Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is a legendary anime that will make the viewers experience a rollercoaster of emotions. The story building and character designs are done with such precision that non-anime lovers also fall in love with it. Many people have been inspired by Naruto, including manga writers. It is common to take ideas and inspiration from other anime.
Even Masashi Kishimoto took inspiration from another legendary manga writer, Yoshihiro Togashi. The former treats the latter as his teacher, while the latter is very fond of the former’s work. Togashi created Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter. Kishimoto used one of his mind-blowing ideas which made Naruto one of the most popular anime ever.
Masashi Kishimoto Took Inspiration From Yoshihiro Togashi
During the 10th Anniversary of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto and Yoshihiro Togashi came together to host an interview. Masashi Kishimoto was asked what the most impressive thing was about Togashi’s work. He answered, “His way of surprising the reader, First, the way he can create unexpected scenes that can show the threat that the enemies represent, the Kagebushin no Jutsu of Naruto is strongly inspired by Suzaku’s technique in Yu Yu Hakusho. The idea of having after-images be real was very innovative, I was excited and thought “How will they beat this guy”.”
He continued, “Another thing that I liked was the characters’ expressions during the scenes where they witness their enemy reveal their true power, I’ve studied a lot about the delicate balance of expressions of characters when they’re surprised or when they find themselves in a dangerous situation, Back when I’ve started the serialization of Naruto, my inspiration for these kind of facial expressions was Hunter x Hunter, even to this day it still has a special place for me and I often re-read it. Next, there’s the character Hiei who’s been developed in a fantastic way.”
The afterimage technique used in Yu Yu Hakusho proved to be a great inspiration for Naruto’s Shadow Clone Jutsu. The Shadow Clone Jutsu went on to become one of the iconic techniques in the whole anime world. It is only because of Yoshihiro Togashi that people got to see such an amazing thing.
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Masashi Kishimoto On Naruto
Masashi Kishimoto carefully scrutinized every aspect of Naruto before he began the serialization. He even asked Yoshihiro Togashi for his opinion. Togashi was quite impressed with his work. During the interview, Kishimoto also confirmed that Sasuke Uchiha was based on Hiei, from Yu Yu Hakusho. Out of all the other things, the Sharingan was also an inspiration.
Suzaku from Yu Yu Hakusho used the afterimage technique against Yusuke Uramenshi. But Kishimoto did not limit it to one person. The whole ninja world could use it since it was a basic yet brilliant technique for battles. Some used them for battle sequences while others used them for trickery. At the end of the day, the Naruto fandom should be thankful to Yoshihiro Togashi, just like Masashi Kishimoto is.
Source: Fandom
