English Dub Review: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations “A New Path”

Was Konoha always this boring?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Everyone is saddened by the events that transpired with Sumire’s betrayal of the Leaf Village, and concerned about what her fate will be. Business resumes as usual with the students of the shinobi academy getting into teams of three and competing against each other to practice their fighting skills. Still, Sumire’s absence weighs heavy.

Shino approaches Iruka and asks him, should Sumire be allowed to return to school, if he can become her personal mentor, a request which Iruka dutifully accepts. Later, Shino speaks with Sumire, and reveals that her that, despite her chakra ghost making Shino go crazy, he believes that challenge helped him become a better teacher.

Boruto tries to help in his own way by approaching his dad about the subject when he gets home from school. Naruto says he’ll do what he can, but he has to do what’s right for the village as a whole, can can’t just give someone a pardon unless it is truly right.

The next day, team practice resumes, with Boruto’s team of Mitsuki and Metal Lee going up against the Shika-Ino-Cho team on a metal scaffold. Things heat up as the two teams use their specialized jutsus against each other, but Shino rushes off and isn’t able to see their fight. Eventually, Boruto’s team is able to bring down the scaffold and take the flag sitting atop the building overhead, making them the victor. This is just in time for Shino to return with none other than Sumire, who is welcomed back to the academy with open arms.

Later that evening, Naruto meets with none other than Sasuke and shares with him the jutsu that Sumire had used back in the village. Sasuke remarks how close Danzo became to creating the jutsu that Kaguya was able to use. Meanwhile, in a strange interdimensional plane, mysterious white figures discuss Kaguya’s potential disappearance.

Our Take:

Shounen is an anime genre that, above all else, should be creative and, in one form or another, exciting. In the world of animation, the possibilities for creative storytelling are endless, and the best anime are the ones that use the freedom of the animated world to find interesting scenarios and scene setups to put our characters in. When we have shows that give their all to find new ways to tell a story, it’s practically criminal for an anime to waste its time, and the viewer’s time, with stories that take the easy, but a boring path. Boruto very often chooses the easy, boring path, and this episode exemplifies everything I’ve come to loathe about this show.

The singular conflict and point of tension here are Sumire, and what’s to be done with her. This, already, is problematic, because I don’t feel the level of interest and empathy for Sumire that the show expects me to have. But, if that’s the hill this episode wants to die on, then so be it, as long as it does it well. Yet, Boruto chooses to be boring. It chooses to make every scene a long, meandering conversation between two characters about Sumire. It’s “tell over show” in the worst way possible. Sumire, who has just betrayed the Leaf Village, and very nearly killed several people, is a criminal who potentially could suffer a terrible fate. That’s good tension, but the episode doesn’t capitalize on it. It just wastes time with two characters fish-lipping back at each other in a static camera angle. And then they throw in a little fight that has nothing to do with anything at the end, just to lazily spice things up a little bit.

What’s worse, Sumire gets off completely scot-free, which is just insane. I don’t care how nice of a guy Naruto is, when you nearly destroy the entire village, there needs to be some accountability there. Some kind of punishment, and one that’s probably severe. Furthermore, I don’t understand why everyone is so accepting of Sumire in the first place. Sure, her classmates are her friends, but acts of ninja terrorism are exactly the kind of thing that would make you think twice about her, right?

This episode is so boring it should be considered a crime. It’s a passionless, pointless episode that gives the weakest attempt at drama and tension but can’t be bothered to tell a story that makes any kind of sense or inspires any kind of emotion. Not every show needs to be intense, but Boruto is quickly proving itself to be little more than a petty cash grab living only off the name of the original Naruto series.