The end of Naruto last November finally surprised only a few of its readers. It was even rather expected by a certain number of early fans who were getting tired of this great ninja war and its sometimes uninspired resurrections.

What was perhaps more surprising, however, was the speed with which the ending took place. Between its announcement and the publication of the last chapter, it took barely five weeks. A very short period of time which, while it did not take long for an industry used to it, seemed to hide something.

The Shûeisha, publisher of the weekly Shônen Jump, which prepublishes Naruto and many other successful manga, has just announced the reason: after three months of well-deserved holidays, the mangaka Masashi Kishimoto joined Eiichiro Oda’s team at the beginning of March at the helm of One Piece!

This would not start the publication of the story centered on Bolt and Sarada (the children of Naruto and Sasuke), via a special manga scheduled for April 27th, as well as the episodes of this special anime scheduled to start in August in Japan.

Naruto : An unprecedented pirate ?

In Japan, the manga with the straw hat has been enjoying a success for almost twenty years that is out of all proportion to the adventures of the orange ninja. However, in a desire for even greater expansion, the millionaire Oda simply bought the Naruto license from Kishimoto to integrate the famous protagonist in crossover to his own scenario.

Several things are already known about this integration:

At the end of the current arc (Dressrosa), the next island the Mugiwara will land on is called “Konoha-jima”, a name not unfamiliar to Naruto fans.
The famous pirates will meet the ninja Naruto and help him in his fight against a resurrected Madara. At the end of this new arc, it is planned that Naruto will join the crew of the Thousand Sunny as a full-fledged member.
Only one image has leaked for the moment, taken from a plate of the 800th chapter of the manga One Piece, to be published on August 30.

In the meantime, the latest film Naruto, logically entitled The Last, released in Japan in December 2014, will land in French theaters on May 13.