English Dub Review: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations “Sasuke and Sarada”

It’s a father daughter reunion.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Sarada has finally gotten a chance to talk to her dad after all these years, but it isn’t the heartfelt reunion that she had hoped. Her father, after not having seen her for years, doesn’t recognize her, and at first believes Sarada to be an enemy working with the white-skinned child who attacked him earlier, Shin. Sarada is able to convince him otherwise, though, and Sasuke lowers his arms against his daughter. Sarada tries to talk to her dad, but Naruto and Chouchou arrive, having run after Sarada to try and keep her safe.

Sarada tells Sasuke her concern that Sakura might not be her real mother and shows Sasuke the picture of him and Karin that started this whole fiasco in the first place. Sasuke’s answer is vague, and when Sarada presses him further, asking why he’s been gone from home for so long, he holds back and says that she wouldn’t understand. Meanwhile, Sakura, back in her hospital bed in the village, talks with Shizune about how she feels like a bad mother and that Sarada running off is her fault.

Sasuke reflects on the day he left the village for his years-long mission to find traces of Kaguya to keep the village and its people safe. Naruto questions why Sasuke doesn’t want to say goodbye to his family, to which Sasuke responds by saying that telling Sarada would only worry her.

Back in the present, the four Konoha ninjas are suddenly attacked by Shin and his father, who also has the Sharingan. The two are able to do major damage to Naruto and Sasuke with chakra-marking knives, and for a moment it looks like the day is lost as Shin’s father tries to take Sarada hostage. Sakura comes in at the last moment, however, and punches him away from her daughter. However, the day isn’t won yet, as the one-eyed familiar that accompanied Shin opens up a portal to another dimension that sucks Sakura and the two alien ninjas into. Sakura awakens surrounded by Shin and his shadow clones, placing her square into enemy territory.

Our Take:

With Sakura getting kidnapped and trapped in another dimension, the stakes are only getting higher on Boruto. Yet, the juvenile and amateur character development we see here is not up to the task of making these stakes feel real and exciting. This episode demonstrates that problem in every aspect, offering nothing but shallow drama and bizarre decision-making from its characters. Sasuke is basically a non-character, little more than an edgy-looking figure in a cloak, while Sarada’s fools’ errand to “find” her real mother because she has similar glasses to Karin is facepalm ridiculous.

The whole premise of this episode is botched because as soon as Sarada meets Sasuke the show goes right back to some weak action sequences and boring dialogue from Chouchou and Naruto. Instead, the show should have given us some real time for Sarada and Sasuke to talk and bond with each other. That way, the audience could have understood their relationship and seen them develop with each other. As it stands, though, there is absolutely zero chemistry between these two. If not for their similar appearances, I would think Sarada and Sasuke to be complete strangers.

What’s worse is this overly dramatic idea Sasuke comes up with that he “must” leave the village on his own for years so that he can find out more about Kaguya. This could have been an interesting idea if there was something that Sasuke had to show for his years of travel. But as demonstrated by the last episode, he’s just floating around in the woods around Konoha, and he seems to be almost exactly the same as he was when he left the village. Furthermore, there was nothing about Sasuke’s mission that meant he couldn’t return him and see his daughter or at least explain what he has to do. His reasoning for this mission is ridiculous and only serves to make this whole story arc feel cheap.

The action, too, is nothing to write home about, as stiff animation digs at the heels of whatever joy could be had from this fight scene, and it doesn’t utilize any of the cast’s powers in an interesting way to make the fight challenging or new.

Don’t bother with this week’s episode of Boruto, it’s just another continuation of the disappointment that is this anime. It comes nowhere near the quality of the original series and keeps flopping every opportunity it has for good storytelling.