Masashi Kishimoto is the creator of the Naruto manga series and so in turn the anime as well. Born in the Okayama Prefecture on November 8, 1974 Kishimoto spent his younger days admiring the great manga artists of his time such as Akira Toriyama the creator of the Dragon Ball and Dr Slump series and Katsuhiro Ootomo for his work on "Akira". He would spend his time imitating these great artists drawing characters such as Son Goku and even entering a crayon drawing of Arale into a contest. It was through this that Kishimoto made the decision to follow his idols and become a professional manga artist.

As well as drawing Kishimoto had a love for the sport Baseball though this love for playing the game would die out as he would draw more and more. Not the smartest of people Kishimoto only ranked 38th out of 39 in his class at the end of High School which was a blow for Kishimoto and ended his chances of going to college. Not to be down for too long he continued to practice his drawing.

At first Kishimoto would imitate other people's art styles but came the conclusion that these styles are too individual to be copied and attempted to create his own. However his style still some what reflected that of Ootomo. He continued to practice his manga drawings until he started his professional career started when he submitted a manga to Shueisha entitled "Karakuri". This manga proved to be a hit and won him the Hop Step Award as well as giving him the chance to have his manga published in Shonen Jump.

With this newfound success the Kishimoto at last gained confidence in his work and it wasn’t long before he created the pilot manga for his new series Naruto. The pilot manga contained many elements that would later make their way into the final version. In 1999 Naruto made its first appearance in Weekly Shonen Jump. From then on its popularity has continued to soar allowing Kishimoto to be recognized as one of the elites of the manga world. With Naruto still going today time can only tell what more Kishimoto has in store for us.