The eyes of the world gazed upon Naomi Osaka as she lit up the Olympic flame in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 game, one of those pairs of eyes included Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto who gifted Osaka a shikishi (signboard) of her as a character in the manga alongside Naruto himself and Sakura during the games.
Osaka shared the shikishi during a “collage’ of images from the games on her Instagram page.
Naomi Osaka noted in a 2020 interview with Highsnobiety that she identifies with Naruto, saying “Just watching as an outsider and seeing all the work that he put in, was really cool when I was younger.