hopeful feeling.[17] Nagato's arc paved the way for the ending
of Naruto to occur. Nagato stood out as a villain due to suffering war and killing Naruto's mentor
Jiraiya. Understanding the fears of war, Naruto's characterization was made more complex for
him to experience the Fourth Great Shinobi War. These events end with Naruto forgiving Sasuke
as he had forgiven Nagato in the final battle.[14]

Due to unknown issues, the series' finale was delayed. Once volume 66 was released, Kishimoto
commented he reached a moment from the narrative involving something he always wanted to
draw.[18] When serialization began, Kishimoto decided the ending would feature a fight between
two characters: Naruto and Sasuke. However, the writer felt the two were not equals as the
former was not a victim of war like the latter whose family was killed to stop a possible civil war. [19]

Kishimoto chose Hinata Hyuga as Naruto's romantic partner from the early stages of the manga,
since Hinata had always respected and admired Naruto even before the series' beginning, and
Kishimoto felt this meant the two of them could build a relationship. [20] When Hinata first
appeared, Kishimoto thought of expanding romantic plotlines.[21][22] but decided to leave Naruto's
maturation through romance as an idea for the film 2014 The Last: Naruto the Movie where he
worked alongside screenwriter Maruo Kyozuka, a writer more skilled at the theme of romance.
[23]
Similarly, the title character's relationship with his first son, Boruto, was explored furthermore
in the 2015 film Boruto: Naruto the Movie to end Naruto's growth as the character had become
an adult, but it was briefly shown in the manga's finale.[24]

Media
Further information: List of Naruto media

Manga
Main article: List of Naruto volumes
Written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto was serialized for a 15-year run
in Shueisha's magazine, Weekly Shōnen Jump from September 21, 1999,[25][26] to November 10,
2014.[27][28] Shueisha collected its chapters in 72 tankōbon volumes—27 for Part I, and the rest for
Part II; they were released between March 3, 2000,[29] and February 4, 2015.[30] The first 238
chapters are Part I and constitute the first section of the Naruto storyline. Chapters 239 to 244
include a gaiden (side-story) focusing on Kakashi Hatake's background. The remaining chapters
(245 to 700) belong to Part II, which continues the story after a 2+1⁄2-year gap in the internal
timeline. Shueisha have also released several ani-manga tankōbon, each based on one of
the Naruto movies,[31] and has released the series in Japanese for cell-phone download on their
website Shueisha Manga Capsule.[32] A miniseries titled Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the
Scarlet Spring,[b] centered on the main characters' children, began serialization in the Japanese
and English editions of Weekly Shōnen Jump on April 27, 2015, and ended after ten chapters on
July 6 of the same year.[33][34]
Naruto was scanlated (translated by fans) and available online before a licensed version was
released in North America;[35] the rights were acquired by Viz Media, who began
serializing Naruto in their anthology comic magazine Shonen Jump, starting with the January
2003 issue.[36] The schedule was accelerated at the end of 2007 to catch up with the Japanese
version,[37] and again in early 2009, with 11 volumes (from 34 to 44) appearing in three months,
after which it returned to a quarterly schedule.[38] All 27 volumes of Part I were released in a
boxed set on November 13, 2007.[39] On May 3, 2011, Viz started selling the manga in an
omnibus format with each book containing three volumes.[40]

The franchise has been licensed in 90 countries, and the manga serialized in 35 countries. [41]
[42]
Madman Entertainment began publishing Naruto volumes in Australia and New Zealand in
March 2008 after reaching a distribution deal with Viz Media.[43] Carlsen Comics has licensed the
series, through its regional divisions, and released the series in German and Danish. [44] The
series is also licensed for regional language releases in French and Dutch by Kana,[45] in Polish
by Japonica Polonica Fantastica,[46] in Russian by Comix-ART,[47] in Finnish by Sangatsu Manga,
[48]
in Swedish by Bonnier Carlsen,[49] and Italian by Panini Comics.[50]

Spin-offs
A spin-off comedy manga by Kenji Taira, t