Viral video claims Naruto editor "saved the series" from Kishimoto himself, enraging fans

Naruto is one of the most popular manga series to ever come out of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. However, to this day, some fans have doubts about manga creator Masaki Kishimoto's skills as a writer. While the argument may sound absurd, there is seemingly evidence for the same.

Recently, a video from a creator went viral. The shreds of evidence from the video deduce that manga creator Masashi Kishimoto is not a great writer. It further claims that if it hadn't been for the editor, Naruto would have never been a great series and certainly would not have become part of the Big 3 anime.

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Did Naruto editor "save the series" from Masashi Kishimoto?

No, the Naruto editor did not "save the series" from manga creator Masashi Kishimoto. While the editor might have steered the series in a much better direction, the instance with Naruto is not unique.

The video explains how Naruto editor had Masashi Kishimoto make several changes to the series. Some of them include adding a deuteragonist and rival for the protagonist, preventing Kishimoto from making characters into animals, and having Kishimoto set consistent names for jutsu for world-building rather than techniques that are all over the place.

Team 7, as seen in the anime (Image via Studio Pierrot)

Evidently, these changes are crucial to the story and are the foundation of what made Naruto a great series. However, this does not automatically mean that the editor saved the series. There have been several instances when a manga was steered in a better direction by its editor.

The most prominent ones are Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball Z manga and Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan manga. As revealed by the series, it was Toriyama's editor who requested several changes for the Android Saga and Cell Saga. He was the person responsible for Toriyama to change Cell's character design numerous times.

Cell, as seen in Dragon Ball Z (Image via Toei Animation)

As for Attack on Titan, Isayama was seemingly going to get Sasha killed long ago in the story. That's when an editor intervened in the decision, as Sasha was their favorite character. Evidently, these changes were crucial. However, they do not take the manga creator's credibility away from them.

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How fans reacted to the viral video

Fans immediately disagreed with the video's opinion, as no manga creator can be a "bad writer" and still create a manga series that has published 700 chapters as part of a weekly serialization.

"He's a good writer you sorta have to be to make a 700 chapter manga," one fan said.

Another fan shared how the video simply wasn't right. If one were to accept that logic and consider Kishimoto a bad writer, even Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama would fall into the same category as he, too, has received help from his editors.

"I don’t think this video is right. By that logic, Toriyama is a bad writer too," another added.

Samurai 8 manga by Masashi Kishimoto (Image via Shueisha)

One fan said no great writer can write a story all by themselves, and that is exactly why writers hire editors.

"No writer can get the story right on their first try by themself. Even the greatest writers in history have editors," another fan said.

"Samurai 8, the Manga Kishimoto wrote after Naruto was technically a flop from my understanding, do you think this is related in any way?," other fan shared.

Nevertheless, some fans believed the opinion shared in the viral video. This is because Masashi Kishimoto's manga series Samurai 8, which began serialization after Naruto manga ended, flopped. This fact made fans perceive that Naruto was only a good series because Kishimoto had help from great editors.

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