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.
Katsura Hoshino
In Japan, "D.Gray-man" has been put on hiatus many times; once due to Hoshino falling seriously ill with Norovirus and another because of an injury to her neck. However the series continued shortly after in both cases. In November 2008, "Weekly Shōnen Jump" announced that Hoshino was again putting the series on hold due to an injured wrist. Publication resumed in March 2009. The series once again went on hiatus on May 11. The series resumed in the seasonal magazine "Akamaru Jump" on August 17, 2009. Following the release in "Akamaru Jump", "D.Gray-Man" resumed its serialization on November 4, 2009 in the monthly-release Japanese manga magazine, "Jump Square". Additionally, Hoshino was one of the multiple manga authors that celebrated the 10th anniversary of the manga series "Naruto" by drawing her own rendition of the main character, Naruto Uzumaki.