A tweet posted by the official Shonen Jump account seems to imply Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto's involvement with Sasuke's spinoff manga.The tweet posted by Shonen Jump read: "NEW SERIES ALERT! Naruto: Sasuke's Story -- The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust: The Manga, story by Masashi Kishimoto and Jun Esaka, manga by Shingo Kimura, starts this Saturday! Read it FREE from the official source!" The popular manga and anime news account Shonenleaks reacted to the tweet, saying, "Kishimoto will also be in charge of the Story for the Sasuke Retsuden Manga?? Is that what it implies here or they just crediting him for the being the author of the original story?"
Kishimoto Was Not Involved In the Writing Process
Chapter 1 of the Sasuke's Story manga credits Masashi Kishimoto and Jun Esaka for writing the original story and Shingo Kimura as the mangaka. However, as far as Kishimoto's actual involvement goes, he likely received credit as the series creator. Naruto: Sasuke's Story -- The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust light novels also credited both Kishimoto and writer Jun Esaka. However, the book's Amazon listing makes the distinction of listing Esaka as the novel's writer and Kishimoto as the creator. Although he was not involved in writing the novel or the manga, an interview with JUMP j books revealed that Kishimoto worked on the illustrations for the novel's covers. A rough sketch was sent to Kishimoto with a design idea before he turned around and provided the completed art piece to the company.
The manga will follow the series of prose novels based on the Naruto franchise. The novel's official synopsis reads:
Uchiha Sasuke heads for an astronomical observatory, far from the Land of Fire. There, he syncs up with Sakura, and together they dive into an undercover investigation in search of traces of the Sage of Six Paths! They discover a plan that goes beyond life and death, and a battle that will test this husband-and-wife team till death do they part.
The Naruto anime recently celebrated its 20th anniversary on Oct. 3, 2022. In celebration, Naruto's then-newly launched website unveiled special 20th-anniversary visuals and illustrations, while Studio Pierrot reanimated classic scenes from the series. The franchise also collaborated with gaming peripherals company HyperX to release a limited-edition collection featuring Naruto and Itachi-themed keyboards, headsets, mouse pads and gaming mouses. Singapore-based furniture company Secretlab joined in on the fun, putting out two cool gaming chairs worthy of the greatest Hokage himself.
Chapter one of Sasuke's Story -- The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust manga is available to read on the VIZ Manga app.
Source: Twitter, JUMP j books