Naruto has been a favorite of every anime and manga lover. Even the people who are not into anime or manga at all, it will be hard to find people who didn’t ever hear the name “Naruto.” That is how much popular “Naruto” is. It rules the heart of almost every anime or manga lover and even people who started their anime journey with “Naruto“.
Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, had dreams to create his own works after getting inspired by his idols, Akira Toriyama and Katsuhiro Otomo. Dreams do come true! Masashi worked tirelessly to create the popular manga series “Naruto” and it worked well with the fans. However, not always Masashi and his editor were on the same page. They had differences between them and sometimes, Masashi had to agree with his editor even if he didn’t like the choice.
Kishimoto refused to include the Chunin Exam arc in Naruto
According to an interview with Kobayashi, Masashi confessed that he didn’t really want to include the Chunin Exam arc.
Kobayashi had an interview with Masashi eight years ago. In that interview, he confessed that he didn’t want to focus on the setup of Naruto’s classmates. Instead, he wanted to focus on the missions that Naruto was set up on and meeting up with the 4-man cell. Kakashi’s rivals would be the teachers of the 4-man class. He even tried to talk about it to his editor but was dejected. The editor suggested that there was no way possible they could carry on with the slow-paced development of the plot instead it would be much easier to bring all these characters and the plot of the villages at once in the arc.
Masashi even said that it would kill him if he does that to the manga, but the editor argued, “Do it even if it kills you.” That is how, dear fans, the Chunin Exam came into play. Although, Masashi still believes that he should have stuck to his original idea and continued just with the missions.
Masashi had to come up with many new characters after that, and he revealed that it really got difficult for him to come up with so many characters at once. Especially where he had to design the characters with not much context for them. So he asked his editor to help him with the characters. The editor took inspiration from a weird-looking keychain and made the designs based on that, and that is how “Gai and Lee” and the other characters came to life.
Masashi did admit later that it was better for Kakashi to have a rival within the village instead of introducing Gai from another village. That is how Team Gai was introduced from the “Konoha” village.
As soon as Masashi started to enjoy the tournament and the popularity of the arc grew, he was again instructed by his editorial team to introduce a villain name “Orochimaru” that would create hurdles for the tournament to complete.
Masashi was once again disappointed as he was really getting into the depth of the plot and somehow was planning to make Shikamaru win the tournament. However, Masashi later realized that he wasn’t confident enough to design the whole setup and make Shikamaru win the tournament especially when Shikamaru has a high IQ of 200, and Masashi didn’t know how to pull off the plot with his IQ.
Fans of Naruto today will find it difficult to imagine the series without the Chunin Exam arc, which makes sense. All of the Konoha 11 and a large number of the Hidden Leaf teachers were established as a result of the tournament. The arc, which included the Sound and Sand Villages, was extensive and considerably raised Naruto’s level. The anime fans now regard his fights with Neji and Gaara as legendary. However, the entire test storyline would not have occurred if Kishimoto had his way.
Could fans imagine Naruto without the Chunin Exam Arc? Let’s see what the tweets say.
The Chunin exam arc was and will always be top tier television https://t.co/gItcRjxggE
— TheDrumInstructor™ ☆ (@I_TheCreator) April 28, 2023
watch at least the og the chunin exam arc is so good 😩
— لينة (@vnijr7) May 2, 2023
Anyway I forgot how good this arc was. I'm at the chunin exams and the sand kids had no business being there overpowered asses 😭 pic.twitter.com/zXOF0B74Te
— Jenna (@Jenna00712196) May 1, 2023
Naruto was my first anime and this anime is the reason why I watch anime
Madara favourite character
I like part 1 more then Shippuden
Chunin exam and pain arcs are the best arc in naruto https://t.co/LIAfdULWgn— 👑 GOAT 👑 (@gintoki56322160) May 1, 2023
W for Chunin exam 🙏
Best OG Arc easily
— Himanshu (@Spread_hatred) May 4, 2023
Well, it seems like fans wouldn’t have liked it much if the Chunin Exam arc wasn’t included at the last moment. Thank you, Masashi Kishimoto and his editorial team!
