Masashi Kishimoto

Masashi Kishimoto (岸本 斉史) is a Japanese manga artist.

Masashi Kishimoto was born in Okayama Prefecture, Japan on November 8, 1974, as the older identical twin of Seishi Kishimoto.

His home was close to Hiroshima where his grandfather originated.

Kishimoto's grandfather often told him about stories of war and how it was related to grudges.

During his childhood, Kishimoto showed interest in drawing characters from the anime shows he watched, such as Dr. Slumps Arale and Doraemons titular protagonist.

In elementary school, Kishimoto started watching the Kinnikuman and Dragon Ball anime alongside his brother.

During the following years, Kishimoto started idolizing Dragon Ball's original creator Akira Toriyama, enjoying not only his series Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, but also Dragon Quest, a series of role-playing video games for which Toriyama is the art designer.

While he could not afford to buy Weekly Shōnen Jump where the Dragon Ball manga was published, he followed the series thanks to a friend from school who had subscribed to the magazine.

By high school, Kishimoto started losing interest in manga as he started playing baseball and basketball, sports he practiced at his school.

However, upon seeing a poster for the animated film Akira, Kishimoto became fascinated with the way the illustration was made and wished to imitate the series' creator Katsuhiro Otomo's style.

Other series he enjoyed reading are Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade; Ninku; and Ghost in the Shell.

During his last years before graduating from Kyushu Sangyo University, Kishimoto spent time drawing manga and went to an art college with the hopes of becoming a manga artist.

Upon entering college, Kishimoto decided he should try creating a Chanbara manga since Weekly Shōnen Jump had not published a title from that genre.

However, during the same year, Kishimoto started reading Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal and Nobuhiro Watsuki's Rurouni Kenshin (the latter of which was published in Weekly Shonen Jump), which used the said genre.

Kishimoto recalls having never been surprised by manga ever since reading Akira and found that he still was not able to compete against them.

In his second year of college, Kishimoto started drawing manga for magazine contests.

However, he noted that his works were similar to seinen manga, aimed towards an adult demographic, rather than the shōnen manga read by children and teenagers.

Wishing to write a manga for Shōnen Jump (which targets a young demographic), Kishimoto found his style unsuitable for the magazine.

When watching the anime series Hashire Melos!, Kishimoto was surprised by the character designs employed by the animators and he started researching works from animators.

He later met Tetsuya Nishio, the designer from the anime adaptation of the manga Ninku, whom he deemed a big influence.

Having emulated the drawing style of multiple character designers from anime series, Kishimoto noted that his own style began to resemble that of shōnen series.

Kishimoto's first successful manga pilot was Karakuri (カラクリ), which he submitted to Shueisha in 1995.

This earned him an honorable mention in Shueisha's monthly "Hop Step Award" in 1996, granted to promising rookie manga artists.

At this point he was assigned an editor, Kosuke Yahagi, and worked on a number of rejected drafts including a slice-of-life manga, Michikusa (道くさ), and an action manga, Asian Punk (アジアンパンク).

In 1997, he wrote a one-shot version of Naruto (NARUTO－ナルト－) which was published in Akamaru Jump Summer.

In December 1997, while redeveloping Karakuri for serialization, Kishimoto was offered a one-shot in Weekly Shōnen Jump.

The new version of Karakuri debuted two weeks later in Weekly Shōnen Jump 1998 No. 4-5, but was hampered by the sudden deadline and performed poorly in reader surveys, being canceled immediately.

Following the failure of Karakuri, Kishimoto reduced his output and began moving in a seinen direction with drafts for a baseball manga, Yakyūō (野球王), and a mafia manga, Mario (マリオ), hoping to find better luck with a seinen magazine.

Yahagi persuaded him to give the shōnen genre one last shot and Kishimoto began working on storyboards for a fantasy one-shot, Magic Mushroom (マジックマッシュルーム), but stopped when Yahagi called and asked him to instead develop storyboards for serialization.

The two decided to submit a version of Naruto with a reworked story and world and produced storyboards for the first three chapters, winning a spot in the magazine.

With a six-month lead time, Kishimoto repeatedly revised and redrew the first several chapters of the series.

His manga series, Naruto, which was in serialization from 1999 to 2014, has sold over 250 million copies worldwide in 46 countries as of May 2019.

The series has been adapted into two anime and multiple films, video games, and related media.

Besides the Naruto manga, Kishimoto also personally supervised the two canonical anime films, The Last: Naruto the Movie and Boruto: Naruto the Movie, and has written several one-shot stories.

In September 1999, the serialized version of Naruto premiered in Weekly Shōnen Jump 1999 No. 43 and quickly became a hit.

From May 2016 through October 2020 he supervised the Boruto: Naruto Next Generations manga written by Ukyō Kodachi and illustrated by Mikio Ikemoto.

In 2019, Kishimoto wrote Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru which ended in March 2020.

In November 2020 it was announced that he had taken over as writer on the series, replacing Kodachi.

A reader of manga from a young age, Kishimoto showed a desire to write his own manga, citing authors Akira Toriyama and Katsuhiro Otomo as his main influences.

As a result, Kishimoto spent several years working to write his own shōnen manga for Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine which he was a fan of.