Now THIS Is How You End a Great Series

Anime Old Home Week! Big Naruto News, Bleach Rewatch, and More!

It's been nostalgia week for me since the big Naruto announcements. Suddenly, I find myself as I was twenty years ago, feeling like a new fan of Naruto and Bleach again with all the new news.

First, the big stuff. At New York Comic Con, it was announced that Naruto is getting a new manga. It's being authored by Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto's original creator, and the story is set between the end of Naruto Shippuuden and the beginning of Boruto, during what is known as "the Blank Period" in the timeline.

There was other news too (more on that later), but this was the main thing. After Shippuuden ended, there was a timeskip ahead to where the characters had married and had children. But we never saw what happened right after the big battle, the huge climax when they defeated Kaguya.

From what we can tell from the images that have been released, this new manga entitled Shadow Rising (folks are even trying to decipher what the name might mean, lol) covers, among other things, Naruto beginning his rule as Hokage, Sarada's birth, and a final (friendly?) rematch fight between Naruto and Sasuke.

All the other announcements paled in comparison to this one, but here they are. A new four-episode anime will be released, and it's a crossover between Naruto and a popular Japanese children's anime called Ninku. It's set when Team 7 were kids. Also, the Naruto mobile game that has been successful in China will be released worldwide. A Naruto tabletop card game is forthcoming.

In addition, there's a different four-episode anime series celebrating Naruto's 20th anniversary, postponed from 2023, that will be released by the end of 2026.

More announcements about the Naruto universe are slated to be made at Jump Festa in December.

All of these announcements and the buzz they've generated have brought the franchise back to life. It brings to mind for me that time when I was new to anime and just head over heels for Naruto, Bleach, and loads of other series, and everything anime was fresh and new to me.

It put me in that mood so much that I'm now rewatching Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War from the beginning. I've been binging it when I have a few hours here and there, and I'm at episode 18 now. It's the first time I've rewatched any of the episodes and I'm impressed by the level of storytelling and all the little details I missed the first time around.

Bleach's final two episodes will air on Oct. 19 and Oct. 26. It's going to be huge! Also, there are rumors of a new Bleach anime called the Hell Arc?? We'll have to wait and see about it...

I'm sure I've said it before, somewhere in the seventeen years I've been writing this blog - but for me, Naruto has the most complete story universe in manga/anime. The ninja world, Konoha, the Kage, the ninja training academy, all the people of Konoha, Naruto's life journey, Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry and relationship, the life-or-death battles, Gaara and his tragic story and eventual triumph... there's so much there, and when you watch even an average Naruto or Naruto Shippuuden episode you feel like you're right there in Konoha with them. You are totally enveloped in the landscape of the ninja world, in the village of Konoha and its history.

As each new anime season debuts, and the rush of new series comes in, it's easy to forget the great old stories. The funny thing is, since I've been watching the Naruto announcement videos and everyone's reaction videos on YouTube, the great YT algorithm has taken note and I'm now getting flooded with Naruto and Sasuke videos. Maybe the franchise never died and it was just me that was out of the loop?

Watching those videos, I feel like I'm back in 2007 and the world of anime has just opened up to me again. It's a lot of fun.

I'm assuming a legal way to read the new Naruto manga, which begins next year, will be available to us in the U.S., so I'm preparing myself to take on a new paid subscription, lol. I don't want to be left behind for this one. This one is worth paying for, for immediate access to this series.

As people have been saying on the internet, we Naruto fans are eating good. ;-) It's great to return to the old feelings of excitement over shounen anime, and it's good to still be an anime fan in 2026. :-)