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.
Naruto
The "Naruto" anime was listed as the 38th best animated show in IGN's Top 100 Animated Series. In September 2005, Japanese television network TV Asahi broadcast a popularity poll based on a nationwide survey in which "Naruto" placed 17th. Mike Hale of "The New York Times" described the series as much better than American animation aimed at children, but the animation received some criticism from both the T.H.E.M. Anime Reviews critics: Christina Carpenter felt Kishimoto's artistic style translated poorly into animation, and Derrick Tucker was also negative, though he felt that at their best, the depictions "[left] little to be desired". As with the manga, some reviewers, such as Martin Theron of ANN, along with Tucker, felt there were too many fight scenes, though Justin Rich argued that the fight scenes were the most important and enjoyable element of the show. Carpenter also commented positively on the characters, though she felt that most were fairly stereotypical.