English Dub Review: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations “A Ninjutsu Battle of the Sexes!”

It’s all fun and games until someone summons a giant bloodthirsty worm.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Konohamaru teaches the kids of Boruto’s class about summoning jutsus, and soon the students of the Konoha Ninja Academy are all excited to make their own summoning jutsu contracts. However, this stirs up a conflict between the boys and girls of the class, with Boruto and Sarada acting as de facto leaders of their respective genders.

After a dispute over who gets the last yakisoba bun during lunchtime, Boruto and Sarada provoke each other into a fight, but Shino stops them in time to organize an actual competition between the boys and girls of the class. As they assemble outside, Shino informs them that their goal is to steal the flag atop the academy building before the other team does.

The competition starts, and the two teams are off to the races. Using their respective skills and jutsus, the two teams go neck and neck through to academy to get to the top. Boruto and his friends do their best, but one by one they’re picked off by the girls. However, at the last moment, the boys hatch a plan to make a summoning contract to get an advantage over the girls. Through the boys’ cunning, they’re able to get Boruto to the roof, where Boruto summons a giant snake beast that nearly knocks Chouchou off the roof and kills her. Thankfully, Konohamaru shows up to save the day with a Rasengan, but the girls still with the competition since Sumire captures the flag.

At the end of it all, the boys and girls have a newfound respect for each other and the strengths they showed in battle.

Our Take:

In an effort to keep finding “Story of the week” ideas to fill time, Boruto has set up a situation to pit the boys against the girls in a battle of the sexes. In so doing, it tries to expand on the show’s character base and elaborate a bit more on what we’ve seen so far. Mostly though, it just details petty squabbles over who gets the last yakisoba bun at lunch.

Strangely enough, seeing Komoharu return to the action didn’t establish Boruto’s legitimacy, as I think it was supposed to. Rather, it did the exact opposite, making me think that series would probably be a whole lot better if it focused on someone like him, whose story might actually be pretty interesting. After all, there is potential in this concept of having more stories to explore after the end of “Naruto”, but this “Next generation” idea is just pure bunko. We only get glimpses of people that have anything interesting to do, in the middle of enduring the boring tedium of Boruto’s everyday ninja life.

Not to mention, this series hasn’t even come close to establishing a unity of tone or theme with the original series. It’s foolish to think that the series can exist entirely on its own without having to consider the series that’s come before it, and Boruto keeps falling into that trap. The original sucked the viewer in with its sense of “Gritty fantasy.” The world of ninjas was interesting but troubled, and as things went on, the intricacies of this flawed universe were revealed more and more. With Boruto, though…its tone is way too pleasant, too sunny. It’s just boring.

Like most episodes of Boruto, there was certainly some potential to make a good story here. A battle between two halves of Boruto’s ninja class would at least offer something a little more substantial than the usual Boruto fare. But, sadly, it falls flat on its ass once again. The fight between Boruto and Sarada doesn’t have enough character motivation to make the stakes worthwhile. It’s just a petty squabble between two kids, and so the fight feels like a petty squabble between two kids.

Four episodes into this series and it feels like Boruto isn’t even trying. Instead of building a story, it wastes time on these trivial scenarios that don’t go anywhere important. It’s mildly amusing, but not worth staying up to watch.