Naruto

## Naruto **Naruto** (ナルト) is a 2002 anime television series produced by Studio Pierrot, adapted from Masashi Kishimoto's manga. The first entry in what would become a two-part saga (followed by *Naruto: Shippuden*), the original Naruto series is one of the most beloved and influential anime of the 21st century — part of the "Big Three" that defined shonen anime in the 2000s alongside *One Piece* and *Bleach*. The series introduced a generation of Western audiences to anime and remains foundational to the culture. Naruto Uzumaki is an orphaned young ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village who carries an enormous secret: at birth, the fearsome Nine-Tailed Fox demon was sealed inside him by his father — the Fourth Hokage — to save the village from its rampage. The villagers fear and resent him for it, and Naruto grew up alone and ignored, acting out to get any attention at all. His dream: to become Hokage, the village's greatest ninja and leader, so that everyone will acknowledge him. Graduating from the ninja academy and assigned to a three-person team with the brooding Sasuke Uchiha and the precise Sakura Haruno under the instruction of the veteran Kakashi Hatake, Naruto begins a journey through C-rank missions, the Chunin Exams, and eventually a confrontation with the sinister organization Akatsuki that will test everything he believes about friendship, sacrifice, and what it means to protect someone. A shonen classic.