English Dub Review: Boruto “Team 7: The First Mission”

Team 7 Begins…again.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

It’s time for the fresh Genin to get broken in, so Team 7 is given their first mission (I bet you couldn’t tell that from the title!) by the Hokage himself, as per tradition. They’re tasked with a D-Rank mission, which is to fight off bandits from an impoverished farming village. Once they arrive, they meet the village’s leader, Kiri, who they surprised to find is a very young girl. This is due to the previous leader dying very suddenly, leaving his daughter in charge. Even worse, it turns out that rivaling villages have hired shinobi of their own, turning this into at least a B-Rank mission, which is out of the Genin’s depth. Despite this, they all feel dedicated to seeing it through.

That is, until they encounter one of the enemy, Hashimaru, attacking the villagers before being called away by his leader. Oddly enough, he didn’t attack the food storehouse, tipping Konahamaru off that there’s something else going on. Turns out that the real target is the deed to their toll bridge, which they will keep harassing and terrorizing them for until Kiri relents, which she never will.

That night, the enemy’s leader, Hidari, forces another attack, this time making the villagers attack Team 7 through a Genjutsu. Once they fight them off, they realize Kiri has been taken, meaning one of the villagers was with the enemy the whole time.

OUR TAKE

Okay, first big mission for the new Team 7! This was a major step in the original story for their parents, showing that they were stepping into a new and potentially lethal world outside of their comfort zones, which would eventually push them all past their limits and lead one of them almost dying! So, naturally there’s going to be at least a few parallels between this and that. Firstly…they had to cross a bridge and…

…yeah, that might be it. Might have to do with this being Episode 40 as opposed to Episode 6, but I think the narrative purpose of this mission might have already been either done previously in this series OR it’s just not doing a good job at doing those things now. Possibly a combination of the two.

Looking back on Naruto and his team’s journey to the Land of Waves to guard Tazuna the Bridge Builder, there was a LOT of developmental material to play around with. The dynamic between him, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi was still pretty fresh, so everyone was still getting to know each other. Naruto had his complex about needing to be noticed, Sasuke was a prodigy who stoked their rivalry, Sakura was pining over getting Sasuke’s attention, and Kakashi had to act on his toes when the mission escalated in difficulty. Everyone had a personality that sparked a reaction out of everyone else, including their client Tazuna.

Compared to that, things here are pretty underwhelming all around. Boruto’s team all know each other and more or less like each other fine, so there’s not much giving them reason to push themselves and no discernable dynamic other than him and Sarada bickering while Mitsuki just stands there smiling. Sarada is the one who wants to be Hokage, but this mission doesn’t seem like one that will teach her anything important regarding that, while Boruto and Mitsuki want…well, it’s hard to say there. And we’ve seen them all deal with bigger threats than this before, so I can’t expect this group of bandits to really push them to improve that much.

This all just seems very boring, with only the passable action being a saving grace. We might just be in for another few disposable, treading water type episodes before we hit something substantial again, which is going to be pretty hard to stomach if that ends up being the case.