Just a pinch before midnight on August 19, a crowd began to muster on the St. Anthony side of the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. I arrived with my girlfriend just in time to join the group as they formed a line on the path just before the bridge.

People were mingling, taking pictures, and complimenting each other on their costumes. The roar of the crowd was building as the clock ticked closer to midnight. Chants rung out within the last minute as we all readied ourselves. We were all here with one silly task in mind: to run across the Stone Arch Bridge like a "Naruto" character.

Okay, so at this point, a couple of questions might be coming to mind, such as: What is Naruto? What does it mean to run like a Naruto character? Why did you even decide to do this? Allow me to explain.

What is "Naruto?"

"Naruto" is a Japanese anime series that first aired in the United States in 2005. It is about a young boy, Naruto Uzumaki, who grows up as an outcast with dreams of becoming the leader of his village, called the Hokage.

His journey is split into two parts, each getting a separate anime series: one where he is an early adolescent, which spans 220 episodes, and one where he is in his mid to late teens, spanning 500 episodes. The show is highly stylized, giving characters unique fighting styles, elemental powers, and a fantastic world to house it all in.

What does it mean to run like a "Naruto" character?

One of the most popular elements of this show among both viewers and those who've never seen the show is how the characters run around. The technique involves you leaning forward and running with your arms extended behind you. It's kind of a silly technique when you think about it, but it looks rather fluid and fun within the context of the show.

Why did you do this?

In my own early adolescent years, I would set alarms early in the morning each Saturday in order to catch the weekly new episode of cartoons like "Pokemon," "Dragon Ball Z," and "Yu-Gi-Oh."I remember calling them my "action cartoons" because most of them had some sort of fighting going on between the characters.

This obsession with my action cartoons really laid the groundwork for being so intrigued when I saw the first commercials for "Naruto." Though I first started watching the show for its action, I admit that I was entirely surprised to discover how well written the show was. It was well laced with life lessons that definitely applied to my life at the time as someone who was trying to figure out middle school.

Being a similar age to "Naruto" in the show, I really felt like I grew up with the characters and learned the lessons that the show had to offer in real-time. Some popular morals of the story was to always go to great lengths for your friends and to never give up, and I used that to get through middle school, a time where a lot of people struggled very much for different reasons.

As I grew up, I learned to accept myself and I could see it being reflected in this show. The attachment that I developed was unique and very intimate because it served my own self-growth.

As I finished high school and began college, I outgrew the show. It fell out of my radar completely. It wasn't until I was scrolling through my Facebook feed that I saw this event that someone had created where everyone was invited to the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis at midnight to run across like the characters in "Naruto" that I had felt a surge of warm nostalgia.

Of course, I decided to attend in a heartbeat. People were there for different reasons. Some wanted to live the meme, some wanted to cosplay, some wanted to meet other nerds, and some (like myself) wanted to reconnect with an icon of their childhood.

I wanted some company so I invited my girlfriend. She has a physical condition that hurts her joints if she engages in too much exercise, so we agreed to bring a wheelchair for her. Of course, I didn't care. All I wanted her to see was just how amazing these fans were. How all of these people could just get together and live out a piece of their childhood in a brief moment on a quiet bridge in Minneapolis in the middle of the night with no embarrassment.

So we arrived and joined the crowd, and I smiled when the clock hit 11:55 pm and people started to chant Naruto's name. It felt like moments later that the countdown began. When the count hit 0 and the hosts ran off leading the charge, the crowd cheered loudly as we all bent our heads down and threw our arms out behind our backs, and we began to run off.

I wasn't in a position where I could run with my arms behind me since I agreed to push my girlfriend in the wheelchair, but I made sure she had the technique down so she could live the moment for the both of us. Off we went, across the bridge.

People were lined up along the bridge on the sides with their cameras and signs. Almost all of them were cheering us on as we went, and I couldn't stop smiling. The breeze danced by with every step I took and it kept me at the moment. I was enjoying every little second of it and I could tell that everyone else was too.

As the crowd reached the end of the bridge, there were congratulations being dealt left and right. We stopped running as heartwarming and wholesome and I wish I could live it again. For hours afterward, I couldn't stop saying something along the lines of "I can't believe we did that".

It was a once in a lifetime experience that had swelled up a lot of emotions in me. I honestly believe that I would have regretted in so much had I not gone but that was that. The next day dawned and I told all of my friends about it.

They all scoffed as they told me how stupid it was that I did this, but that was okay. I didn't do this for them anyway. I did it for myself and for my fellow fans who all showed up to show their appreciation for their childhood icon.

I did it to see all of these people who grew up with the same character that I did and, in that way, I felt like I was in the company of brothers and sisters. Siblings who looked up to Naruto and shared his will to keep your friends close and never give up.