'Naruto' Fan Spots Clever Shadow Clone Easter Egg

Naruto Uzumaki has come a long way since he first met fans. The dense hero had little to his name save a dream, but he has since become a bonafide anime icon. Now, fans are revisiting the anime from the start to honor its newest series, and it didn't take long to spot a certain clever easter egg.

Over on Reddit, a user posted a comparison shot between two early anime episodes. The first scene is pulled from Naruto's first-ever episode while the second comes at the start of Naruto Shippuden... and it is hard to miss the similarities.

After all, Naruto knows his Shadow Clone Jutsu real well, and Naruto Shippuden proved the hero can only get better at it.

I was rewatching naruto and realised this from r/Naruto

The first screen sees a young Naruto in the forest after he confronts Mizuki for tricking him and injuring Iruka. The boy managed to learn the S-Rank jutsu from the scroll he stole from the Hokage, and his massive chakra reserves made it possible to use. As such, Naruto summon more than a hundred clones to fight his teacher, and this all went down before the lead passed his genin exam officially.

As for the second image, it proves Naruto is never too old or talented to forego his Shadow Clone Jutsu. Even after training with Jiraiya for years, the lead know his power cannot be topped when it comes to overwhelming an opponent. In fact, Naruto has trained to create even more clones than he could against Mizuki, and Kakashi learns that firsthand when he holds a second Bell Test for Team 7. Naruto aims to overtake his teacher by sheer force with his hundreds of clones, and Naruto Shippuden set the scene up by reference the hero's first-ever Shadow Clone Jutsu success from way back when.

So, did you ever catch this reference? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump for 700 chapters. The story follows a young ninja, with a sealed demon within him, that wishes to become the leader of his home village. The sequel, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is set several years after the events of the original Naruto story and features the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata.

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