Growth and popularity

he series' length and popularity is comparable to that of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball, another popular action-oriented shōnen manga. Since its creation, Naruto has spawned a large number of fansites that contain detailed information, guides, and active forums. Some of the first and most popular sites targeted at English speaking audiences were established shortly after the first English manga volume was released in August 2003. Like many other manga and anime titles, Naruto has also spawned its own collectible card game.

Prior to the anime's North American debut in 2005, several scanlation and fansub groups translated the series and made it available for free download on the internet. Despite North American companies' perceived tendency to prosecute fansubbing groups more frequently than Japanese companies,[4] there are some that have continued to translate new Naruto episodes due to the extremely large gap between the English and Japanese versions.

Volume 7 of the manga has recently won a Quill Award for best graphic novel in North America.[5] In TV Asahi's latest top 100 Anime Ranking, Naruto ranked 17th on the list.