Masashi Kishimoto Had a Great Plan for Rivalling One Piece.

SUMMARY

Masashi Kishimoto came up with the dark idea of following an alternate theme of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece to rival its popularity with Naruto.
Naruto’s creator explains how it was a great idea to make his show more serious and killing characters ultimately paid off.
He went on to say how showcasing Naruto Uzumaki as a knucklehead in the show was deliberate and it featured character growth.

Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto and Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece are arguably two of the most popular shonen series of this generation. Both series have dominated the manga sales for their epic runs and have been part of the Big Three, and their anime adaptations have plastered every fan of the series to their screens. The longevity of both series speaks volumes to their popularity as the shows attract different generations of fans year after year.
Naruto Uzumaki
Both series featured hundreds of episodes with similar themes of friendship, the pursuit of one’s dreams, and perseverance, leaving a lasting impact on pop culture. However, Kishimoto-san had to take an alternative route and used Oda-Sensei’s light-hearted theme to his advantage to keep his series popular in the anime and manga community.

Masashi Kishimoto Had a Dark Idea To Rival Oda-Sensei’s One Piece’s Popularity

In the manga and anime community, Eiichiro Oda and Masashi Kishimoto are towering figures, and for all the right reasons. The manga artists have given the world their magnum opus, One Piece and Naruto. Both series excel in creating an immersive and expansive fictional world that hooks its viewers as Kishimoto-san showcased a world where shinobis live and possess ninjutsu techniques, neatly intertwined with political dynamics and epic action sequences.
Naruto and his friends at Ichiraku Ramen shop (Credit: Crunchyroll)
On the other hand, Oda-Sensei showcased a vast world in the ocean with fictional islands and mythical creatures, where pirates are in pursuit of the ultimate treasure, which is the One Piece. There’s no denying that both series are immensely popular and exceptionally absorbing and fans often debate which show is more popular.

However, that is not the case with the mangakas of the two series, as both of them respect each other immensely, constantly pushing each other to greater heights in storytelling. Kishimoto-san had to think of an alternative plan to keep his series popular and rival Oda-san’s light-hearted pirate show, and the Boruto creator came up with an exciting plan.

Sandman (@sandman_AP) translated a section of the LOGPIECE blog of Kishimoto-san’s interview, where he shared that he decided to go the alternate way of making his show serious and heart-aching to rival Oda-sensei because he does not prefer to kill his characters in the series.
Straw Hat Grand Fleet
He said,

“One Piece is basically a light-hearted story, so I always think of Naruto as going the opposite way. I try to make Naruto a more serious battle by killing characters, since Oda said he doesn’t kill many characters. Otherwise, Naruto wouldn’t be popular enough.”

The mangaka added,

“Ninjas tend to be dark (lol). Because we have to give the characters depth. It can get a little dark at times, but “OP” is generally bright, so I always think that “Naruto” should be the opposite. The same goes for stories. Mr. Oda said that he doesn’t kill many people, so in “Naruto” there are characters who die, and the battles are more severe.”

Nevertheless, Kishimoto-san succeeded in making his show popular as he featured several tear-jerking moments with the deaths of our favorite characters like Itachi Uchiha and Jiraiya.

Masashi Kishimoto Deliberately Made Naruto Uzumaki a Knucklehead

During an exclusive interview with Cinema Today, the creator of the Shonen series shared how it was important for him to make his protagonist, Naruto Uzumaki, be someone who lacked a lot of skills. As a result, he decided to limit the character’s vocabulary and something that could not expand over immediately. He said,

“I also couldn’t have Naruto speak complicated words. To a certain degree, it was ok if it was something he had experienced, but if he suddenly said something grown up about something where he had no experience, it would be a lie. I had decided the characters first, so that wouldn’t have worked honestly.”

A still from The Pain Arc
The sole reason behind this decision was to showcase that even though the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was growing up, his life was full of hardships and he lacked basic education, so the use of complicated words would not suit him. Moreover, his lifestyle and other aspects of his behavior would be justified and appeal to a bigger audience.

Gradually, as the show progressed fans would notice how he climbed his way to the top and developed over time, showcasing his growth and development as a character.