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.
Masashi Kishimoto
In December 2017 at Jump Festa it was confirmed that Kishimoto was developing a new science fiction series tentatively scheduled to debut in 2018. A year later at Jump Festa 2018 the series was formally announced as , created and written by Kishimoto and illustrated by Akira Ōkubo, a former assistant on "Naruto" and brother of Atsushi Ōkubo.
Kishimoto is the twin brother of Seishi Kishimoto, the author of "666 Satan" and "Blazer Drive". In 2003, Kishimoto married, but due to being busy never went on a honeymoon with his wife until 2015. In the making of "The Last: Naruto the Movie", Kishimoto based the idea of Hinata Hyuga wanting to make a scarf for Naruto Uzumaki on how his wife had once done for him, which brought laughs to the staff while developing the film. The couple has one son.