Naruto: The Popular Anime
What is Naruto all about? Twelve years before the series begins, a Kyuubi (nine-tailed fox demon) attacked the Hidden Leaf Village until the leader of the Leaf, the Fourth Hokage, defeated it by sacrificing his own life to seal the demon inside a new born child, none other than Uzumaki Naruto.
Naruto is a highly popular anime and manga series at present being aired in about 20 countries. Created by Masashi Kishimoto, it is centered around a loud, hyperactive, young ninja who is constantly looking for both approval and recognition, and with a dream of becoming Hokage. It was first published as a manga series in Japan by Shueisha in the 43rd issue of Shonen Jump magazine in November 1999. Since then, it has never looked back and only grown in popularity. The Naruto series has since been licensed in the United States and proved to be VIZ Media’s top selling title.
Making its maiden appearance on television in 2002, about three years after the manga series first appeared it has caught up fast as each episode can cover up to two chapters. In order to prevent the series from being pulled off and meeting the same fate as some other animes like Rurouni Kenshin, with no official story to base it upon, it was decided to produce original content for the anime series to allow the manga time to get far ahead and keep Naruto fresh in the minds of its numerous fans. Beginning with episode 136 there has been over a years worth of filler episodes which tend to cover the supporting characters of Naruto who may not otherwise be seen often. New episodes of Naruto air every Wednesday night during the Golden Time slot at 7:27PM, and movies based upon the Naruto series have been released every summer since 2004.
Naruto’s English debut took place on September 10, 2005 in an hour long premiere on the US cable channel Cartoon Network during the Toonami timeslot at 9PM, followed by an hour long repeat of the first two episodes shown previously at 10PM. At present, a new episode of Naruto is shown every Saturday at 9PM with a repeat presentation at 2AM, along with reruns airing at 10PM from Monday to Thursday. Naruto was supposed to first debut in Canada on September 9 before the United States, but problems in licensing agreements forced it back to September 16 on the Canadian YTV.
But what is Naruto all about? Twelve years before the series begins, a Kyuubi (nine-tailed fox demon) attacked the Hidden Leaf Village until the leader of the Leaf, the Fourth Hokage, defeated it by sacrificing his own life to seal the demon inside a new born child, none other than Uzumaki Naruto. It was the Fourth Hokage’s wish that Naruto would also be respected in the same way he would be. But villagers avoided Naruto, regarding him as nothing more than the evil demon fox. Because of all this, Naruto grew up as a lonesome orphan, without friends, family, or acknowledgement of any sort. As nobody cared for him, Naruto sought attention in the only way he could, through pranks and mischief. However, Naruto’s behaviour changed after graduating from the Ninja Academy where he learnt the technique of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to save his sensei Umino Iruka from certain death. He realized two things that day, that the Kyuubi was contained inside him, and that there was someone who cared about him, and understood how he felt. His graduation was thus a defining moment for the rest of his life.
Liked it
it is so wonderful………………………….
I am indeed dissapointed by Cartoon Network/Time-Warner’s current time-slots, for both new premiere episodes and reruns of Naruto. For quite some time now, the reruns have only been available to watch around 10:30pm nightly. Which severely limits both, kids and working adults from easy access. Premiere episodes are available only an hour earlier at 9:00 and 9:30pm on Saturday nights. I am indeed a very dedicated fan of this series, as well as an extremely business like individual. I personally see Time-Warner selling themselves very short and doing a great diservice to both the series and their bottom line. Around the middle of last year Naruto was available to watch at 5:30pm daily, except fridays. This timeslot was reminicent of Cartoon Network’s extremely succesful placement of Akira Toriyama’s “Dragon Ball Z” saga, which found so much success, it’s profits were being touted on Fox and CNN New’s ticker tape. Naruto holding this slot was extremely short lived. I cannot imagine given all the positive feedback on this series, that the viewers and potential viewers aren’t there to make it thrive, as did Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball Z’s popularity was believed to be spurned on by adolecent and pre-adolecent boys who in turn, tuned their parents interest in as well. I believe, with little doubt that Naruto has fallen victim to poor marketing, as there seems to be little or no noticeable adverticements for the show or its’, many toys and video games. When there is product placement, it never seems to coincide with the broadcast of the show itself. Even worse perhaps, is the widely spoken opinion in animation and comic circles. That broadcaster fears of complaints to the F.C.C., by several notoriously right-wing religeous lobby/special interest groups, who “claim” to uphold traditional family values and Western/American religeous values are influencing matters, such as these. It is well known that “Fundamentalist” groups as a whole usually oppose the broadcast or distribution of Japanese Manga and Anime. Particularly if there are many references to Asian Culture and Spiritual beliefs. It was noticeable, I believe during the Dragon Ball Z craze an increase in complaints to the F.C.C. by these groups and since many attacks by them and other like minded groups to any broadcast of material like Naruto. There has been much speculation on the amount of influence these Fundamentalist groups have, with the current presidential administration and it’s agencies decisions on all matters, including animated programming.
is there any way to know how much the show NARUTO cost to make? I see an American Anime show called Avitar the last airbender and yet Naruto seems to have higher production values.