The Naruto Run at Vanier
Photo By: Brianna Lemieux Anglin
As of late, “Naruto Runs” have become increasingly popular. So popular in fact, that they’ve been held at venues like famous landmarks, city streets and college campuses in Canada, the US, Australia and Belgium.
There was even one held in Florida during Hurricane Irma! For future reference, running in hurricane-force winds is highly dangerous and not recommended by anyone. But I digress.
What exactly is Naruto, and what does it have to do with running? Naruto is a Japanese manga series written by Masashi Kishimoto and released in 1999 for a magazine called Weekly Shonen Jump. It was adapted into an anime series in 2002.
The story of Naruto is about a teenage boy who wants to become the leader of his village, a.k.a.: The Hokage, and it follows his journey, development and adventures with his friends towards that goal.
The running aspect of Naruto derives from the way in which the characters run. Since they are training as ninjas, this running style involves leaning the back forward as if to bow, and lifting the arms up from the sides, holding them straight behind the back.
Vanier held a Naruto run to the N building on Wednesday September 6th during Universal Break. Although over 100 people said they were going to the event on Facebook, only seven people showed up, all of them seemingly part of the same social circle. The lack of attendance was probably due to people forgetting, or the fact that it started an hour later than planned.
Despite how disappointing Vanier’s Naruto run was, there has been many other more exiting runs. For example, over 5000 people showed up for a Naruto run around Trump Tower in Chicago on September 1st of this year.
No matter how big or small the turnout, Naruto runs have been happening throughout this year to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the release of the first volume of the manga in Japan. One might think that to commemorate Naruto there would be anime marathons or manga readings, but instead the fans of this series and anime lovers alike decided to become Hokage themselves, and run like ninjas.
Event organising has become incredibly easy thanks to social media, especially Facebook events, which are where all of these Naruto runs have been planned and organised. The advent of Naruto Runs was actually inspired by Dragon Ball Z Runs, and these events have sparked other ‘anime themed’ gatherings around the world, such as the Scream Like Goku gathering.
This trend of anime themed runs does not seem to be stopping anytime soon, so let your inner ninjutsu powers loose and run like the wind!
Written By: India Upshaw-Ruffner
