seeing a poster for the animated film Akira, Kishimoto became fascinated with the way the illustration was made and wished to imitate the series' creator Katsuhiro Otomo's style. Other series he enjoyed reading are Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade; Ninku; and Ghost in the Shell. During his last years before graduating from Kyushu Sangyo University, Kishimoto spent time drawing manga and went to an art college with the hopes of becoming a manga artist. Upon entering college, Kishimoto decided he should try creating a Chanbara manga since Weekly Shōnen Jump had not published a title from that genre. However, during the same year, Kishimoto started reading Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal and Nobuhiro Watsuki's Rurouni Kenshin (the latter of which was published in Weekly Shonen Jump), which used the said genre. Kishimoto recalls having never been surprised by manga ever since reading Akira and found that he still was not able to compete against them. In his second year of college, Kishimoto started drawing manga for magazine contests. However, he noted that his works were similar to seinen manga, aimed towards an adult demographic, rather than the shōnen manga read by children and teenagers. Wishing to write a manga for Shōnen Jump (which targets a young demographic), Kishimoto found his style unsuitable for the magazine. When watching the anime series Hashire Melos!, Kishimoto was surprised by the character designs employed by the animators and he started researching works from animators. He later met Tetsuya Nishio, designer from the anime adaptation of the manga Ninku, who he deemed a big influence. Now emulating the way of drawing from multiple character designers from anime series, Kishimoto noted that his style started resembling shōnen series. Career Early works Kishimoto's first successful manga pilot was , which he submitted to Shueisha in 1995. This earned him an honorable mention in Shueisha's monthly "Hop Step Award" in 1996, granted to promising rookie manga artists. At this point he was assigned an editor, Kosuke Yahagi, and worked on a number of rejected drafts including a slice-of-life manga, , and an action manga, . In 1997, he wrote a one-shot version of which was published in Akamaru Jump Summer. In December 1997, while redeveloping Karakuri for serialization, Kishimoto was offered a one-shot in Weekly Shōnen Jump. The new version of Karakuri debuted two weeks later in Weekly Shōnen Jump 1998 No. 4-5, but was hampered by the