Viz Media licensed the manga for North American production and serialized Naruto in their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.

Part I of the manga was adapted into an anime television series by Pierrot and Aniplex, which ran for 220 episodes from October 2002 to February 2007 on TV Tokyo.

A second series, which adapts material from Part II of the manga, is titled Naruto: Shippuden and ran on TV Tokyo for 500 episodes from February 2007 to March 2017.

A powerful fox known as the Nine-Tails attacks Konoha, the hidden leaf village in the Land of Fire, one of the Five Great Shinobi Countries in the Ninja World.

In response, the leader of Konoha and the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, at the cost of his life, seals the fox inside the body of his newborn son, Naruto Uzumaki, making him a host of the beast.

Due to a decree by the Third Hokage forbidding any mention of these events, Naruto learns nothing about the Nine-Tails until 12 years later, when Mizuki, a renegade ninja, reveals the truth to him.

With Nagato's death, Tobi, disguised as Madara Uchiha (one of Konoha's founding fathers), announces that he wants to capture all nine Tailed Beasts to cast an illusion powerful enough to control all humanity and achieve world peace.

As Sasuke learns the history of Konoha, including the circumstances that led to his clan's downfall, he decides to protect the village and rejoins Naruto and Sakura to thwart Madara and Obito's plans.

In 1995, Shueisha released Karakuri, a one-shot manga by Masashi Kishimoto that earned an honorable mention in the Hop Step Award in 1996.

[5] Though Kishimoto had concerns that chakra (the energy source used by the ninjas in Naruto) made the series too Japanese, he still believed it is an enjoyable read.

[8] For Part II of the manga, Kishimoto tried to keep the panel layouts and the plot easy for the reader to follow, and avoid "overdo[ing] the typical manga-style".

[10] When he created Naruto, Kishimoto looked to other shōnen manga as influences for his work and tried to make his characters unique, while basing the story on Japanese culture.

[13] As a result of how the younger characters were significantly weaker than the villains, Kishimoto made the ellipsis in order to have them age and become stronger during this time.

[24] Written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto was serialized for a 15-year run in Shueisha's magazine, Weekly Shōnen Jump from September 21, 1999,[25][26] to November 10, 2014.

[32] A miniseries titled Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring,[b] centered on the main characters' children, began serialization in the Japanese and English editions of Weekly Shōnen Jump on April 27, 2015, and ended after ten chapters on July 6 of the same year.

[41][42] Madman Entertainment began publishing Naruto volumes in Australia and New Zealand in March 2008 after reaching a distribution deal with Viz Media.

It ran in Shueisha's Saikyō Jump magazine from December 3, 2010, to July 4, 2014,[44][45] and was made into an anime series, produced by Studio Pierrot, and premiering on TV Tokyo on April 3, 2012.

[48] A monthly sequel series titled Boruto: Naruto Next Generations began in the Japanese and English editions of Weekly Shōnen Jump in early 2016, illustrated by Mikio Ikemoto and written by Ukyō Kodachi, with supervision by Kishimoto.

The comic is written by Caleb Goellner, with drawing by Hendry Prasetya, coloring by Raúl Angulo, and lettering by Ed Dukeshire.

[55] The first Naruto anime television series, directed by Hayato Date and produced by Pierrot and Aniplex, premiered on TV Tokyo in Japan on October 3, 2002, and concluded on February 8, 2007, after 220 episodes.

[86][87][88][89] The third artbook Illustration Collection: Naruto Uzumaki, was published in 2015 in Japan and later the same year in North America;[90][91] it contains artwork originally on Shonen Jump comic covers.

[99] A manga fan book titled Secret: Writings from the Warriors Official Fanbook appeared in 2002,[100] and another fan book was released to commemorate the series' 10th anniversary, including illustrations of Naruto Uzumaki by other manga artists, a novel, Kishimoto's one-shot titled Karakuri, and an interview between Kishimoto and Yoshihiro Togashi.

[118] Javier Lugo, writing for Manga Life, agreed, describing the artwork as "dramatic, exciting, and just right for the story he's telling".

[120] Writing for IGN, Ramsey Isler called Jutsu one of the most entertaining concepts in Naruto, stating as well that their diversity, complex signs required for techniques, the unique physical features, and the sheer destructive power of Ninjutsu are the elements that have made the series widely popular.

[116] The fights across the Part II received praise, most notably Naruto's and Sasuke's, resulting in major changes into their character arcs.

The finale earned nearly perfect scores from both Anime News Network and Comic Book Bin, with the latter acclaiming the popularity of the title character.

The World with director Edgar Wright saying he was inspired by how whenever there is a "killer move" in the manga, there is an impact in the background following any technique's usage.

[149][150][151] Psychologist Lawrence C. Rubin suggests that the storylines would appeal to readers of any age who have lost loved ones, or are having difficulty finding friends, or who are in other situations shown in the series.

[149] In Yukari Fujimoto's view, as the characters mature, they show respect to the adults who have raised and taught them, making it a conservative storyline in comparison to other manga of the same time period such as One Piece and Air Gear.

Character development based on female roles, when it does occur, again uses stereotypical roles: Tsunade, for example, a middle-aged woman with large breasts, is a clear mother figure, and when she teaches Sakura to be a medical ninja, which requires special skills possessed only by women, the story reinforces the idea that women only belong on the battlefield as healers.