If you recall back to when I posted that summary of The Last: Naruto the Movie, you saw that it was translated by a person on tumblr named Utapurinsesu. After reading through the summary, I created a tumblr account so I could get in touch with this person and ask him some questions that we all had. Well, we stayed in contact all this time, and we've been talking about a bunch of things. One of the more interesting ones is a almost (he has 10 minutes left to summarize that he will do at another time) complete summary of the interview Kishimoto did with Kobayashi (here is a link to the interview). While I'm sure you read a few bits about this from other sources (this is the same interview that said Neji died to make NaruHina happen, and that Kishimoto originally wanted to have Naruto and Sasuke holding hands instead of losing their arms), Utapurinsesu went into a lot more detail, and revealed some interesting facts. I thought it was pretty cool, so I figured I'll post what he said for you to see. Just so you know, I'm posting exactly what he wrote from our conversations, so if some things don't make sense, ask me for any context. Alright, here's the full summary:
8.18 – 8:43 about Kagebunshin
Ki “Kagebunshin…” Ko “I actually wanted to ask you about that afterwards” Ki “Oh sorry” [laughs] Ko ”But I’ll ask now. We get the impression that you kinda dug your own grave with that one” [drawing Naruto with so many bunshin from the start] Ki “Yeah I think so” Ko “Because you went and did right from chapter 1” Ki “Yeah…” Ko “So you had to balance his power from the start” Ki “That’s right. He [naruto] quickly got stronger, didn’t he. When he improved, his number of bunshin increased too. I just thought ‘Ive really done it now!’”
Ok, so now from the actual Q&A session, I’ll just summarize what was said because its far too long… Here is the first half and I’ll do the second half another time.
Q1: ”I’ve always wondered where you began to come up with the concept of ‘Naruto’ as a story and thought that that’s what yoou’d write about.”
A: Apparently he started out wanting to write a story about an old guy who owns a ramen shop and a young boy comes by, or something uninteresting like that. Other things also got mixed in with that like a story which was supposed to be really spectacular and it was about straightening up their lives and other emotive plots… He showed that to his publishers but they told him the story is way too far from what they want, and Kobayashi agrees that it doesn’t have any elements befitting a weekly Shounen Jump series. He started to research other shounen series (especially Akira Toriyama, who he was a big fan of). In the end the name ‘Naruto’ came from this failed story attempt, as well as the obvious influences that made it into the actual series. Then he made a story not about ninjas but about youkai (demons), where the main character was a fox who shape-shifted into a human. This story changed again so he made the fox demon into a human and redrew the whole thing, and submitted that version
He wanted to do something different to other artists who had written about ninjas, so made Naruto blond, more like a foreigner than a ninja. He also decided to make ninjas more about ‘helping/ protecting’ rather than ‘dying’ and also less about ‘staying hidden’. After trying this out, he was then asked by kids ‘Is that really a ninja?’ and he thought ‘Uh oh. I’ve gone off on a tangent again!’ But he decided he wanted to stick with it anyway and his publishers also said its fine only being this far off the mark [about what a ninja is].
Q2: “Do you remember how you came about the catchphrase ‘dattebayo’?”
[This answer was kinda hard for me to understand coz the logic in his answer kinda jumps around a bit. This is what I THINK he meant] A: He decided to make a catchphrase that sounded silly that an old person etc would come out with. He also thought something that sounded like a speech impediment would be good, so decided to go with ‘dattebayo’”.
Q3: “Did you have to think hard about [the setting/ creation of] naruto’s classmates?”
A: Kishimoto didn’t actually originally intend for that kind of setting. Originally he intended to focus on various missions that Naruto went on, meeting 4-man cells from other villages. The teachers of the 4-man cell would be Kakashis rival. But after discussing this with his editor, he was told there wouldn’t be time for such a slow-paced development, so he needed to come bring all these characters and villages out at once. You’re going to make a tournament. Kishimoto said he can’t do it and if he did it’d kill him [not literally], but he was told to do it even if it kills him. That is how the Chuunin exams arc came about. That was what he was forced to do. But even now he wish he could do his original idea about focusing on missions.
So he found it really difficult coming up with so many new characters and their designs in one go with no material to go on. So he asked for some designs from his editor to help, who saw a really weird looking keychain (?) and made drawings based on that, and that’s where Gai and Lee’s etc designs came from.
Kobayashi says that listening to what he said earlier about Kakashi’s rival, it sounds like he was originally planning for team Gai to be from another village when introducing them here [since they weren’t introduced with the other rookies/ teachers]. Kishimoto says that was originally the case, but they decided it was better for Kakashi to have a rival from inside the village so they went with this instead and introduced Team Gai as being from Konoha.
Kishimoto also says that the series picked up popularity thanks to the tournament aspect to find out who’d win, and even Kishimoto himself started to enjoy writing this part. But his editorial team told him to introduce a villain called Orochimaru in there that would stop the tournament from being finished instead. Kishimoto was disappointed since he was really getting into it, and had already put out the idea that he wanted Shikamaru to win. But before being told to put in the plot development of the tournament being destroyed, Kishimoto does admit that he was worrying about how to write Shikamaru’s fights for the rest of the tournament and make him the winner, since Shikamaru has an IQ of 200 and he [Kishimoto] doesn’t have a very high one, so he didn’t know how to pull it off.
Q4: “Why did you decide to introduce a strong enemy like Zabuza right at the beginning of the series?”
A: Kishimoto says that he wanted to do this right off the bat to show off Kakashi’s strength as an example of what an experienced ninja can do in the Narutoverse. This would set some cornerstones down in the manga straight away and make it easier for the audience to put things into perspective. Kobayashi points out that there were many things introduced in this arc that played huge roles right until the end of the series (kekkei genkai, sharingan etc), but Kishimoto just said he was ‘bluffing’ with these things in the beginning [nb: in other words he just made them up without any thought on how to use them in the future]. At the time he was just making these things up for the excitement and suspense, but didn’t pick up on what to do with some of these threads long-term until later. Basically he was making it up as he went. Even with Sasuke’s backstory, at the time of the Wave Arc, all that had been thought out was that Sasuke had an elder brother who had done something bad, and that was it. Kishimoto admits the planning was very hazy at this point. However, at the point where Itachi is actually introduced, Kishimoto had decided to secretly make him a good guy, but the reason he did something bad was because of circumstances. Kishimoto also says that although he introduced the Sharingan as being able to copy moves, the premise on what the Sharingan could do changed drastically over the course of the storyline.
Kobayashi comments that the concept of focusing on eyeballs in a Shounen manga is unique, and Kishimoto laughs and agrees. Kishimoto explains that theres a really old story called ‘Take of the Gallant Jiraiya’ that often comes up in Kabuki and the like, where the main character Jiraiya actually has the Sharingan. Kishimoto decided to take the concept of the Sharingan from this story and create the Uchiha clan to give the Sharingan to. And because Kakashi also has a Sharingan despite not being an Uchiha, he wanted this to be a mystery that kept readers interested as to how he got it.
Kobayashi comments that this mystery isn’t explained until Kakashi Gaiden much, much further down the line, but even so, you can see the group picture of Kakashi, Obito, Rin and Minato early on in the series [Kobayashi is showing a page from chapter 16]. Kishimoto says that may be so, but even by chapter 16 he had already decided this storyline, about Obito being an Uchiha, and that Minato was Naruto’s dad (but doesn’t confirm if he’d decided Minato’s name by then). Speaking of Minato, even though his identity was confirmed by this point, to begin with Kishimoto hadn’t thought of creating a fourth Hokage or him being Naruto’s dad. Kishimoto knew that he would have to introduce what had happened to his dad somewhere in the story, but didn’t know how to do it. Before coming up with Minato as the 4th Hokage, Minato’s spot on the Hokage Monument was actually taken by a dog [nb: you read that right, a dog]. He explains that at the time he actually wanted to try out that a ‘ninken’ (ninja dog) like those owned by the Inuzuka had been the Hokage at one point. But his editor told him he was thinking off on a tangent again, so instead of that just make him the main character’s dad instead.
[until 21.35]
