Author/artist Masashi Kishimoto was born in 1974 in rural Okayama
Prefecture, Japan. Like many kids, he was first inspired to become
a manga artist in elementary school when he read Dragon Ball. After
spending time in art college, he won the Hop Step Award for new
manga artists with his story Karakuri. After considering various
genres for his next project, Kishimoto decided on a story steeped
in traditional Japanese culture. His first version of Naruto, drawn
in 1997, was a one-shot story about fox spirits; his final version,
which debuted in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, quickly became the
most popular ninja manga in the world. The series would also spawn
multiple anime series, movies, novels, video games and more. Having
concluded the series in late 2014, Masashi Kishimoto has kept
himself busy this year with the side story Naruto: The Seventh
Hokage and the Scarlet Spring and writing the story for the latest
Naruto movie, Boruto: Naruto the Movie, both of which will focus on
the title character’s son, Boruto.
Mirei Miyamoto
Under the name Zoncho, he won the Summer 2014 Jump Novel Grand Prix
in the character novel division. His works include Marunouchi of
the Dead and Tagayasu Zombie-sama, and he is always pushing himself
in new directions of storytelling, such as with his contribution to
Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan: A Short Story Collection.
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