Naruto is a Japanese anime-style cartoons about ninjas. Akatsuki are bad guys in the series who dress entirely in red and wear ski masks to conceal their faces. It’s possible some people confuse those characters for members of the military faction who show up at times with black uniforms without any distinguishing features or markings, but they’re not the same thing.
People often confuse them because in both studio Gainax’s “Neon Genesis Evangelion” series and Studio Ghibli’s “Princess Mononoke”, they are also depicted wearing mostly black uniforms without any visible insignia on it besides a logo possibly meant as large bearers of oppressive power, or an emblem bearing resemblance to an eye (which could symbolize either insight or God, depending on how you interpret it).
The signs are further supported by the similarity of the logos used for both Akatsuki and NERV. Both are supposed to represent a bird or dragon’s head cut down or “killed”, with the titular NERV logo bearing resemblance to Kaoru Nagisa’s X-shaped scar.
It was also inferred by fans that the “Angel” of the series might play a role similar to that otherwise occupied by a god, and NERV would therefore be an analogue of Evangelion Unit 01, its pilot Shinji Ikari being a substitute for Kaoru Nagisa.
