Anime · 18 events
Naruto chronology and timeline
The chronology of the ninja world starts millennia before episode one. This timeline sets Kaguya, the bijū, Hagoromo and Obito’s false death against the order television actually aired.
The chronology is not episode one
The Naruto timeline most people meet starts on a bridge in the Land of Waves. The chronology of that world does not. Kaguya Ōtsutsuki reaches Earth, eats the chakra fruit, and becomes the rabbit goddess long before a village has a name. Hagoromo — the Sage of Six Paths — seals her with Hamura, then splits the Ten-Tails into the nine bijū. Hashirama and Madara still have to found Konoha. Obito still has to “die” under Kannabi Bridge and put the swirl mask on. The Nine-Tails still has to hit the village on the night Naruto is born.
Kishimoto published the manga from 1999 to 2014. Studio Pierrot’s anime started in 2002 and closed Shippuden in 2017. The broadcast order follows that weekly clock: Team 7, filler, Shippuden, more filler, the war. The origin stories sit where the show finally told them — Kakashi Gaiden in the middle of Shippuden, the goddess and the Sage in the last arc.
This page is the contrast. Chronology puts the history in the order it happened. The timeline’s other chip puts the same events in the order a viewer actually received them.
The Last and Boruto stay off. They are another clock, after the original manga closed.
Chronology
Before the villages
Kaguya’s fall, the Sage of Six Paths, the bijū.
Kaguya falls to Earth
Broadcast: Told in the Fourth War
Kaguya Ōtsutsuki arrives, the God Tree takes root, the chakra fruit is eaten. She becomes the rabbit goddess of a planet that does not yet have hidden villages. In the chronology this is the first brick. On the broadcast timeline it is a lecture in the last arc of the war, after Naruto already knows Pain.
Hagoromo, Sage of Six Paths
Broadcast: Told in the Fourth War
Hagoromo and Hamura seal their mother. He teaches ninshū, the six paths, the first shape of ninja work. Every later jutsu sits downstream of this man. The chronology places him next to Kaguya. Television saves the Sage for the moon talk, when Naruto is already a jinchūriki at war.
The bijū
Broadcast: Told in the Fourth War
Hagoromo splits the Ten-Tails so no one body holds that chakra. Nine beasts: Shukaku through Kurama. The jinchūriki system is later politics. On this timeline of the world it is the morning after the goddess. On the weekly broadcast it is a diagram drawn in the last arc.
Konoha’s first century
The hidden villages, Obito’s false death, the night of the Nine-Tails.
The hidden villages
Broadcast: Told across Shippuden
Warring States, Hashirama and Madara, the first Hokage faces on the cliff. “Ninja” becomes a village job. The chronology needs this before Obito can be a Konoha child. The anime tells most of it while Madara stands in the Fourth War.
Obito “dies”
Broadcast: Shippuden eps. 119–121 · Kakashi Gaiden
Kannabi Bridge, the cave-in, Rin, the swirl mask. Obito Uchiha is recorded dead in the Third War and Tobi is already walking. The chronology puts that false death years before Team 7. The broadcast timeline shows Kakashi Gaiden in the middle of Shippuden, while Sasuke is hunting Itachi.
Nine-Tails attack
Broadcast: Shippuden eps. 249–255
The night Naruto is born. Minato, Kushina, the fox on the roofs. The chronology of his life starts in that fire; everything after is aftermath. The full night waits on television until Shippuden’s Minato arc, just before the Fourth War.
Naruto Part I
From the Academy to the Valley of the End.
Land of Waves
Broadcast: 2002
The first paid job. Tazuna, Zabuza, Haku. In the manga it is the arc that proves Team 7 exists. In the anime, episodes 6 to 19 of 2002. On the chronology it is late: the goddess, the Sage, the villages and the fox have already happened. On the broadcast timeline it is still almost the start.
Chunin Exams
The forest, the roof, Orochimaru, the mark. Gaara. It is the arc where Konoha stops being a school village. Manga through the invasion. Classic anime, 2003. Still no heavy filler in the middle.
Search for Tsunade
Jiraiya, Tsunade, the Sannin. The Hokage the village did not yet have. Short in the manga, a little longer on television. It closes the first third of Part I.
Sasuke Retrieval
The Sound Four, the Valley of the End, “I hate you”. End of Part I on paper. In the anime, episodes 107 to 135, then a filler middle through 220 — television refuses the manga’s clean cut.
Part I filler
The television middle between the Valley of the End and Shippuden.
Part I filler
Episodes 136 to 220. Missions, the Land of Tea, arcs the manga skipped to reach the two-and-a-half-year jump. On the chronology this block is an interval, not a founding myth. On the broadcast timeline it occupies almost a year of television between the Valley of the End and Shippuden.
Shippuden
From the Kazekage to Pain.
Kazekage Rescue
Shippuden starts. Gaara captured, Deidara, Team 7 again, with two and a half years in the middle. Manga ch. 245–281. Anime 2007, Shippuden episodes 1 to 32. The two rulers meet again.
Hidan and Kakuzu
The two-tails jinchūriki, Asuma’s clan. Short, dry, the cost of being Hokage without the cloak. Shippuden episodes 72–88, after a filler middle the chronology does not treat as canon history.
Hunt for Itachi
Sasuke against Itachi, the truth of the Uchiha clan, Tobi. The point where a private revenge becomes the village’s history. Manga 343–402. Anime 113–142. Kakashi Gaiden sits beside this stretch on the broadcast timeline; on the chronology Obito already “died” years earlier.
Pain
The invasion of Konoha, the two-handed rasengan, “understand pain”. Manga 413–442. Anime 152–175. After this, Pierrot pushes the largest Shippuden filler block — and the broadcast chip shows it.
Filler after Pain
Months of television between Pain and the Kage Summit.
Filler after Pain
Shippuden episodes 176 to 196, plus other blocks until the Kage Summit. Kakashi rewritten, missions, time the manga did not give. In the chronology, Pain ends and the Kage Summit starts. On the broadcast timeline there are months in the middle.
The war
The Kage Summit to Kaguya. The chronology of this world closes here.
Kage Summit
The five Kage, Sasuke against the room, the declaration of war. Manga 457–499. Anime 197–214. The world stops being three villages and becomes five continents on alert.
Fourth Shinobi World War
From the Ten-Tails to the Valley of the End again. Obito, Madara, Kaguya, rasengan against chidori one last time. Manga 515–699. Anime 256–479, with inner filler this line does not itemise episode by episode.
The manga closes in 2014. The anime closes in 2017. Three years of television for the same end of paper. On the chronology the goddess, the Sage and the bijū already sat at the top of the timeline. On broadcast, those cards arrive after this war — because that is when the show named them.
See also the timeline index and anime.