With over 47 arcs, 700 manga chapters, and 720 episodes, Naruto is one of the longest anime and manga series to grace the world. The series has long been popular, and everyone can credit Masashi Kishimoto for that. The mangaka has contributed most of his life to making Naruto one of the pillars of the anime and manga industry.
However, even Kishimoto couldn’t work on every single arc and get the best results he wanted. Thus, he appointed Mikio Ikemoto as his chief assistant for Naruto. While many people don’t know this, Ikemoto has contributed a lot to Naruto. So much so that he was given the opportunity to create the sequel to the Naruto series, Boruto.
Ikemoto has not only helped with the story of Naruto, but he has also created some major characters in the series. Kishimoto once revealed that when he was busy working on the Chunin exams, he took Ikemoto’s help to create Zabuza and Haku, two of the most popular characters in Pre-Shippuden Naruto.
Mikio Ikemoto Explained When He Joined Naruto
In 2016, Ikemoto and Kishimoto sat down for an interview with Weekly Shonen Jump, which was later translated and shared by Sasuke Revolution on Tumblr. In the interview, Kishimoto praised Ikemoto’s art a lot and explained how he initially contributed to Naruto. When Ikemoto was asked about Naruto, he talked about when he joined the series.
Ikemoto stated:
It was around chapter 7, and I started contributing with the designs 2-3 months after that. I don’t remember exactly, but Kishimoto was always so busy.
Mikio Ikemoto’s art style was similar to that of Kishimoto, which is why Kishimoto decided to hire him as his chief assistant. The mangaka then went on to become one of the most important elements in the story of Naruto.
He drew many important aspects of the Naruto manga, including Naruto’s shadow clones, the Third Hokage’s battle outfit, etc. His contribution to Naruto was highly recognized by both Kishimoto and Shueisha; thus, they offered him to illustrate the sequel to Naruto, Boruto, which, although initially hated, is now being loved by Naruto fans.
Mikio Ikemoto’s Biggest Contribution to Naruto
While talking about Ikemoto’s art style and his assistance in the Naruto manga, Masashi Kishimoto revealed that Ikemoto was not only working on battle outfits, crowds, and shadow clones, but he also created two of the most important characters that were a part of the series before the time skip.
Kishimoto stated:
At the time, I started designing a ton of ninja characters. I wasn’t happy with some of them, so it wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. I had the Chunin Exam coming up, and I needed many shinobi to fill the story. That’s why I asked Mikio for his help on Zabuza and Haku.
According to the mangaka, he was quite busy with the Chunin Exams arc as he had to create a lot of characters to fill up the story, but he was not happy with many of them.
Thus, he asked Ikemoto for help, and the Boruto mangaka managed to create the best version of Zabuza and Haku which was later featured in the original story.
You can watch Naruto and Boruto on Hulu.
