Otaku from the United Kingdom and Ireland are in luck because Funimation has announced that they will begin streaming the Naruto anime series as of today. Fans of the region will be able to catch all the episodes featuring the coming of age story of Naruto and his friends on the streaming service via FunimationNOW.
Funimation had acquired Manga Entertainment Limited, which was the distributor of the series in the UK and Ireland in May. The streaming service is now offering over nine hundred hours of both subbed and dubbed content for fans in the area. Watch as these ninjas in training become full-fledged ninjas in the iconic anime franchise.
In the series, a young Naruto Uzumaki seeks to find his place in his village by becoming a ninja and the future Hokage. He takes his first step when he joins Team 7, along with Sasuke, Sakura, and their mentor Kakashi. It’s a tale of happiness, sorrow, and friendship as we see the generation of ninja work to achieve their dreams.
The manga series was written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto, which was first serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1999. The story itself was split into two parts, the first took place in Naruto’s pre-teen years and the second half was in his teens. The entire run was collected in 72 volumes and was adapted into an anime television series in 2002. Fun fact; the story of Naruto actual began as two one-shot manga stories in 1995.
The anime was produced by Pierrot and Aniplex which included two hundred and twenty episodes. Then in 2007, Naruto: Shippuden premiered which was a sequel to the original series and followed a teenage Naruto. That series ran for five hundred episodes. VIZ Media licensed both the manga and anime series for North America production.
Later in 2017, another sequel series aired which was Boruto: Naruto Next Generations which featured Boruto the son of Naruto. Along with this anime sequel series, there was also a manga as well. At the time of this article being published, the series is still going on strong.
Naruto has become the fourth best selling manga series in history with over 235 million copies sold worldwide. It’s one of VIZ Media’s best selling series of all time. It has also won a number of awards which includes a Quill Award in 2006.