Kishimoto's first successful manga pilot was Karakuri ( カラクリ, literally meaning: Mechanism), which he submitted to Shueisha in 1995. Now emulating the way of drawing from multiple character designers from anime series, Kishimoto noted that his style started resembling shōnen series. He later met Tetsuya Nishio, designer from the anime adaptation of the manga Ninku who he deemed as a big influence. When watching the anime series Hashire Melos!, Kishimoto was surprised by the character designs employed by the animators and he started researching works from animators. Wishing to write a manga for Shōnen Jump that targets a young demographic, Kishimoto found his style unsuitable for the magazine.

However, he noted that his works were similar to seinen manga, aimed towards a young adult demographic, rather than the shōnen manga read by children. In his second year of college, Kishimoto started drawing manga for magazine contests. Kishimoto recalls having never been surprised by manga ever since reading Akira and found that he still was not able to compete against them. However, during the same years, Kishimoto started reading Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal and Nobuhiro Watsuki's Rurouni Kenshin which used such genre. Upon entering college, Kishimoto decided he should try creating a Chanbara manga since Weekly Shōnen Jump had not published a title from that genre. ĭuring his last years of school, Kishimoto spent time drawing manga and went to an art college with hopes that he would become a manga artist. However, upon seeing a poster for the animated film Akira, Kishimoto became fascinated with the way the illustration was made and wished to imitate the series' creator Katsuhiro Otomo's style. By high school, Kishimoto started losing interest in manga as he started playing baseball and basketball, sports he practised at his school. While he could not afford to buy Weekly Shōnen Jump where the Dragon Ball manga was published, he followed the series thanks to a friend from school who had subscribed to the magazine. Slump, but also Dragon Quest, a role-playing video game for which Toriyama was art designer. During the following years, Kishimoto started idolising Dragon Ball's author Akira Toriyama, enjoying not only his series Dragon Ball and Dr.

In elementary school, Kishimoto started watching the Kinnikuman and Dragon Ball anime alongside his brother. Slump's Arale and Doraemon's titular protagonist. During his childhood, Kishimoto showed interest in drawing characters from the anime shows he watched, such as Dr.

Masashi Kishimoto was born in the Okayama Prefecture, Japan on Novemas the older identical twin of Seishi Kishimoto.

Naruto, Vol. 72 by Masashi Kishimoto