Naruto teases a new roadmap at New York Comic Con

Viz Media has put a date on Naruto's next chapter. The publisher is hosting a “NARUTO: What's Next?” panel at New York Comic Con on Saturday 10 October, and it is promising the first look at a roadmap for the future of the Naruto universe.

The panel runs from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm on the Empire Stage, and the franchise's own YouTube channel is streaming it worldwide — which works out at 06:00 on 11 October if you are watching from Japan.

Junko Takeuchi and Noriaki Sugiyama, the voices of Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha, will be on stage. Viz says the hour will carry updates on the anime, news about the NARUTO CARD GAME and “other exciting new projects”, plus the first outing for the new roadmap. There is a signing earlier the same day, 10:45 am to 12:15 pm in a private signing area, but it needs a pre-show ticket and the location goes only to ticket holders.

New York Comic Con runs from 8 to 11 October at the Javits Center and this year is the show's 20th anniversary edition. Viz will be on the floor at booth 2235 with convention-exclusive Shonen Jump merchandise and early releases for anyone who wants the merch more than the news.

What Viz has actually promised

The wording is doing a lot of work here. Viz is not calling this an anime announcement; it is selling a roadmap, a card game and a bundle of projects. Anyone hoping for a title card, a studio and a broadcast date should expect a tease rather than a trailer, at least until that hour on the Empire Stage is over.

The franchise has been here before. A 20th-anniversary animation for Naruto was postponed before broadcast back in 2023, and the broadcaster's own news page has stayed quiet on new animation since. “Roadmap” is a cheap word to put on a slide, and Naruto fans have seen plenty of those.

Our opinion

A roadmap is the least exciting thing you can promise a Naruto fan. The audience wants a date, a studio and a trailer; what it is being handed is a corporate diagram with the Hidden Leaf crest on it. The stage lineup is the real tell — Takeuchi and Sugiyama are not being flown to New York to talk about a trading card game.

The card game mention is the most honest sentence in the whole announcement. Naruto's merchandising machine has never needed a running anime to keep shifting product, and a roadmap that puts the animation on the same footing as the NARUTO CARD GAME quietly admits which of the two pays the bills. If 10 October ends with a real production announcement, brilliant. If it ends with a slide, the franchise has answered its own question about what “next” means.