naruto

Naruto (ナルト, Naruto^? romanized as NARUTO in Japan) is a manga by Masashi Kishimoto with an anime TV series adaptation. Its main character, Naruto Uzumaki, is a loud, hyperactive, adolescent ninja who constantly searches for approval and recognition, as well as to become Hokage, who is acknowledged as the leader and strongest ninja in the village.

The manga was first published in Japan, by Shueisha, in the 43rd issue of the Shonen Jump magazine in 1999. VIZ Media publishes a translated version in the American Shonen Jump, and has translated roughly a third of the series. Naruto has become VIZ Media's best-selling manga series.^[1]

The anime series, produced by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex, premiered across Japan on the terrestrial TV Tokyo network and the anime satellite television network, Animax from October 3, 2002 and is currently still being aired. Viz also licensed the anime for North American production. Naruto debuted on Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block on September 10, 2005, at 9:00 p.m. EST in the United States, and on YTV's Bionix on September 16, 2005, at 9:30 p.m. EST (since changed to 8:00 p.m.) in Canada. Starting on July 22, 2006, Jetix is showing the first 26 episodes of Naruto in the UK at 8.00 p.m. Starting on June 12, 2006, Cartoon Network began showing Naruto at 10:00 p.m. EST, Monday through Thursday, starting with the first episode.

Growth and popularity

The series' length and popularity is comparable to that of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball, another popular action-oriented shōnen manga. Naruto is the second-most popular ongoing shōnen series in Japan, behind One Piece. In fact, volume 7 of the manga has recently been nominated for a Quill Award for best graphic novel.^[2]

Since its creation, Naruto has spawned a large number of fansites that contain detailed information, guides, and active forums. Some of the first and most popular sites targeted at English speaking audiences were established shortly after the first English manga volume was released in August 2003.

Prior to the anime's North American debut in 2005, several scanlation and fansub groups translated the series and made it available for free download on the internet. Although many such groups stop once a series has been licensed, there are some that have continued to translate new Naruto episodes due to the extremely large gap between the English and Japanese versions. Indicative of Naruto's continued internet popularity are the episodes subtitled by the Dattebayo fansub group, which are downloaded over 100,000 times within the first couple days, almost always surpassing 200,000 downloads within their first weeks.^[3]

Like many other manga and anime titles, Naruto has also spawned its own collectible card game.

Anime details

See also: List of Naruto episodes and List of Naruto media

Although it debuted some time after the manga, the anime quickly caught up, since one anime episode usually covers around one and a half manga chapters. To prevent overlapping, the anime's producers tend to organize content from the manga chapters into long, uneventful sections followed by short bursts of action, sometimes adding filler content in between. Currently, in order to give the manga time to get ahead, the anime is only showing filler episodes.

The anime generally remains true to the manga, usually changing only minor details (causes of death, loss of limbs, and other injuries have been lessened in the anime) or expanding on parts skipped by the manga, such as the fight between Tenten and Temari. The filler arcs, though unreferenced in the manga (save for a few scant scenes), deal with the breaks between manga volumes, which covers a short period before the Sasuke Retrieval arc and several months before the time skip. The filler arcs tend to cover the supporting characters, occasionally giving insight into an otherwise rarely seen character.

New episodes, animated by Studio Pierrot, air weekly on TV Tokyo in Japan during the Golden Time slot (Japan's equivalent of prime time in the US). It will move to Thursday nights on October 5, 2006, which will begin with a ninety-minute special followed by a regular episode ^{citation needed]}. The series has also spawned three movies, Naruto the Movie, Naruto the Movie 2 and Naruto the Movie 3. The first two are available on DVD.

Anime filler episodes

By the time the Sasuke Retrieval arc ended in the anime (episode 135), the series was at a point where it was quickly gaining on the manga, its source material. At the conclusion of this arc, the anime immediately switched to anime-only filler episodes to allow the manga to broaden the gap once more. Most of the filler arcs are stand-alone stories, with a few being several episodes long.

English-language broadcast

On September 10, 2005, Naruto had its hour-long premiere in the U.S. on Cartoon Network's Toonami. The first episode of Naruto premiered in Canada on YTV on September 16, 2005. In Australia and New Zealand it premiered on Cartoon Network on September 27, 2006 at 6:00 p.m. AEST. Naruto is also available on Toonami Jetstream, Cartoon Network's broadband video service.^[4]

English localization

In its English anime release, Naruto was aired with a TV-PG rating in the US and a PG rating in Canada. References to alcoholism, Japanese cultural differences, mild language, mild sexual situations, and even blood and death remain in the English version, though reduced in some instances.^[5] The manga was edited in a similar fashion.

Plot overview

Further information: Plot of Naruto, Plot of Naruto II, and List of Naruto story arcs.

Twelve years before the events at the focus of the series, the nine-tailed demon fox attacked Konohagakure. It was a powerful demon indeed; a single swing of one of its nine tails would raise tsunamis and flatten mountains. It raised chaos and slaughtered many people, until the leader of the Leaf Village –- the Fourth Hokage –- defeated it by sacrificing his own life to seal the demon inside a newly-born child, whose origins are as yet unknown. That child's name was Naruto Uzumaki.

The Fourth Hokage was celebrated as a hero for sealing the demon fox away. He wanted Naruto to be respected in a similar light by being the containment vessel for the demon fox. The village he grew up in, however, mostly shunned Naruto; they regarded him as if he were the demon fox itself and mistreated him throughout most of his childhood.

A decree made by the Third Hokage made it so that the other villagers were forbidden to mention the event to anyone, even to their own children. However, this did not stop them from treating Naruto like an outcast. Although their children did not specifically know why their parents treated Naruto the way they did, they learned through example to despise the boy. As a result, Naruto grew up as an orphan in a lonesome atmosphere without friends, family, or acknowledgement. He could not force people to befriend him, so he sought acknowledgement and attention the only way he knew – through pranks and mischief. However, that soon changed after Naruto graduated from the Ninja Academy by using his Multiple Shadow Clone Technique to save his teacher, Iruka Umino, from the renegade ninja Mizuki. That encounter gave Naruto two insights: that he was the container of the demon fox, and that there was someone (Iruka and the Third Hokage, initially) who actually cared about him. His graduation opened a gateway to the events and people that would change and define his world and his way of the ninja for the rest of his life.

Naruto maintains a balance between drama and comedy, with plenty of action interspersed. It follows Naruto and his friends' personal growth and development as ninja, and emphasizes their interactions with each other and the influence of their backgrounds on their personalities. Naruto finds two friends and comrades in Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, two fellow young ninja who are assigned with him to form a three-person team under a very experienced sensei named Kakashi Hatake. Naruto also confides in other characters as well that he has met through the Chunin Exam. They learn new abilities, get to know each other and other villagers better, and experience a coming-of-age journey as Naruto dreams of becoming the Hokage of the Leaf Village.

Naruto places strong emphasis on character development. Almost all outcomes are a result of decisions, character, and personality; very few things happen just because of chance. At first, emphasis is placed on Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, who are the members of Team 7. However, other characters are developed, such as Kakashi, Guy, and Jiraiya, as well as Naruto's peers in the other Genin teams and other villages.

Several major villains came into play as well, the first being Zabuza Momochi, a missing-nin from the Hidden Mist Village, and his partner Haku. Later, in the Chunin Exam arc, Orochimaru is introduced as an S-Class missing-nin at the top of the Leaf Village's most wanted list. Later, a mysterious organization called Akatsuki begins to pursue Naruto in order to take the demon fox inside him.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in Naruto

Naruto has a large and colorful cast of characters, running a gamut of detailed histories and complex personalities and allowing many of them their fair share in the spotlight; they are also seen to grow and mature with the series, as it spans several years. Fittingly enough for a coming-of-age saga, Naruto's world constantly expands and thickens, and his social relations are no exception -- during his introduction he has only his teacher and the village's leader for sympathetic figures, but as the story progresses, more and more people become a part of his story.

The students at the Ninja Academy, where the story begins, are split up into teams of three after their graduation and become Genin, or low-class ninjas. Each team is assigned an experienced sensei, or teacher. These core teams form a basis for the characters' interactions later in the series, where characters are chosen for missions for their team's strength and complementary skills; Naruto's Team 7 becomes the social frame where Naruto is acquainted with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, and their sensei Kakashi Hatake, also called the "copy ninja" for copying thousands of ninja techniques with his Sharingan eye, forming the core of his world-in-the-making. The other three-man teams of his former classmates form another such layer, as Naruto connects with them to various degrees, learning of their motives, vulnerabilities and aspirations and often relating them to his own. The groups of threes are not limited to the comrades Naruto's age – groups in the story in general come in threes and multiples of three with very few exceptions.

Sensei-student relationships play a significant role in the series; Naruto has a number of mentors with whom he trains and learns, most notably Jiraiya and Kakashi Hatake, and there are often running threads of tradition and tutelage binding together several generations. These role models provide guidance for their students not only in the ninja arts but also in a number of Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideals. Techniques, ideals, and mentalities noticeably run in families, Naruto often being exposed to the abilities and traditions of generation-old clans in his village when friends from his own age group demonstrate them, or even achieve improvements of their own; it is poignantly noted that Naruto's generation is particularly talented.

Many of the greater lingering mysteries of the series are questions of character motives and identity. The legacy of Naruto's parents, the goals that guide Kabuto Yakushi, the objective of the mysterious organization Akatsuki and the identity of its mysterious leader – these are only a few of the fundamental unanswered questions of "who" and, by proxy, "why" currently at the core of the series. The story is remarkably character-driven; the theme of causality runs inherently throughout the series as characters reciprocate for their past actions and relationships. In this respect, characters' respective destinies are very much intertwined, and large emphasis is placed on comradeship and 'bonds' between the community or individual.

Character names often borrow from Japanese mythology, folklore and literature (such as the names borrowed from the folk-tale Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari), or are otherwise elaborate puns; often there is a noticeable influence of the story behind the name shouldered by the character.^[6]

References

External links

English

• VIZ Media's Naruto site (USA).
• Naruto Collectible card game site (USA).
• Shonen Jump's Naruto page (USA).
• Cartoon Network's Naruto page (USA).
• YTV's Naruto page (Canada).
• Manga Entertainment's Naruto microsite (UK)
• Jetix's Naruto page (UK)
• Naruto at the Internet Movie Database
• Naruto (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Naruto (manga) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Naruto Google directory.

Japanese

• Japanese Naruto webpage.
• TV Tokyo's Naruto page.
• Studio Pierrot's Naruto page.