This year's 18th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is announcing on Monday that the spinoff manga mini-series Naruto Gaiden: Nanadaime Hokage to Akairo no Hanatsuzuki (Naruto Spinoff: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring Month) will start on April 27. The combined 22nd/23rd issue of Weekly Shonen Jump will ship on April 27, and the magazine teases, "Urgent News: The story enters a new generation…"

Hanatsuzuki is a month in the traditional Japanese lunar calendar, and it roughly falls around late March to early May in the modern calendar.

The main Naruto manga by Masashi Kishimoto ended in Weekly Shonen Jump on November 10 after 15 years of serialization. However, the magazine had revealed then that "a newly budding Konoha story" will begin this spring. An art exhibition and a stage play is also debuting this spring.

Boruto -Naruto the Movie-, the upcoming film sequel to the Naruto manga and The Last -Naruto the Movie-, will open in August. This new film will tell the story of [Highlight white text to read spoilers] Bolt (Boruto), Nar uto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyūga's son who appeared in the 700th and final chapter of the manga. Kishimoto added, "I conceived a story in which Bolt and [Sasuke's daughter] Sarada appears. Sasuke and Sakura also appear." He also conceived of Bolt's special fighting move.

Kishimoto had said in an interview in November that he will still have other work left to do in the Naruto franchise until this summer, so he will not begin preparing his next non-Naruto title in earnest until after that.