×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

The List
6 Things You Might Not Know About Masashi Kishimoto

by Lynzee Loveridge,


Masashi Kishimoto ended his main Naruto manga after 15 years of serialization in November 2014. The manga and its equally popular anime series introduced a whole generation to the medium, not unlike Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon before it. The anime remains ongoing, and a subsequent series of epilogue novels are also getting their own anime adaptation. The era of Naruto isn't quite over yet, but Kishimoto has moved on to his soon-to-be-announced next project. What kind of person is the creator behind the Naruto phenomenon? Find out more in this week's The List.

6. Masashi Kishimoto is a twin—and his brother makes manga too Masashi Kishimoto was born November 8, 1974 and is the older twin of Seishi Kishimoto. The two shared a common interest in anime and manga, both growing up watching Kinnikuman and Dragon Ball. Their mutual interest didn't stop there, as both became manga artists with similar art styles. The older brother penned the internationally beloved Naruto, while the younger brother created O-Parts Hunter and Sukedachi 09.


5. Akira led Kishimoto to become a mangaka Katsuhiro Ōtomo's Akira manga can be credited for introducing many Americans to manga. The anime film is also responsible for reigniting Kishimoto's interest in manga. In high school at the time, Kishimoto had taken a break from drawing in favor of baseball and other sports. However, after seeing a poster for the anime film in the late 80s, he took up the pen again. Kishimoto has since credited Otomo's work as a major influence ever since.


4. Naruto's favorite ramen shop is real It comes as no surprise that Kishimoto's favorite food is ramen. He passed this love onto his main character, who is himself named after a ramen ingredient. How much does Naruto's love of ramen mirror Kishimoto? Well, it so happens that the character's favorite in-series restaurant Ichiraku also exists in real life! Kishimoto frequented a ramen shop with the same name during his years at Kyushu Sangyo University.


3. Kishimoto is a Gundam fan Outside of Kinnikuman, Akira, and Doraemon, Kishimoto is also a fan of Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise's Gundam mecha franchise. He spent a considerable amount of time in his childhood drawing characters from the shows. His love affair would continue into adulthood and the world of Naruto. The ninja Kakuzu's techniques are named after mecha, for instance his jiongu attack is taken from the MSN-02 Zeong, the zukokku attack from Z'Gok, the gian attack from YMS-15 Gyan, etc.


2. Kissing is embarrassing Plenty of fans were invested in the romantic lives of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, so Kishimoto had more than his fair share of fun teasing fans about it. That said, when it gets right down to it, the creator of these characters had trouble pulling the trigger when it came to PDA. Kishimoto admitted that it was due to his own embarrassment when it comes to writing romance. A glance at the epilogue chapter of the manga shows this to be true, with the main official pairings spending very little time together on the page. This was rectified with The Last -Naruto the Movie-, but Kishimoto stated again that he wasn't sure he'd even be able to watch the film's kissing scene.


1. Kishimoto is worth approximately US$20 million After running for nearly 15 years, spawning a still ongoing television anime, films, video games, and piles of merchandise, Naruto has earned its creator a net worth of approximately US$20 million. He joins the millionaire mangaka ranks alongside Eiichiro Oda, Akira Toriyama, Rumiko Takahashi, Yoshihiro Togashi, Naoko Takeuchi and Takeshi Konomi.





The new poll: Who would you cast as the main character in a live-action Naruto film?

The old poll: Which of the brand-new Pokémon starters are you going to choose when Sun & Moon are released? Looks like the owl is the most popular (by a hair) among ANN readers over all, however Litten was actually more popular among males and those identifying as other/neither/both and Rowlet among females.

  1. Rowlet 39.6%
  2. Litten 38.8%
  3. Popplio 14.6%

When she isn't compiling lists of tropes, topics, and characters, Lynzee works as Managing Interest Editor for Anime News Network and posts pictures of her sons on Twitter @ANN_Lynzee.

discuss this in the forum (48 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

The List homepage / archives