Lol, did anyone see this? It's kind of weird. Who is copying off of who? I just heard about it a couple o' days ago, so I don't know how old it is.

That's... pretty old. The gif is supposed to imply that Naruto is copying Cowboy Bebop.

I've never seen it before. Probably Cowboy bebop is being copied.

Well, as I recall, the Bebop movie is older than Naruto, so it'd be pretty hard for it to be the one ripping off. Anyway, I think we had a thread about this a long, long time ago, and we more or less came to the conclusion that it was nifty, but probably not significant enough to worry about.

It's not a particularly uncommon thing in animation. Comics, manga, and animation all borrow from previous work at times. Animation often takes sequences from live action films. Even Cowboy Bebop had a few rotoscoped sequences taken from film in the TV series. Comics and manga frequently copy panel layouts and individual panel compositions. Usually it's not considered stealing if it's something this minor.

The Naruto creators probably did it as an homage.

Yea, "Knocking on Heaven's Door" is older than Naruto. So if anyone is being copied, it's Cowboy Bebop.

The two shots aren't even that interesting. It may be possible they are both taking the action from a different movie.