Naruto: Shadow Rising Announced, With Masashi Kishimoto Returning for New Manga
Masashi Kishimoto is returning with a new Naruto manga titled Naruto: Shadow Rising, nearly 12 years after the original series ended. The project was announced on October 10 during the franchise’s “NARUTO: What’s Next?” panel at New York Comic Con, coinciding with Naruto’s birthday.
The reveal included a teaser showcasing manga storyboards and offering an early look at the original Team 7. Naruto appears holding the Hokage hat, while the village’s Hokage monument shows a seventh face under construction. Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura also feature, with the footage culminating in a confrontation between Naruto and Sasuke.
Those images suggest a story set around Naruto’s transition to becoming the Seventh Hokage. However, a full synopsis has not been released, and the circumstances surrounding his clash with Sasuke remain unknown.
The announcement comes more than a decade after Kishimoto concluded the original manga on November 10, 2014. First serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, Naruto ran for 15 years, following its central character from his earliest days as an aspiring ninja to the conclusion of his journey toward recognition. Its ending marked the close of the weekly series that had introduced readers to the Hidden Leaf Village and its growing cast of shinobi.
Kishimoto has returned to the world of Naruto since then. In July 2023, he released Naruto: The Whorl Within the Spiral, a 55-page one-shot focused on Minato Namikaze. That story followed Minato’s victory in the NARUTOP99 worldwide character popularity poll and explored an earlier generation of the franchise. Shadow Rising now brings attention back to Naruto and his former teammates, with Kishimoto once again drawing the characters himself.
A publication date and release schedule have not been announced. It also remains unclear whether the new manga will be a one-shot, limited series or ongoing serialization.
Further details are scheduled for Naruto’s stage at Jump Festa 2027, which takes place on December 19–20, 2026. Despite the event’s name, that means the next update is expected this December.
