I will be the greatest manga artist someday! The creative path of Masashi Kishimoto (Topic)

Before the creator of Naruto Masashi Kishimoto first published the story of the daring boy Naruto, which stretches for 15 years, he made his own "ninja path" to become one of the most famous manga artists of our time. Today we will look at the creative path of Masashi Kishimoto. A person who went to his dream after years of failure.

The boy nobody believed in

Masashi was born in Okayama, Japan in 1974. Together with him, his twin brother Seishi was born. According to the mangaka's recollections, the Japanese tradition was then in use in their family, when on the first birthday several things are laid out in front of the children, depending on what object the child picks up - this will be associated with his interest in life. Seishi reached for a paintbrush, but Masashi for money [if you expected a different outcome, sorry, the reality is pretty harsh].

Seishi really began to get involved in drawing in the future, and later Masashi himself became addicted to this. During his school years, he loved to watch Dragon Ball and could spend hours drawing characters from this anime. Also, the young mangaka read the manga “Dr. Slump "by Akira Toriyama and" Doraemon "duo Fujiko Fujio.

At school, the love of drawing subsided, and Masashi became interested in playing baseball. That was until he stumbled upon an Akira poster in 1988. He looked at him for a long time, trying to understand how such a beautiful work could be drawn.

"Akira" Katsuhiro Otomo inspired Masashi to return to drawing again while he was in high school. He bought a lot of Akira art books and constantly redraws pictures from there, simultaneously trying to develop his own style. It was then that he decided that he wanted to connect his life with manga. Namely, to climb Olympus itself and get published in Shonen Jump magazine.

Shonen Jump is one of the most popular manga magazines in Japan, published every week. Many famous manga artists started with publications in this magazine, for example, Akira Toriyama [Dragon Ball], Eiichiro Oda [One Piece], Tsugumi Oba [Death Note].

The dream of becoming a manga artist pushed him to enter an art college, where he became interested in the genre of Tyambara manga about sword fighting. Much influenced by the manga "Blade of the Immortal".

In an interview with the creator of this manga, Masashi recalled:

“During my university years, Blade of the Immortal covered me even more than Akira Otomo. Just look at this picture. I thought it was far from my ability, especially drawing hands and feet! "

And he thought so for good reason. At the end of school, he realized that he really didn’t know how to draw, and even more so, to invent characters and a script. He often brought his work to his brother for evaluation, but he only laughed in his face. Masashi did not give up and continued to paint diligently for days on end. Because of this, at school, he was one of the worst students in academic performance. The saddest thing is that he never had any success in the manga, and in his personal life, too. However, he continued to study.

Eternal Loser

In college, he was lucky. In 1995, his very first one-shot, Karakuri, was published by Shueisha. Shueisha also gave him the Hop Step Award. But the luck ended there.

All of his next works, which he brought to different publishers, were "handed", calling them unworked or boring. By the end of his college years, he still had no merit, no successful publications [except one], no well-defined style or idea. His friends began to get jobs, classmates found themselves in various artistic fields. Only Kishimoto continued to hone his skills, went to publishers, but no one needed it. Even his family stopped believing in him and constantly dissuaded him from a stupid school dream, asking him to find a normal job.

Everyone turned away from him, but he stubbornly continued to draw. If you are Naruto's caretakers [and I'm sure you are] you have already drawn parallels with its protagonist and author. And it is true, the very image of Naruto is a loser, in whom no one believes, but he at all costs goes to his dream of becoming Hokage, Kishimoto wrote off from himself.

And yet I will become Hokage [mangaka]

Here's what he said in an interview in New York at Comic Con 2015:

“Honestly, I don’t know if I have ever really been overwhelmed by eternal rejections. The thought was constantly spinning in my head: “Eh, they rejected me again, it's okay, I know that one day I'll become a mangaka. It's all right, I'll just move on. " I thought that for that reason, because I was sure that I could only sell myself in this industry. Maybe it makes me very naive and stupid. ”- Masashi Kishimoto.

The next year he spent in deep study of the theory of drawing, screenwriting and various artistic techniques. He read specialized literature all day long, since in one practice he could not go far. It is known that he even reviewed the films of Quentin Tarantino, and borrowed techniques from there in order to learn how to correctly present the plot. He also focused on the work of Takeshi Kitano and Michael Bey. Jackie Chan's projects were no less important films for him that influenced his further work.

Honing his skills, he drew the manga "Asian Punk", with which he came to one of the publishers, where the editor praised the plot and production, calling it exciting. But, they still won't publish it because the manga was too niche and won't reach a mass audience.

And then in 1997 he wrote a one-shot "Naruto". In Akamaru Jump magazine he was told that the work needed to be slightly tweaked and then it would be published. The audience got a story, but Masashi was dissatisfied with his work and wanted to bring it to perfection [at this point you can start playing the theme of the battle from "Naruto" in your head to make it more atmospheric].

It is also worth saying that it was originally a fantasy, with magic and other magical things. However, Kishimoto thought that he hadn't worked the world well enough in his manga and decided to switch to ninja. For this decision, he thanks himself to this day, since then in 1997 the first part of "Harry Potter" was released, establishing a monopoly on the world of magic.

And so in 1999 he wrote the first volume of "Naruto" and sent it not anywhere, but to "Shonen Jump". It was a real success. Moreover, he was so phenomenal that the author literally soared to the very top of the manga world.

This is how the story of a loser boy Naruto began, who went to his dream. And it was created by the same, once a former loser, who was able to fulfill his dream. Naruto is one of the most famous anime phenomena in the world thanks to his personal history, elaborate setting and gorgeous characters.

But this is not the end of Masashi Kishimoto's career. And even though he doesn't create Boruto [take me away and have mercy]. He plans to continue creating new paintings.

The Topic of Article: I will be the greatest manga artist someday! The creative path of Masashi Kishimoto.
Author: Jake Pinkman