Naruto: Shippuden

Naruto: Shippuden is the 500-episode sequel anime to Naruto, made by Studio Pierrot under director Hayato Date and broadcast on TV Tokyo from February 2007 to March 2017. It adapts Part II of Masashi Kishimoto's manga, picking up after a two-and-a-half-year time skip: Naruto Uzumaki returns to the Hidden Leaf after training with Jiraiya, still set on bringing Sasuke Uchiha home and on becoming Hokage.

Where the first series was a ninja school story, Shippuden is a war story. The Akatsuki, a group of rogue ninja hunting the tailed beasts sealed inside people like Naruto, set the agenda from the opening arc, and the show grows comfortable with grief, revenge and the idea that both sides of a conflict can be right. Its best stretch is Pain's Assault (episodes 152-175), where Naruto faces Pain and an argument about the cycle of hatred that the rest of the series has to answer. Kakashi Gaiden (episodes 119-120) is the essential detour, rewinding to explain how Kakashi Hatake got his borrowed eye. The finale delivers what the franchise had been building for 15 years, and our ranking of the best anime fights of all time puts it first.

The honest caveat is filler. Pierrot kept broadcasting weekly while the manga was still being written, so about 41% of the episodes are anime-original, including long blocks in the middle of the Fourth Shinobi World War where many viewers stall. Our Naruto watch order lists every episode you can skip, and where The Last: Naruto the Movie fits before the closing wedding episodes. As of October 2026 the franchise is busy again: a four-episode crossover, Naruto x Ninku, was revealed at New York Comic Con on 10 October 2026, with no release date yet.

Shippuden suits anyone who finished the original Naruto, and it rewards the patience its length demands with the payoff to every rivalry the first series set up. If the cast is getting hard to track, our Naruto characters guide covers Team 7, the Akatsuki and their powers.