Naruto fans are having a great year as both the manga and anime releases of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations have reached great places in the story, but they are still anxious to get new stories about Naruto.
Naruto is set to get a series of spin-off novels, with each novel branded with new art from series creator Masashi Kishimoto, and the first novel features a brand new sketch of Naruto and his son Boruto.
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Shueisha’s Jump J Books branch will get three new Naruto spin-off books this year. Each of the titles follows a character’s struggles through fatherhood with the three novels in the series following Naruto, Shikamaru, and Sasuke as they try and bond with their sons.
This new series carries the subtitle Shinden, and is written by Mirei Miyamoto. The first book in the series is Naruto Shinden (The New Legend of Naruto), followed by Shikamaru Shinden (The New Legend of Shikamaru) and Sasuke Shinden (The New Legend of Sasuke) respectively.
The cover of the first novel features a new sketch of Boruto and his dad by original series creator Masashi Kishimoto. Kishimoto is expected to provide new art for all three of the novels, which cover a slew of short stories featuring the differences in each of their parent and child relationships.
Fans are especially hopeful that Naruto’s book will feature a short story where Naruto bonds with his daughter Himawari, which fans have yet to see very much in either the anime or manga releases of the series.
The Naruto series is no stranger to spin-off novels either as the series has previously released titles under the Naruto Ninden (Naruto True Legend) and Naruto Hiden (Naruto Hidden Legend). VIZ Media even licensed a few of those releases for an English language release in the United States, so there is a hope they will do the same here if the fan demand is there.
For those unfamiliar with Naruto, it has quite a storied history. Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto, the series ran in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump for 700 chapters. The story follows Naruto, 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 featuring the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata.