‘Naruto Shinden’ Announces Anime Adaptation

The Naruto series recently expanded earlier this year with a series of light novels exploring Naruto, Sasuke, and Shikamaru’s relationships with each of their children, and now one of those stories is getting the anime adaptation.

As spotted by @cheebask on Twitter, the Naruto Shinden light novel side story will be getting an anime adaptation.

@cheebask later noted that the Naruto Shinden side story may be the only one out of the three released books to get an adaptation, though that may be clarified once more information becomes available. For example, there are currently no details as to what form this adaptation will take. Since it’s adapting a side story, this will most likely be a one-shot OVA short special rather than a fuller anime project.

For those unfamiliar, Shueisha’s Jump J Books line launched three light novel stories earlier this year written by Mirei Miyamoto. Each of the novels 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 children.

This series carried the subtitle “Shinden”, and 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. Each novel went on to various successes not only for further elaborating on the elements teased in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, but the cover for each novel featured a new sketch from original creator Masashi Kishimoto.

The Naruto has previously released spin-off novels 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. The Shinden novels have yet to be picked up for an English released, but as these titles only released this year there is still hope for that yet. Especially now that one of them will receive an anime adaptation.

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.