Masashi Kishimoto reveals that Naruto was almost a manga with a completely different subject from ninjas!
When the idea of a new manga is taken to a publisher, it is usually necessary to create a one-shot manga and submit it for approval. These one-shots usually contain 50 pages and serve to show the story the creator wants to work on while working for the publisher in question. All the legendary mangakas went through this, like Eiichiro Oda, Akira Toriyama, and of course, Masashi Kishimoto.
In today's post, we'll talk about the true origin of Naruto's one-shot manga created by Masashi Kishimoto. The final idea approved by Shueisha was that of an unwanted young man who had a demon trapped in his body and who wanted to become leader of his village. But Naruto was not always like that.
According to Kishimoto, the initial idea for his work was to tell the story of a young man who cooked vegetables, but this idea was quickly discarded by the editors.
"Originally, Naruto's story should not be about ninjas.
It was supposed to be about a teenager named Naruto cooking lámen. But my editor at the time told me, "It will never work." I had to find another inspiration and this led to a story about ninjas. "
After this, Kishimoto returned with the idea of a demon fox that could change form and turn into a boy, that would be called Naruto. The idea was also denied. In a way, Kishimoto's final idea came after he combined the elements of his two previous ideas and created the Naruto world we know today.
Still in this interview with Kobayashi, Kishimoto revealed that he planned to make Naruto a Samurai, but decided that the character would be a ninja not to copy other manga, such as Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X).
