Masashi Kishimoto

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Masashi Kishimoto bigraphy, stories - Japanese manga artist

Masashi Kishimoto : biography

8 November 1974 –
is a Japanese manga artist, well known for creating the manga series Naruto. A reader of manga ever since a young age, Kishimoto showed a desire to write his own manga, citing authors Akira Toriyama and Katsuhiro Otomo as his main inspirations. His younger twin brother, Seishi Kishimoto, is also a manga artist and creator of the manga series 666 Satan (O-Parts Hunter) and Blazer Drive. During the publication of Naruto, Kishimoto got married and became a father. 

Influences

While as a child, Kishimoto enjoyed reading manga, he was inspired to write one after seeing a promotional image for the film Akira. This made him analyze the artwork of Akiras original author, Katsuhiro Otomo, as well as Akira Toriyama, another artist he admired. Realizing both had their own style regarding the designs, Kishimoto decided to draw manga while crafting his own images. When Kishimoto was originally creating the Naruto series, he looked to other shōnen manga for influences while attempting to make his characters as unique as possible. Kishimoto cites Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball series as one of his influences, noting that Goku, the protagonist of Dragon Ball, was a key factor when creating Naruto Uzumaki due to his energetic and mischievous personality. When redesigning three characters for the series, Kishimoto cites The Matrix, one of his favorite movies, as an inspiration for such outfits. He has also cited Yoshihiro Togashi as one of his favorite manga authors, while the manga Sasuke by Sanpei Shirato, a series which Kishimoto likes, inspired Kishimoto in the development of the character Sasuke Uchiha. During the series’ publication, Kishimoto got married and had children. The changes to his personal life affected the series as he made the protagonist Naruto Uzumaki shortly meet his parents, something the author wanted the character to feel based on his own experience as a father.

When drawing the characters, Kishimoto follows a five-step process that he consistently follows: concept and rough sketch, drafting, inking, shading, and coloring. These steps are followed when he is drawing the actual manga and making the color illustrations that commonly adorn the cover of tankōbon, the cover of Weekly Shōnen Jump, or other media, but the toolkit he utilizes occasionally changes. For instance, he utilized an airbrush for one illustration for a Weekly Shōnen Jump cover, but decided not to use it for future drawings largely due to the cleanup required.

Biography

Early life

Masashi Kishimoto was born on November 8, 1974 as the older identical twin of Seishi Kishimoto in the Okayama Prefecture, Japan. During his childhood, Kishimoto showed interest in drawing characters from the shows he watched, such as Dr. Slump’s Arale and Doraemons titular protagonist. In elementary school, Kishimoto started watching the anime series Kinnikuman and Dragon Ball alongside his twin. During the following years, Kishimoto started idolizing Dragon Balls author Akira Toriyama, enjoying not only his series Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump, but also Dragon Quest, a role-playing video game for which Toriyama was art designer. While he could not afford to buy Weekly Shōnen Jump where the Dragon Ball manga was published, he followed the series thanks to a friend from school who had subscribed to the magazine. By high school Kishimoto started losing interest in manga as he started playing baseball and basketball, sports he practiced at his school. However, upon seeing a poster for the animated film Akira, Kishimoto became fascinated with the way the illustration was made and wished to imitate the series’ creator Katsuhiro Otomo’s style.

During his last years of school, Kishimoto spent time drawing manga and went to an art college hoping he would become a manga artist. Upon entering college, Kishimoto decided he should try creating a Chanbara manga since Weekly Shōnen Jump had not published a title from that genre. However, during the same years, Kishimoto started reading Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal and Nobuhiro Watsuki’s Rurouni Kenshin which used such genre. Kishimoto recalls having never been surprised by manga ever since reading Akira and found that he still was not able to compete against them. In his second year of college, Kishimoto started drawing manga for magazine contests. However, he noted that his works were similar to seinen manga, aimed towards a young adult demographic, rather than the shōnen manga read by children. Wishing to write a manga for Shōnen Jump that targets a young demographic, Kishimoto found his style unsuitable for the magazine. When watching the anime series Hashire Melos!, Kishimoto was surprised by the character designs employed by the animators and he started researching works from animators. He later met Tetsuya Nishio, designer from the anime adaptation of the manga Ninku who he deemed as a big influence. Now emulating the way of drawing from multiple character designers from anime series, Kishimoto noted that his style started resembling shōnen series.