The Narutomanga is written by Masashi Kishimoto and is published by Shueisha in the WeeklyShōnen Jump magazine, in twenty-page installments. The first chapter of Naruto was published in the issue 43 from 1999, continuing to more than seven hundred chapters in all. The Naruto manga is serialized in North America by Viz Media in their manga anthology magazine Shonen Jump, with the first chapter of the English adaptation published in the January 2003 issue. The Naruto manga is split in two parts to divide the storyline; the first part, Part I, covers the first two hundred thirty-eight chapters of the series. Part II of the Naruto storyline begins at the two hundred forty-fifth chapter, and takes place two and a half years after the end of Part I. The six chapters between Part I and Part II form a gaiden taking place before the regular storyline, called the "Kakashi Chronicles". An anime adaptation of the series, produced by Studio Pierrot and TV Tokyo, was aired on TV Tokyo, with the first episode shown on October 3, 2002. The last episode of the Naruto anime aired on February 8, 2007, with the anime adaptation of Part II, known as , to replace it. The chapters that make Part I have been composed into twenty-seven tankōbon in Japan by Shueisha. The first tankōbon was published on March 3, 2000, and the twenty-seventh on April 4, 2005. Most of the tankōbon contain nine chapters of the original manga. Viz Media has also published all twenty-seven volumes of the English adaptation of Part I in North America. In addition, Viz Media has published the twenty-seven volumes within a boxed set, thus constituting the entirety of the Naruto storyline before Part II, on August 26, 2008. A "Collector's Edition" of volume 1, adding a hardcover, was also published on September 16, 2008, by Viz. The "Naruto Nation" campaign, a plan to release three volumes each month in the last four months of 2007, was announced by Viz Media shortly before the release of the fourteenth volume. Cammie Allen, Viz Media's product manager, commented that, "Our main reason was to catch up to the Japanese release schedule to give our readers a similar experience to that of our readers in Japan." As such, the English serialization of Part II premiered on December 4, 2007, in Shonen Jump.
