Viz Media Licenses Sasuke Shinden Spin-Off

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is currently in the midst of adapting some more material from the original manga run of the series, but fans have noticed that it has started off with largely completely original story material for the anime. The anime has been telling original anime content for more than 70 episodes at this point, but one of the more interesting arcs came with the adaptation of the Naruto Shinden side story featuring Mirai, Jiraiya, and Guy. These spin-off novels have some supplemental narrative stuff meant to flesh out the main series, and now a new one is coming our way!

Viz Media has officially announced that they have licensed Sasuke Shinden, a novel set sometime after the Momoshiki arc, for an English language release. Hitting shelves in the West under the new title of Naruto: Sasuke’s Story– Star Pupil, this novel will be releasing both digitally and physically sometime this Fall.

An original story written by Jun Esaka featuring some new illustrations from original series creator Masashi Kishimoto, this novel is part of the Naruto Shinden releases which follows one of the fan-favorite ninja such as Naruto, Sasuke or Shikamaru as they take on missions that haven’t been featured in the main series.

Star Pupil in particular sees Sasuke join up on a mission with Konohamaru. Once that goes awry, Sasuke decides to step in and teach Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki some new tricks. With Naruto Shinden eventually making its way to the official anime, perhaps this story could too someday? If not, at least fans outside of Japan will now have an official way to read through these new adventures!

Are you excited to read more of Sasuke’s story in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!

Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, Naruto follows a young ninja, with a sealed demon within him, that wishes to become the leader of his home village. The series ran for 700 chapters overall, and was adapted into an anime series by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex that ran from 2002 to 2017. The series was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations which 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.