Masashi Kishimoto
Following the conclusion of "Naruto", Kishimoto became involved in the "Start of a New Era Project" commemorating the manga's conclusion and 15th anniversary. On the last page of the final chapter, "Weekly Shonen Jump" announced that a spin-off miniseries, also authored by Kishimoto, would be released in 2015. The series, "", ran from April to July 2015. Beyond this, Kishimoto was also heavily involved with two canonical movies, "" and "", as he personally supervised both movies, and illustrated several light novels. When asked by Boruto Uzumaki's voice actress Yūko Sanpei to continue making "Naruto" movies, Kishimoto stated that he was taking a break and could not physically do so.
The Last: Naruto the Movie
After seeing the staff's initial work on a film about Naruto's relationship with Hinata, Kishimoto decided to oversee the project. He enjoyed seeing Naruto and Hinata's romantic scenes, even those not written by him. Kishimoto acknowledged his discomfort at writing romantic scenes, and he admitted he was not sure if he would be able to look at the scene depicting Naruto and Hinata's kiss. However, upon watching the scene, he felt a mixture of satisfaction and sadness due to the two characters' growth since "Naruto"s beginning; they had become like his own children. In making "The Last: Naruto the Movie", Kishimoto based the idea of Hinata wanting to make a scarf for Naruto on what his wife had actually once done for him; this elicited laughs from the staff as they worked on the film.