THE LIBRARY

No: in the 1997 pilot Naruto is the fox himself, the son of the beast that destroyed his village, solving a murder in a modern city.

Kishimoto on record: Dragon Ball, an Akira poster, Blade of the Immortal, Godzilla, and his Okayama hometown.

A planned final battle after 700 chapters, and a sequel that exists only because Kishimoto's assistant agreed to draw it.

Viz in 2003, the Toonami premiere of September 10, 2005, a Quill Award, and 250 million copies in 46 countries and regions.

Naruto ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from September 21, 1999 to November 10, 2014: 700 chapters across just over fifteen years, ending by Kishimoto's choice.

Naruto has 72 tankobon volumes: Part I is volumes 1 to 27, the Kakashi Gaiden sits inside volume 27, and Part II runs from volume 28 to volume 72.

Check the colophon at the back of the book: a first printing of a Japanese Naruto volume shows the original date with no later printing lines beneath it.

For New York Comic Con 2015, Viz sold an exclusive variant of Naruto volume 72 with a new cover drawn by Masashi Kishimoto for the convention.

Naruto Nation was Viz Media's 2007 catch-up campaign: three new Naruto volumes a month from September to December, closing the gap with Japan.

Viz's 3-in-1 editions repackage all 72 Naruto volumes into 24 larger omnibuses, starting in 2011: same chapters, bigger trim, thinner paper.

Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring is Kishimoto's ten-chapter sequel miniseries from 2015, starring Sarada Uchiha.

Before Naruto, Kishimoto's Karakuri won an honorable mention in the 1996 Hop Step Award, and its failed 1998 serialization taught him what Naruto needed.

Kishimoto published three main Naruto art books: Uzumaki in 2004, Paint Jump: Art of Naruto in 2008, and the Naruto Illustration Book in 2009.

There are four main Naruto databooks (Rin, To, Sha and Jin no Sho) plus two fanbooks; the fourth databook, covering volumes 44 to 71, never got an English edition.

The Naruto Hiden novels are six prose books from 2015, written by six different authors with Kishimoto illustrations, filling the gap after chapter 699.

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's own formula: Ideon plus Devilman, divided by two.

Bart Howard's standard in a new arrangement almost every week, more than thirty versions, under Shiro Sagisu's classical threaded score.

The 1995 Gainax television series that reset mecha anime: giant robots, teenage pilots, and an ending that split its audience in two.

The 1997 film that gave the television series a second, far harsher ending, and why both endings still coexist.

Four films, one familiar opening, and a story that quietly walks away from the original. What actually changes, film by film.

Release order, the two endings, and where the Rebuild films fit. A plain viewing route for first time watchers and returning ones.

Hideaki Anno, Gainax, and the small team whose personal and financial pressures became part of the work itself.

The character designer's own retelling, started before the anime aired and finished eighteen years later. How it is collected in Japan and English.

Same Angels, different Shinji. The concrete changes Sadamoto made, from the opening chapter to the final volume.

The alternate school life manga spun out of a two minute sequence in the final television episode, explained for collectors sorting the spinoffs.

Raising Project, Campus Apocalypse, Shinji Ikari Detective Diary and more. A map of the licensed spinoffs and which ones reached English.

The Genesis 0 volumes, rental and retail tapes, and why the Japanese LaserDiscs became the franchise's first deluxe objects.

From ADV's VHS tapes to the Ultimate Edition Blu-ray box. A field guide to the main English language releases and their Japanese counterparts.

The 2019 worldwide streaming debut brought a new translation, a new dub, and a missing end theme. What was altered and why fans noticed.

Saturn dating sims, a Nintendo 64 action game, PlayStation adventures and rhythm and pachinko machines. The Japanese game line, mapped.

Replicant and Gestalt key art, the Western NieR box, and the NieR Automata cover, with both histories and the questions behind them.

Cavia's 2010 original: Yoko Taro, Keiichi Okabe's score, the mixed reviews, the half million sales, and the cult that grew anyway.

PlatinumGames and Yoko Taro, 2017: 2B and 9S, the collaboration that saved a studio, ten million copies, and the scores.

A brother in Japan, a father in the West: one game, split by platform and by audience research.

It is the square root of 1.5: the developers' label for a version upgrade, neither remake nor remaster.

Spoilers: it is the sequel to Drakengard's joke ending, the one with a dragon falling on Tokyo in 2003.

Yoko Taro wanted vocals no player could understand, so Emi Evans built the Chaos Language for Keiichi Okabe's score, one real language per song, drifted a thousand years.