In the world of anime, Naruto is considered to be one of the strongest anime characters. Created by Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto had a lot of tricks up his sleeve that not only helped him win the Fourth Great Ninja War but also established him as the Strongest Shinobi in the world of Ninjas popularly known as the Narutoverse.
Naruto had a lot of techniques that helped him grow stronger over the years. Be it Rasengan or Baryon Mode, Naruto has used a lot of techniques but his most famous technique is the Shadow clone Jutsu or Kage Bunshin which allowed him to create multiple clones of himself thus increasing his manpower in the battle.
While this technique is probably Naruto’s strongest technique, Kishimoto has admitted in an interview that he “dug his own grave” by giving Naruto this technique too early in the story. Not only did it become a big hindrance to the story, but it also caused a lot of complications for Kishimoto himself.
Naruto’s Shadow Clone Jutsu Was A Mistake
In a 2015 interview with Fuji TV, which was later uploaded on the Naruto Fandom website, Kishimoto was questioned if he felt like he “dug his own grave” by introducing the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu or Shadow Clones so early in the series at it disrupted the power balance in the series in the beginning.
Acknowledging that he had dug his own grave, he explained that he had to find fresh, inventive ways to illustrate Naruto’s development throughout the series because he had to establish this kind of strength so early in the narrative. Kishimoto had to worry about keeping Naruto’s power balanced as the use of numerous clones was established from the start making Naruto much stronger than he was supposed to be at the start of the series.
Also, talking about the Shadow Clones Jutsu, Masashi Kishimoto explained how it not only became a problem for the story but also turned into a nightmare for him. This is because he had to draw each and every shadow clone by himself.
Masashi Kishimoto’s Problem With Drawing Naruto’s Shadow Clones Jutsu
Even for a master artist like Kishimoto, the task of repeatedly painting the identical character in every scene grew daunting even though power balance was undoubtedly an issue with the shadow clone technique. It was important for Kishimoto to sketch every clone that Naruto produced with his own hands.
And Naruto could make more clones the stronger he became. This became a big problem for Kishimoto as at one point he had to draw hundreds of Shadow clones of Naruto to keep the similarity between all the clones, which was very tiring and frustrating for him. Thus it became a bigger problem than maintaining the power balance in the story.
Even though the Shadow Clones undoubtedly helped Naruto succeed, Kishimo truly regretted designing Kage Bunshin since he had to draw hundreds of clones of the same character. This is why there was a time at the beginning of the series when Kishimoto had to nerf Naruto’s use of shadow clone jutsu in the story.
You can watch Naruto on Hulu.
