Road of Naruto

ROAD OF NARUTO

9.0(1)

OtakuDen

8.4(22,504)

MAL Score

Popularity #4073

Action
Fantasy
Martial Arts

Episodes: 1
Duration: 9 min
Aired: Oct 3, 2022
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Created to mark 20 years of *Naruto*, *Road of Naruto* is an anniversary promotional video released by Studio Pierrot on its YouTube channel.

The PV presents a compilation of newly reworked moments from *Naruto*, featuring refreshed animation that revisits key scenes in a new visual style.

Otaku Consensus

Road of Naruto earns its high fan scores by treating Studio Pierrot’s own back catalogue as material for revision rather than simple nostalgia, with Yoshifumi Sasahara’s direction giving the one-shot PV unusually sharp momentum for a commemorative release. The refreshed animation, aggressive music handoffs, and recognizable emotional beats land especially well for long-time Naruto viewers; the main criticism is that its compilation format offers almost no standalone dramatic value for anyone outside the franchise.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Road of Naruto if you want the emotional voltage of a long shounen saga without committing to a multi-hundred-episode rewatch. It is built for viewers who already know why Naruto matters and want to see Studio Pierrot reinterpret familiar material with 2022 polish, brisk editing, and a battle-shounen rhythm closer to a high-end opening sequence than a recap episode. The hook is not plot coverage; it is seeing the franchise’s martial-arts grammar, ninja iconography, and super-power spectacle compressed into a single celebratory burst. It scratches the same anniversary itch as a greatest-hits concert: ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, FLOW, Ikimono-gakari, Sambomaster, and KANA-BOON turn the PV into a tour through Naruto’s anime-song identity as much as its action identity.

Key Characters

N
Naruto Uzumaki
Naruto remains the emotional center of the anniversary piece, functioning less as a conventional protagonist here than as the symbol of the franchise’s 20-year shounen legacy.
S
Sasuke Uchiha
Sasuke gives the PV its sharper anti-hero edge, the exact quality reflected in AniList’s notable Anti-Hero tag presence.
S
Sakura Haruno
Sakura’s presence connects the celebration back to Team 7’s original chemistry, grounding the spectacle in the relationships that made the series more than ninja combat.
K
Kakashi Hatake
Kakashi stands out as the franchise’s cool-headed mentor figure, a character fans associate with tactical combat, restraint, and instantly recognizable visual design.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
Studio Pierrot produced Road of Naruto as a single anniversary PV rather than a television episode, making its pacing closer to a premium music-video montage than a recap special.
2
The project uses newly reworked animation for famous Naruto material, giving longtime viewers a direct point of comparison between the original broadcast-era look and Pierrot’s 2022 presentation.
3
Its music lineup is unusually franchise-specific: ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, FLOW, Ikimono-gakari, Sambomaster, and KANA-BOON are all credited for insert song performance, turning the PV into an audio memory map of Naruto anime culture.
4
The visual department includes Hiromasa Ogura as art director and Shinya Oda as director of photography, two roles that matter heavily in a short built around instantly legible mood shifts and impact shots.
5
Despite being only one episode, it holds an 8.38 MAL score from 22,504 votes and an 82/100 AniList score, suggesting that fans judged it as a high-value celebratory artifact rather than as a conventional standalone anime.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Road of Naruto aired on October 3, 2022, aligning the release with Naruto’s 20th anniversary milestone.
Fun fact 2: Masashi Kishimoto is credited as the original creator, while Yoshifumi Sasahara directed the PV, separating the source creator role from the anniversary film’s specific screen direction.
Fun fact 3: Kouichi Machiyama is credited as animation producer, a key production role for a short whose main selling point is refreshed animation rather than new narrative material.
Fun fact 4: AniList’s tag spread gives Ninja the highest weight at 88%, followed by Male Protagonist at 85%, Shounen at 80%, Martial Arts at 75%, and Super Power at 72%, neatly capturing how the PV is categorized by viewers.
Fun fact 5: Its MAL Popularity rank of #4073 sits far below its score ranking impression, a sign that Road of Naruto is highly rated by the viewers who seek it out but remains a niche anniversary item compared with full-length Naruto entries.