Naruto Run is a meme and GIF that refers to protagonist Naruto’s particular running style—arms stretched straight behind his back, palms up—in the Japanese anime series Naruto. In the series, the main character Naruto Uzumaki runs headfirst, his black headband flying in the wind behind him.
Naruto Run origins
Naruto Run comes from the anime series Naruto, which premiered on October 3rd, 2002. The series was based on a manga by Masashi Kishimoto and like it, was divided into two series, with the first covering Naruto’s pre-teen life and lasting for 220 episodes. It’s that series, which ran on TV Tokyo from October 2002 to February 2007, from which the iconic run originated. If you’re in the US, Cartoon Network aired an English dub from September 2005 to December 2009.
Naruto Run’s first big internet splash occurred on September 6th, 2006, when YouTuber mfbrice uploaded a clip of himself mimicking Naruto’s running style. The video was titled more generally however as “Anime Run.”
Spread of the meme
The “anime run” referenced in the YouTube video had already existed long before Naruto, but he’s the character who truly popularized the concept. As a result, the run became known as “the Naruto run.”
The label stuck with the WikiHow page published on March 10th, 2008 entitled “How to Run Like Naruto. The page provided instructions for running much like the anime boy himself, including such key tips as “wear comfortable clothing that is easy to move in,” “bend your torso forward, but try to keep your back straight,” and “run fast.”
The article also makes a point to mention that this is not the proper way to run and may lead to injury.
The run in real life
Naruto Run’s bridging into the real world made it the odd internet phenomenon that was practiced IRL nearly as much as it was referenced online. On September 24th, 2014, AppStoreVn on YouTube uploaded a video titled “Naruto in Real Life.” The clip featured a stuntman dressed as Naruto performing various parkour moves while running with the tell-tale arms behind him.
The post has over 623k views to date.
More memes and tutorials
Another real-world Naruto video appeared on YouTube on May 31st, 2016 when YouTuber RealApollo posted a video of himself attempting the WikiHow article’s guide to running like Naruto. The video has since been taken down.
A few months later, on July 11th, Joe Inoue posted a video on YouTube of an actual Naruto Run event that was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
But the benefits and joy of the Naruto Run were still being explored online. On August 27th, the YouTube channel ManimeTV posted a video called “Does the Naruto Run Really Work?” in which the run and its perceived speed benefits are explored. The video has over 3.5 million views to date.
Nearly a year later, a Facebook page was created for a Naruto Run event in Philadelphia on September 10th, 2017. That same August 25th, Kotaku published an article covering the many Facebook event pages from around the world dedicated to the run. The people simply couldn’t get enough of running like Naruto!
Two years later, on July 19th, 2019, PerturbedPython posted a photo on /r/memes of a man dressed in military garb giving a presentation about the run. The post was titled “Actual Air Force Brief My Cousin Had to Sit Through.” The post garnered 124k points and 2.5k comments in a single day.
Naruto Run and Storm Area 51
In 2019, Naruto Run found itself in the middle of a completely unrelated event. That is, the Facebook event planning to Storm Area 51 in Nevada and collect as much alien bodies and secret government intel as possible.
The description of the Facebook event detailed how this power in numbers could be successful. “If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets,” it claimed. The pitch worked, as nearly one million people marked themselves as ‘Attending’ or ‘Interested.’ While there were more than a handful of folks who took the event seriously, it was intended only as satire, with its own slew of memes.
A local TV news segment covering the event even featured a person in the background doing the run, who turned out to be YouTuber Elixir. That image in itself has become a meme.
Meme examples
