Masashi Kishimoto

Biography

Masashi Kishimoto is a Japanese manga artist from Okayama Prefecture, born in 1974, who created Naruto — one of the best-selling manga series of all time with over 250 million copies worldwide. Kishimoto cited Dragon Ball as a primary influence and drew his first Naruto one-shot in 1997 before the series launched in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1999. Known for his meticulous character design philosophy and his interest in giving even antagonists comprehensible motivations, Kishimoto has discussed in interviews how Naruto's story of perseverance through social rejection was deeply personal. After completing Naruto in 2014, he launched Boruto as a direct continuation, with his son's story serving as the narrative focus. He has also worked on other projects including Samurai 8 and the manga adaptations of his cinematic works.