Kishimoto admitted to being quite a movie buff and this inspired him to create some scenes for Naruto.
Currently, Naruto is one of the best known anime series Worldwide. It is based on the manga created by Masashi Kishimoto. The series tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki and his fellow ninjas as they defend the Hidden Leaf Village from all kinds of enemies and threats. Naruto has become one of the most popular franchises, including the sequel series “Boruto: Naruto Next Generations“. The latter is considered as one of the three great shonen anime along with “One Piece” and “Bleach”.
Much has been said about Naruto, however it is easy to see why the series was so successful: its action sequences are full of quite ingenious choreography, including the use of special techniques in battles. Also, its main characters are ninjas, and everything is more interesting with ninjas.
Series creator Kishimoto has been pretty open about the specifics of Naruto. Among them, acknowledged that the classic anime Dragon Ball Z had a certain impact into the important experiences of Naruto’s journey, making our iconic protagonist’s transition from the Hidden Leaf Village to Hokage a more humanized process.
On the other hand, in a 2008 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kishimoto also revealed that a renowned film director served as a great influence on him at the time of elaborating the fight scenes that characterize this fun anime.
The fighting techniques between Naruto and Sasuke are not a coincidence
First of all, Kishimoto has been recognized as a cinephile, and quoted Quentin Tarantino movies as part of his inspiration for his popular manga series:
“I watch a lot of movies, and I tend to be swayed by scenes that intrigue me, that make me want to use the same effects or the same technique… I like the way Quentin Tarantino creates a scene using a series of close-ups or showing very cool images of a person or people walking down a random street in slow motion. I wish I could get that kind of slow motion effect in the manga, but it’s quite difficult to draw; the only thing we can play with is the tones black and white”.
Thus, Tarantino’s slow-motion action sequences are especially prominent in several scenes of the two “Kill Bill“, for example, and in the infamous (but pretty cool) slow-motion ride from “Reservoir Dogs.”
And indeed a scene that looks like uin the probable influence of this type of sequences in the Naruto series is O-Ren Ishii’s origin story played by Lucy Liu. However, it’s not just a beautifully animated sequence, but Tarantino’s characteristically violent atmosphere is on display, especially when an unlucky thug takes a bullet to the head.
In this way, we speak of a clear influence on the techniques that would be used in most of the fights throughout the “Naruto” manga and its adaptation to the anime, especially when Naruto fights his rival Sasuke. Not only does this scene carry great emotional weight, as the two find themselves fighting over the fate of the world, but it also displays elements of Tarantino style, as the two run in slow motion at each other before unleashing a blast. of blows.
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