is a Japanese manga artist

Mangaka

is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...

, well known for creating the manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series Naruto

Naruto

is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of...

. His younger twin brother, Seishi Kishimoto

Seishi Kishimoto

is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for 666 Satan, which was serialized in Japan by Monthly Shōnen Gangan from 2001 to 2007 and licensed by VIZ in North America as O-Parts Hunter. His older twin brother, Masashi Kishimoto, is also a manga artist and creator of Naruto...

, is also a manga artist and creator of the manga series 666 Satan

666 Satan

O-Parts Hunter, more commonly known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Seishi Kishimoto. It was originally published by Enix, who later became Square Enix, in their Monthly Shōnen Gangan magazine from 2001 and 2007, and later collected into 19 tankōbon volumes...

 (O-Parts Hunter) and Blazer Drive

Blazer Drive

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Seishi Kishimoto, creator of O-Parts Hunter, and is published in the new Monthly Shōnen Rival. Sega also developed a Nintendo DS game using a parallel story.-Plot:...

. Two of his former assistants, Osamu Kajisa (Tattoo Hearts) and Yuuichi Itakura (Hand's), have also gone on to moderate success following their work on Naruto.

Works

Kishimoto's first work as a manga artist was , which he submitted to Shueisha

Shueisha

is a major publisher in Japan. The company was founded in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The following year, Shueisha became a separate, independent company. Magazines published by Shueisha include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump,...

 in 1995. This earned him the Weekly Shōnen Jump

Weekly Shonen Jump

is a weekly shōnen manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the Jump line of magazines. The first issue was released with a cover date of July 2, 1968, and it is still circulating. One of the longest-running manga magazines in Japan, it has a circulation of 2.8 million copies...

s monthly "Hop Step Award" in 1996, granted to promising new manga artists. This was followed in 1997 by a pilot version of , published in Akamaru Jump Summer. In 1998, Kishimoto premiered as a Weekly Shōnen Jump artist with a serialized version of Karakuri in Weekly Shōnen Jump, but it proved unpopular and was canceled soon after. In 1999, a serialized version of Naruto began publication in Weekly Shōnen Jump and quickly became a hit. Naruto is still ongoing, with more than 52 volumes and just over 50 released in English, and has sold over 100 million copies in Japan and over 95 million copies were sold in the US followed by over 93 million copies worldwide (outside Japan and United States) as of volume 36, also being adapted into two successful anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series. The Naruto manga series has become one of Viz Media

VIZ Media

VIZ Media, LLC, headquartered in San Francisco, is an anime, manga, and Japanese entertainment company. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is jointly owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and...

's top properties, accounting for nearly 10% of all manga sales in 2006. The seventh volume of Viz's release became the first manga to ever win a Quill Award

Quill Awards

The Quill Award was an American literary award that ran for three years in 2005-07. It was a "consumer-driven award created to inspire reading while promoting literacy." The Quills Foundation, the organization behind the Quill Award, was supported by a number of notable media corporations,...

 when it claimed the award for "Best Graphic Novel" in 2006. In 2009, Kishimoto designed an extra costume for the video game character Lars Alexandersson for Tekken 6

Tekken 6

is a fighting game developed and published by Namco Bandai. It is the eighth game in the Tekken franchise. It was released in Japanese arcades on November 26, 2007 as the first game running on the PlayStation 3-based System 357 arcade board. The game received an update, subtitled Bloodline...

, and in 2010 this character appeared in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, known in Japan as is the sequel to Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm developed by CyberConnect2 and published by Namco Bandai Games...

 as part of a special cross-promotion. In 2010, Kishimoto also produced a one-shot baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

, , as part of Jump's "Top of the Super Legend" project, a series of six one-shot manga by famed Weekly Shōnen Jump artists, also including Sorachi Hideaki, Konomi Takeshi, Usuta Kyosuke

Kyosuke Usuta

is a prominent manga writer well known for working in the anthology Weekly Shonen Jump. Primarily a gag-manga writer who creates strange characters in normal, realistic surroundings, his two best known works are Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoiyo!! Masaru-san and Pyu to Fuku! Jaguar.-External links:*...

, Akimoto Osamu

Osamu Akimoto

is a Japanese manga artist born on December 11, 1952 in Katsushika, Tokyo, Japan. He is best known for his long running series Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo, which has been continuously published in Weekly Shonen Jump since 1976...

, and Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama

is a Japanese manga artist and game artist known mostly for his creation of Dragon Ball in 1984. Toriyama admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art...

.

Influences

While as a child, Kishimoto enjoyed reading manga, he was inspired to write one after seeing a promotional image for the film Akira

Akira (film)

is a 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, and starring the voices of Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama and Taro Ishida. The screenplay is based on Otomo's manga Akira....

. This made him analyze the artwork of Akiras original author, Katsuhiro Otomo

Katsuhiro Otomo

is a Japanese comic book creator, screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the creator of the manga Akira and its animated film adaptation. Otomo has also directed several live-action films, such as the 2006 feature film adaptation of the manga Mushishi.-Biography:Katsuhiro Otomo was...

, as well as Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama

is a Japanese manga artist and game artist known mostly for his creation of Dragon Ball in 1984. Toriyama admires Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and was impressed by Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which he remembers for the great art...

, another artist he admired. Realizing both had their own style regarding the designs, Kishimoto decided to draw manga while crafting his own images. When Kishimoto was originally creating the Naruto series, he looked to other shōnen

Shonen

The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...

 manga for influences while attempting to make his characters as unique as possible. Kishimoto cites Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball

is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995; later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Dragon Ball was inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the...

 series as one of his influences, noting that Goku, the protagonist of Dragon Ball, was a key factor when creating Naruto Uzumaki

Naruto Uzumaki

is a fictional character in the anime and manga franchise Naruto created by Masashi Kishimoto. The main protagonist and titular character of the series, he is a ninja affiliated with the fictional village of Konohagakure. The villagers ostracize Naruto because the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, a...

 due to his energetic and mischievous personality. When redesigning three characters for the series, Kishimoto cites The Matrix

The Matrix

The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...

, one of his favorite movies, as an inspiration for such outfits. He has also cited Yoshihiro Togashi

Yoshihiro Togashi

is a Japanese manga artist. He began drawing manga at an early age; while he attended college, the publisher Shueisha recognized his talent. Togashi has authored numerous manga series in different genres during the past three decades...

 as one of his favorite manga authors, while the manga Sasuke by Sanpei Shirato

Sanpei Shirato

, known by the pen name , is a Japanese manga artist and essayist known for his social criticism as well as his realistic drawing style and the characters in his scenarios. He is considered a pioneer of gekiga. The son of the Japanese proletarian painter Toki Okamoto, his dream to become an artist...

, a series which Kishimoto likes, inspired Kishimoto in the development of the character Sasuke Uchiha

Sasuke Uchiha

is a fictional character in the Naruto manga and anime series created by Masashi Kishimoto. He was created as a rival and foil to the series' titular character, Naruto Uzumaki...

.

When drawing the characters, Kishimoto follows a five-step process that he consistently follows: concept and rough sketch, drafting, inking, shading, and coloring. These steps are followed when he is drawing the actual manga and making the color illustrations that commonly adorn the cover of tankōbon

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

, the cover of Weekly Shōnen Jump, or other media, but the toolkit he utilizes occasionally changes. For instance, he utilized an airbrush

Airbrush

An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of nebulization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush.-History:...

 for one illustration for a Weekly Shōnen Jump cover, but decided not to use it for future drawings largely due to the cleanup required.

Manga

• Karakuri one-shot (1996, Hop Step Award winner, published in Hop Step Award Selection 18 ('95~'96) (1996), Akamaru Jump Winter (1997), and Naruto: The Official Premium Fanbook (2009))
• Naruto
  Naruto
  is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of...
  
  pilot (1997, published in Akamaru Jump Summer (1997) and Naruto: The Official Fanbook (2002))
• Karakuri (April 1998 – May 1998, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump)
• Naruto (November 1999 – ongoing, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump)
• Bench one-shot (October 2010, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump)

External links