「キングオブ漫画プロレス」： うずまき ナルト
[KING OF MANGA PRO-WRESTLING]: NARUTO UZUMAKI

This is Naruto Uzumaki as a pro-wrestling champion. This is my tribute to the NARUTO manga series, as it ends after 15 years of publication. Congratulations to Masashi Kishimoto for 15 years of Naruto.

I hope you will like it. I would appreciate your feedback for this drawing.

Extra Notes:
NARUTO is a series that could definitely be considered as a hallmark of my generation. I'm not a big fan of the series, but I did get to have a glimpse of what it's about, and I can see how much fans it has through the years. As the series is about to end after 15 years in publication, I decided to give the manga my own tribute to acknowledge its legendary status.

This plan became even more definite after reading some of the latest chapters of the series, which actually got me a bit emotional even if I haven't really read the series a lot.

When I made this piece, I used legendary Japanese pro-wrestler Kenta Kobashi as a reference for Naruto's pose. I was somewhat imagining Naruto Uzumaki having a retirement ceremony similar to that of Kobashi back in 2013. Maybe it's because Kobashi's ceremony was filled with orange streamers, which is the color that is also symbolic of Naruto. I guess Kobashi's fighting spirit in the ring and generally cheerful demeanor also played a role here.

The design for the championship belt, if you're interested, was actually based on the one used in a wrestling-themed cover page of Shonen Jump back in 2012.

In this piece, I decided to expand a bit on my "King of Pro-Wrestling" trading card game parody. This time, I renamed it as "King of Manga Pro-Wrestling". I am considering doing this parody series for other future artworks.

Congratulations to Masashi Kishimoto for 15 years of Naruto. I wish you the best in your future works.