Manuscript pages to ship as collector's item in December

Japanese publisher Shueisha began distributing a pamphlet at the Naruto exhibit in Tokyo on Sunday, announcing that the publisher will release a reproduction of Masashi Kishimoto's original manuscript for the first chapter of his Naruto manga. Kishimoto and other artists draw their manga on B4-size — or 9.84x13.9-inch — sheets before printers shrink the art about 50% for the magazine pages and even more for the book volumes.

The full size pages, including color pages, will come in a special box, titled "Naruto Dai-1-Wa Fukusei Genkō Box -Sōden-" (Naruto Chapter 1 Manuscript Reproduction Box -Inheritance-).

Preorders, as well as additional information, will be available online and through Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump on Monday, May 25. The box will ship on December 1.

The first chapter of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece manga was reproduced at full size in 2011 to celebrate 200 million copies of One Piece in print.