Masashi Kishimoto
For the ninth "Naruto" film, "", Kishimoto was responsible for both the story planning and characters' designs. To promote the film, Kishimoto worked in "Motion Comic Naruto" a DVD that shows scenes from the manga in 3D that was given to the first 1.5 million people who went to the cinema. Regarding "Naruto"s publication Kishimoto told Tetsuya Nishio in July 2012 that the series would take over a year and a half to end. However, Kishimoto admitted that it now appears that the manga will continue beyond that timeframe. In April 2012, it was announced that Kishimoto would publish a one-shot version of his long-postponed mafia manga, "Mario", in "Jump Square", based on the rough, 160-page manuscript he began working on before "Naruto" became serialized.
Sasuke Uchiha
Manga artist Masashi Kishimoto did not include Sasuke Uchiha in his original concept for the "Naruto" series, a story revolving around the character Naruto Uzumaki. Discussing the series' future, his editor advised him to add a rival character for the protagonist Naruto and he created Sasuke. The character's first name came from Sanpei Shirato's manga "Sasuke" and Sarutobi Sasuke, a fictional ninja character in Japanese children's stories. To introduce Sasuke, Kishimoto wrote a chapter that was set before the formation of his ninja squad, Team 7. The idea was scrapped and Sasuke was introduced with Team 7, retaining the same traits and rivalry with Naruto.