My Thoughts On Boruto

Been meaning to do this for a while...lets talk about Boruto. I liked Naruto in the beginning but then Shippuden dragged on and on that I got kinda of sick of it. At the time of this post I'm about 70-ish episodes in as shounen anime is not something I watch weekly. I find it much easier to watch while marathoning. I'm gonna give my thoughts on the arcs I've seen so far and other stuff pertaining to the show.

Boruto is a perfectly fine show...when its focusing the kids and not the lingering threads from Naruto. The Nue arc, the Hidden Mist Field Trip arc, and Byakuya Gang arc are probably the best examples of where Boruto's strengths as a story lies. I also particularly like the stuff centering around Mitsuki. Though thats mostly because I find it fascinating that he isn't just a pawn in an Orochimaru scheme. Dude just wanted a kid and gave him the free will to follow his own path.

The power scaling regarding the kids seems a bit off. Iwabe I can buy being able to use earth style since he its outright stated that he was held back a lot. I can also understand the kids who have clan specific justu already having mastered them before entering the academy. However, they all seem a bit too skilled in their academy days for kids who aren't even official ninja (Iwabe withstanding cuz again, he is older than everyone else). It irks me in particular that Boruto himself is able to use lightning style right off the bat (though at the very least they do state its his natural chakra element so maybe thats why) and he was able to get the hang of wind style just by watching Mitsuki do it a few times even if he failed to do the wind scythe properly. Him figuring out the Rasengan I can sort of buy but the instinctual elemental change irks me because somehow Boruto can just use lightning style without thinking about it. That felt kinda like they just wanted give him his own custom Rasengan early on to separate him from Naruto.

It also irks me that they seem to have broken the Sharingan a bit. Sarada activates it for the 1st time during the Hidden Mist Field Trip arc without the massive chakra drain that is supposed to happen once its triggered (yeah its worse for non-Uchiha but even Sasuke looked like he was tiring out from using it in the Haku fight besides all the damage he took). She also figured out the copy ability really quickly and thats where another change became evident. The Sharingan seems to scale back the chakra requirements for copied jutsu to something the user can handle now. She copied a lightning style justu and elemental stuff in general is supposed to require a fairly decent amount of chakra on its own. The guys there were facing during this arc were either Chunin or Jonin (can't remember which) so that fight should've been way out of their league since they weren't even Genin yet. Yet they all came out with barely any scratches.

They were fighting these guys

The "prodigy" explanation only goes so far as even though Sasuke was considered a prodigy because he could use fire style, he still had to train and struggle (my head hurts just saying something good about Sasuke). It also really doesn't hold water for a good chunk of Boruto's classmates since we don't know who their parents are.

The opening arc of the show had me hooked after 4 episodes. It was a great introduction Boruto and his classmates. The first few episodes a give you a good feel for how much things have advanced during the time-skip. The later half of the arc centers around some left over stuff from Danzo's foundation. Its also a bit of a revelation that even though the world has moved on since the 4th Ninja War, the Leaf still has some aspects of its past that it needs to deal with.

Despite the weird power-scaling, the Hidden Mist Field Trip arc was really good imo. Its essentially Boruto's class going on a field trip to help build solidarity between the two villages. Their trip happens to coincide with an attempted coup de ta. Boruto befriends Kagura,the front-runner for the title of Mizukage. Sadly the guy leading the coup knows a lot of about Kagura uses his guilt over being related to the Mizukage that instituted the killing exam Zabuza mentioned to manipulate Kagura into joining the coup. Its essentially a really nice, dramatic arc about the Hidden Mist needing to deal with the sins of its past. Its especially effective as Kagura was able to realize that he is not responsible for his family's sins. Its also a nice parallel alongside the first arc.

The Byakuya Gang stuff is really good. Its essentially an arc about a gang of "thieves of justice" from the Land of Snow breaking into the Leaf's science office to steal gadget with data on every jutsu ever created. In order to cover their theft and escape, they actually slowly make the workers in the Leaf village more and more disgruntled until they take to the streets in protest. The subplot is about Shikadai befriending a kid in the part over a game them just hanging out. Naturally the kid winds up being apart of the gang and since Shikadai helped come up with a plan to track them the two come to blows. The kid gets thrown in jail for taking part in the theft but decides to do better when he gets out as he found out that the "thieves of justice" he works for just common crooks during the heist. The kid has this interesting ice style jutsu that hypnotizes people via reflections in the icicles.

The Shin Uchiha arc is just downright stupid and pointless even from a character perspective. The entire thing is about Sarada not being 100% sure Sakura is her mother because of a photo of Sasuke and his old crew from his days with Orochimaru. She goes looking for Sasuke to get the truth from him. You know the drill for this type of setup, she finds "evidence" that Sakura isn't her real mom (the "evidence" led to miscommunication that made her think Karin was her mom) and its revealed its all because of a mix up and that Sakura is actually Sarada's mom. It honestly would've been much better handled if the arc had revealed that Karin was actually Sarada's mom but that Sarada didn't care because she'd only known Sakura as her mother this whole time and Sakura took care of her. The idea that family isn't just blood would've added another layer to this arc. This arc also just glorifies Sasuke so...no, thats points off for it in and of itself. Somehow Sarada doesn't have daddy issues. I legitimately don't understand that.You probably noticed I didn't cover Shin Uchiha...thats cuz he doesn't add much of anything to the arc despite being the villain. Just something about wanting to kill Sasuke for killing Itachi and that he has an army of clones of himself. This is the worst arc out of all of them so far.

The Chunin exam arc was great and I was really digging the updated tests. All the tournament fights were pretty fun to watch. It showed off a lot new and different jutsu and fighting tactics while avoiding dragging the fights out longer than needed. The "Don't cheat!" lesson for Boruto was handled well enough. It was easily my favorite arc at that point...then the stuff with Kaguya's clan crashed right into it and tanked it for me. During that stretch of episodes I just sat there bored and counting down how long I had until the kids (besides Boruto) became relevant again. Not really much kids can do in a fight between gods. It felt a bit like a slap in the face to have an arc centered mainly around the kids and then side-lining them for a less than stellar meta-plot thats trying to help tie up loose threads from Naruto's ninja war arc.

Like I said before, the show is actually pretty fun when its not focusing on the stuff from Naruto or when the characters from Naruto aren't taking center stage. Boruto's plot-line about having issues with Naruto is a bit irritating. Him wanting to step out of Naurto's shadow is perfectly fine. However, him thinking Naruto is a bad father is just dumb. I know he is a kid but someone likely would've explained Naruto's philosophy in great detail to him before his issues with Naruto being Hokage ever got this far. Now that doesn't absolve Naruto of neglecting his family in favor of the village. I can buy him relying on his shadow clones to make sure he can fulfill his duties has Hokage, however I feel the way he does it is wrong. He has his clones spend time with his family so he can do his job as Hokage. Given Naruto's personality, it should be the clones doing the work while he spends time with his family. Another part I don't like is the chosen one plot-line for Boruto as its a tad over-done as far as shounen anime is concerned and its weird that they gave him that when his main goal is to escape his father's shadow. Overall, its an alright show that fans of Naruto will probably like, I just wished it stopped trying to expand on notes from the original show and focused squarely on the kids finding their way in the world.

My thoughts on shounen anime's Big 3

When the subject of anime comes up, inevitably one of 3 names will pop up in the conversation at some point: Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. These three are by far the most popular anime in the world. Two of these anime suffer from main character syndrome. To clarify what that is, its a term I coined to describe the phenomenon wherein the main character is the only one who can do anything and gets insanely powerful simply because the plot says so while the side characters get reduced to background roles. Though one suffers to a much greater degree than the other. Anyway here are my thoughts on the Big 3:

Bleach:

For the record, my knowledge of the events of the Bleach anime only extends to how far the dub has gotten on Toonami and I haven't caught up with the manga. This is my least favorite of the big 3 for the simple reason that it has a tendency to drag and repeat itself during the canon arcs. The Hueco Mundo arc is the exact same arc as the Soul Society arc just swapping Rukia for Orihime and the Arrancars in place of Soul Reapers. The War For Karakura arc is where the show just hits the fan for me due to Aizen having the largest amount of plot armor/plot convenience I've ever seen. Seriously, it got so bad that I ended up doing a massive rant about Aizen. The less I say about Aizen here the better so just go check out my Aizen rant for my full thoughts on him. The show actually has some interesting filler arcs. My personal favorite being the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc because it gave you the feeling that they were more than just weapons used by the Soul Reapers. I almost cried when that arc ended. The overall plot for the canon portions of the anime simply boil down to "Aizen was responsible for everything up to the War for Karakura" so the plot really only hinges on him and Ichigo. Ichigo's personality is kind of hard to pin down since he has that generic "I will protect everything precious to me" type of personality and well he doesn't go very far beyond that. Ichigo suffers from main character syndrome and his friends often have to rely on him to save them (Orihime and Chad). Orihime's downgrade is especially stupid since she basically has the powers of a God and can reverse any phenomenon she wishes yet she is basically reduced to acting as a medic and mostly uses her healing shield. This show is by far the biggest offender of the 3 when it comes to main character syndrome.

Naruto/Naruto Shippuuden:

This is the one I'm more neutral on so it might be harder for me to put this one into words. Its better executed than Bleach that much is for sure, though Bleach has the more interesting filler arcs. The characters are alright and don't seem to constantly suffer from main character syndrome or at the very least not to the degree that Bleach's side characters do. It has a nicely built up world and I like its history. With that said I do have some issues, like Sasuke not being killed off yet. Seriously, Kishimoto kills off better characters yet lets Sasuke live. Its gotten to the point where even some of my friends who are Naruto fans are calling BS on it. Granted my knowledge extends more into the manga than it does the anime and I left off at the 4th Great Ninja War.The only reason I stopped reading the manga was because SJ magazine went all digital. Though from what I've heard, it might have been good that I stopped there as I've had some people tell me that the rest of that arc basically amounts to spring cleaning in terms of character deaths. This included two really shocking ones, Neji and Shikamaru.This anime had a strong start with some really great fights early on. My personal favorite fight is the Zabuza/Haku fight. Anyway thats about all I can say for this series.

One Piece:

Well what can I say about this one that hasn't already been said by other people. Out of the Big 3, this is the one people seem to love the most and honestly, I think that love is totally justified. The characters are lovable, the villains feel threatening, the world is nicely built up, and the plots are nice. The show just seems to have a knack for making the implausible plausible and making weird stuff look completely normal. Only in One Piece can a cola-powered cyborg shipwright, a skeleton musician with an afro, fish people (not just mermaids, actual fish people), and a shape-shifting talking blue-nosed reindeer that is also a doctor not seem out of place. None of the characters in this anime suffer from main character syndrome. The entire crew feels like they are actual characters and don't get reduced to background roles. Each member of the crew is able to hold their own in a fight, even Usopp who as of the Franky arc earned his spot as my favorite character during his fight with Luffy. Luffy is one of those Goku-remakes that is able to take on a life of his own and step out of Goku's shadow to become his own character instead of just an example of his archetype. The only thing I can think of that I dislike about this anime is the second half of the Foxy Pirate arc. The world is actually set up well enough to where Oda can write side-stories for some of the characters outside the Straw Hat crew. I'd personally love to see a side-story based on Buggy the Clown, Jimbei's adventures before becoming a warlord, the story of how Crocodile founded Baroque Works and a whole lot of of other things. While a lot of characters can be seen as over-powered, it is shown from the very beginning that no matter how strong someone gets there will always be someone stronger down the road. Every shounen anime/manga series will inevitably hit the point where they start to drag and One Piece is no exception to that but I don't see it happening anytime soon.