2002
Naruto premieres
The anime about an outcast young ninja began airing on TV Tokyo, launching a franchise that ran for 720 episodes and won fans around the world.
On October 3, 2002, the anime series Naruto premiered on TV Tokyo in Japan. Based on Masashi Kishimoto’s manga, which had started in 1999, it follows Naruto Uzumaki, an orphan in the Village Hidden in the Leaves who is shunned by his neighbors and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the village’s leader. The reason for the villagers’ scorn is a secret kept from him: as a newborn, he became the vessel for a destructive nine-tailed fox sealed inside his body.
The series was animated by Studio Pierrot, produced with TV Tokyo, and directed by Hayato Date. Kishimoto asked for Tetsuya Nishio to serve as character designer, translating the manga’s look to the screen. In the early episodes Naruto joins Team 7 with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno under their teacher Kakashi Hatake, and the story builds through ninja missions and exams toward Sasuke’s departure from the village.
The first series ran for 220 episodes until February 8, 2007. Only the first 135 adapted the manga directly; the rest told original stories. An English dub produced by Viz Media premiered in the United States on September 10, 2005, on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block, and also aired in Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.
Why it matters
Naruto became one of the most popular anime franchises of its era. A direct sequel, Naruto: Shippuden, followed the hero into his teens and ran for another 500 episodes on TV Tokyo from 2007 to 2017, again under Hayato Date. Pierrot also made 11 animated films and 12 original video animations. By 2011 the franchise helped Viz Media generate 200 million dollars a year in licensed merchandise, and by 2019 Viz had sold more than three million home video units. It was also among the top-earning anime properties for TV Tokyo.
Critics were mixed on the first series, faulting its pacing and its rendering of Kishimoto’s art while praising its fight scenes and emotional depth. Shippuden won stronger reviews for its more mature tone. IGN ranked the original anime 38th on its list of the top 100 animated series.
Did you know?
To mark the original anime’s 20th anniversary, four new episodes were scheduled to premiere on September 3, 2023, but in August of that year the release was postponed.
