Kishimoto reveals his struggle with Sasuke's character

Masashi Kishimoto has written a lot of inspiring characters over the years. It's safe to say that Kishimoto's story is one of the very best in recent memory, and its incredible popularity is proof of that. At the core of Kishimoto's stories are fascinating ninjas, where the protagonist is a boy with a yellow head named Naruto Uzumaki, and his main rival is none other than Sasuke, a rather reserved but equally popular character.

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Of course, writing each character is quite a complicated task for any writer. However, in Kishimoto's case, he struggled extra with Sasuke's character for various reasons that he has gone on to reveal in an interview.

How Kishimoto struggled to draw Sasuke

• Sasuke gave Kishimoto Design a headache

• Sasuke became Kishimoto's favorite

One of the biggest struggles Kishimoto had with Sasuke's character was coming up with a proper design in the very early parts of Narutodue to its different complexities. Sasuke had a very complex outfit compared to other characters, and at the same time, Kishimoto struggled with his facial expressions, simply because he wanted to convey a certain feeling with the character of Sasuke. When it comes to Sasuke Uchiha, Kishimoto tried to give him a lot of important moments early on so fans realized how important he really was. Although he really succeeded with Sasuke's design, over the years he tried to simplify it by reducing the number of lines used to draw this character. But as for Sasuke's face, Kishimoto still couldn't do much to change it. According to him, Sasuke's face is very complicated to draw and quite easily one of the most difficult Naruto series.

Imparting certain facial expressions with Sasuke is difficult, due to the fact that he always maintains a certain level of composure and rarely ever shows any emotion directly from his face. Here's what Kishimoto had to say about Sasuke:

This is the first image of Sasuke. It hasn't changed much so far. The only big difference is that he lost that thing around his neck. It's the same for all characters, the more you draw them, the more you add more and more lines. You add accessories and such. And with a main character you get really excited and keep adding stuff. Afterwards, I wondered, “Can I really have a character with that many lines in a weekly series?”

So I reduced the amount of lines and made Sasuke's image closer to Naruto's.

In my opinion, Sasuke's face and movements are the hardest to draw. And if I'm not careful, his face will be too grown up. I've never had a child character with eyes like that in any of my manga, so it's very hard to draw.

He's the character I have to be the most careful with, and maybe that's why he's my favorite character. – Kishimoto

It's clear that Kishimoto struggled quite a bit with drawing Sasuke. In fact, at one point Kishimoto realized that he wanted to pay more attention to Sasuke's facial expressions, and this was simply because he wanted fans to understand his point of view more. After all, Sasuke is not an irrational character who does things on a whim. But he felt that he failed to convey the right feeling with his facial expressions. It was at this point that Kishimoto's editor decided to force him to redraw Sasuke's facial expressions on numerous occasions, until he finally got them right. According to Kishimoto, this was quite difficult for him to accomplish. Sasuke certainly wasn't the only character that gave him trouble when it came to facial expressions. Sakura, who later became Sasuke's wife, was also very difficult to draw, especially when it comes to facial expressions Naruto series.

Sakura appeared in a large part of the story and, like Sasuke, forced Kishimoto to redraw several panels. Kakashi was yet another character that gave Kishimoto a lot of trouble, and in his case it was especially difficult because of his face mask. Kakashi's mouth being covered essentially meant he had very little to work with, but he still had to convey his reactions.

Kishimoto didn't know how to proceed with Sasuke's character arc

Sasuke's character arc gave Kishimoto problems

While Sasuke's character design and facial expressions themselves caused quite a few problems for Masashi Kishimoto, that certainly wasn't all. It was more about Sasuke that gave Kishimoto a lot of trouble, and that was his character arc. When Sasuke was introduced, Kishimoto had a rough idea of ​​what to do with him. To give him a real target and make him stronger, Kishimoto introduced a certain someone that Sasuke wanted to kill. This person was later revealed to be Itachi Uchiha. In pursuit of power, Sasuke left the village and Naruto tried to bring him back. Then the battle between Naruto and Sasuke, which happened towards the end of part one, finally took place. When Sasuke left Konoha, it was a very frustrating moment for Kishimoto.

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According to him, it was at this point that he realized he didn't know which way to take Sasuke further down the line. Of course, the plot would still revolve around Sasuke's eventual battle with Itachi, but in terms of Sasuke's personal growth, Kishimoto had no idea what steps he would take next. That being said, it's safe to say that one thing led to another and Kishimoto successfully created a very compelling character in Sasuke. Even after Sasuke left the village, Kishimoto continued to make his storyline incredibly exciting. Once he achieved his goal of killing Itachi, Sasuke still remained one of the most intriguing characters in Naruto, right up to the end. In fact, Sasuke could quite easily pass for being the best character in the entire series, and that's what makes him really special.

Sasuke's difficulties made him Kishimoto's favorite

Kishimoto's heart is set on Sasuke Uchiha

All the battles eventually led to Sasuke being his favorite character. Kishimoto has never hidden the fact that he adores Sasuke and that he is one of his favorite characters to draw, if not the favorite. Along with Naruto Uzumaki, there seems to be no character he loves as much as Sasuke. From Akatsuki, he mentioned that Hidan was his favorite, but overall, it's very likely that Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto are his favorite characters. Kishimoto's focus on these two characters throughout the Naruto series is a testament to that.

There aren't many characters that Kishimoto adores as much as Sasuke, and his bias towards the character is pretty clear for fans to see as well. After all, he spent quite a bit of time writing his complex character arc, while drawing his incredible character designs as well. Kishimoto created a phenomenal character in Sasuke Uchiha, and one that will be remembered for ages to come.

Naruto is available to read on MangaPlus and the Shonen Jump app. Fans can read the official release and support the author by doing so.

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Naruto

Release date

October 3, 2002

Creator

Masashi Kishimoto

Number of episodes

220

Streaming Service(s)

Netflix , Crunchyroll , Amazon Prime Video , Peacock , The Roku Channel , Amazon Freevee , Hulu , Hoopla , Pluto TV , Tubi