| Bgcolour: |
|
| Num Episodes: | 48 |
| Network: | TV Tokyo |
The second season of the Naruto anime television series, labelled as the "2nd Stage" in the Japanese DVD release, is directed by Hayato Date, and produced by Studio Pierrot and TV Tokyo. Based on Masashi Kishimoto's manga series,[1] the season follows Naruto Uzumaki succeeding the Chūnin Exams only to discover the invasion of the Leaf Village.
The second season aired from November 12, 2003 to September 29, 2004 on TV Tokyo.[2]
The English dub aired on both Cartoon Network's Toonami and YTV's Bionix programming blocks from November 11, 2006 to August 19, 2007.[3] [4] The season's episodes ran on Adult Swim's relaunched Toonami block in a completely uncut format from December 1, 2012 to November 30, 2013. After the 52nd episode, it was removed from the schedule rotation to make room for its successor series, .[5]
Sony Pictures Entertainment collected the episodes in a total of twelve DVD volumes under the name "2nd Stage",[6] between January and December 1, 2004.[7] [8] Episodes from this season were released on by Viz Media between the ninth and twenty-first DVD volumes from the series,[9] [10] while several uncut DVD boxes have also been released.[11] [12]
Six pieces of theme music are used for the episodes in Japanese version; three opening themes and four closing themes. The first opening theme is by Asian Kung-Fu Generation used for episodes 36 to 53, by Little By Little,[13] [14] used for episodes 54 to 77, and "Go!!!" by Flow, used for episodes 78 to 83. The four closing themes are "Harmonia" by Rythem (used for episodes 36 to 51), "Viva★Rock" by Orange Range (used for episodes 52 to 64),[15] [16] "Alive" by Raico (used for episodes 65 to 77), and by The Mass Missile (used for episodes 78 to 83). The opening theme for the English airing is "Haruka Kanata" by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, which is used for episodes 53 to 77, and is then replaced by "GO!!!" in the same way as the Japanese version, while the closing theme is "Rise" by Jeremy Sweet and Ian Nickus, which is used in all episodes.__TOC__