Plot and Writer:

Naruto was first published by Shueisha in 1999 in the 43rd issue of Japan's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and dreams to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of all. The series is based on a one-shot comic by Kishimoto that was published in the August 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump.

 Story Line:

Twelve years before the start of the series, a powerful creature known as the Nine-tailed Demon Fox attacked the ninja village Konoha, killing many people. In response, the leader of Konoha's ninja military – the Fourth Hokage – sacrificed his life to seal the demon inside the newborn Naruto Uzumaki. Konoha, however, regarded Naruto as if he were the demon fox itself and mistreated him throughout most of his childhood. A decree made by the current Kage, the Third Hokage, forbade anyone mention the attack of the demon fox to anyone else. This included Naruto, who was not aware of the demon inside of him. Years later, Naruto is tricked by the renegade ninja Mizuki into stealing a forbidden scroll that would teach him a secret ninja technique, but he is stopped by his teacher, Iruka Umino. When Iruka almost dies while protecting Naruto from Mizuki, who also reveals that he is the container of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Naruto uses the Jutsu he learned from the scroll that creates multiple clones of himself, Shadow Clone Technique, to defeat Mizuki.
Naruto is assigned alongside, Sasuke Uchiha, who he competes against often, and Sakura Haruno, by Iruka after his class graduate from the Ninja Academy to form a three-person team named Team 7 under an experienced and severe sensei named Kakashi Hatake. Like all the ninja teams from every village, Team 7 is charged with completing missions requested by villagers, such as doing chores or being bodyguards. After several missions, Kakashi allows Team 7 to participate into a ninja exam in which they can advance to a higher rank, and thus, take part in more difficult missions. During the exams, Orochimaru, a criminal at the top of Konoha's most wanted list, attacks Konoha and kills the Third Hokage in an act of revenge. This forces one of the three legendary ninja, Jiraiya to search for his former teammate Tsunade, who has been nominated to become the Fifth Hokage. During the search, it is revealed that Orochimaru desires to acquire Sasuke due to his powerful genetic heritage. Believing Orochimaru will be able to give him the strength needed to kill his brother Itachi, who destroyed his clan, Sasuke joins him. Tsunade sends a group of ninja including Naruto to make Sasuke return to Konoha, but Naruto is unable to defeat him and bring him back to the village. Naruto does not give up on Sasuke, however, and he leaves Konoha to train for two-and-a-half years under Jiraiya's tutelage in order to prepare himself for the next time he encounters Sasuke.
After the training period, a criminal organization called Akatsuki attempts to capture the nine powerful tailed beasts that are sealed within people - including the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox sealed inside of Naruto. Several ninjas from Konoha, including Team 7, fight against the Akatsuki members and search for their teammate Sasuke. Although they manage to save Gaara, the host of the One-Tailed beast, Akatsuki is successful in capturing seven of the creatures. In the meantime, Sasuke betrays Orochimaru and faces Itachi to take revenge. After Itachi dies in battle, Sasuke is told by the Akatsuki founder and leader Tobi that Itachi was ordered by Konoha's leadership to destroy his clan. Saddened with this revelation, Sasuke joins forces with Akatsuki to kill Konoha's superior who ordered the Uchihas' elimination.
Meanwhile, as several Akatsuki members are defeated by the Konoha ninjas, their figurehead leader, Pain, invades the village to capture Naruto. However, Naruto defeats him and convinces him to abandon the Akatsuki. With Pain's eventual death, Tobi , as Madara Uchiha announces that he wants to obtain all nine of the tailed beasts in order to perform an illusion powerful enough to control all of humanity. The leaders of the five ninja villages refuse to aid him, and instead, join forces to confront him and his allies. This results into a fourth ninja world war between the unified armies of the Five Great Countries collectively known as the "Ninja Alliance Army" and Akatsuki's forces.

Animated Series:

            Naruto: 

Directed by Hayato Date and produced by Studio Pierrot and TV Tokyo, the Naruto anime adaptation premiered in Japan on TV Tokyo October 3, 2002, and ran for 220 episodes until its conclusion on February 8, 2007. The first 135 episodes are adapted from the first twenty seven volumes of the manga, while the remaining eighty episodes are original episodes that utilize plot elements not seen in the original manga. Beginning on April 29, 2009, the original Naruto anime began a rerun on Wednesdays and Thursdays (until the fourth week September 2009 when it changed to just Wednesdays) in HDTV with new opening and ending themes under the name Shōnen Hen.
Episodes from the series have been published in DVD. The first DVD series has been the only one to be collected in VHS format. There are a total of five series, with each of the including four episodes per volume. The series has also been collected in a series of three DVD boxes during 2009. The newest DVD series is Naruto The Best Scene which collects scenes from the first 135 episodes from the anime.
Viz licensed the anime series for broadcast and distribution in the Region 1 market. The English adaptation of the anime began airing on September 10, 2005 and finished on January 31, 2009, with 209 episodes aired. The episodes have been shown on Cartoon Network's Toonami (United States), YTV's Bionix (Canada) and Jetix's (United Kingdom) programming blocks. Beginning on March 28, 2006, Viz released the series on DVD. While the first 26 volumes contain four episodes, since DVD volumes have five episodes. Uncut editions are compiled in DVD Box Sets, each containing 12-15 episodes, with some variation based around story arcs. In the American broadcast, references to alcohol, Japanese culture, sexual innuendo, and the appearance of blood and death were sometimes reduced for the broadcast, but left in, in the DVD editions. Other networks make additional content edits apart from the edits done by Cartoon Network, such as Jetix's stricter censoring of blood, language, smoking and the like. The series has also been licensed to the websites Hulu, Joost, and Crunchyroll, which air episodes online with the original Japanese audio tracks and English subtitles.The last Naruto episode aired on YTV's Bionix block on December 6, 2009 at 12:30am ET.

Naruto: Shippuden

Naruto: Shippuden (NARUTO -ナルト- 疾風伝 Naruto Shippūden, lit. "Naruto: Hurricane Chronicles") is the ongoing sequel to the original Naruto anime and covers the Naruto manga from volume twenty-eight on. The TV adaptation of Naruto: Shippuden debuted in Japan on February 15, 2007 on TV Tokyo. It is developed by Studio Pierrot and directed by Hayato Date. ABS-CBN is the first TV network outside Japan to broadcast Naruto: Shippuden; it aired the first 40 episodes of Naruto: Shippuden, running the show through March 19, 2008. On January 8, 2009, TV Tokyo began broadcasting new episodes via internet streaming directly to monthly subscribers. Each streamed episode is made available online within an hour of its Japanese premiere and includes English subtitles. Viz began streaming English subtitled episodes on January 2, 2009, on its official website for the series. The uploaded episodes include both previously released episodes and the new episodes from Japan. Since October 2009, the English dub of Naruto: Shippuden started airing weekly on Disney XD.

The series is being released to Region 2 DVD in Japan with four or five episodes per disc. There are currently four series of DVD releases divided by story arc. There is also a special feature included with the seventh Naruto: Shippuden compilation DVD based on the second ending of the series called Hurricane! "Konoha Academy" Chronicles. Besides the regular DVD series, on December 16, 2009 Kakashi Chronicles: Boys' Life on the Battlefield (カカシ外伝～戦場のボーイズライフ～ Kakashi Gaiden ~Senjō no Bōizu Raifu~) was released featuring episodes 119-120 which are set during Kakashi Hatake's childhood.
The first North American DVD of the series was released on September 29, 2009. Only the first fifty-three episodes were collected in this format that ended with the 12th volume released on August 10, 2010.^[58] Following episodes have been released as part of DVD boxes that started release on January 26, 2010 with the first season. In the United Kingdom, the series is licensed by Manga Entertainment who released the first DVD collection on June 14, 2010.