Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, is one of the finest mangakas in the industry. But that doesn’t mean he never had a learning slope. In an interview, the author confessed how he hadn’t planned a lot of Naruto elements in the beginning and just made them up as he went.
As a result, many elements remained underdeveloped or unused in Naruto. In fact, even Sasuke’s Sharingan, a crucial power in Narutoverse, was not properly developed at first.
Masashi Kishimoto Slowly Developed Sharingan
In an interview with Kobayashi, Masashi Kishimoto accepted that back when he had introduced the Sharingan in Naruto for the first time, he had not developed it to its full extent. Back then, the Sharingan could only be used to copy the moves of other shinobi, and the power later developed to include many more abilities.
I 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.
After the concept of Sharingan was fully developed, its users could detect irregularities in the chakra flow, have predictive capabilities in combat, and copy any jutsu. Advanced users can also hypnotize people or suggest them to do specific actions.
According to the author, he had come across an old story in which the main character had a power similar to Sharingan. Thus, Kishimoto took the concept of the power and created the Sharingan. He then later assigned the power to the Uchiha clan. He even gave Kakashi a Sharingan so that readers could stay more invested in the series to know why Kakashi has one despite not belonging to the Uchiha clan.
Masashi Kishimoto Explains Why He Rushed Everything in the Beginning of Naruto
Masashi Kishimoto introduced a strong villain like Zabuza at the very beginning of Naruto and it has made many people question why such a powerful antagonist had arrived so early. According to the creator, this was done in order to put things into perspective for the audience as well as to show off Kakashi’s strength at the very beginning.
Next, Kishimoto admitted that many of the things he had introduced at the beginning of Naruto were not well-thought-out. At the time, he kept making up new additions just for the excitement and suspense but didn’t pick up on the loose threads until much later. So the author just kept inventing things as he went.
The same is true for Sasuke’s backstory. Kishimoto had only planned that Sasuke would have a brother who had done something terrible. However, by the time Itachi was introduced, he decided to secretly make Itachi a good guy who had done something bad due to his circumstances.
You can read Naruto on Viz Media and watch the anime on Crunchyroll.
