Personal life

Kishimoto is the twin brother of Seishi Kishimoto, the author of 666 Satan and Blazer Drive.^[3] In 2003, Kishimoto married, but due to being busy never went on a honeymoon with his wife until 2015. The couple has one son.^[39]

The first time Kishimoto used the double action technique in a fight between Naruto and Haku.

While as a child Kishimoto enjoyed reading manga, he was inspired to write one after seeing a promotional image for the film Akira. This made him analyze the artwork of Akira's original author, Katsuhiro Otomo, as well as Akira Toriyama, another artist he admired. Realizing both had their own style regarding the designs, Kishimoto decided to draw manga while crafting his own images.^[9]While attending art school, Kishimoto was also an avid reader of Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal, and extensively studied Samura's page layouts, action sequences, and anatomical techniques.^[49] When Kishimoto was originally creating the Naruto series, he looked to other shōnen manga for influences while attempting to make his characters as unique as possible.^[50]Kishimoto cites Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball series as one of his influences, noting that Goku, the protagonist, was a key factor when creating Naruto Uzumaki due to his energetic and mischievous personality.^[51] When redesigning three characters for the series, Kishimoto cites The Matrix, one of his favorite movies, as an inspiration for their outfits.^[52] He has also cited Yoshihiro Togashi as one of his favorite manga authors,^[53] while the manga Sasuke by Sanpei Shirato, a series which Kishimoto likes, inspired Kishimoto in the development of the character Sasuke Uchiha.^[54]

Kishimoto has also cited other influences such as Takeshi Kitano and Quentin Tarantino. He also mentioned Michael Bay's technique "of shooting a scene against the background light" but found it difficult to make.^[10] Another technique inspired by Jackie Chan's films he used in the Naruto manga is the "double action"; in this action a punch is shown in three different angles in order to give a big impact on the punch's strength. This was first shown in Naruto Uzumaki's battle against Haku. Sometimes, Kishimoto draws panels intentionally confusing during fight scenes to add a sense of speed. On the other hand, Kishimoto commented that for the fights between Naruto and Sasuke, he added action from the top of the page to the bottom in order for them to be easier to follow.^[55]

During the series' publication, Kishimoto got married and had children. The changes to his personal life affected the story as he made the protagonist Naruto Uzumaki meet his parents, something the author wanted the character to feel based on his own experience as a father.^[3]

When drawing the characters, Kishimoto consistently follows a five-step process: concept and rough sketch, drafting, inking, shading, and coloring. These steps are followed when he is drawing the manga and making the color illustrations that commonly adorn the cover of tankōbon, the cover of Weekly Shōnen Jump, or other media. The toolkit he uses occasionally changes.^[56] For instance, he used an airbrush for one illustration for a Weekly Shōnen Jump cover but decided not to use it for future drawings largely due to the cleanup required.^[57]

Masashi and his twin brother Seishi have been drawing manga together since early childhood, thus their styles are similar.^[58] As a result, each has frequently been accused of copying the other, not just artwork, but story elements as well. Seishi notes that the similarities are not intentional but are likely because they were influenced by many of the same things.^[59][60]

Kishimoto has admitted he made no plans in regards to the development of Naruto's story developments. For example, when introducing Sasuke, the character says he wants to kill a person. By this time, Kishimoto only thought that Sasuke's brother, Itachi, had done a wrong deed in the past but was not certain of what was exactly. By volume 16 of the series which featured Itachi's actual introduction, Kishimoto decided Itachi was an agent working for Konohagakure to kill all members from the Uchiha clan except Sasuke. This is later revealed in volume 43 of the manga.^[55]Another one was the revelation that the late Minato Namikaze would be Naruto's father. When Kishimoto had the idea that Minato would be Naruto's father, he started adding hints of that to the reader such as giving the Hokage mountain from Konohagakure spiky hair similar to Naruto's.^[61]