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Naruto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, a young ninja who seeks recognition from his peers and dreams of becoming the Hokage, the leader of his village. The story is told in two parts – the first set in Naruto’s pre-teen years, and the second in his teens. The series is based on two one-shot manga by Kishimoto: Karakuri (1995), which earned Kishimoto an honorable mention in Shueisha‘s monthly Hop Step Award the following year, and Naruto (1997).

Naruto was serialized in Shueisha’s magazine, Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1999 to 2014, and released in tankōbon (book) form in 72 volumes. The manga was adapted into an anime television series produced by Pierrot and Aniplex, which broadcast 220 episodes in Japan from 2002 to 2007; the English dub of the series aired on Cartoon Network and YTV from 2005 to 2009. Naruto: Shippuden, a sequel to the original series, premiered in Japan in 2007, and ended in 2017, after 500 episodes. The English dub was broadcast on Disney XD from 2009 to 2011, airing the first 98 episodes, and then switched over to Adult Swim‘s Toonami programming block in January 2014, starting over from the first episode. The English dub is still airing weekly on Adult Swim to this day. Viz Media began streaming the anime series on their streaming service Neon Alley in December 2012 on 99 episodes, and ended in March 2016, after 338 episodes. Besides the anime series, Pierrot has developed eleven movies and twelve original video animations (OVAs). Other Naruto-related merchandise includes light novels, video games, and trading cards developed by several companies.

Viz Media licensed the manga and anime for North American production and serialized Naruto in their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The anime series began airing in the United States and Canada in 2005, and in the United Kingdom and Australia in 2006 and 2007, respectively. The films and most OVAs from the series were also released by Viz, with the first film premiering in movie theaters. The story of Naruto continues with Naruto’s son, Boruto Uzumaki, in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations: Boruto wishes to create his own ninja way instead of following his father’s.

Naruto is one of the best-selling manga series in history having 250 million copies in circulation worldwide in 47 countries and regions, with 153 million copies in Japan alone and remaining 97 million copies elsewhere. It has become one of Viz Media’s best-selling manga series; their English translations of the volumes have appeared on USA Today and The New York Times bestseller list several times, and the seventh volume won a Quill Award in 2006. Reviewers praised the manga’s character development, strong storylines, and well-executed fight scenes, though some felt the fight scenes slowed the story down. Critics noted that the manga, which has a coming-of-age theme, makes use of cultural references from Japanese mythology and Confucianism.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (abbreviated as ATLA), also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang in some regions or simply Avatar, is an American anime-influenced animated television series produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studios. It was co-created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, with Aaron Ehasz serving as head writer. It aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons, from February 2005 to July 2008.

Avatar is set in an Asiatic-inspired world in which some people can telekinetically manipulate one of the four elements—water, earth, fire or air—through practices known as “bending”, inspired by Chinese martial arts. The only individual who can bend all four elements, the “Avatar”, is responsible for maintaining harmony among the world’s four nations, and serves as the bridge between the physical world and the spirit world. The series is presented in a style that combines anime with American cartoons and relies on the imagery of primarily Chinese culture, with some other East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, New World, and Inuit and Sireniki influences.

The series is centered around the journey of twelve-year-old Aang, the current Avatar and last survivor of his nation, the Air Nomads, along with his friends Katara, Sokka, and later Toph, as they strive to end the Fire Nation’s war against the other nations of the world. It also follows the story of Zuko—the exiled prince of the Fire Nation, seeking to restore his lost honor by capturing Aang, accompanied by his wise uncle Iroh—and later, his ambitious sister Azula.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was a ratings success and received widespread acclaim from audiences and critics alike for its characters, cultural references, art direction, soundtrack, humor, and themes. These include concepts rarely touched on in youth entertainment, including war, genocide, imperialism, totalitarianism, indoctrination and free choice.^[5] It won five Annie Awards, a Genesis Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Kids’ Choice Award, and a Peabody Award. The show is regarded by several critics as one of the greatest animated television series of all time.

The extended Avatar franchise includes an ongoing comics series, a prequel novel series, an animated sequel series, and a live-action film, as well as an upcoming live-action remake series produced for Netflix. The complete series was released on Blu-ray in June 2018 in honor of the tenth anniversary of its finale and was made available to stream on Netflix in the United States and Canada in May 2020, on Paramount+ in June 2020, and on Amazon Prime Video in January 2021.

Pokémon is a series of video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company under the Pokémon media franchise.

The Creator

Satoshi Tajiri is a Japanese video game designer and director best known for being the creator of the Pokémon franchise and one of the founders, and President of video game developer Game Freak. A fan of arcade games, Tajiri wrote for and edited his own video gaming fanzine Game Freak with Ken Sugimori, before evolving it into a development company of the same name. Tajiri claims that the joining of two Game Boys via a link cable inspired him to create a game which embodied the collection and companionship of his childhood hobby, insect collecting. The game, which became Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green, took six years to complete and went on to spark a multibillion-dollar franchise which reinvigorated Nintendo‘s handheld gaming scene. Tajiri continued to work as director for the Pokémon series until the development of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, when he changed his role to executive producer, which he holds to this day.

An Overview

The franchise was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996, and is centered on fictional creatures called “Pokémon”. In Pokémon, humans, known as Pokémon Trainers, catch and train Pokémon to battle other Pokémon for sport. All media works within the franchise are set in the Pokémon universe. The English slogan for the franchise is “Gotta Catch ‘Em All!“. There are currently 905 Pokémon species.

The franchise began as Pocket Monsters: Red and Green (later released outside of Japan as Pokémon Red and Blue), a pair of video games for the original Game Boy handheld system that were developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo in February 1996. It soon became a media mix franchise adapted into various different media.^[8] Pokémon is estimated to be the highest-grossing media franchise of all time. The Pokémon video game series is the third best-selling video game franchise of all time with more than 440 million copies sold^[9] and one billion mobile downloads. The Pokémon video game series spawned an anime television series that has become the most successful video game adaptation of all time with over 20 seasons and 1,000 episodes in 192 countries. The Pokémon Trading Card Game is the highest-selling trading card game of all time with over 43.2 billion cards sold. In addition, the Pokémon franchise includes the world’s top-selling toy brand, an anime film series, a live-action film (Detective Pikachu), books, manga comics, music, merchandise, and a temporary theme park. The franchise is also represented in other Nintendo media, such as the Super Smash Bros. series, where various Pokémon characters are playable.