Was Naruto put on haitus during the transition to Part II ?

[lEiryxl]

So in Part II, Naruto is 2.5 years older right?

Did Masashi Kishimoto have a break to study and draw up things for Part II? (I haven't been able to find any information to prove he went on a haitus). His art has changed dramatically, which was why I was wondering if he just had a period where he just sat down and started refining his art.

Thanks.

 

[UryuIshida]

Naruto premiered in Shueisha's Weekly Sh?nen Jump magazine in 1999. The first 238 chapters are known as Part I, and constitute the first part of the Naruto storyline. Manga chapters 239 to 244 comprise a gaiden series focusing on the background of the character Kakashi Hatake. All subsequent chapters belong to Part II, which continues the storyline in Part I after a two and a half year time gap. Besides the regular Naruto manga, a spin-off series focused in the character of Rock Lee started being published in Shueisha's Super Strong Jump since December 2010. The Naruto manga is serialized in North America by Viz Media in their manga anthology magazine Shonen Jump, with the first chapter of the English adaptation published in the January 2003 issue. To compensate for the gap between the Japanese and English adaptations of the manga, Viz implemented its "Naruto Nation" campaign, where it released three volumes a month in the last four months of 2007 in order to close said gap. Cammie Allen, Viz's product manager, commented that, their main reason for the schedule was to catch up to the Japanese release schedule to give their readers a similar experience to that of Japanese readers. A similar campaign was planned for 2009, with eleven volumes from Part II of the series being released between February and April in order to catch up to the Japanese serialization. Starting with the release of volume forty-five in July, Viz will begin releasing Naruto on a quarterly basis. As of August 2011, 57 tank?bon have been released by Shueisha in Japan, with the first twenty-seven tank?bon containing Part I, and the remaining thirty belonging to Part II. The first tank?bon was released on March 3, 2000. In addition, several tank?bon, each containing ani-manga based one of the Naruto movies, have been released by Shueisha. In Japanese, Shueisha has also released the series for cell-phone download on their website Shueisha Manga Capsule. Viz has released 51 volumes of the English adaptation of the manga with the first being published on October 6, 2009. In addition, Viz Media released all twenty-seven volumes in a boxed set, thus constituting the entirety of the Naruto storyline before Part II on November 13, 2007.