In October 2002, Studio Pierrot released the anime adaptation of Naruto, created by Mashashi Kishimoto. The manga was hugely successful at the time and was grouped with Bleach and One Piece as “the Big Three”, where each was the most popular and longest-running shonen series at the time.
The Naruto anime enjoyed similar success to the manga: over the course of 20 years, it spawned a massive amount of merchandising items, including movies, light novels, and games (some of which still persist to this day). While the big 20-year milestone came months ago, Pierrot isn’t done celebrating the feat yet.
Via the official Naruto Twitter account, Pierrot has confirmed the release of four all-new episodes of the original Naruto anime. The studio hasn’t released any details beyond that at this time, but they will premiere in September after a select few episodes will air again in Japan over the summer.
In October 2022, Studio Pierrot released a 10-minute retrospective of the original series, Naruto Part I (2002-2007) and its sequel, Naruto Shippuden (2007-2017). This retrospective featured new animation in spots and an art style reminiscent of that currently seen in the Boruto: Naruto Next Generations series.
In conjunction with this, Pierrot also revealed that production on Boruto Part I has wrapped and will end with the upcoming episode 293 on March 26. Part II of that series is currently in production, but a release window is currently undisclosed. While Boruto has a solid fan base of its own, it has yet to reach the heights of its predecessor; even though it already has nearly 300 episodes, a few light novels, and a few video games, it has yet to spawn a live stage play or even a film of its own beyond the 2015 film that served as a pilot ahead of the 2017 release of the Boruto anime.
Did you follow the original Naruto anime from the beginning?
