My Naruto Timeline Explained
In creating a Naruto timeline for my own personal use, I did briefly consult a Naruto timeline on AnimeFamily (http://www.animefamily.com/Naruto/Analysis/Charts/Timeline.htm), mostly because the chart was easy to understand and made mention of specific dates shown in either the manga or the anime, dates that I then used the manga to verify, because I’m one of those folks who likes to make things harder for myself. That being said, sometimes the anime and the manga contradict each other, and sometimes, the manga will even contradict itself, so here and there, I'll have to take liberties and choose for myself one way or the other. I'll do my best to let you guys know when that happens.
3/10: Naruto's milk expires
3/11: Prank in the first episode
3/12: Graduation Exam; Incident with Mizuki
3/13: Naruto recuperates
3/14: Naruto takes his registration photo and meets Konohamaru
3/15: Team Assignments; Naruto drinks expired milk and has indigestion
3/16: Bell Test
Naruto's milk expired on September 10, as shown in the manga page below (chapter 3). Zoom in on the panel where Kakashi is holding the milk up to his face, and at the top of the carton, you will find the expiration date shown. There are Kanji for month and day inked in right next to the numbers, and through a google search on those kanji, I determined that the month came first in this particular instance. It's also remarked that the milk expired only a few days previous, as you can see, so I adjusted my timeline accordingly. As far as Naruto's frequent trips to the bathroom in this chapter, there are a lot of factors that determine actual expiration versus the listed expiration. My headcanon for this bit is that Naruto left his milk sitting out too long, like a dumbass.
For my own personal use, I'm keeping their graduation in March, mostly because I can't see Naruto sitting on the D-ranks for an extra six months, especially since the fact that they're rookies is pointed out so often in the earlier parts of the series. If they had an extra six months, they wouldn't be quite the rookies they were in canon because that gives them ten months as genin before the Chuunin Exams in July, and we all know they didn't have quite that much time. So, I'm keeping the date the panel showed for when his milk expired but changing the month to March so that they graduate in the month before Wave happens. Honestly, don't quote me on this, but I think March also lines up with schools in Japan, so keeping to a system that makes sense here seems like a good way to go about it. I did want to keep their birthday in September because Kakashi's birthday falls into that timeframe, and I like the idea that their team assignments would fall on his birthday, but alas, it doesn't actually make much sense with everything else going on.
Now, as seen in the list excerpt above, I've got Naruto's prank on the Hokage Monument marked for the day after his milk expires. I can't recall my specific reason for that, save spacing it all out believably. The graduation exam does take place the day after the prank, as seen in both manga and anime. The incident with Mizuki obviously takes place that very night, and I'm pretty sure Naruto does take a day to recover before dealing with his registration.
4/20: Land of Waves begins; fight with Demon Brothers
4/24: Fight with Zabuza just inside Wave
4/30: Gato; Reunion with Zabuza and Haku
5/15: Bridge completed; Team 7 journeys back to Konoha
5/17: Team 7 makes it back either today or tomorrow, a little sooner than with Tazuna
With the Land of Waves arc, I had to guess because we only know that it happened in spring; based on my research, it really only took a single month, so I just picked the one that suited me best. This happened to be April for me, partly for spring, partly so they have a little bit of time before everything happens, and partly because Gato's birthday is at the end of April, and I'm mean enough to time everything so that big showdown happens on his birthday. I also wanted there to be a decent amount of time to include stuff in-between Wave and the Chuunin Exams. There was no specific mention in the manga (that I could find) on how much time passed between them leaving Wave and the start of the Chuunin Exams, so I took a few liberties because in the end, this timeline was built for fanfiction.
As you can see in the page above (chapter 9), the Demon Brothers were watching them from the moment they left Konoha, and just a few pages later (perhaps, just hours after they leave the village), the encounter begins. Please also note that while these pages are colored, I am not the one who did them. That honor belongs to those at https://narutocolortranslationsquad.wordpress.com/.
So, from this (also chapter 9), it's pretty easy to estimate that the encounter with the Demon Brothers happens that very day, but I've determined from the next couple of chapters that the encounter with Zabuza occurred, at least, a few days later.
Clearly, Zabuza is already inside Wave, as you can see part of the bridge in one of the above panels. (manga chapter 10)
These pages (manga chapter 11) are shown before they face off with Zabuza, so it's pretty obvious that Zabuza is just letting them come to him, rather than leaving Wave to chase them down. He does, however, very obviously get to them before they can reach Tazuna's home.
In the above page (chapter 16), it is noted that Kakashi needs about a week to recover.
Zabuza, as seen above (also chapter 16), will need about the same amount of time.
According to the above page (chapter 33), the latter events of this chapter occurred about 2 weeks after the fight on the bridge. I'm not posting all of them, but the next few pages after this one are the ones that lead up to them actually leaving Wave. I surmise travel time from that point to be a couple of days, faster than they traveled with Tazuna, but not overly fast because they didn't seem to be in a rush.
6/24: Suna team arrives for Chuunin Exams; Jounin are informed
6/30: Kakashi informs Team 7 about the Chuunin Exams recommendation
7/1: Chuunin Exams begin 4PM; Forest of Death 6PM (Ends on 7/6 at 6PM); Orochimaru attacks
7/2 Sound Genin Attack
7/3: Neji; Rest
7/4: Rest
7/5: Rest/ Journey to tower
7/6: Kin; Arrival at tower; Prelims; Jiraiya begins teaching Naruto
7/20: Sasuke wakes and leaves the hospital during the night
7/21: Summer Solstice; Sasuke finds Kakashi to get training
7/28: Naruto summons Gamabunta
7/31: Naruto wakes in the hospital; he and Shikamaru encounter Gaara in Lee's hospital room
So, as you can see from the two separate pages above (chapters 34 and 35), the Suna team arrives in Konoha for the Chuunin Exams on the same day the Sandaime announces the Exams to the Jounin. In fact, the two encounters happen at the exact same time, even if they’re displayed in two separate chapters.
Now, Kakashi is a chronically-late troll (chapter 36), so Team 7 doesn't actually know they've been recommended until, literally, the day before the exam, itself. Of course.
So, as for the 1st and 2nd tests, there's a bit of confusion. I consulted the manga, and the 2nd test took place right after the first, and not the day before, as the AnimeFamily timeline seems to believe. Likely, this discrepancy is because Kishimoto drew an awful lot of clocks during these chapters, showing us the exact times, but then, the times don't match up, what with it all happening on the same day, and all. Hence, the written test takes place at 4PM, and they enter the Forest of Death at 3:30PM that same day. See what I mean?
All we know for sure is that they're in the Forest of Death for exactly 5 days, right down to the time they enter, I'd say. Anyone else who wants to switch things around for fanfic purposes, I'd guess that your options are to either go with everything being on different days or change around the times a little bit. Your choice.
Orochimaru attacks that very night, heading straight for Team 7 once entering the forest. There is also an encounter with Team Oboro just before Orochimaru shows up and again just before reaching the tower. The next morning, the Sound Genin show up, and then after all is said and done, Team 7 spends a couple of days resting, heading for the tower sometime on the 4th day. They encounter Team Oboro again sometime between the 4th night and the 5th morning, I believe. And then, once the 2nd test ends at the same time it started, the Prelims begin almost immediately.
It's pretty obvious (chapter 88), but the page where the final test is said to take place a month later is just above. Naruto asked Kakashi for training help that day, but was refused and placed with Ebisu, during which he met Jiraiya. It could be split up over two days for anyone who’d like to do that themselves, but it really appears to all happen one event right after another, so that’s how I’m doing it here.
So, the above 2 pages are from the same manga chapter (specifically, chapter 93), occurring on the same day, so from there, I calculated the days that Sasuke left the hospital and found Kakashi.
So, later on the same day as the page above shows (early in manga chapter 95), Naruto summons Gamabunta for the first time. Naruto passes out after the summoning and wakes up in the hospital 3 days later, as seen below (chapter 96).
Not long after Naruto wakes up, he and Shikamaru have an encounter with Gaara in Lee's room, while the former is attempting to murder the latter. Gai interrupts after a bit of disturbing conversation where we learn quite a bit about Gaara's history, and as seen in the above manga page, we learn that the finals are set for the very next day. This means that the finalists don't have a full month to prepare, so much as 3 1/2 weeks; the finals seem to be set to occur exactly 1 month from the start of the 1st exam, rather than the end of the 2nd.
8/1: Chuunin Exam Finals; Invasion
8/3: Sandaime’s funeral
8/6: Multiple encounters with Itachi and Kisame; Jiraiya takes Naruto to find Tsunade
8/10: Naruto completes Stage 1
8/31: Naruto and Jiraiya go to Tanzakugai after he masters stage 2
9/6: Sannin Showdown
9/7: Day of rest, to recover
9/8: Group heads back to Konoha together
9/9: Group arrives in village due to Naruto’s determination
9/10: Naruto and Sasuke fight on the hospital roof; Sasuke defects later that night
9/11: Retrieval
Based on the above manga pages (chapter 139), Itachi and Kisame show up in Konoha just a couple days before the funeral, probably right after Gaara&co all went home after the fighting. The page with them is shown before the page mentioning the funeral, and I don't think that would have been an accident on Kishimoto's part, so I'm assuming they just secretly hung around in the area for a few days before making their move. Clearly, they didn't come after Naruto before the funeral, since he was there, but it couldn't have been more than a couple of days afterwards, at most.
I don't suppose I'll need a manga page as evidence that Jiraiya left with Naruto the very same day Itachi and Kisame showed up; it was rather obvious in both the manga and the anime. I'm also pretty sure that the encounter Naruto, Sasuke, and Jiraiya had with Itachi and Kisame happened later that same day, which indicates that the earlier incident happened sometime around noon, if I'm guessing right (Naruto was eating lunch when Jiraiya found him).
I don't suppose I'll need a manga page as evidence that Jiraiya left with Naruto the very same day Itachi and Kisame showed up; it was rather obvious in both the manga and the anime. I'm also pretty sure that the encounter Naruto, Sasuke, and Jiraiya had with Itachi and Kisame happened later that same day, which indicates that the earlier incident happened sometime around noon, if I'm guessing right (Naruto was eating lunch when Jiraiya found him).
Now, there's a lot that seems to happen all in one day: Itachi and Kisame show up just as Naruto and Jiraiya leave; they deal with Kakashi&co. and then follow, followed shortly by Sasuke; there's the second encounter with Itachi and Kisame, and then, Gai shows up and takes an unconscious Sasuke back to the village; Naruto and Jiraiya move on to the next town, where Naruto explores the festival while Jiraiya spends all of Naruto's money, and then, after all that, Jiraiya shows Naruto the first stage to learning the Rasengan. That honestly feels like too much for one day, so while it's all marked that way in the timeline for now, it might change later.
So, based on what I could tell from the manga (research goes by faster with the manga than the anime, so most of my timeline research came from there), it took Naruto only a few days to clear stage 1, since it was the easiest. Stage 2 is where he seemed to have most of his trouble. There isn't a lot to use for the passage of time with his training on the Rasengan, but I happened to come across the manga page below from chapter 152.
So, according to this page, Naruto has been working on stage 2 for 3 weeks, because it was at the beginning of stage 2 that Jiraiya is referencing in the first panel. Naruto completes stage 2 within a day or so, after this.
So, 1 week before the Sannin Showdown, Tsunade gives Naruto a week to master the final stage of the Rasengan. The rest of it is pretty self-explanatory. A day for recovery after the showdown with Orochimaru and Kabuto, and then, they head back toward the village, arriving within another day or so, due to Naruto's sheer determination. Once Sasuke wakes after Tsunade takes a look at him, he has that fight with Naruto on the hospital roof and defects that very night, as per the manga. The anime included some fillers in-between all that, so some of the dates might change later on, but this seems to be the most likely course for things, from what I could see.
There are about 3 months between Sasuke's defection and Naruto leaving the village. The above manga page occurs on the same day Naruto leaves, and since Tsunade returned to the village literally right before Sasuke defected, I'm pretty sure that's the time frame Tsunade is referencing. It seems to me that Naruto leaves sometime between mid-late December, and he returns in June just about 2 1/2 years later, since preparations for the Chuunin Exams are, once again, taking place. I haven't set exact dates yet for these events, but honestly, any random date in mid-late December and again in June after the timeskip should be just as good as any other. We're very seldom given exact dates for these things, anyway.
And, that’s actually all I have, so far as timelines go; I haven’t been able to narrow down much of Shippuden yet. I tried to post manga pages as a reference when I could, but after a while, I kind of got tired of messing with them, and they do sort of clunk things up a little, so I started cutting back somewhere near the end, as you can probably tell. Now, don’t forget that this is a timeline built for fanfiction, so it’s not going to be exact, but it’s about as close to it as I could get for my own purposes. You guys are totally welcome to input any info or advice, if you’d like, and you're free to use this for your own purposes or repost in other places, as well. Just reference me as the timeline's creator, and everything will be fine.