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.
Mount Rushmore in popular culture
In the Japanese manga, "Naruto", four of the main leaders (Hokage) of Konohagakure (Hidden Leaf Village) have had their faces carved into a mountain overlooking the village of Konohagakure, in a style similar to that of Mount Rushmore (with Tsunade's face added later, in "Shippuuden". (Hatake Kakashi) and (Uzumaki Naruto) were the 6th and 7th face to be added to the mountain in the last chapter). The village was designed by Japanese manga artist Masashi Kishimoto. The fictional nuclear-equipped warship Outer Haven, in the video game "", features a Mount Rushmore-esque sculpture of the four "Snake" characters that have appeared thorough the "Metal Gear" series (Solidus Snake, Old Snake, Liquid Snake and Big Boss).