Meet Naruto, he's a class-clown, a lazy bum, a total prankster, and could just possibly be the world's most powerful Ninja!
Naruto is a ninja-in-training with an incorrigible knack for mischief. He's got a wild sense of humor, but Naruto is completely serious about his mission to be the world's greatest ninja!
Intruders
Blech ! After all their adventures, the time has come for Naruto, the boy ninja, and his friends Sakura and Sasuke to settle back into their most difficult challenge yet...school! As the three prepare for their new exams, fierce rivalries threaten their success. Can they prove to their teachers they are still the most powerful ninja kids around?
Masashi Kishimoto (岸本斉史 Kishimoto Masashi) is a Japanese manga artist, well known for creating the manga series Naruto. His younger twin brother, Seishi Kishimoto, is also a manga artist and creator of the manga series O-Parts Hunter (666 Satan) and Blazer Drive. 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.
Kishimoto's first work as a manga artist was Karakuri (カラクリ?), which he submitted to Shueisha in 1995. This earned him the Weekly Shōnen Jump's monthly "Hop Step Award" in 1996, granted to promising new manga artists. This was followed in 1997 by a pilot version of Naruto (NARUTO-ナルト-), 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.