Masashi Kishimoto

born November 8, 1974 in Okayama Prefecture Japan, is the creator and author of the popular manga and anime Naruto. He debuted as a mangaka (Japanese cartoonist) with his work Karakuri, which was submitted to Shueisha in 1996. Beginning in 1999, his next work Naruto was serialized in the Weekly Shonen Jump manga magazine. Kishimoto had received the Hop Step Award, which is given to new artists once a month by Shonen Jump. He also says that he was influenced by Akira Toriyama, creator of the Dragonball series.

His twin brother Seishi Kishimoto is also a manga-ka and the creator of 666 Satan. Their art has been remarked on as being very similar and accusations of plagiarism were made, either that Seishi had copied his brother or vice versa. However, Seishi notes in one of the his manga volumes that the similarities are not intentional and that the occurrence would have been likely because both he and Masashi have been influenced by many of the same things. After several accusations, Masashi Kishimoto has asked that fans stop calling his brother a "copycat".