English Dub Review: Boruto “Strength in Unity”

 

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While Team 7 lick their wounds from the recent attack, the traitor Iori takes Kiri to Hidari, apparently being the one after the deed to the bridge this whole time, but is killed. The new mission is get Kiri back, with Konahamaru going on ahead with the deed as a decoy. They get Kiri back while the two adults fight it out, but are chased by Hidari’s henchman Ashimaru. Kiri berates herself for trying to fill her father’s giant shoes (which Boruto relates to due to his own dad’s role as Hokage), but decides to see how Team 7 handles teamwork against Ashimaru. Using a combination of Sarada’s Sharingan and strength, Boruto’s Wind Style jutsu, and Mitsuki’s speed, they beat him handily, while Konahamaru beats Hidari with his Rasengan.

Kiri returns to her village, knowing she’ll never quite be her father, but now freely asking for help from her village, which will hopefully make her even better than her old man one day. And for Team 7’s help, they name a rest area after them, much like how Naruto’s first Genin mission ended with a bridge named after him. With that, Team 7 heads home, a job well done.

OUR TAKE

That wraps up this mini-arc, but despite it only lasting a couple of episodes, that still feels like a bit much for such a thin story. We still have little nods to the first mission of the old show with Tazuna, but that really only ends up being to the detriment of this one. It also doesn’t help that the Shippuden episode Toonami paired this episode up with was a retelling of the epic battle between Naruto and Sasuke at the Valley of the End, something that was built up to for over a hundred episodes as those two both gained respect and a solid rivalry towards each other ever since their first mission together. And sadly, I can’t say I see even a semblance of that among the new Team 7. Now, I’m not saying we necessarily need the exact same character arc to happen between Boruto and Sarada simply because their parents did it (although Boruto and Mitsuki could have some potential), but they DO all need something that drives them forward for their characters to become compelling.

Putting aside comparisons to this show’s predecessor (which it invokes on its own, so they’re warranted, but whatever), I guess this two parter wasn’t exactly bad on its own. It seems relatively solid regarding introducing the problem and a theme for the characters to learn over the course of it, that being the importance of asking for help and not taking the burden all on your own if you don’t need to. It’s a good lesson to be learned for sure, especially as this team’s first official mission, but it doesn’t seem like something that benefits THEM so much as it does Kiri, and I doubt we’ll be seeing her again anytime soon. It’s also pretty underwritten, as the bad guys use pretty good teamwork themselves but are soundly defeated, which muddies the message a bit.

If Hidari had been written as a foil for Kiri (and ideally one of the Team 7 kids), where he would also be taking on a huge leadership role but wasn’t communicating with his own team and THAT led to his downfall, maybe he’d be better at getting the point across. Instead he’s just sort of mad that the world is peaceful because that means less jobs for shinobi…which SOUNDs like it could be an interesting wrinkle, but doesn’t seem like it’ll be expanded on. All in all, this seemed less like early Naruto and more like the collection of small mini filler arcs between that big fight with Sasuke and the beginning of Shippuden. I’m hoping this show can get better than that, but I’ve yet to have any reason to expect it.