this is a copy/past from www.narutofan.com mainpage
---------------------------------------------
ShoPro Entertainment Licenses Naruto Anime
Reported by: Tazmo on Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 at 06:51PM
Edit: We just got off the phone with ShoPro Entertainment and they have confirmed the reports. The NARUTO anime series is indeed licensed by their company. Once we are able to contact another representative from them next week we might know more details such as when the first release will be made. Read the full article pertaining to the license. You can contact ShoPro here.
The Naruto anime series has now officially been licensed for distribution in North America and Latin America by ShoPro Entertainment (responsible for Sonic X, InuYasha, Hamtaro), a division of VIZ LLC which is responsible for the Naruto manga series in North America. This will inevitably mean that soon we will be seeing a dubbed version of Naruto anime. It has not been revealed when the first release of Naruto will be, or when production will officially start but we will let you know as soon as we know. As of now we can say that many things in the Naruto community will remain the same, AonE has said they will not drop Naruto as a series they subtitle. ANBU however is likely to drop the series completely, while Dattebayo has not made an official comment on the matter. We should all still expect to see Naruto Episode 122 coming out RAW tomorrow, from SaiyaMan or L33T Raws, I suspect they will not let us down. Our BitTorrent page is in jeopardy, and we warn everyone that it will be removed very shortly as AnimeSuki will be removing it, and ScaryWater is likely to remove the BitTorrent tracker that contains Naruto. Its hours are very limited.
Despite how many people think this is terrible news, there is a silver lining to all of this. We will make our opinions and voices heard by the people who are going to be dubbing Naruto, and if they are smart hopefully they will listen to the needs of diehard Naruto fans who have adored the series for years. Also as a result of this license we are gauranteed to see many great Naruto products avaliable in stores for us all to buy. Naruto video games will be coming, and every other good thing you would think of coming with any mega popular series. I suspect an English Naruto Card Game, action figures and all of those goodies. As long as the anime remains fairly intact, and are made to the standards we all expect, I will be a huge supporter of ShoPro in their efforts to bring Naruto to us, as I’m sure many of you will. If they do well DVD sales will be great and Naruto will be recognized as a smash hit. If they don’t however, it will be one of those lost cause animes that will come to America, and not go anywhere. Don’t let us down, ShoPro.
---------------------------------------------
------------------
“The reason we think the flowers on the precipice are beautiful, is because we are standing on the precipice as well.
Do not fear, because we are like the flowers,
We did not step off.”