Board Thread:Episode Discussions/@comment-1018594-20161020111149/@comment-4704473-20161020130214

SuperSajuuk wrote: So Date has left the anime now that the series has essentially concluded... presumably he'll come back for Chapter 700 (whenever they want to air that). Oh well, it was sorta expected to happen... If they will adapt the novels this winter, no need to animate chapter #700 right now until they're done with those novels... Date won't come back to Naruto again according to his tweets that he had been in this series for 14 years and it's time to make some changes and thanked everyone for the support during those years... So I suspect that the new era will have a new direction...

About this Boyhood arc, we'll get those kind of stories for every characters.. Next time, we have Sasuke and Sakura.. then Gaara and Shikamaru and then Jiraiya and Kakashi... So, they're buying some time until the winter to start adapting the novels...