Kishimoto Reveals Two Characters Whose Popularity Shocked Him

Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is quite easily one of the best stories to exist when it comes to manga. One of the biggest reasons why Naruto is as popular as it is is because of the massive side character cast. Without Naruto’s side characters, the series would surely not have been as popular as it ended up being. Of course, it goes without saying that Naruto Uzumaki, and along with him, the side characters of the Naruto series were incredibly fun to watch despite a lot of them not getting as much attention as they deserved, which is something that the fans acknowledge.

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In fact, some characters became so popular with the fans that Kishimoto himself had no clue as to why the fans liked them in the first place.

The Many Popular Characters Of Naruto

• Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha Were The Most Popular Characters
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When it comes to character popularity, Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha are always going to be at the very top. These two characters are the heart of the Naruto series and for good reason. Naruto Uzumaki is the protagonist of the series, and the character that, perhaps, readers connect with the most. This is because Naruto has always been the underdog and someone that got discredited often, and looked down upon. Naruto is the perfect representation of the underdog trope, and at the same time, a hard worker who attained everything in his life with incredible effort. Opposite to Naruto, Sasuke is the representation of the genius trope. Often, stories have genius characters that are used by the author to contrast with the underdog protagonist. This has been common across fiction, but it is safe to say that Naruto popularized it quite a lot with Sasuke Uchiha.

The character of Sasuke was such that despite him being a huge genius, fans never truly got bored with witnessing his plot progression. In fact, for many fans, Sasuke might just be the best character in the entirety of the Naruto series.

Undoubtedly, these are the two major characters that one would expect to be popular in the narrative series. At the same time, there are other side characters who are expectedly popular, such as Kakashi Hatake, and of course, Sakura Haruno as well. These are massively popular characters and expectedly so. But, Naruto has such a massive cast that there are bound to be some characters who one would never imagine would go on to be popular and yet beloved by the fans. Some of these characters are so popular that even the author himself finds it hard to believe.

How Rock Lee and Jiraiya Surprised Kishimoto

Kishimoto Never Expected Rock Lee And Jiraiya To Gain As Much Popularity

When it comes to the Naruto series, Kishimoto has written quite a lot of phenomenal characters. There are some that Kishimoto himself knows are not that beloved among the fandom, but he adores himself. These characters include the likes of Shikamaru, and of course, to a certain extent, even Kurama. Then, there are characters that are incredibly popular among the fans but Kishimoto himself can’t make sense of why that is the case. Kishimoto has previously spoken about this.

Q: Both Naruto and Boruto are works with fascinating characters aside from the main characters.

Kishimoto: In Gaiden’s short serialization, ChouChou was popular with my superiors, my assistants, and those around me. For the parts where Sarada is carrying a heavy burden, I thought I would brighten it up, so I had her (ChouChou) appear, but everyone spoke so well of her. I didn’t think she would be that popular, so I was surprised. In Naruto, it was Rock Lee. Along with Jiraiya, I wasn’t consciously trying for it, but they became popular. Creating characters is quite difficult, so I don’t quite understand when characters that the author creates aiming for them to be popular don’t gain popularity, but characters I make without being conscious of it do become popular.

Clearly, the two characters that Kishimoto was surprised by the popularity of are Rock Lee and Jiraiya. The reason for their popularity shouldn’t be surprising, but the author of the series, Kishimoto, can’t make sense of it. For Rock Lee, it is easy to see my fans would connect with him. After all, he was one of the most humanized characters in a show full of ninjas with tremendous powers. Rock Lee did not have any ninjutsu, but was striving for glory nonetheless. He trained his body to an extreme and went through tremendous hardships and pain. He was rewarded for that and became one of the strongest physical fighters in the Naruto series. Lee continued to work hard despite suffering from great setbacks, and that is one of the biggest reasons why this character is loved by the fans.

Similarly, the character of Jiraiya is loved by many as well. Jiraiya plays the role of Naruto’s mentor brilliantly. He became Naruto’s teacher, and made sure that the young boy who was quite raw at the time turned out to become a very powerful ninja with tremendous strength. More than that, Jiraiya set him on the path to attaining true peace and understanding the pain of everyone. Without him, the character of Naruto would certainly not be as great as it is today. More than that, Jiraiya’s character itself was full of exciting plot lines of his own that the fans certainly adored. While Kishimoto might not have thought much of it while writing it, it is clear to see that it had a massive effect on the fans.

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Writing brilliant side characters is a sign of Kishimoto’s flexibility, and at the same time, adaptability when it comes to writing brilliant stories utilizing the non-Team 7 individuals. Unfortunately, not all of these characters got the attention that fans wanted. It is safe to say that Kishimoto was more than capable of writing these characters brilliantly in his story. But, unfortunately, he didn’t do that for one reason or another. As the series progressed, he decided to put all the focus on Naruto and Sasuke and the other characters went on to be neglected as the story continued.

Which Side Character Was The Best?

Team 7 Members Are The Best Side Characters

Out of all the side characters in the Naruto series, the best ones were certainly those of Team 7. The likes of Kakashi and Sakura, along with Sasuke, can be considered to be some of the very best site characters. Aside from these characters, the likes of the Hokage are certainly up there, especially the fourth Hokage, Minato. Then, of course, there are Rock Lee and Jiraiya, two characters that Kishimoto spoke of himself. These brilliant characters added a lot of value and depth to the Naruto series in a multitude of ways.

More recently, fans even got a one-shot on Minato and Kishimoto teased that he would go on to write more one-shots in the future, and possibly even a whole new manga series. For now, fans simply have to sit back patiently and wait for new content from Kishimoto, but it is certainly going to come eventually.

Naruto is available to read on the MangaPlus and the Shonen Jump app. Fans can read the official release and support the author by doing so.

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Naruto

Release Date

October 3, 2002

Creator

Masashi Kishimoto

Number of Episodes

220

Streaming Service(s)

Netflix
, Crunchyroll
, Amazon Prime Video
, Peacock
, The Roku Channel
, Amazon Freevee
, Hulu
, Hoopla
, Pluto TV
, Tubi