For the 5th? (something like that) time, the reason they aren't releasing this in Japan and the reason it wouldn't appeal to them is that the Naruto anime in America is 5 years behind the Anime and Manga in Japan. In fact, Naruto in this form doesn't even run anymore in Japan. Naruto Shippuuden is all that plays now, which is practically a whole different series. The only anime that can sell well when that old is Gundam.

This is being made for the American anime market: horrible voice acting, massive censoring, and all that good stuff.  

All of the Anime games are feeling old. How many times can Goku beat Vageta? And Naruto fight Garaa?

You have to forgive people for not illegally downloading Naruto. Please no equivocations about how its good for the industry it is still illegal. That said the series in North America is not that far behind the series in Japan. The North American airing is getting the initial run with limited interruption. So it is catching up quickly. Perhaps by early next year Cartoon Network will start airing the new series. Regardless North America is not five years behind now perhaps as little as a year.

The problem with watching a series in the original form, or fansubs is that you develop a set view of what the characters are supposed to sound like. However that does not equate to the voice acting being poor. I have purchased four of the uncut compilations myself. Could the series be so profane, or raunchy that I am missing out on something. I am not sure, but it doesn't seem like it. Otherwise I am getting ripped off. Otherwise the differences seem to be quite minor.

Your getting a tad bit bent out of shape. Out of something this trivial. The casual fans will enjoy this game, and it seems to have enough elements within it to appeal to many audiences. I also think the transition time is actually going in gamings favor. We are getting the series years sooner then we used to. Perhaps this time next year we will be talking a simultaneous Naruto game launch in both markets.

Horrible voice acting?  Ubisoft got the original Japanese voice actors for the game (it has both Japanese and English audio tracks), every storyboard, character, and line of dialogue in the game had to get the ok of Shueisha and Studio Pierrot. 

As for the censorship does it seriously affect the story when they remove things like blood flying out of someone's nose of someone putting their fingers up another person's butt-hole, as long as the core story is there what's the problem?

As for the reason they're not releasing it in Japan, my mistake, I read the following article before and it had stuck with me (I now know the article is wrong):

http://www.techshout.com/gaming/2006/08/naruto-xbox-360-game-in-2007-courtesy-of-ubisoft/

"The license for the Naruto will see Ubisoft developing an Xbox 360 Naruto game based on a popular Japanese property, but not for the Japanese market - Ubisoft’s doesn’t have the rights to launch Naruto game titles within Japan, where Namco Bandai holds them."

Just as a side note, anyone who thinks the American/English version of Naruto has horrible voice acting needs to listen to the Japanese version.  Naruto is freakishly annoying in both, they got that much right at least.

@Words of Wisdom

Your right Naruto voice is annoying in the Japanese anime. You are wrong naznatips..really wrong saying American voice acting is horrible.

Naruto debuted on Cartoon Network in September 2005. Conveniently almost exactly 2 years ago. They are currently on episode 104, meaning they air about 51 episodes a year or one new episode per week. A continuous run as you said. Naruto Shippuuden is currently at the equivalent 250 (220 Naruto episodes plus 30 Naruto Shippuuden episodes). 250 - 104 = 146. 146/50 = about 3 years. My mistake. So yeah, we are 3 years behind in plot in America. Of course it will actually take 5 years to catch up because it's not like they are going to stop running Shippuuden episodes while they wait for us to play catchup.

Why on earth would Cartoon Network skip 100 filler episodes and go straight to Shippuuden? You realize that they are marketing the show to kids who have no idea what a filler episode is right? That's 2 years of free ratings basically. So it will be awhile before America's plotline is close to where Japan's is right now.

Legend, the Naruto IP is owned entirely by Jump. All you have to do is pay a small fee to use it in Japan. That's why every company from Nintendo to Activision has published a game in Japan with Naruto behind it. The reason they didn't pay that fee is because it would sell like crap. Why spend money selling an American based game on an American based system to a country that buys neither?

Good to hear they have an option for the original Japanese voice actors though. Naruto is annoying in both as WoW said, but he's still much less annoying when he's saying "dattebayo" instead of "believe it." Thankfully in Shippuuden he drops the use of the phrase "dattebayo" almost completely.

Edit: just so you know I haven't slept in some 30+ hours (all night cramfest for Anatomy test) so that's why I'm not being as tactful as usual.  I would go to sleep, but I'm drugged up on caffeine.

Eh, dattebayo is annoying too. It's meaningless garbage. It would have been much better if they had simply translated it different each time to something that fit the situation.

Ah well, I don't like Naruto anyway. It's DBZ with ninjas.


PS: Good luck on the Anatomy test.

I agree, Naruto is "meh" as far as animes go in both dub and sub category. The anime I like, even though it has an absolutely horrible rep in America thanks to 4kids mutilating it, is One Piece. Now that one has recently (the last 3 weeks) been dub'd by FUNimation instead of 4kids, and the dub has been much better. Still, the jokes just don't translate to English very well and the show feels like a kids show here.

That show is a full 200 episodes behind Japan. It's one of the longest running anime and manga series of all time (Kochikame is the longest. It's been in print for 31 years) and it's the fastest selling Manga in history with some of the best ratings of any TV program in Japan for the anime. I guess my tastes tend to lean more towards the Japanese market in both video games and anime.

I don't care how far behind Japan we are, this looks neat even though I'm not the biggest anime fan. Ubisoft looks like they did a great job on the license. There is fighting and some exploration. Looks like the best Naruto game out there.