Teen in Russia commits suicide after seeing Naruto Shippuden character die

The British tabloid newspaper Daily Mail reported on Friday that a 14-year-old Russian boy committed suicide after seeing a character in the Naruto Shippūden anime die. According to the paper, Leonid Hmelev leapt more than 100 feet (30 meters) from an apartment building and died instantly.

The newspaper reported that Hmelev was devastated after seeing the death of the character Itachi Uchiha  (The death first appeared in the original Naruto manga in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 2008.) Daily Mail said that Hmelev left a message about "planning an ending" on a social networking site.

After his parents reported him missing, they and their neighbors searched for him and found his body two days later on November 1. The Daily Mail reported that his 38-year-old father Ivan said, "I always told him he spent too much time watching the TV - he didn't know what was reality and what was fiction anymore."

UNICEF and The New York Times reports that Russia has the third highest rate — 22 per 100,000 — of teenage suicide after Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Source: ANN, Daily Mail

There are cases, and then cases of cases, I guess. 

Related articles

• Newspaper: Teen Commits Suicide After Seeing Naruto Character Die

Sailor Moon and Naruto mangas soared again in US bookstores on September!

According to ICv2, the seventh volume of Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon manga and the 58th volume of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto ranked #1 and #2 on Nielsen BookScan's list of top 20 graphic novels in American bookstores for September.

Other manga top-sellers include Yotsuba! volume 11 at #6, Alice in the Country of Clover volume 2 at #9, Bleach volumes 47 and 46 taking #11 and #12, and One Piece volume 64 at #13.

The previous month's #1, Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, fell to #7. The BookScan rankings represent sales at Barnes & Noble and other book chains, independent bookshops, and online purchases, but not sales at comic book stores, Walmart, and some other venues.

Source: ANN

Related articles

• Sailor Moon as number one manga again in US bookstores
• Store: The Sailor Moon manga revival in the US
• Naruto tops August manga sales in US Bookstores

Naruto tops August manga sales in US Bookstores

The latest volume (57th) of  Kishimoto's Naruto manga placed #9 in Nielsen BookScan's list of top 20 graphic novels in American bookstores for August.

Whereas Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon volume 6 dropped at #17, and Tite Kubo's Bleach volumes 44 and 45 ranked at #19 and #20, respectively.

The BookScan rankings represent sales at Barnes & Noble and other book chains, independent bookshops, and online purchases — but not sales at comic book stores, Walmart, and some other venues.

Source: ANN, ICv2

Related articles

• Sailor Moon as number one manga again in US bookstores
• I'm Coming Home, Konan - Naruto
• Store: The Sailor Moon manga revival in the US

Rumor: Naruto and Sasuke ending up as a couple in the manga?

Thank you for giving me the excuse to post this XD

Even despite the fact that author Kishimoto has alleged his love of Shounen-ai, I'm still taking it with a grain of salt, because of the decisions that would be involved for the pairing to happen.

This rumor has been making quite the rounds on fansites and deviantart, it originated on a miniconference in  ExpoAnimeUSA held in 2009, when the author gave an interview, and is now circulating again given that the manga is nearing an end in maybe a year or so. 

The author allegedly indicated his love of Shounen-ai and that NaruSasu was his favorite pairing. He even collects doujinshi and fanfics.

According to this source, who republished a deleted DA journal,

"Kishimoto revealed that Sasuke was based on his best friend from High School, whom he admired and loved very much, and that Naruto was a reflection of himself and the adventures he would have liked to experience when he was young. He also emphasized that in the series there is not a love triangle, but rather a circle, like a fish biting its own tail. Naruto likes Sakura, Sakura loves Sasuke and Sasuke has special feelings for Naruto.However, he ended the note saying that Shippuden was going to be mainly about the fights and character development."

Don't get me wrong, I AM a fan of NaruSasu

I don't know about that, but the issue at hand is that Naruto runs in Shonen Jump magazine, and it would be a tremendous editorial move to give the manga a shounen-ai ending. I'm not going to say it is completely unlikely, unless all of this has been exaggerated and maybe he was referring that the manga finale will have that subtext. 

Other concern is the NaruHina, which has had very little development, with Hinata pining all these years for Naruto and him being ambiguous about it. 

Related articles

• Kishimoto: "Naruto Manga Is 'Rising Towards Its Climax'"
• Kishimoto: "Naruto has about a year and a half more to go"

Kishimoto: "Naruto has about a year and a half more to go"

Naruto's author Masashi Kishimoto indicated recently in another interview that the anime's character designer, Tetsuya Nishio, once asked him on “How long will this go on…,” and he responded, “About a year and a half more to go.” Even with that said, he still believed that the manga would continue beyond that time span.

So the end is far from over, thankfully for us :)