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
A monthly sequel series titled "" began in the Japanese and English editions of "Weekly Shōnen Jump" in early 2016, illustrated by Mikio Ikemoto and written by Ukyō Kodachi, with supervision by Kishimoto. Ikemoto was Kishimoto's chief assistant during the run of the original "Naruto" series, and Kodachi was his writing partner for the "" film screenplay. The monthly series was preceded by a one-shot written and illustrated by Kishimoto. The staff from Shueisha asked Kishimoto if he would write a sequel to "Naruto". However, Kishimoto refused the offer and offered his former assistant Mikio Ikemoto and writer Ukyo Kodachi write "Boruto: Naruto Next Generations" as the sequel to "Naruto".