English Dub Review: Boruto “The Chunin Exams: The Recommendation Meeting”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS?)

As the Leaf Shinobi get ready for the upcoming Chunin Exams, Konohamaru and the other teachers think back on everything that’s happened since Boruto started at the academy. Then they get drunk and Shino swarms the village with bugs.

OUR TAKE

It’s easy to forget that the first episode of Boruto aired on Toonami a little over a year ago, so I can actually see some reasoning for throwing a recap in at this point. It’s basically a very hasty skimming of just about a whole day’s worth of episodes, but it also kinda makes me realize how basically pointless a whole year of this show has been to the overall story. It’s one of my and probably at least a few others’ complaint with how this has acted as a successor to Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. Everything since the show started has been incredibly low stakes and had no end point in mind. It was just a hodgepodge of things that SORT OF add to the universe established by the previous two series, but doesn’t do anything to expand the themes or characters.

But it also occurs to me that this is actually some weirdly good timing. As we’ve reported, Toonami will be dropping Boruto in a few more weeks, being replaced by Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. The reasons for this aren’t entirely clear, just that Jason Demarco has mentioned they won’t be renewing the show at the moment. So, having a recap helps a bit since, if Boruto ever returns to the block, interested viewers won’t need to devote 49 half hours of their lives to remembering all the ultimately incidental moments before the show comes back, but simply watch this episode covering all of the important bits and then be pretty much studied up on the material.

Because I cannot stress enough how toothless this show is, as well as how unwilling it is to stray from anything remotely critical or open-minded about how to handle what are now beloved anime icons, probably because it’s a show by committee more than any other series trying for a spot in the new “Big Three” has been. Boruto himself encapsulates the issues with the show overall and why it doesn’t seem to be really making the splash his father did. Like Boruto the person, Boruto the series was simply born into its popularity and appeal, but without ever needing to work to succeed like its predecessor did. It’s all too clear with this recap episode, which should have simply been a breather before the action ramped up and instead is simply a reminder of how little things have progressed. Hopefully the next two episodes give us something good to go out on.