Naruto

TV Kids Weekly, October
24, 2006

NAME: Naruto

ORIGIN: Naruto originated in manga format.

CREATORS: Original Author: Masashi Kishimoto.
Producer of the Japanese series: Tomoka Gushima from TV Tokyo and Ken Hagino.

TV SHOW: Naruto, an anime series consisting of 104
30-minute episodes, tracks the adventures of a troublemaking orphan named
Uzumaki Naruto, who is struggling to graduate from the Ninja Academy. With a
little help from his friends, he just might become the leader of the ninja
village one day. The series’ primary target is the 9- to 14-year-old group, and
the secondary target is 15- to 34-year-olds.

EXECUTIVE
PRODUCERS: The
English-language series is produced by VIZ Media and Hidemi Fukuhara and Akira
Fujita serve as executive producers.

MAIN
BROADCASTER: The Toonami block on Cartoon Network U.S.; YTV in
Canada; and Cartoon Network in Latin America.

TV SALES: Naruto began airing on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network in the U.S.
It also airs on YTV in Canada and VIZ Media, who handles North American and
Latin American distribution of the series, recently announced a deal with
Cartoon Network Latin America.

MAJOR TOY
LICENSEES: Mattel and
Bandai are the major toy licensees and the products include: action figures,
plush, vehicles, play sets, role play, games, puzzles, youth electronics, Plug
& Play and capsule toys.

OTHER
PRODUCTS: These
include: back-to school, video games, toys, stationery, video, publishing,
apparel, accessories, trading cards, home entertainment, home furnishings,
gifts & collectibles, social expressions, and costumes.

STRATEGY
FOR ROLLOUT: Naruto is the number one manga in the U.S.
and VIZ Media has carefully exploited the property across various media. It
began by introducing the characters and story lines in manga form, then
produced an anime series, which airs on Cartoon Network, and finally it rolled
out DVDs and consumer products. “This represents a wonderful example of how we’ve
done a great job of creating a market in the U.S., first with the manga, which
was very successful prior to the launch of the TV series, and the TV series
heightens the success of the manga and created a powerful media mix,” says John
Easum, the executive VP of VIZ Media.

“Our objective
was to first go out and appeal to some of those core audiences, who have been
our loyal readers,” continues Easum. “We targeted a slightly older demographic
from a retail perspective. We partnered with Hot Topic and we did an exclusive Naruto program that coincided with the launch
of the TV series. That reinforced the coolness, the hip factor, which is what
we think Naruto is,
a very cool and unique animated property from Japan. Hot Topic was a nice fit
for the placement we were planning.”

Naruto products were very well received at
mass market in the U.S., where video games, trading cards, toys, DVDs and
several other categories were rolled out some six months after the show began
airing on Cartoon Network.

Now Easum and
his team are trying to take the enthusiasm they created for Naruto in the U.S. and recreate it in other
countries. Canada was a very receptive market to the Naruto manga and VIZ Media partnered with
YTV. The next step, says Easum, is Latin America, where the rights to the
series have been sold to Cartoon Network Latin America. “We're working with
them on the launch and we’ve given them an exclusive window after which we will
then place the series with terrestrial networks throughout Latin America.”