naruto (manga)

Naruto (ナルト) is a manga and anime TV series by Masashi Kishimoto about a loud, hyperactive teenage ninja by the name of Uzumaki Naruto who constantly searches for approval and recognition. It was first published by Shueisha in Japan (in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine), and more recently Viz Communications have started publishing a translated version in the United States (in their own Shonen Jump, though they have so far only released five of the 27 volumes the manga currently stands at). ShoPro Entertainment, which announced plans to merge with Viz, licensed the anime for North American production. It has been announced that Naruto is to air in Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block in summer 2005.

Manga and Anime Details

The manga is released weekly and currently quite large- at over 200 chapters.(only forty-five of which are out in the U.S.) The anime is also ongoing and currently has over 127 episodes. Though it started quite a bit after the manga, it's quickly catching up since one episode usually covers around two manga chapters. In order to delay this the episodes generally tend to protract the manga chapters into great lengths with short bursts of energy-packed action, and sometimes filler is added to further prevent overlap. However, for the most part Naruto remains true to the manga. A new episode of the anime (animated by Studio Pierrot) is aired weekly in TV Tokyo in Japan during Japan's Golden Time slot- equivalent of prime time in the US- each Wednesday night at 7:27PM. The series has also spawned a movie by the name of "Naruto the Movie - Daikatsugeki! Yukihime Ninpocho Dattebayo!!" that takes place after the graduation of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura as genin and after the resolution of the chnin exam arc, and touches upon the past of Hatake Kakashi. Among older fans (usually detractors of the series), Naruto's length and popularity is often compared to Dragon Ball Z, another action-oriented shōnen series. This popularity was fueled by both people on the internet translating the Naruto anime and manga (see scanlation and fansub for more information about those practices) and by Viz's North American manga release. Another reason why Naruto is often compared to Dragon Ball Z is that some members of Naruto's large fanbase are inexperienced in using IRC (which is used to distribute fansubs) and thus are annoying to the normal users and chanops (channel operators). People who also often overhype Naruto are often called "Narutards".

Plot

Twelve years before the events at the focus of the series, the Nine-Tails Demon Fox -- or Kyubi (Kyūbi) -- attacked Konohagakure, the hidden village of leaf. It was a mighty demon indeed; the flap of a single tail of the Nine-Tails would raise tsunamis and flatten mountains. It raised chaos and slaughtered the people, until the leader of Konoha -- the Fourth Hokage -- defeated it by sacrificing his own life to seal Kyubi inside a newborn child. That child's name was Uzumaki Naruto. The Fourth Hokage (Yondaime) was remembered as a hero for sealing the Nine-Tails away, and he wanted Naruto to be remembered as a hero as well, but the village he grew up in had nothing less than contempt for Naruto, for they viewed him as nothing more than the demon fox that had killed their families and almost destroyed their village. Naruto grew up as an orphan, without friends or acknowledgment. He could not bring his parents back or force people to befriend him, so he sought acknowledgment the only way he knew -- by pranks and mischief. But that is soon to be changed. Naruto is about to face the ninja academy graduation exam -- a gateway to the events and people that will change and define his world and his ninja way for the rest of his life. Naruto maintains a balance between seriousness and frivolity, drama and comedy. It follows Naruto and his friends' personal growth and development as ninjas, and emphasized their interactions with each other and the influence of their backgrounds on their personalities.