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.
Shikamaru Nara
Masashi Kishimoto originally created Shikamaru in order for him to be the only winner of an early "Naruto" arc: the Chunnin Exams, based on his high intelligence. However, recommendations from his editors resulted in Kishimoto to interrupt the fighting tournament between the ninjas in order to focus on a recently new introduced villain, Orochimaru. Nevertheless, Shikamaru ends becoming the only ninja from the original test to achieve a higher rank during Part I of the series.