After years of following the series, I figured leaving my review on the final tankoban of “part one” would be best. Boruto is a series that had a world of potential, but squandered it in pursuit of meaningless linearity. Masashi Kishimoto spent nearly 20 years world building with the original series, Naruto, and the future was looking bright for Naruto’s son as the possibilities were endless. The other cast members of the original have had kids of their own as well, and many people clamored to see how their stories would unfold, how they’d interact, etc.
Unfortunately, a lot of these characters fall to the wayside, as it locks onto Boruto and Kawaki’s situation for a good chunk of the story. The antagonist is a being far more powerful than that of the original series, making the possibility of the new generation overcoming them seem somewhat improbable. Stronger characters are “narratively nerfed” in the laziest of ways to make way for the new generation to shine, though it fails terribly. Because of this, the power scaling and supporting concepts of the Narutoverse are dismantled and messy, and the premise of ‘ninja’ feels long gone.
There’s a saying in the 48 laws of power by Robert Green—Never outshine the master, and sadly Boruto aims to do just that. It would have been better if they focused on him, his relationship with his peers and with other young shinobi from other villages with differing beliefs, all whilst navigating this new world that his father sacrificed so much for. Instead, it comes across as a flashy, edgy, tone deaf attempt to dethrone its predecessor, all whilst not having nearly as much heart.
For those who may say “they do this in the anime/novels”, please understand that culturally, since the beginning, manga has served as the core source cannon for all series that spawn from it; a canonical bible of sorts. Boruto’s direction in telling parts of the story through other forms of media while the manga is still in serialization is in large part due to the manga’s dreadful pacing, and even more dreadful story. The fact that these interactions do exist in other mediums does not make this acceptable, as it traditionally falls on the manga to tell the purest and most concise version of the events.