"Naruto," creator Masashi Kishimoto’s wildly popular weekly ninja series, is just weeks away from its final installment.
When "Naruto" made its debut in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, it’s doubtful that even the most optimistic editors at the magazine expected it to last as long as it did. Stories about a plucky warrior in training, who teams up with his friends (one he has a rivalry with, and the other he has feelings for) to face evil foes and overcome challenges had already been done by numerous other series before Kishimoto ever drew sketches of main characters Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura.
The devil’s in the details, though, and while readers may have seen the broad strokes before, the fine points of Naruto struck a chord with readers and drew them in. It has had such a strong hold on fans that the manga now stands at 694 chapters, with 70 collected volumes that have sold more than 130 million copies in Japan, and another 70 million overseas.
And now, after 15 years, it’s all coming to a close. Kishimoto announced two years ago that "Naruto" would be winding down, and this week publisher Shueisha announced that the manga’s 699th, and final, chapter will be published in the issue of Shonen Jump that hits newsstands on November 10.
Given that Kishimoto is just 39, it’s likely we’ll more manga from the artist after he takes a well-deserved break. Naruto and company aren’t going to immediately disappear altogether either, as there’s a new anime movie, "The Last – Naruto the Movie" scheduled for release on December 6. Shueisha has also promised some form of “Naruto entertainment” is coming in 2015.
But even though November 10 isn’t going to be a complete and final goodbye, it still marks a big change for fans who have become used to getting together with their ninja buddies once a week for the past decade and a half.
Sources: Shonen Jump, Asahi Shimbun
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22 Comments
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titaniumdi0xide
Yeah ! There's also a talk about the last movie coming near. I love Naruto. This series is one of my all time action anime and manga fav.
turbotsat
:(
Willie Be
Wow! Very sad. Naruto & One Piece are my favorite. If it does come to an end, thank you to Kishimoto san for a wonderful read.
Dennis Bauer
No more naruto? :(
Probie
I didn't know ninjas wore ski goggles and orange boiler suits.
CrisGerSan
Naruto is hardly the best of Anime and manga, it is a very basic and very boilerplate series that has seen almost zero real character development and the eternal crises of threat, danger, battle and victory has occurred in the story line countless times and the main Character Naruto remains as unpleasant and as immature as ever. But it has been a pillar and a good entry point for many beginning viewers and readers and for that we in the industry are grateful. We always hope that readers and fans will continue to explore further and beyond, for there is a vast universe of incredible anime and manga beyond Bleach, Naruto, and Studio Ghibli.
papigiulio
Hmm, never could get into Naruto nor One Piece for that matter, but 700 episodes is a LOT of drawing work, so respect to that.
Raymond Chuang
Truly the end of an era of manga given how few series can last this long. It's probably likely the final chapter is already finished and just waiting for its publication date.
Well done, Kishimoto-san. Enjoy your break and we'll await your newest manga series about 1-2 years from now.
titaniumdi0xide
Definitely getting the blue ray of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. It is one of the series that made me cry. The fight between Jiraiya and Pain made me so emotional. Even if you are not a fan, just watch those episodes "JIraiya vs Pain" and I guarantee you, you will cry out.
The anime has very good theme songs too. My favorites are from Ikimonogakari, Hotaru and Sign Flow.
Listen to those track and have a taste of Naruto. Such a beautiful anime!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvs4iWnXFjk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryFXPqwiKLg
I will miss Naruto!
Ken Kitsune
when the whole anime series finishes, i will buy all dvds and watch it all! I like animes with proper endings, unlike other animes that just wont seem to end!
Fadamor
Naruto was the first "true" manga I read in that it was the manga that trained me how to read manga "backwards". ;-) I did drop reading the series after a while and moved onto other things because it DID seem a tad repetitious, but Naruto will always hold the spot of "first" as far as my manga experience is concerned. It also introduced me to some common manga tropes such as announcing the name of your attack to the enemy before you actually deliver it. At the time it seemed odd to give your opponent such an advantage, but as my manga experience expanded I came to realize that it was expected by fans.
eatup
Are they simply stopping manga publication, or will there be a true ending where everything gets resolved like Inuyasha?
Jerel E Rogers
It's about time. Naruto has always had a slightly weak storyline, that just gets more and more tired over time. Then again, all shonen manga suffer from this problem. I'll stick with my Blood Alone mind you.
Fadamor
As the author has been "winding down" the series for the last two years, I would HOPE he concludes the story rather than just ending it.
Nenad Jovanović
@titaniumdi0xide
Its nice to hear people getting emotional about some things, and admit it openly, my respect for you . Bdw, I am also anime fan, but at first, I didnt wanted to watch Naruto, because I read in one anime review that isnt nothing special, so I avoided, but then it started airing in my country , I started to watch, because it was in that time one of the rare anime series that aired ( it was several years ago ) , so I watched and get in the part where Haku dies to protect Zabuza, and that episode was a slap in my face, I never seen before nowhere that someone could sacrifice his life to protect his friend , and I even stopped watching after that Naruto, I didnt had strength to continue , so it passed at least one year before I finally managed to start watching from where I stopped, that how that part of Naruto shaken me, of course , I must to say, as I am from Serbia, we are the only ones that changed the Haku genre into female ( yes, our dub treated him as female ) .
turbotsat
? Meaning using "she" instead of "he" to describe him in pronouns?
The Japan and USA dubbing were both done by women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Naruto_characters#Haku
Saiaku
Many years ago, my friends introduced me to anime through Naruto. I have watched it ever since, and expanding into other anime and reading manga. The fact that it is ending is not surprising, but it will be felt.
Nenad Jovanović
@turbotsat
Lots of anime male characters are voiced by the females , look at Naruto, he is also voiced by female , but that isnt the same as the fact that Haku ( male ) was changed into female in Serbia , here is the quote from this page http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Haku
And thats how I saw him, and believed until I watched the original version .
Fadamor
Manga/Anime characters can be annoyingly androgynous - ESPECIALLY in traditional garb that hides gender. There have been numerous characters in manga and anime where I thought the character was one gender only to find out the opposite was true.
turbotsat
Maybe the Serbian translators didn't like transvestites.
I kind of remember Naruto saying something like "Whoa!!! You're a boy!!!" but it's been a long time, maybe I'm wrong.
Nenad Jovanović
@turbotsat
Well, actually, my country is quite not good for those who are part of LGBT , and even our Patriarch Ilinej from Orthodox church openly speak against those population , and he describes them as cancer of the society , so the decision to make him a female was quite political .
And for part where he say " I am a boy " , I checked , in our dub, he also say the same line "I am a boy ( Ja sam decak )", but still, that line isnt to problematic because we had , in our Serbian history, a female that fought as a man in WWI , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milunka_Savi%C4%87 , so , we interpreted that as something quite logical for female fighter not wanting to be called a girl .
nath
one of the best Manga. I hate Sakura the most. lol