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CONTAINS SPOILERS UNTIL CHAPTER 51


Having seen all those highly scored reviews in the main page, I wanted to make a review myself for this clusterfuck story that is called Boruto.

First of all, I want to say that I'm a HUGE Naruto fanboy as you can see it from my profile picture, so don't think that I'm one of those snob shonen haters. I grew up with Naruto, and I love it despite all of its mistakes and poor storytelling choices. However, that's not the case with Boruto.

I love Boruto's movie and the first 60-70 episodes of the anime, I really do. Boruto and Sarada ... are both really fleshed characters with flaws and cool personalities, and it is really fun to watch them develop as the story advances. First arc of the manga is a recap of the Boruto: Naruto the Movie and is pretty decent. However, after that arc, without Kishimoto holding the ropes, everything just goes downhill.

If I were to summarize Boruto's story structure, it would be like this:

Boruto with or without Team 7 encounters a mysterious figure from a mysterious organization > Somehow teleports to or just happens to be in a bland enviroment with nothing but rocks in the vicinity (Imagine the battlefield of the climax of 4th Great Ninja War, every battlefield is like that) > A bland fist fight with no creativity or ninjutsu> Boruto somehow wins with his mysterious "Karma" power > Nothing is explained, back to the status-quo

Rinse and repeat every 5-6 chapters.

As a series, Naruto was a battle shonen, there's no denying that. Cool battles with high stakes, well written buildups, extremely satisfying payoffs and fleshed characters with rich backstories were always the strongest aspect of Naruto. Probably everyone who watched Naruto has a villain that they love or symphatize because of how well-written they are, be it Itachi, Nagato, Obito or even Madara.

Boruto too, is a battle shonen, and sadly, has none of those things I listed above. Villains are just punchbags for Boruto and have no depth or backstories. The main organization in the series, Kara, is just full of lunatics who has no motives. Jigen, their founder and leader is just another Otsutsuki like Kaguya who just wants to destroy the world because he's an alien race that needs to destroy worlds in order to survive. Like, really? Kaguya storyline was probably the most criticized arc of Naruto, and you say that you're giving us MORE Kaguya's and Otsutsuki's? Why? Just... Why?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, battles. Forget about cool battles of Naruto because they don't exist. Don't get me wrong, there are battles. In fact, majority of chapters consist of just battles that doesn't end for quite a while. Remember how Pain was able to absorb ninjutsu and how that made him a unique character that felt like a really big threat? Or do you remember how Madara was basically immortal and could regenerate from any wound in both his Edo Tensei and Jinchuriki form? Yeah, every single Boruto villain has those now thanks to something called scientific ninja tools. Doesn't matter if they're a low ranked villain or the main villain, they can easily absorb ninjutsu with their scientific cybernetics and regenerate their bodies from many wounds, and can even come back from death. This destroys the whole point of ninjutsu and no one uses it since their enemy is just going to absorb it with a flick of their hand. Only ninjutsu you see are just finisher moves and those are, at most, just rasengans from Boruto, as if we didn't see that enough in main series. This Kara organization doesn't use much ninjutsu either, so all of the battles are just "aigh let's see which one of us can punch hardest." So much so that Rock Lee with his just 7th gate could probably beat every single villain from Boruto, maybe even Jigen. By the way, Boruto never actually wins a fight, his Karma does. Whenever he starts to lose, Karma somehow activates itself and do some mysterious shit to turn the tides of the battle. Every single fight feels like Naruto ve Neji, which was a failure of storytelling itself.

Speaking of battles, Naruto and Sasuke are HEAVILY nerfed in this series. Delta, one of the small villains of the series, takes Himawari, daughter of Naruto and yeets her into the air to threaten Naruto. So Naruto, one of the fastest people in the world, makes a move towards Himawari but hell no! Kawaki, who is just at the age of maybe Naruto in OG series, is as fast as him and blocks the incoming attack of Delta. This isn't even nerfing old characters, this is just making fool of Naruto fans.

Yes, this series is called BORUTO, not Naruto, and I agree that old characters shouldn't take the spotlight much, and maybe even should nerfed. However, if you're going to create an organization that threatens not only the world, but maybe the whole UNIVERSE, Naruto and Sasuke, who are literal Gods at this point, will of course steal the show from 12 year old Boruto that can barely do 5 shadow clones. Imagine Madara or Kaguya being the first villains that Team 7 encountered in the original Naruto and not Zabuza or Orochimaru. It's literally the case in Boruto and I have no idea how they will find new stories to tell after this arc. (Other than bringing just more Otsutsuki, of course)

I've been following Boruto since its first chapter back in 2016. Oh, I forgot to say that this manga is monthly right? Yes, it is. Weird for a battle shonen, but not a big problem. Sike, it is an ENORMOUS problem that ruins all the pacing.

So, fights generally took 3-4 chapters to end because of the awful artist that draws the series. Don't get me wrong, Ikemoto's drawings are definitely not bad, albeit not great either. However, I can only assume that he has no idea how the manga medium works, because in every fight, he uses 3 panels at most for each page, which makes fights long as hell while nothing happens in a 45-page chapter. You read just non stop punching/kicking scenes for literally 3 months for a fight that doesn't even advance the story further in the end. Even weekly manga series advance their story more with their single, weekly 17-page chapters! Hell, even Attack on Titan's story develops faster than Boruto's.

Characters are... I'm sorry what characters? All those colorful characters you see in the anime adaptation are nearly non-existent in manga. Only characters you see other than the new Team 7 and only a handful of old Naruto characters are Kara members, and like I said, they're pretty shallow, one dimensional characters. Not only that, but characters that are well fleshed in anime are just filler characters here. Sarada? You forget that she even exist. Mitsuki? Oh, that other guy in Team 7. Kawaki is kinda a cool character and probably the only one that has some kind of character development, but he's nothing revolutionary.

Speaking of characters, this series doesn't forget to bring old characters back and use it to bait Naruto fanboys to like the series. (And apparently it's working) Remember everyone's favorite mentor Jiraiya? That cool dude who had an awesome ending for his character, and affected both Naruto and Nagato, and indirectly the whole ninja world greatly with his death? Yeah, he's back as a clone now because apparently this Amado guy can do what Kabuto couldn't, with his super uber powerful scientific ninja crap. Which means, every old character can be easily cloned by villains, as if Edo Tensei wasn't enough to ruin the series. (Also ruins the whole point of Orochimaru, since even random guys now can do things he spent his whole life to achieve)

I can brag about Boruto for hours, but for now, this is it. Overall, a huge disappointment that feels like a Wattpad fanfiction rather than the next generation of Naruto.