Naruto

12:30 to 1:00 on Toonami
Naruto is a manga by Masashi Kishimoto with an anime TV series adaptation. The anime series, produced by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex. The main character, Naruto Uzumaki, is a loud, silly, teenage ninja who constantly searches for acceptance abd dreams to one day become Hokage, who is acknowledged as the leader and strongest of all ninja in the village.

Viz Media published a translated version in the American Shonen Jump, and is currently within a few volumes of the Japanese publication. Naruto has become Viz Media's best-selling manga series.

Viz also licensed the anime for North American production. Naruto debuted in the United States on Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block on September 10, 2005, it was cancelled in early 2009.

In 2012 Naruto was added to the Toonami lineup again, this time being aired uncut.

Plot
Twelve years before the start of the series, a powerful creature known as the Nine-tailed Demon Fox attacked the ninja village Konoha, killing many people. In response, the leader of Konoha– the Fourth Hokage– sacrificed his life to seal the demon inside the newborn Naurto Uzumaki. Konoha, however, regarded Naruto as if he were the demon fox itself and mistreated him throughout most of his childhood. A decree made by the current Hokage, the Third Hokage, forbade anyone mention the attack of the demon fox to anyone else. This included Naruto, who was not aware of the demon inside of him. Years later, Naruto is tricked by the renegade ninja Mizuki into stealing a forbidden scroll that would teach him a secret ninja technique, but he is stopped by his teacher, Iruka Umino. When Iruka almost dies while protecting Naruto from Mizuki, who also reveals that he is the container of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Naruto uses the Jutsu he learned from the scroll that creates multiple clones of himself, Shadow Clone jutsu to defeat Mizuki.

Naruto is assigned alongside Sasuke Uchiha, whom he often competes against, and Sakura Haruno whom he has a crush on, to form a three-person team named squad 7 under an experienced and severe sensei, the elite ninja Hatake Kakashi. Like all the ninja teams from every village, Team 7 is charged with completing missions requested by villagers, such as doing chores or being bodyguards. After several missions, most notably their mission to Wave Country as Tazuna the bridge builder's guards, Kakashi allows Team 7 to participate in a ninja exam in which they can advance to a higher rank, and thus, take part in more difficult missions.



Characters
Naruto Uzumaki - Naruto is the primary protagonist of the series. Naruto has ambitions of becoming Hokage, the leader of the village hidden in the leaves (Konoha), but because he is the host of Kurama, the nine-tailed fox that attacked Konoha, he is ostracized by the other villagers. He compensates for this with his cheerful and boisterous personality, and over the course of the series, manages to befriend many foreign and Konoha ninja. He develops an especially close relationship with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, two of his fellow ninja in Squad 7.

Sasuke Uchiha - Sasuke is one of the members of Squad 7. He acts as a rival to Naruto, as well as a, "cool genius". He is one of the few remaining members of the Uchiha clan along with his brother, Itachi Uchiha, who killed the rest of their clan. Due to this, Sasuke's sole desire is to kill his brother, and he develops a cold and withdrawn personality. His interactions with his fellow teammates, who are all considered precious to him, make him focus less on revenge at the start of the series. Later in the series, during an encounter with his brother, Sasuke is easily beaten, which leads him to leave the village to seek more power from the criminal Orochimaru.

Sakura Haruno - Sakura is the sole female member of Squad 7. As a child, Sakura was taunted by other children because of her large forehead and was comforted by Ino Yamanaka making them close friends. As the two continued to grow, however, they became increasingly distant due to their shared affection for Sasuke Uchiha. Sakura is in love with Sasuke and depises Naruto, but after Sasuke leaves the village, Naruto makes a lifelong promise to her to bring him back. After his 1st attempt is delayed by the Sound Ninja 4, she resolves to become stronger by training with Tsunade. When Sakura and Naruto are 16, she displays highly developed skills from her training giving her the brutal power and strength of about 10 men.

Hatake Kakashi - Kakashi is the leader of Squad 7 and the sensei of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Kakashi treats his leadership position with a detached manner, and is consistently late to meetings as a result. In a gaiden on Kakashi's past, this is shown to be the result of an incident in which he witnessed the death of one of his teammates, Obito Uchiha, who gave Kakashi his Sharingan eye and imparted many of his habits, including his tardiness. With Obito's Sharingan, Kakashi has amassed a reputation as a skilled and powerful ninja, earning the moniker "Copy Ninja Kakashi". Although he mentors all three members of Squad 7 early in the series, he concentrates on training Sasuke as the series continues, teaching him his Chidori technique; however, he is unable to prevent Sasuke from leaving the village to seek Orochimaru for greater power.