Naruto City

The city in Japan that shares the name of the popular Naruto manga and anime is using the ninja series to boost tourism. The city is advertising itself using characters from the series and has even invited some of the anime voice actors for local events. And the highlight of the campaign is a 5~6 meter high recreation of the Hokage monument.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20100831-00000647-san-ent

Planned downtime tonight - Big site changes!

Sorry for the short notice, but I just got the final word in the last few hours!



We've got some major changes coming to the site tonight that have been in the works for the last year! We'll be down for a couple of hours later this evening (Pacific time) with lots of new features coming when we're back up!



We'll have more info up after the changes are in place!





Thanks everyone for your patience!

Naruto Currency

In honor of the Naruto manga selling over 100 million volumes, the city of Naruto, Japan will begin selling 100 million Yen worth of Naruto themed currency. This special money will be redeemable at around 250 shops in the city of Naruto and will be accepted until the end of the year.



No doubt these will start showing up on eBay soon! How much would you pay for a Naruto "bill"?






via MangaHelpers

Job Openings (and Job Renewals!)

Hey, everyone! We're going to be revamping the Info Pages of the site soon and we need your help! We're looking for maintainers for our new pages, which will be in a Wiki format.



Please only respond if you have good grammar and spelling skills and if you are willing to submit a sample of your writing. You must be familiar with either Naruto, Bleach or Fairy Tail (although we're looking for people willing to create info pages on other Properties as well.) We are looking for a small, dedicated team - so please do not apply if you're going to quit updating in the short-term!



We are also going to be revamping our Moderator Team. Most of the existing moderators were allowed to keep their roles during the change over last May, but it's finally time to clean house! If you currently are a Moderator for either NarutoCentral or BleachCentral, be sure to drop us a line and let us know exactly what your role is. If you don't, chances are that you will lose your Moderator rights in the near future.



Note that we are looking for a couple of new Moderators, but please do not apply unless you:

• Have been an active member for over one year.



• Spend a lot of time on the site(s), both browsing and commenting.



• Avoid bickering with other users.



• Are very familiar with Naruto and/or Bleach.



• Want to augment your resume by becoming a Moderator for a community that is rapidly moving towards 1 MILLION USERS!

If you randomly email us looking for Moderator rights, you will not receive a response (nor will you be promoted). If you repeatedly ask existing Moderators to try to get promoted, you will be banned.



If you're interested, please send email to info@fandom.com, with your First Name, Email Address, Position You're Interested In and Writing Samples, if necessary.



Thanks everyone! We're working to make the sites that much better in 2010!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to everyone from the entire staff of NarutoCentral and BleachCentral.



We look forward to bringing you more Naruto/Bleach action throughout 2010!

Naruto Shippuden to Air on the Disney XD Channel

VIZ Media has announced that Disney will air Naruto Shippuden on the new Disney XD Channel. This channel is specifically targeted to boys, ages 6-14.



Do you think that this will be successful? Will you watch it? Leave a comment and let us know!



You can view the original press release here.

News Comments Expanded!

Due to several suggestions and requests from users, we have unchecked the news comments and allowed them to be greater than 500 characters. There is no logical limit at this point, but if abused, we will instantly lock them down again to 500 characters.



Thanks to everyone that sent us feedback on this issue. We take your requests very seriously and are doing our best to make NarutoCentral a better and better site every day!



Please also note that this only affects news comments, not other comments on the site. We will expand those at some future date.

Comments Bug Fixed

We have fixed the bug on comments with quoting comments with quotes in them. While we cannot fix the existing comments, any new comments that you post will work properly.



Thanks to everyone who notified us about this bug! We appreciate your help!

Naruto Anime Available on the PlayStation Network

Sony announced today that there will be major enhancements to the PlayStation Network including a video delivery service which will offer Naruto as part of its video content for the PS3 and PSP.



The video store will include a new anime channel which will host Naruto along with other anime such as Appleseed, Dead Space, Fist of the North Star, Voltron and several titles from Funimation.



Will you take advantage of this new Anime distribution channel? What has been your experience with the PlayStation Network before?

Pre-E3 News: TOMY Announces New Naruto Titles

According to IGN, TOMY has announced two new Naruto titles in 2009: one for the Nintendo DS and one for the Nintendo Wii.



Although the IGN article is a little "Naruto ignorant" (by claiming that Akatsuki is "one of the [playable characters]"), it's an exciting read with plenty of images. Hopefully with E3 next week, we'll obtain more information shortly.



Have you played other TOMY/Naruto titles? What do you think the potential of the new games is? Either way, will you buy them when they are released?