A u t h o r

Kishimoto Masashi

Masashi-sensei is a newcomer in the manga world. Naruto is his first published series and has been going on strong in the popular magazine Shounen Jump. His first big success was when he won the Shueisha's Hop Step award (for amatuer manga artists) with another series "Karakuri". Naruto first began in 1997 in Akamaru Jump; but in 1999, Masashi-sensei redid a new version of Naruto and was picked up by SJ. The manga still goes on today and is one of the most popular manga series in Japan.

He was born in Katsuta, Japan, with his younger twin brother. At a young age, he loved to draw, but his bigger love was with sports. In high school he later on stopped focusing so much on baseball and began focusing on drawing. It was after high school he went against his family's wishes and went to art college, trying to get his manga career started.

Like all kids his age, Masashi-sensei idolized Akira Toriyama (the creator of Dragonball). There's a lot of dragonball-like essence in Naruto (personally, I find Naruto ten times more funnier and more developed ^^;;)

Go Masashi-sensei! We're rooting for you! YAY!