Kishimoto Masashi (岸本 斉史) is a Japanese manga artist and author. He is particularly known for being the creator, writer, and artist behind the NARUTO (1999) manga series; he is also the creator/supervisor of its sequel series BORUTO (2016) and took over writing duties as of November 2020. NARUTO has seen massive success both in Japan and overseas being one of the most sold manga properties in history with at least 250 million copies in circulation as of May 2019.