This summer, I binge-watched Boruto: Naruto Next Generations in my periphery. My parents had purchased a massive, spanking-new flatscreen for the downstairs, and I needed something mindless in the background while I played Clash Royale. I had initially intended to give Boruto a serious watch, but it took six, maybe seven episodes to realize that the most remarkable thing about Studio Pierrot’s adaptation is that it is unremarkable. And the last episode aired almost two-and-a-half years ago. How am I supposed to make this review interesting and relevant again?
Oh. Right.
More than any anime I’ve ever watched (and I’ve watched too many), Boruto demonstrates through incessant mediocrity that all entertainment produced under capitalism is commodity first and art second. There is no doubt in my mind that serialized television writ large has reached an event horizon; we can no longer create earnest sequels without a potential for profit.
Boruto exists because of the vast success of its predecessor. As soon as Masashi Kishimoto released Naruto’s final chapter in November 2014, Shueisha, Japan’s largest publishing company, came knocking on his door to beg for a follow-up. This was the obvious move; it would not be a stretch to say that the blonde, social-outcast-turned-savior Naruto protagonist is the single most recognizable ninja of all time (to date, the Naruto IP has generated nearly $11 billion in revenue). But Kishimoto declined. Instead, he proposed that longtime illustration assistant Mikio Ikemoto and light novel author Ukyō Kodachi helm a series in the same universe. That way, Ikemoto and Kodachi could get their big break, Kishimoto could collect royalties with minimal effort, and the suits at Shueisha could exploit the labor of all those creatives scraping the bottom of the barrel of ideas.
The new series is about Naruto Uzumaki’s son, who grows up in the Hidden Leaf Village at a time of peace. Boruto Uzumaki looks like the ninja equivalent of the trackstar at your local high school, sporting black and red athleisure wear with a popped collar. His friends are the children of now-grown-up Naruto characters, and the story follows them as they navigate a more liberal, scientific ninja world. In case it were unclear from his cool-kid character design, Boruto has no interest in following in his father’s footsteps and becoming the Hokage. He shows up for the first day of ninja class by derailing a trolley into a stone carving of his father’s face, literally on the nose.
This “here comes the airplane” level of audience spoonfeeding is a quality of Boruto’s that persists throughout all 294 episodes. I lost track of how many times I skipped the recap, only for the first scene to initiate with characters recapping even more. It’s like the writers don’t even care. The same applies to the animators: there are too few cool fight scenes to justify the amount of awkward, uncanny animation. I don’t even care enough to explore examples (I was focused on perfecting my 3.3 elixir X-bow cycle deck, anyway).
The only notable departure from the Naruto formula is the inclusion of non-filler, slice-of-life moments, an attempt to achieve a more lighthearted tone by expanding upon quotidian sides of ninja life. To me, this is the kicker that proves Boruto is one big cash grab—any shift toward day-in-the-life content in anime is a sure sign that someone in the writers room is being lazy. Further, any interesting ethical questions that could parallel the real world, such as the necessity of ninja in a post-war era, are brushed over entirely.
It’s not like there aren’t acceptable things about Boruto. As far as characters go, I particularly enjoyed Mitsuki, Orochimaru’s gender-fluid child. Mitsuki is a well-written take on the enigmatic yet endearing outsider. They are strong, yet not overpowered; mysterious, yet not unknowable. Being a clone of an artificial person is both compelling and central to their character development later in the series. (Mitsuki has an identity crisis and leaves the village to travel with other artificial lifeforms, ultimately deciding to return after finding out that they’re kind of evil.) There are also a few well-choreographed fight scenes, such as the Sasuke, Naruto, and Boruto battle against Isshiki Otsutsuki. It is worth noting that nearly all of these scenes come after episode 200.
Unfortunately, much of Boruto’s merit can be attributed to mere incident. Combat sequences are a given in any shounen anime, and drawing upon a familiar cast of characters increases the likelihood that audiences will find characters compelling. But to the trained eye, it is clear that the budget-draining fight scenes in Boruto serve only as junctions to drum up hype and increase viewership. Even if a certain battle is pleasing to the eye, the rising and falling action almost always feels manufactured and flat. In the immortal words of Peter Griffin, “it insists upon itself.”
Boruto is mediocre because it is unnecessary. Naruto ended, and fans were satisfied. Boruto would never have generated hype without having a predecessor to build on. It is no wonder that at least the anime comes across as somewhat soulless; why would anyone bother truly trying on a work of art destined to succeed?