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.
List of Naruto characters
is the leader of Team 7 and the sensei to Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Kishimoto had originally intended for Kakashi to be introduced earlier in the series than he actually was and created him as an easygoing person that would be able to keep the members of Team 7 in check. Kakashi treats his leadership position with a mysterious, detached manner and is consistently late to meetings as a result. During a "gaiden" on his past, Kakashi is revealed to have been trained by Naruto's father during the Third Great Ninja War and obtained his Sharingan eye from one of his teammates, Obito Uchiha. After the great war, Kakashi became the Sixth Hokage and ruled Konoha for many years before abdicating in Naruto's favor. Kakashi's Japanese voice actor in the anime is Kazuhiko Inoue, and his English voice actor is Dave Wittenberg.