Anime-Manga Differences

This page lists the differences that occurred during the transition from manga to anime.

Censorship

 * In the manga, when Mizuki throws multiple kunai at Iruka, Iruka pulls a kunai out of his chest. In the anime, none of the kunai hit his chest and he pulls a kunai out of his right leg instead.
 * In the manga, Ebisu fixes his glasses with the middle finger. In the anime, he uses his index finger as well.
 * In the manga, during the bell test at the Third Training Ground, Sasuke unleashes a barrage of shuriken and kunai that directly impale Kakashi in the face causing blood to spray out from a front angle. In the anime, he is pushed aside quickly and only the scene of him viewed from behind is left.
 * In the manga, after the Demon Brothers capture Kakashi, a silhouette of different body parts being shred apart is shown. In the anime, much of the blood and gore is removed.
 * In the manga, when Kakashi is describing the role of hunter-nin a severed hand is shown. In the anime, this is removed.
 * In the manga, Kaiza has his arms chopped off. In the anime, they are instead only broken and burned.
 * In the anime, Kakashi drove his Lightning Cutter into Haku's chest. However, in the manga, Kakashi's hand went right through his body.
 * In the manga, when Gatō arrives and sees Haku's corpse, he is seen kicking him across the face. However in the anime, the kick is not seen, and only Naruto's look of shock is seen instead.
 * In the manga, Zabuza decapitates Gatō to kill him, while in the anime, Zabuza cuts him multiple times and Gatō falls off the bridge.
 * In the manga, when Anko Mitarashi threw a kunai at Naruto and cut his cheek, she licks the blood directly from Naruto's cheek. In the anime, she touches it with her fingers.
 * In the manga, during the preliminary rounds of the Chūnin Exams, Zaku Abumi's right arm is blown off when Shino Aburame uses his bugs to block Zaku's air tubes. In the anime, both arms remain attached while only his skin breaks on his arms.
 * The design of the Hyūga Main Family's Juinjutsu is different in the manga and anime. In the manga, it was a variation of a manji, a Buddhist symbol, but due to its similarity in appearance to the swastika, it was altered into an X in the anime to avoid confusion.
 * In the manga, when Kakashi defends Sakura against two Oto-nin, he impales them in the head with kunai. In the anime, he simply slashes them.
 * In the manga, after Asuma rescues Shikamaru from a group of Oto-nin, he slashes them and punches using his trench knives, leaving their bloody corpses to the floor and then he flicks his cigarette into a pool of their blood. In the anime, the brutal assault was censored with Asuma never slashing them or smoking a cigarette.
 * In the manga, when Hiruzen Sarutobi raids Orochimaru's lair, there are corpses strung along the walls. In the anime, these corpses are replaced with shelves containing jars.
 * In the manga, when Gaara presses Sakura up against a tree, blood trickles out of her mouth. In the anime, this is removed.
 * In the manga, when young Gaara attempted to cut himself in a flashback, he aimed for his wrist, at the vein. In the anime, he aimed at the back of his hand.
 * In the manga, when Naruto prevents Kabuto Yakushi from attacking Tsunade, Kabuto's kunai goes through Naruto's hand. In the anime, it gets caught between Naruto's fingers instead.
 * In the manga, especially in Part I, Naruto and Kiba "flip the bird" several times, in the English adaptation of the manga and in the anime they only close their fist and look angry.
 * In the manga, when Shikamaru Nara gets caught in Tayuya's genjutsu, he sees his skin and flesh melt off his bones. In the anime, the entire arm melts away including the bones.
 * In the manga, while Kimimaro is fighting Gaara, Kimimaro's bones came out of his fingertips by dividing his skin on his fingertips. In the anime, his bones just emerged from his fingertips through holes that close afterwards.
 * In the manga, Konohamaru Sarutobi has a sexy jutsu which includes depictions of Sasuke and Sai. In the English version of the manga only the silhouette of the two is visible, in the anime this is taken out.
 * In the manga, Shikamaru is briefly seen smoking after Asuma's death. In the English adaptation of the manga and in the anime, he doesn't smoke, he only carries Asuma's lighter with him; although at a certain moment, visiting Asuma's grave, he leaves a lit cigarette.
 * Often in the manga, women are almost always shown naked (in spa baths or via Sexy Technique). Occasionally in the English adaptations of the manga and often in the anime, the women are covered by something (towels, fog, clouds, etc) when shown.
 * During the bell test, Kakashi casts a genjutsu spell on Sakura. Sakura sees one of the most horrible things imaginable to her: a gravely injured Sasuke. This fake Sasuke featured more severe wounds in the manga, including a missing left arm, twisted legs and more kunai impaling his body. Passing out from seeing Sasuke like that, Sakura lay unconscious on the ground. The manga played up the more intense and comical spaz attack by showing Sakura with wide blank eye and seizure-like foam at the mouth.
 * As Naruto walks through the festival city he stops by a mask shop and purchases a mask. Various masks in the background represent past Japanese manga, anime and tv series "in-jokes" included by Kishimoto. These include masks of Kamen Rider and Chaozu from the Dragonball series. The anime changed many of these to generic masks.
 * During Jiraiya and Naruto's search for Tsunade, Jiraiya enters a gambling parlour. While Naruto mills around he finds a coin on the ground. Wondering how the slot machine works he decides to insert his coin. We then see Naruto has amazing luck, as he wins back an large amount of money. In the anime this was changed to have Naruto win a lot of money in a lottery instead.
 * A minor edit concerning the location of the small shinobi animals, Gamatatsu, Gamakichi and Tonton are all in the thick of the action when the giant snakes begin to attack.
 * Related to the previous entry, Tonton was among the injured fallen in the manga. In the anime, the three shinobi animals moved away to safety early on.
 * When Naruto moves to protect Tsunade, Kabuto charges with a kunai. In the manga the kunai pierces straight through Naruto's palm. In the anime the angle of the kunai was moved to connect more between Naruto's fingers.
 * Kidōmaru did his best to take down Neji, this was especially apparent in the original manga, where his first arrow ripped a massive hole through Neji's shoulder. The anime greatly reduced the size of the hole. While this may serve as a content edit, it also made it more feasible for Neji to live through such an attack.
 * Kimimaro's encasement within Gaara's sand and his subsequent crushing are accompanied by a significant amount of more blood in the manga.
 * One of the stranger edits in the series, during the battle at the Valley of the End, Naruto makes a last second save in mid-air by creating clones which grab on to one of the statue's fingers by forming a human chain. A more extreme and honestly unbelievable version of this chain was used in episode 133.
 * When Sasuke pierces through Naruto's shoulder with Chidori, we see his arm and hand with no obstruction. In the anime, they lessened the violent nature of the strike by whiting out the arm and hand with Chidori's electrical light.
 * After bringing Naruto back from the Valley of the End, Kakashi goes to the Memorial Stone to talk with Obito. This brief scene was taken out to be used in a later episode. This chapter and the next were greatly rearranged and split up over the course of 80+ episodes of filler. This filler was used to allow the manga to get further ahead.
 * Another content edit, when Team Kakashi decided to rest at a Hot Springs, the women bathing had towels and other objects added to block their nudity.
 * When Yamato told Naruto about what happened when Jiraiya peeked on Tsunade while she was bathing, Naruto got the picture of almost all the females of the series staring angrily at him, while wearing bath towels. This was only seen in the anime.
 * When Sai switches allegiances, he had subdue Kabuto in an alternate fashion in the anime. This was probably changed because Kabuto's hands were left free in the manga, making escape seem possible.

Other

 * In the anime, Sasuke, Sakura and their classmates from Team 8 and 10 are introduced at the beginning of the story. In the manga Sasuke and Sakura first appeared in the third chapter, the other six were introduced at the beginning of the Chūnin Exam Arc.
 * In the manga, Naruto sneaks into the Hokage Residence to steal the Scroll of Seals and is caught by Hiruzen Sarutobi, but escapes by using Sexy Technique. In the anime, Hiruzen simply sends out the ninja after Naruto, and is exposed to the Sexy Technique when he refuses to accept Naruto's ninja registration photo.
 * In the manga, Iruka discards Mizuki's shuriken after he pulls it out of his back, but in the anime he throws it back at Mizuki.
 * In the manga, before battling Zabuza for the first time, Naruto throws two shuriken into the bushes, one of them nearly hitting a snow white rabbit. In anime, this was two kunai instead.
 * In the manga after Kakashi's first encounter with Zabuza, Team 7 attempts to look at his face while he is sleeping. In the anime, this event is simply skipped.
 * In the manga, Chidori surrounds the user's hand in lightning. In the anime, it creates lightning in the palm of the user's hand.
 * In the manga, during the second phase of the Chūnin Exams, Team 8 gets their second scroll from a Konoha team. In the anime, it was changed to a team from Amegakure.
 * In the manga, Jiraiya starts Naruto's training at the Konoha Hot Springs. In the anime, he tries to escape from training by attempting to elude him through a series of antics, eventually he trains him nearby a river.
 * In the manga, Hiashi Hyūga tells Neji the details behind his father's death himself. In the anime, he hands him a scroll written by his father.
 * In the manga, after a disguised Kabuto Yakushi finishes healing Hinata, he knocks Kiba Inuzuka and his dog Akamaru unconscious during Naruto and Neji's fight. In the anime, he knocks him out during Sasuke's fight with Gaara, just as Akamaru recognises Kabuto's scent.
 * During the Third Hokage's fight with Orochimaru he rams Monkey King: Enma, who has transformed into an adamantine staff, into the Sword of Kusanagi, and his Enma is shown partially reversing the transformation. In the anime, this is removed.
 * In the manga, immediately after ramming his adamantine staff into the Sword of Kusanagi, Hiruzen Sarutobi places exploding tags on the left leg of Hashirama Senju and the right leg of Tobirama Senju, they are later shown healing while standing. In the anime, the tags are placed on the left leg of Hashirama Senju and the right arm of Tobirama Senju, they are shown healing while lying face down.
 * In the manga, Hashirama Senju uses the Bringer-of-Darkness Technique. In the anime, Tobirama Senju performs it.
 * In the manga, when Naruto and Gamabunta do the Combination Transformation they transform into a giant fox with a single tail. In the anime, they transform into the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.
 * In the manga, when Jiraiya uses Rasengan on Gantetsu, he also steals his wallet, while in the anime, he is given it out of respect.
 * In the manga, Shikamaru was promoted to a chūnin at some point before Naruto and Jiraiya returned from their journey of bringing Tsunade back to the village. In the anime, due to filler episodes taking place first, including the Land of Tea Arc, this was pushed back to after Tsunade had become the Hokage and she was the one who personally informed Shikamaru of his promotion.
 * In the manga, when Sakon and Ukon are torn apart and regenerate, the dark tissue leaks out of their body and forms new arms and legs. In the anime, the arms and legs are formed out of their organs.
 * In the anime, when Neji suggests to Hinata that she go see Naruto off, he is in the middle of sparring with her. In the manga, it is in the middle of his sparring session with Hiashi, and the conversation is much longer, including an appearance from Kiba and Shino.
 * In the manga, when Naruto returns from his training with Jiraiya, the person he first re-encounters is Kakashi. In the anime, he first meets Sakura and Konohamaru. Also, Naruto meets Shikamaru and Temari on the streets in the manga, while in the anime he meets them while inside Tsunade's office.
 * In the manga, Yurika told Tsunade herself about Gaara's kidnapping, while in the anime, she handed her the message to read it.
 * In the manga, Hiruko was a normal puppet, in the anime, he was a Human Puppet.
 * In the manga, none of the puppets in Chiyo's Chikamatsu collection were destroyed, however in the anime, at least four were shown being heavily damaged.
 * In the Shippūden episode 80, Asuma is shown buying flowers from the Yamanaka Flower Shop after the time skip. In the manga, he bought the flowers before the time skip.
 * During Naruto's training to add his elemental chakra to the Rasengan, Kakashi takes him to Ramen Ichiraku. In the manga, Ayame is away on a trip and Nishi and Matsu work as her replacements. In the anime, she has just returned from a trip and has converted the Ramen Bar into a Tsukemen bar.
 * In the manga, Utakata, the jinchūriki of the Six-Tails, had already been captured by the time of Akatsuki and Taka's alliance, while in the anime he was captured afterwards.
 * In the manga, Tobi blocks Suigetsu's sword with his right arm. In the anime, he blocks it with his left arm.
 * In the manga, when decoding Jiraiya's message, Shiho shows the correct way to write 'ta' and the way that Jiraiya did, and in the anime however, Shikamaru does this. In the anime, they also confirm it by comparing the 'ta' with a book containing Jiraiya's writing in it.
 * In the manga, Pain's Giant Rhino summon first appeared in during the invasion of Konoha. In the anime, he summoned it during the fight with Jiraiya.
 * In the manga chapter #449 when Sasuke and his team are seen getting ready to head to Konoha, Suigetsu already had the Kubikiribōchō back and was wearing a robe. In the anime, he was seen coming back after retrieving the Kubikiribōchō and wearing his regular purple shirt.
 * In the manga, Ino's first thought about Katsuyu was that the slug was part of the enemy's attack during Pain's invasion. In the anime however, this incident happened earlier during the Three-Tails Arc, when four divisions of Katsuyu appeared in time to help the sealing team by giving them an extra supply of chakra. Ino and Hinata, who did not recognise Katsuyu, were initially alarmed until Sakura explained who Katsuyu was to them.
 * In the manga, when Naruto uses Wind Release: Rasenshuriken against the Six Paths of Pain, the focus is on him. In the anime, the focus changes to Sakura and an unnamed Hyūga, who describes to her the appearance of the technique Naruto is about to use, which Sakura recognises.
 * In the manga, Human Path throws Animal Path away from the Rasenshuriken blast after grabbing hold of the back of her cloak collar. In the anime, he does it by the front of her cloak collar.
 * In the manga, Naruto teaches Konohamaru the Rasengan before the time-skip. In the anime, he teaches it after the time-skip.
 * In the manga, Nagato deflects the Amegakure and Root kunai on his right. In the anime he deflects them from his left.
 * In the manga, Tokuma Hyūga and Ranka are introduced after the Kage Summit. In the anime, they're introduced before.
 * In the manga, after Konohamaru performed the Sexy Girl on Girl Technique, Sakura punched him for using it. But in the anime, Moegi punched him instead.
 * In chapter #542, when A and B face off against several Iwagakure shinobi while on a mission, B is first depicted with longer hair. However, in subsequent panels his hair is once again short and spiky.

Animation Errors and Changes

 * In the manga, when Kakashi tells Zabuza that his future is death, he has only his Sharingan eye open, in the anime both eyes open.
 * In the anime, Zabuza's flak jacket design was altered by adding metal with the Kirigakure village symbol on each shoulder.
 * In the manga, Tenten and Temari fight was never shown, due to Sakura and Ino conversion occurred during their fight, however in the anime, Tenten and Temari match was shown due to Sakura and Ino's conversion occurred before the Tenten and Temari's match..
 * In the manga, up until the second part of the Chūnin Exams, Neji's hair tie was higher up, right at the base of his head. In the anime, it was much lower.
 * In the manga, during the preliminaries matches of the second part of the exams, Orochimaru is seen with a Konoha headband, a jacket with the Uzushiogakure symbol on the arm, and Konoha flak jacket, despite being disguised to a sound jōnin.
 * In the manga, when Yamato suppresses the Naruto's four-tailed form with Hokage-Style Sixty-Year-Old Technique - Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands there are 10 pillars. In the anime there are eleven.
 * In the manga, the triangle on Hidan's Jashin amulet points up, while in the anime, it points down.
 * In Shippūden episode 80, when the lower portion of Pain's face is shown, he does not have his two lip piercings.
 * In the manga, Konan's eyes are shown to be a light greyish-blue with golden hints, and her eyelashes are shown to be a diagonal line at the bottom corner of her eyes. In the anime, her eyes are depicted as a deep shade of amber, and her eyelashes are shown to be three distinctive lines.
 * In the manga, a young Gamabunta is shown to not have had a scar on his left eye when sitting next to Jiraiya. In the anime, he has a scar.
 * In the manga, Yahiko's eyes are blue, but in the anime, they are brown.
 * In the manga, the Preta Path of pain has six piercings below its mouth. In the anime, it only has five.
 * In the anime, the Naraka Path's original body, while still alive, is shown outside, while in the manga, he was in the sewers.
 * In the anime, the Asura Path's original body, while still alive, is shown wearing a rice hat, while in the manga, his bare forehead and crown of the head are shown.
 * In the anime, the Sannin's actions during the Second Shinobi World War are incorrectly stated to have occurred during the Third Shinobi World War.
 * In the Shippūden episode 128 in a scene Tsunade is shown wearing her shuriken holster on her right leg, then later in a single scene it is shown on her left leg.
 * In the anime, Hanzō's eyes are not alike as the ones drawn in the manga.
 * In the manga Kushina's hair is shown to fall down almost to her ankles. In the anime, Kushina's hair falls to her waist.
 * In the end of Shippūden episode 132, when all Six Paths of Pain are shown, all have clean and whole cloaks. In the beginning of the next episode, the cloaks of Animal Path, Preta Path and Human Path are still bloody and ragged after Jiraiya's swords.
 * In the manga, several of the Uchiha clan members before the founding of Konohagakure are depicted with elaborate facial markings. In the anime however, only one of the members retain his distinct facial markings and another member is omitted from the scene altogether.
 * In the manga, the colour of Killer B's tattoo's are black. In the anime, their colour is blue.
 * After Asura Path dodges Kakashi's Lightning Cutter, Deva Path can be seen with no piercings on his nose.
 * In the manga, when the Naraka Path asks Ebisu about Naruto's whereabouts, there are flashbacks from various points of the series, showing how people in Konoha came to care about Naruto. In the anime, the only flashbacks are about things relating to Ebisu, Naruto and Konohamaru, and the rest are first shown when Naruto returns to the village after his talk with Nagato.
 * In the anime, when Hinata opened her eyes and saw Neji, his headband was white. In the next scene, it was black.
 * In the manga, Maki's facial marks are dark red. In the anime, the marks are purple.
 * In the anime, Sasuke was seen using his Sharingan with three tomoe, despite only awakening it during his fight with Naruto at the Valley of the End.
 * In the anime, Kurotsuchi has black eyes, not pink eyes like in the manga.
 * In the manga, when Danzō first reveals a Sharingan, the eye looks unhealthy, having a dark sclera. In the anime, the sclera is white.
 * In the manga, Shiba picked up Sasuke's scent while in the anime, it was Bisuke.
 * In the manga, Darui's eyebrows are blond. In the anime, his eyebrows are dark brown.
 * In Shippūden episode 203, the Sage of the Six Paths is shown with a red-coloured Rinnegan.
 * In the anime, when Madara tells the story of the Ten-Tails, he names the most recent jinchūriki for each of the tailed beasts. He doesn't do so in the manga.
 * In the manga Rōshi's headpiece is depicted as having a golden ring on the left side. In the anime however, this ring was not present.
 * In the manga, Sasuke's Susanoo has six fingers. In the anime, it has five fingers.
 * In the manga the Samurai Bridge is depicted as being blue in Shippūden episode 208 however, the bridge is a grey-blue colour.
 * In Shippūden episode 208, Karin is seen using the Mystical Palm Technique. This was never shown in the manga.
 * In Shippūden episode 207, when Killer B threw the pencil at Kisame Hoshigaki, the latter's right side of his headband was scratched, while in the manga, his left side of his cheek was scratched.
 * In Shippūden episode 214 there are several errors:
 * Kakashi's Mangekyō Sharingan is inaccurately depicted as having a black background and red tomoe, similar to Sasuke Uchiha's, though this was fixed in Shippūden episode 215.
 * The teeth of Sasuke's final Susanoo form in the manga are depicted as jagged, but when animated they resemble normal teeth with elongated canines.
 * When Sasuke's complete Susanoo is seen for the first time in the manga it has what appears to be an orb in it's foremost right hand. In the anime however the entity is seen with a gourd of sorts in its secondary right hand with the orb being absent altogether.
 * In the manga when White Zetsu cancels his Substitute Technique the clone resembles a regular Zetsu clone. However in the anime, the clone has the venus flytrap like extensions which have never been seen on a typical clone.
 * In Shippūden episode 217, Karui and Omoi are briefly shown wearing a Konohagakure forehead protector.