The Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs announced the winners of the 2014 "Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Fine Arts Recommendation Awards" on Thursday, and awarded Masashi Kishimoto a "Rookie of the Year" award in the media fine arts category for Naruto.

[url]http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-03-14/masashi-kishimoto-wins-rookie-of-the-year-award-for-naruto/.85976[/url]

It is also nominated for the 19th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize this year:
[url]http://animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-02-23/19th-tezuka-osamu-cultural-prize-nominees-announced/.85311[/url]

Well the category section is locked so you will have to live with my note in the description for now unless an admin was to honor the manga with the 2 fitting categories 🙂 . It even sold 205+ million copies so it is even a (modern) classic by any standard as there is no defined age criteria for how old (16 years here) a work has to be to qualify. I for example gave that tag to One Piece (19 years here) last week even if i normaly think that 20 years is a good numer. Love it or hate (especially act 3!) but it should overtake Dragon Ball in sales within 2 or so years as the spin-off train sadly ain´t stopping but "The Last: Naruto the Movie" is alright even if at lacks a real story and most characters are wasted camoes only.
Edit: Masashi Kishimoto is now a 40 years old "Rookie". 🤣

I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
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