Naruto and Ninkū join forces in a 4-episode anime: Kishimoto's tribute to his roots

What many Naruto fans suspected for years has finally been confirmed: Masashi Kishimoto started drawing his blond ninja because he wanted to know how Ninkū, the manga by Kōji Kiriyama that ran in Shōnen Jump from 1993 to 1995, continued. And now, three decades later, both works come together in a brand-new anime.

The announcement was made on October 10 at New York Comic Con 2026, during the "NARUTO: What's Next?" panel. Kishimoto didn't take the stage, but his message was read to the audience: "I drew Naruto because I wanted to see the continuation of Ninkū. Without Ninkū, Naruto wouldn't exist."

The result of that debt is Naruto × Ninkū, a 4-episode series with an original story supervised by both authors. The plot kicks off with a Team 7 mission: Naruto gets lost in another world and there he meets Fūsuke, the protagonist of Ninkū, and his companions. The rest, for now, is a mystery.

A team that knows the house well

Production is handled by Studio Pierrot, the studio that has been animating the Naruto universe since 2002. Directing is Noriyuki Abe, responsible for a good chunk of the original anime, and on character design is Tetsuya Nishio, another key name in the franchise.

The cast keeps the original actors: Junko Takeuchi as Naruto, Noriaki Sugiyama as Sasuke, and Rica Matsumoto as Fūsuke. For those of us who grew up with the series, hearing those voices together again is going to be a full-on trip.

FLOW handles the musical themes. The opening will be GO!!! and the ending Viva★Rock, two songs that are already part of the emotional soundtrack of an entire generation.

What Ninkū is and why it matters

Ninkū is a martial arts and ninja manga that Kōji Kiriyama published in Weekly Shōnen Jump between 1993 and 1995. It got an anime, but it was left unfinished. That feeling of an unresolved story was exactly what pushed Kishimoto to create his own ninja manga, as he has said in several interviews.

What makes this project special is that it isn't your typical commercial crossover. Kishimoto asked Kiriyama directly for permission to use his characters, and both sign off on the script supervision. In the author's own words, it's a way of giving back to Ninkū what it gave him.

The promotional art already gives a sense of the tone: Naruto's Team 7 and the Ninkū characters share the frame, with two visual styles that coexist without stepping on each other. Seeing Kakashi next to Fūsuke is one of those images you didn't know you needed until it's right in front of you.

PROJECT RASENGAN, the umbrella for everything

This anime is part of a broader project called PROJECT RASENGAN, which aims to expand the Naruto and Boruto universe through manga, anime, video games, and other formats. Part of the roadmap was shown at Comic Con, but many details remain under wraps.

Among them is Kishimoto's new manga, Naruto: Shadow Rising, which was also announced at the event. The teaser showed the construction of the seventh face on the Hokage mountain and the members of Team 7, but nothing about its story.

The next news will arrive at Jump Festa 2027, held on December 19 and 20 at Makuhari Messe. Concrete details on the anime's release date and more information about the new manga are expected there.

For now, we wait, but the idea of seeing Kishimoto reconnect with the manga that inspired him is the kind of thing that hits you emotionally even before a single episode exists.