Boruto: Naruto Next Generations

Now, the infamous boruto "sequel". This is how everyone refers to it due to the overly biased naruto fanbase, well considering how its normal for any fanbase to have that type of opinion, this is more of a new start of the new story of another protagonist than a sequel of the old series and characters.

Many people were expecting it to get a lot interesting cause they wanted to see the life naruto was chilling in living as the hokage and showing his strength on the frontlines, but people started hating it due to the one ironical reason which is his literal son boruto.
Most of the hate that the series gets is cause of the biased fanbase of naruto cause of how the story shifts from naruto to the younger generation and how they show naruto to be.

(FIRST CHAPTER SPOILERS)
Imo the boruto manga did a VERY good job at shifting the attention from the old generation to the new in the first ever chaper by just literally showing how everything from the past ends up in the future which is the first chapter of kawaki vs boruto. It was a reallly good idea of showing how the heroes of the past will no longer be relevant to the godly threats incoming. And how kawaki states that he will "send boruto where he sent the 7th hokage" which was completely indirect, having double meaning, showing how he just referred to the 7th hokage casually, also at the same time showing how the concept of strength evolved in the future with the "End of the shinobi world".We see two references in the beginning with kawaki referring to naruto and boruto wearing sasukes coat and using his sword.

Introduction=10/10

The story pacing and and the style is definitely different and from a completely different perspective that is boruto, kinda like how bnha is set up with the mc narrating how the story of his past came to be. The overall story up from the beginning is fast paced compared to naruto but at the same time it retains its flow and smoothness. Every chapter builds up hype and you dont have any choice but to continue reading once youve gotten involved.

Upto to the point of the latest chapter the hype has just kept on increasing with the buildup of the introduction of new aspects and new characters I feel it does a really good job hype wise, but due to the montly release the storys progression has not been much as it only has 50 chapters till now.

Story=8

As for the new characters there arent much new chars other than the already existing ones from shippuden for me to give a review on it but ISHHIKI a villain from boruto is honestly one of the best villains in narutoverse as a whole and that just gives more hype to the new ones that are gonna be introduced further into the story.

Characters=?/10

Ikemotos art style is really different comparing to naruto, at the beginning the art style was really wierd when kodachi drew the characters in his style but as the chapters kept coming his artstyle progressed and now its really decent id say, but still different vibe than the naruto.

Art=8

Overall for how many chapters the manga has id say im saying right now its in the buildup stage. Boruto definitely has the potential to become one of the best shounen chars and protagonists once the timeskip occurs, for now the manga/anime isnt really a new gen imo considering how almost all the chars are still from naruto and naruto and sasuke themeselves are still in the spotlight (for the most part). But when the time skip occurs it seriously has the potential to become one of the top new gen

Essentially the manga adaptation and continuation of Boruto: Naruto the Movie. At the time of writing this the manga has adapted about half of the movie so it shouldn't be too long before the new material comes so I'd advise holding off expectations until then. Additionally, while the original creator Kishimoto is overseeing this, the artist and writer are different now so expect differences from the original manga. From what I can tell there are a few added scenes that weren't in the movie so there's that to look forward to. If you enjoyed the movie, haven't seen the movie (like me), and/or have been following Naruto for a long time I think you should check this out.

CONTAINS SPOILERS UNTIL CHAPTER 51


Having seen all those highly scored reviews in the main page, I wanted to make a review myself for this clusterfuck story that is called Boruto.

First of all, I want to say that I'm a HUGE Naruto fanboy as you can see it from my profile picture, so don't think that I'm one of those snob shonen haters. I grew up with Naruto, and I love it despite all of its mistakes and poor storytelling choices. However, that's not the case with Boruto manga.

I love Boruto's movie and the first 60-70 episodes of the anime, I really do. Boruto and Sarada are both really fleshed characters with flaws and cool personalities, and it is really fun to watch them develop as the story advances. First arc of the manga is a recap of the Boruto: Naruto the Movie and is pretty decent. However, after that arc, without Kishimoto holding the ropes, everything just goes downhill.

If I were to summarize Boruto's story structure, it would be like this:

Boruto with or without Team 7 encounters a mysterious figure from a mysterious organization > Somehow teleports to or just happens to be in a bland enviroment with nothing but rocks in the vicinity (Imagine the battlefield of the climax of 4th Great Ninja War, every battlefield is like that) > A bland fist fight with no creativity or ninjutsu> Boruto somehow wins with his mysterious "Karma" power > Nothing is explained, back to the status-quo

Rinse and repeat every 5-6 chapters.

As a series, Naruto was a battle shonen, there's no denying that. Cool battles with high stakes, well written buildups, extremely satisfying payoffs and fleshed characters with rich backstories was always the strongest aspect of Naruto. Probably everyone who watched Naruto has a villain that they love or symphatize because of how well-written they are, be it Itachi, Nagato, Obito or even Madara.

Boruto too, is a battle shonen, and sadly, has none of those things I listed above. Villains are just punchbags for Boruto and have no depth or backstories. The main organization in the series, Kara, is just full of lunatics who has no motives. Jigen, their founder and leader is just another Otsutsuki like Kaguya who just wants to destroy the world because he's an alien race that needs to destroy worlds in order to survive. Like, really? Kaguya storyline was probably the most criticized arc of Naruto, and you say that you're giving us MORE Kaguya's and Otsutsuki's? Why? Just... Why?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, battles. Forget about cool battles of Naruto because they don't exist. Don't get me wrong, there are battles. In fact, majority of chapters consist of just battles that doesn't end for quite a while. Remember how Pain was able to absorb ninjutsu and how that made him a unique character that felt like a really big threat? Or do you remember how Madara was basically immortal and could regenerate from any wound in both his Edo Tensei and Jinchuriki form? Yeah, every single Boruto villain has those now thanks to something called scientific ninja tools. Doesn't matter if they're a low ranked villain or the main villain, they can easily absorb ninjutsu with their scientific cybernetics and regenerate their bodies from many wounds, and can even come back from death. This destroys the whole point of ninjutsu and no one uses it since their enemy is just going to absorb it with a flick of their hand. Only ninjutsu you see are just finisher moves and those are, at most, just rasengans from Boruto, as if we didn't see that in main series. Also, this Kara organization doesn't use much ninjutsu either, so all of the battles are just "aigh let's see which one of us can punch hardest." So much that Rock Lee with his just 7th gate could probably beat every single Boruto villain, maybe even Jigen. By the way, Boruto never actually wins a fight, his Karma does. Whenever he starts to lose, Karma somehow activates itself and do some mysterious shit to turn the tides of the battle. Every single fight feels like Naruto ve Neji, which was a failure of storytelling itself.

Speaking of battles, Naruto and Sasuke are HEAVILY nerfed in this series. Delta, one of the small villains of the series, takes Himawari, daughter of Naruto and yeets her into the air to threaten Naruto. So Naruto, one of the fastest people in the world, makes a move towards Himawari but hell no! Kawaki, who is just at the age of maybe Naruto in OG series, is as fast as him and blocks the incoming attack of Delta. This isn't even nerfing old characters, this is just making fool of Naruto fans.

Yes, this series is called BORUTO, not Naruto, and I agree that old characters shouldn't take the spotlight much, and maybe even should nerfed. However, if you're going to create an organization that threatens not only the world, but maybe the whole UNIVERSE, Naruto and Sasuke, who are literal Gods at this point, will of course steal the show from 12 year old Boruto that can barely do 5 shadow clones. Imagine Madara or Kaguya being the first villains that Team 7 encountered in the original Naruto and not Zabuza or Orochimaru. It's literally like that in Boruto and I have no idea how they will find new stories to tell after this arc. (Other than bringing just more Otsutsuki, of course)

I've been following Boruto since its first chapter back in 2016. Oh, I forgot to say that this manga is monthly right? Yes, it is. Weird for a battle shonen, but not a big problem. Sike, it is an ENORMOUS problem that ruins all the pacing.

So, fights generally took 3-4 chapters to end because of the awful artist that draws the series. Don't get me wrong, Ikemoto's drawings are definitely not bad, albeit not great either. However, I can only assume that he has no idea how the manga medium works, because in every fight, he uses 3 panels at most for each page, which makes fights long as hell while nothing happens in a 45-page chapter. You read just non stop punching/kicking scenes for literally 3 months for a fight that doesn't even advance the story further in the end. Even weekly manga series advance their story more with their single, weekly 17-page chapter! Hell, even Attack on Titan's story develops faster than Boruto's.

Characters are... I'm sorry what characters? All those colorful characters you see in the anime adaptation are nearly non-existent in manga. Only characters you see other than the new Team 7 and only a handful of old Naruto characters are Kara members, and like I said, they're pretty shallow, one dimensional characters. Not only that, but characters that are well fleshed in anime are just filler characters here. Sarada? You forget that she even exist. Mitsuki? Oh, that other guy in Team 7. Kawaki is kinda a cool character and probably the only one that has some kind of character development, but he's nothing revolutionary.

Speaking of characters, this series doesn't forget to bring old characters back and use it to bait Naruto fanboys to like the series. (And apparently it's working) Remember everyone's favorite mentor Jiraiya? That one cool dude who had an awesome end for his character, and affected both Naruto and Nagato, and indirectly the whole ninja world greatly with his death? Yeah, he's back as a clone now because apparently this Amado guy can do what Kabuto couldn't, with his super uber powerful scientific ninja crap. Which means, every old character can be easily cloned by villains, as if Edo Tensei wasn't enough to ruin the series. (Also ruins the whole point of Orochimaru, since even random guys now can do things he spent his whole life to achieve)

I can brag about Boruto for hours, but for now, this is it. Overall, a huge disappointment that feels like a Wattpad fanfiction rather than the next generation of Naruto.

The manga starts off basically setting up for the events of the movie but it kind of goes downhill from there. Now I know Boruto gets a lot of hate because it doesn't live up to being as great as Naruto was, and I agree with that. Boruto will never be as good as or better than Naruto, but Boruto is good nonetheless. Trust me once you get deeper into the story the manga becomes significantly more interesting and exciting. It's a monthly manga which means a chapter comes out every month, so if you have some free time on your hands, and you have nothing else to read/watch, then I say give it a chance, why not? If you get to the good parts and you feel like it's just not good enough then you can drop it. It is not as bad as people make it out to be.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
The Boruto manga fills me with dread at each passing chapter. It shouldn't exist.
Now you might write this off as a triggered Naruto fan's comment, and you would be right. I'm gonna divide my review between story, art, characters( the new and the old because they have different strengths and flaws), fights and overall enjoyment. Needless to say my review will include spoilers for Naruto and Boruto.

















Story: 7/10
The plot of the story was promising. Many didn't like the whole Ootsutsuki plotline at the end of Naruto. I did, although it was a bit out of nowhere, and I have to say that Boruto's story following that plotline comes naturally. I also enjoyed the quite surprising adition of Scientific Ninja Tools, and the whole deal with shinobi becoming obsolete. However, the conciliation of these two plotlines is awkward and somewhat inconsequential. The narrative seems to point out that shinobi are becoming a thing of the past, but at the same time implies that the only ones who can save the world from the ootsutsuki threat are shinobi (see the fight with momoshiki, SNTools were useless against them and only Naruto and Sasuke, representative of the old shinobi way, could take him down). So in the long run the whole SNTool thing became inconsequential when merged with the more dominant Ootsutsuki threat plot.
Furthermore, the whole Karma mechanics and concept is very interesting, it keeps the flow of the story going in exciting ways and I think it definitely is a step in the right direction. I have a few issues with some aspects of the story but I''l include them when I talk about the old characters and fights in general.
To sum it up, when all is said and done, the story doesn't do anything remarkable by itself, although it is interesting and compelling, so I give it a 7/10.

Art: 6/10
Unfortunately, the art is quite mediocre. It doesn't convey the kinematics of the fights very well, the designs feel inorganic in some ways, and overall it gives off a static and unremarkable vibe to the panels. There are very few panels where I got chills, or just re-read the panel to absorb it all.
So, overall it is functional, but barely above that, so i give it a 6/10.

New Characters (strictly Boruto characters): 6/10
The Boruto manga introduces us to a set of new characters akin to the classic Konoha set of characters that we know and love from Naruto. I can't help but feel disappointed in most of them. They copypasted a lot of htem from their mothers and fathers (e.g Shikadai is literally kid Shikamaru I literally cannot understand how they thought that was a good idea) Characters like Shikadai suffer little to no development in the manga, which I would think they would have learned from Naruto's poor treatment of such side main characters to do better. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt because the manga is still relatively recent, but I still think it could have been handled better. then we have genuinely interesting characters like Mitsuki, Sarada and Kawaki. Honestly Mitsuki and Kawaki bring a lot of emotional depth to the manga and their backstories have been well used in doing so. Their charater is well defined, they grow troughout the manga (namely Kawaki's growth, which was very well done in my opinion) and are likeable and compelling. Sarada is also well written and makes for a good shonen female character. Now, Boruto is also moderately well written but he is a bland shonen protagonist. Echoing the same shonen troupes of "wanting to be stronger", "not giving in to a hidden power that takes over him", doesn't get the character anywhere. The only redeeming aspect that I see in him is the fact that he is able to grow in the Chuunin Exam arc and find his Nindo, that was well done, but the rest of it is honestly just so bland. I think the writers have failed to capture a theme or a set of themes to define his character, and that's why he comes off like this. The villains suffer from the same thing. The new Kara villains are literally villains for the sake of being villains. They are BAD, and I mean very bad. They are an Ozai-type character (from Avatar: The Last Air Bender), characters that had to exist because they needed villains, and their character is solely defined like that. It is fine in a series to have one or two such villains, but to have the MAJORITY of Kara be like that? It's very bad. Really, aside from design, powers set, etc, try to think of one character trait that differentiates Delta from Boro. Found little to none? That's because there are little to none. The only redeeming villains are Isshiki, Jigen and arguably Kashin Koji and Amado (which aren't really villains), but I'll talk more about Koji in the following segment.
Overall, all the mediocre characters bring down the rating to 6/10.

Old (Reused Naruto characters): 1/10
Oh boy. Here we go. You would expect, from a sequel named Boruto: NARUTO next generations, that they would treat Naruto characters well. Well, think again. Naruto characters aside Naruto and Sasuke are treated as literal landscape. They appear to make very specific roles in function of Boruto characters (i.e Sakura exists solely as Sarada's mom, Hinata the same to Boruto, Shikamaru as an advisor-type character to other people, etc). They have no relevance as characters to the story. And that's bad when you have a lot of them. They are doing close to nothing in the story, and are just doing functional roles and also passively atracting old Naruto fans to the story. It's horrible character treatment. Now, Naruto and Sasuke. Jesus Christ. They forget every development that has been done from shippuden onward. Naruto is a moron with brain damage and Sasuke is the calm colected planning master. Except when he tries to attack Isshiki with a sword, after establishing that he could shrink non-living objects. They gave Naruto and Sasuke brain damage, which also affects the fights, but most importantly affects their character. What happened to all the intellectual development that Naruto got? By the end of the war, Naruto is still a goofy individual, but no longer the moron that couldn't devise strategies and plans and think logically. And what of Sasuke's emotional development? Where is it? Where is his atonement, where is his reflections on his past actions, where is all of that? There isn't. Because Naruto and Sasuke are being used purely to bait old Naruto fans, and aren't being treated like Naruto and Sasuke. It really upsets me especially with these two. Kashin Koji also suffers from these. He was made a Jiraya clone just for the sake of being a Jiraya clone. He literally serves no purpose but to die and make a poor emotional appeal to old fans.
It's this horrible and inconsiderate treatment of this set of characters that for me really ruins Boruto, because the other characters are not enough well done for me to not care. 1/10

Fights: 2/10
Honestly the only reason I am not rating the action moments or fights 1/10 is fights like Team 7 vs Boro, which I bellieve was moderately well written. My main issue is with the majority of fights like naruto and sasuke vs jigen, and really all the battles of Naruto and Sasuke. The Boruto manga forgets everything but the most generic power set of these characters. Naruto is literally just rasengan go brr, if not enough rasengan go more brr, then Sage of Six Paths + KCM mode and poorly drawn and written taijutsu sequences, at which point he gets trashed. And Sasuke just uses ocular techniques, spams Amenotejikara which consumes a lot of chakra and Amaterasu for SOME reason, since he should have already realised that Amaterasu is useless on Ootsutsuki level foes (as seen when he fought Kaguya). Where is Naruto's clever use of clones? Where is his vast arsenal of Rasengan variants? Where is his clever use of his chakra arms, senjutsu (like frog kata and gather of natural energy and such), summoning jutsu? And where is Sasuke's vast arsenal of techniques, Katon (Fire ball and its variants), Raiton (Chidori and its variants). I mean was I the only one who thought that when Isshiki shrunk a swift chidori nagashi would have been effective? or kirin? no, instead they hit him with a big rasengan. wtf. You look at a fight like Team 7 vs Boro, where there is clear strategy and teamwork, the flow of battle turns a few times, then plot twist Borushiki appears. That's a good fight, the kind of Naruto-type fights that i enjoy. Because they're thrilling and keep you on edge. But you can't do that if you're constantly thinking what kind of BRAIN CANCER Naruto must have to keep letting himself getting hit by Delta instead of, uh, idk, USING HIS INSANE SPEED TO DRAG GER AWAY FROM THE KIDS WHERE HE CAN SAFELY GAUGE HER STRENGTH. It's really upsetting and horrible to be reading a fight and being constantly wondering what the hell is going on inside their heads. And this is evidence that the writers are unable to write compelling, well written fights with Naruto and Sasuke because they don't wanna have the effort of creating a fight where Naruto and Sasuke's tremendous power could be challenged. So they dumb them down and make the fights easier to write, while making them absolutely terrible. This is lazy writing. I mean, Boruto is a battle shonen, these things matter to the audience.
Now to talk about Baryon Mode and Kurama's death, which is the thing that motivated me to write this review. Baryon Mode is such a stupid and asspulled power that I can't even begin to describe the problem with it. Is it the fact that "fusion of chakra" has never been stated in 700 chapters and 700+ episodes of story and lore? Is it the fact that this technique existing invalidates much of the events in Naruto, namely when Naruto almost died by having Kurama extracted? is it the fact that now, with Kurama dead, they ignore this fact, and have Naruto remain alive? Is it the fact that LITERALLY the bare minimum of introduction of preparation to this ability would have made it make sense, such as early on in the story Naruto and Kurama discussing the "new risky technique " that they have found and have been perfecting? No, instead it is used as a cheap plot armor device, which ultimately results in an emotional bait over Kurama's death. Furthermore, Kurama's death scene is the most ridiculous thing I have read in my life. The dialogue is nonsensical and inorganic. The 700 chapters of Kurama's character development ignored, as well as his relationship with Naruto. Everything about it is horrible. Boruto as a battle shonen is, hence, severely flawed and I give it a 2/10.

Overall enjoyment: Reading the boruto manga is similar to eating a horrible cake with chocolate chips. It's horrible and insulting most of the time, but somehow someday there's a chapter that makes you feel good about it. However the horrible after taste of the cake ruins the experience. Having everything in consideration, I give it a 3/10.

Summary: Boruto has so far been a poor followup to Naruto. The art is low quality and inconsistent and the action lacks flow and power. The story is rushed and contradictory and seems to be forgoing everything good about Naruto in favor of elevating powerlevels even more.

Following up on a story that focused on the maturation of it's characters is always hard, especially when it's one as successful as Naruto. That said, so far Boruto seems to do virtually everything that others stories that tried doing this and failed have done in the past.

I'm gonna begin by talking about the art though, because that's something a lot of people have trouble with and isn't really related to the rest of my complaints. I don't actually have a problem with Kishimoto's decision to hand the reigns over to a new artist, in fact I kinda like it given that it both fits thematically with the work and it allows him to work on that new sci-fi thing he talked about in 2015. The problem is that I don't think the art is really good enough.

One of the big issues I think a lot of people have with Ikemoto's art is the characters. He uses much softer looking, more rounded lines which ends up giving all his characters a more feminine look. Now admittedly this was something that Kishimoto actually said he was bad at doing himself so it's possible that the girls suddenly looking like they're from a completely different manga was done on his instruction but in my eyes some of the design changes just go too far and overall don't look very good.

That problem is compounded by the halfhearted attempt to match the style of the original. The reason I say "halfhearted" is because sometimes Ikemoto just plain old doesn't try to draw the character the same way as normal. This is most noticable with Boruto, because sometimes his hair will suddenly get a lot shorter and curly just like the female characters, but frankly the art is just inconsistent all throughout. If Ikemoto was just going to do the manga in his own style then fine, I don't like it that much but I'll accept it, but just stick to one style! Honestly I find it rather shocking that someone who has been working on this series for over 15 years has seemingly regressed in his ability to match Kishimoto's style. If you read back through the series you can find some background characters that match the style of Boruto, but they still look closer to the original series than a lot of what we have now. Also, he seems to by trying to keep the original style more with the men while just doing his own thing almost all the time with the women, which just makes it even more jarring.

The final problem I have with the art is the action sequences. I mean, overall the art in the series is pretty mediocre but the action sequences are the worst. At around page 32 of chapter 3 (page number might change depending on how you read it) you can see a clear example. You see Lee's kid in a really awkward pose fighting a poorly shaded enemy. If you look at his hair and pose it seems like he's lunging forward and down. Only the lower half of his leg has any speed lines and they seem to be implying that his leg is going straight up. Also his foot is missing. In the next panel you see that he's completed a roundhouse kick that doesn't really match the direction his leg was coming from at all, the speedlines are still only on the lower half of his leg despite his whole leg moving (they also look really weird and I'm not sure what kind of motion they're meant to show), and he's jumped in the air for some reason despite not really having been in any position to do that. The biggest sin though is how the enemy is just flying away from him with NO indication that he actually kicked him. If you're going to have a fight that consists of a single hit, not actually showing that hit is just awful, especially considering how much Kishimoto used showing the moment of impact to great effect. There are plenty of other instances of awkward poses that don't have any impact and just plain old look weird, so I'm not gonna bother pointing them all out, but I would recommend checking out 5/12, just because Sakura's pose is so stupid it's honestly hilarious.

I do want to criticize one major problem with the fight sequences specifically though, and that's the speed lines. They're worthless, and this is weird because apparently one of Ikemoto's jobs was adding white to the speedlines, so how he managed to do that for over a decade without noticing how Kishimoto used them is a complete mystery to me. Kishimoto's speedlines were excellent. They gave a sense of power and speed to his action sequences, but more than that they tied the flow of the actions together. Just look back at Lee Vs. Garaa. You can see exactly where Lee has been in the trail he leaves behind. You can see how badly he's been hit by the intensity and length of them. That is completely lacking in Boruto, and I think Ikemoto's failure to use speedlines properly is one of the major contributors to this. He draws them far to short, makes awkward angles with perspective, and rarely seems to consider how the rest of the body is moving aside from whatever limb is the focus of the movement. Because of this, it often just looks like characters are teleporting around the battlefield trading awkward blows that do no damage. It just lacks any sense of continuity, power, or speed.

Now I'm not just here to bash Boruto so I want to point out something that I feel he's done fairly well with the art, and that's the shading. Naruto has always been a very well shaded series. Kishimoto eschewed overusing screentones and preferred to do the majority of his shading by hand, which is one of the things that gives Naruto it's distinctive, sometimes downright grimy look. Ikemoto has continued this, and while I do think it's not quite as good as it used to be it still looks good and is a refreshing departure from how much screentone you see in other manga.

Now that I've gotten the artwork out of the way, onto the story.

To begin with, I'm just not even gonna talk about the opening. Yes, it is the main character narrating over a suspenseful scene, only to tell you that the story starts a while back and you need to learn more to get up to this point and jumping back into the past to actually begin the story. There is just so much I could say about that that I'm not even gonna bother touching it. Who knows, maybe down the line we'll find out that Kodachi actually had some brilliant reason for doing that. Speaking of which, why on earth was he even picked for this? If I was picking a writer for the followup to one of the most popular manga since DBZ I wouldn't go with a guy who wrote part of the script for a few anime that honestly weren't that amazing. He's never even worked on a manga before for goodness sakes!

Anyways, the story has been super underwhelming so far. Despite being called "Next Generation" the enemies they fight start up exactly where Naruto left off. Yup that's right, it's taken less chapters than the number of YEARS Naruto was in print for fight scenes against overpowered, mysterious god enemies who control the power of the final boss of the series to start happening. And yes, that remains true even if you account for the fact that Boruto's chapters are twice as long as Naruto's.

Don't forget your jutsus though! Naturally, a generation of children who grew up in peacetime are able to use techniques their parents trained years for with no problems. No, having their techniques be slightly smaller than their parents doesn't make things better. Choji had to take drugs and almost kill himself to do partial expansion yet somehow his daughter can do it effortlessly while younger than him? One of the best parts of the original series was how it showed the characters growth. There were entire arcs dedicated to characters training to learn moves, which worked so well with the series themes of growth. In this though? Characters can learn techniques which took multiple arcs to learn in the length of a single chapter. This is incredibly infuriating because a major theme of this new series appears to be that the characters have to learn not to take shortcuts and learn techniques with their own power, but apparently Kodachi doesn't actually want to bother writing training arcs so he just gives characters powers after a few pages with some implied training.

I also want to point out that he chooses Konohamaru to introduce and recommend the shortcut to training in the first place, as well as him doing some of the miracle montage training. While not something that's necessarily wrong plotwise I just think it shows how deep some of the problems with the writing go when the character who represented the idea that "there are no shortcuts to hard work" is recommending a shortcut to hard work in the story and being used as one by the author.

The final complaint I have is sort of a followup to the previous issue. So far, a great many things that got their own, sometimes very long, arcs in the original series have been skimmed over in a couple of pages, I think mainly to speed up the appearance of super powered DBZ fight scenes against literal gods. I know I said I wasn't going to talk about this but seriously, the series is so impatient to show off that characters are gonna have super high powerlevels that it wastes the first pages to show you the MC fighting Notsuke over the rubble of Konoha. It's like the series is in a mad dash to quickly distance itself form everything good about the original in favor of raising the powerlevel even higher.

Just stop. The characters literally defeated god. Recently we've had successful series like Boku no Hero or Assasination Classroom that show that people still love stories about the process of learning instead of just wanting to see how OP the main character can get next. We even have One Punch Man which is purely devoted to making fun of outrageous powerlevel escalation. I know Naruto got full of overpowered nonsense toward the end but honestly that was the weakest part of the whole series for me. Boruto feels like a completely wasted chance to restart with what made the series so popular to being with.

Boruto manga is good tbh its just people hate it because naruto isnt the mc anymore and the anime is shounen and its dumb to call naruto a shounen show if he's 32 years old already tbh this manga is good the artstyle is improving and it has good plot twist that i didnt expect tbh

idk why people hate it because of the anime being slow and didnt know the manga exist? Also stop comparing naruto to boruto they have different story tho it has its own uniqueness and both are cool

10/10 better read this if your curious about what happen to boruto naruto and sasuke vs otsutsuki's that trying to destroy the shinobi world

ill start reviewing this starting to CH 54

CH 54 shows naruto is in Bad condition and they survive against MOMOSHIKI rampage thru boruto's body (borushiki)

Kawaki sacrifice himself usinh fire style and brun himself so momoshiki will suck it (Momoshiki needs kawaki a lot) (boruto wakes up and break to horn and stop the rampage but SASUKE is worried about NARUTO because of baryon mode

CH 55
_FEB 19_

Spoiler Free Review (up-to-date with manga chapter 35):

I refrained from writing a review on Boruto the manga because I was hopeful it would change directions. However it has only gotten worse.

To start off I understand that this is about the new generation. The problem though is that they do bring back a lot of old faces, but those old characters are written poorly and not true to themselves. Everything from motives, personality, even power scaling is entirely wrong about the old characters. Some characters from the original series that would rank high on tier lists are simply so weak in Boruto.


Then there are the new characters who are bland, and lack a unique personality. Boruto himself feels more like a character from some teenager's fanfic, than an actual character in the Naruto universe. He is literally given everything possible to be a strong ninja and like able character, but instead comes off as a total brat who doesn't seem eager to grow or change. The support cast is also very weak. The magic of the original Naruto series was that every character had a good backstory, this including Naruto's fellow main characters, the supporting cast, and a good portion of the antagonists.
In Boruto I can't find myself liking any of the characters new or old.

Without spoiling anything, I'll also say that recent chapters have really undermined Kishimoto's lore. Some of you might know what I mean by this. For those of you who don't basically I'll say it like this: Rather than new original storylines and characters and plotlines, old ones are taken and practically rewritten, almost as if to say "actually this is what happened"

I feel like that disrespects the back-stories, the lore, and the world that Kishimoto created

I'll end on this. When Bleach started it's "decline", I kept reading every weekly release to see how it ends and if it would at least end well.
I will not do the same for Boruto and will drop it.

If you don't mind history being rewritten Boruto might be for you, but for me, having grown up with Naruto since I was 11 years old, I feel the Boruto manga disrespects the original series and doesn't make an effort to make its own story unique.

Having been a huge fan of the Naruto series for more than 10 years, I've started reading the boruto manga thinking it would be as good as the Boruto Movie which had some great moments.
It initially started good and the arcs after the movie arc were alright only with a downside of the new manga drawings which are considerably worse than Kishimoto's on Naruto Manga and the characters generally look fat and some people like Sasuke look straight up ugly.
But that aside, as more time passed and new arcs and the big villain (ish) appeared, the plot went into the classic path of "Make the old characters useless to make the new ones shine" and Naruto and Sasuke, the god tier shinobi, just weren't what they were anymore and kept fighting like genins. STILL I still continued reading to see what will happen hoping things change for the better, but they did for the worse.

*kinda spoilery*
The last chapter as of today (chp55) straight up contradicts some of the very basic knowledges in the Naruto verse like the inevitable fact of Jinchurikis dying with Bijuus extracted from them and honestly I could not bear it anymore to see this sequel (now more like spinoff honestly) show is setting up its own rules that don't match with what the whole Naruto plot had been founded on.
With Naruto and Sasuke's strongest powers officially gone, it's only a matter of time till the plot kills em for some "character development" of Boruto and/or Kawaki and I rather not see them die trash tier deaths in a sequel show. Not to mention they weren't that strong even with those powers in the boruto plot so now they will just look like some miserable third-grade shinobi which is not honestly any better than death (might be even worse).
*end of semi spoilers*

SO that was the reason I have dropped the boruto manga after 55 chapters (which is approx. half of it apparently) and I really do not recommend this to the Naruto fans who actually care about the characters and the built up stories so far because this sequel has no fear of ignoring them whatsoever and sacrifice them whenever it sees fit. Trust me when I say Naruto chapter 700 is the true ending of the Naruto verse (with Naruto Gaiden + Boruto movie being some actually decent epilogues).

TLDR;
Boruto's approach to Naruto-verse is like the Disney Star Wars trilogy to the old ones and the SW lore. (you can search on youtube how Mark Hamil (aka Luke Skywalker) thinks about them lol)

For me the boruto manga tries to do something different. We know boruto will lose everything making it aloth more interesting. With the inclusion of kawaki in the recent chapters you get aloth of foreshadowing of the events that will come. Ikemoto's drawings get better every month and he really puts in his own style. He likes to draw big panels which leads to less text and plot. this wouldn't be a problem if the manga was weekly but that's the biggest problem. The manga is monthly making the wait extremely long and with only 40 pages a month and a cliff hanger almost every last page of every chapter makes it hard for people to keep reading without dropping it after a certain time.
If the manga goes weekly the sales would rise drastically and would probably get the popularity it deserves. But for now we will have to wait.

To put it simply the series is mediocre, the story mostly suffers from the fact that it is trying to rush into the tough shit way too fast. Boruto should be fighting his way to Chunin where he would maybe meet a Jounin and get his ass kicked, yet he is fighting gods, literally. It didn't even attempt to stay grounded, the very first arc was fighting people as strong as Kaguya. Then the author gives us the insane premonition that straight up tells us way too much about the upcoming story and warns us far too early that something absolutely massive is coming on the scale of the world shinobi war... all within 10 chapters. The story is a far cry from the original Naruto series.

The art is obvious, it is people's main complaint and I agree, the guy didn't even remotely maintain anyone besides Naruto's look. The women all look like straight up low-quality generic Shoujo manga side characters, I will never forget when I was reading the manga how I genuinely did not know who the women I was looking at were until they told me it was Hinata and Sakura, they look awful. I like some of his ideas on looks, I actually like Gaara's new getup and I think his son looks great, though the execution is often abysmal. It feels like the guy just picks up a fashion magazine and picks at random with no consideration of character, story, or development. The guy's art is horrible is really all I have to say about it, it is by far the worst part of the series, I could get past the mediocre story just in the hopes that it will get better but the art just makes it physically painful. Obligatory: What the fuck is with Sarada's outfit in the new chapter? Shit looks awful.

Characters however he does well with in my opinion which makes me suspicious that he wasn't the primary mind behind them. I like the idea of Sarada and Boruto both aspiring to the other's father's position. I think their teammate is appropriately interesting but nothing absolutely insane. Sasuke's new attitude is great but stay somewhat true to his original personality and character. There are many more characters as well that were well done, but I would be here all day if I discussed each one. He does these well and I find most of them interesting to an extent.

This manga is 4 years old by now, so this review is quite late but I decided to say how I feel about it.

Boruto is an underrated manga imo. I think that's how best I can describe it in one word. It's a lot better than the anime counterpart, and for sure a proper sequel to Naruto as opposed to the former. The reason I say it's underrated is, as you can see in MAL, it has a low 6.80 score and sales are relatively low, not to mention that many people hate the series. I understand that for the anime, but the manga is different. I don't necessarily blame the fans for the low popularity of the series though, as it erred in several apescts:

-The first one I want to talk about is the art, and it is that which I like the least in the manga. It is not similar to the art of Kishimoto at all and several characters are almost unrecognizeable, specially female characters. The art has gotten better as the series progressed but it's still a big drawback. Related to this problem is the fact that the artist, Mikio Ikemoto, works very slowly. As it was stated by the story writer (Ukyo Kodachi), the reason the manga is monthly as opposed to weekly is because of the slow work schedule of the illustrator.
-The fact the manga is monthly does not help the series as well. The pacing for the story is particularly slow at a certain point in the series, and the release schedule certainly makes the readers impatient. Another thing that didn't help it was the fact the first 11 or so chapters were a direct adaptation of the Boruto movie released in 2015. Many people dropped the series at this point, since by the time the manga moved on from the movie recap, almost a year had passed and the anime started airing at that point.
-The anime in particular was a bane to the manga and the series as a whole, as it is mostly filler. The producers should have waited until 2020 or 2021 to start adapting it but they decided to make as much profit as they could from the Naruto name and sort of "stained" franchise's name.

I know it feels like the series already has a lot of bad things to even be redeemable, as I wrote three paragraphs and haven't started praising it yet, but most of these things are very circumstantional. If Kishimoto and Shueisha had organized and prepared themselves a bit more I'm sure the series would be more popular. Of course the hardcore Naruto fans that hate Boruto simply for the fact that it exists don't help either. Anyway let's move into what actually makes the manga good and why I recommend it.

The Boruto manga, like I said, adapts the movie arc entirely. The reason they did this was because they made a major change at the end, as when Boruto defeats the villain, Momoshiki, he receives a special seal in the palm of his right hand that no one knows about. This seal is going to be major to the plot of the series. The writer does a really good job at capturing the attention of the readers and creating suspense and mystery, as we still don't know exactly what the seal is, but we have received plenty of hints and information. Enough for us to still be interested and not wanting to drop the story.Without getting into major spoilers, there is a group of characters called Kara and a boy named Kawaki that are going to be directly involved with this seal. Kawaki possesses the seal, just like Boruto, and they are trying to find out a way to get rid of it while also escaping from the Kara organization that is pursuing them to "obtain" the seal.

One of the things that I really like about the series is how much the writer does in so little time, as we have about 35 chapters of new content and it feels like the story has been going on for a long time. The characters, specially Boruto and Kawaki, but also Naruto and Sasuke for example, are very well developed, and it is very interesting to see them bond and relate with each other. I particularly like Kawaki a lot, as even though many people have been calling him a rip off of Sasuke, he does not seek revenge for how he was poorly treated during his childhood. He simply wants to get rid of the seal that plagues him and try to achieve peace. I really respect that.

The battles are very entertaining, well coreographed, and there is a great sense of danger in all of them. The recurring cliffhangers and plot twists at the end of every chapter are very welcome and I hope that the series develops into something even greater.

I do believe that, while Boruto (series) is making use of Naruto's(series) name, it would definitely be more popular and successfull was it not a sequel and instead an original story, as most of the haters/critics are fans of the original that can't get over the fact Naruto is not the MC anymore.

I heavily recommend Boruto, especially for the fans of Naruto that are looking for something similar. The series has a lot of potential and I hope that soon the general image of the community is not so negative towards it

I’ve been contemplating writing a review for the Boruto manga for a few days now. Simply because I feel discouraged that it won’t really have an effect on anyone - it seems like the majority of users on MAL are fine with judging the series based on the first 10 chapters - which was the movie recap. It totally isn’t. Imagine judging One Piece or Bleach purely on their first 10 chapters. Unfortunately the harsh scoring system won’t change anytime soon - So I hope it wouldn’t discourage new readers. If you’re interested please continue to read further and I hope I convince you to give Boruto a go.

I consider myself a Boruto fan - my review for the anime is first on MAL - I’m quite happy to see such a positive reaction to it.

There are several unfortunate things the Boruto manga has going for it - most of it is beyond its control. Yes it’s monthly. Yes it started with a recap of the movie. Yes the art in the beginning was awful - but above all of that - it’s the unfair comparison to Naruto.

This isn't another Naruto, fans should stop comparing. Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is a great, and, different spinoff. It’s simply an addition to the Naruto universe. If you’re one of those who don’t want to see Naruto’s story continue - especially with a new generation - it’s fine. Just don’t hate on it unnecessarily just to fit in. Boruto is meant to be different - but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s actually darn good once you move past the first 10 chapters - especially the last 8 have been absolute high quality.

In terms of storyline - once you get past the movie arc - It genuinely gets intense and fascinating to see each chapter unfold. This is the story of Boruto and his journey. It’s not like the typical journey we’ve seen in Naruto - simply because the series starts with Boruto having everything and knowing only of peace - but little by little - things will slip away from him - as shown in the future scene at the very beginning of chapter one. We’re already seeing hints being dropped as to why he’ll end up going rogue.

You have new and original concepts introduced to the Shinobi world, specifically, technology and new incredible abilities. The future of Boruto is bright. I can’t wait to see them explored. As a die hard Naruto fan, this takes me back to Naruto Part 1.

As for technology- It’s genius really. Just look at how much our world has changed in the last 10 years. I’m loving the idea of new concepts being added to the Naruto Universe - and they totally make sense. Please don’t judge it from the movie. It’s totally different and a breathe of fresh air. Keep an open mind.

One of the biggest drawbacks is what I call the “Umbrella” of Naruto and Sasuke - two historic characters who are on levels well and truly above everyone else. How can the series have any consequences if those two are around? Well, without revealing any spoilers, rest assured! I’ll address this in more depth in the “Character” section below.

Kodachi has added to the Naruto universe brilliantly. It doesn’t feel like a rehash but it feels new and exciting. Something I haven’t been able to say since the Pain arc. There’s so much going on. It’s incredible.

Now onto artwork - as stated above -Don’t expect a similar style of art to Kishimoto’s. It’s not meant to be that way. Ikemoto has improved greatly from the beginning of the series. It’s different but beautiful! I recommend you check out some of the latest cover pages.

It does start off iffy but major appreciation to Ikemoto for improving at a fast rate. Hopefully he can keep it up for the manga to become weekly.

Here we go - Characters - if you look on paper you’d think most of the new generation are carbon copies of the previous ones. a few are, a few aren’t. Main trio is a different case. Boruto is such a unique character to the usual Shounen protagonists - he doesn’t follow the usual ‘I’m gonna be the best at this!” mentality. He’s someone who starts off with everything. He has no troubles to begin with - aside from proving himself to his Dad - and don't let that fool you thinking he lacks resolve - he has that but yet to find it. All that will change in due time as indicated very early on the series. He’ll come to meet a crossroad: to either become a ninja hero like his father or a rogue hero like his idol Sasuke. The latter is more likely if the opening scene is something to go by. Isn't that intriguing though? Don't you, as a reader, want to know how it all ended up that way? It's truly breathtaking stuff.

The manga as a whole is the journey of how that will unfold and the implications it’ll have on the supporting cast and the Naruto Universe.

We also have Sarada - a female Uchiha aspiring to be Hokage - imagine that - an Uchiha Hokage. Incredible. She’s determined, skilled, and thoughtful.

Onto Mitsuki - the son of Orochimaru. Mitsuki is the definition of mysterious. We don’t quite know his intentions or motivations. The connection to his Father is also troubling. He’s also ridiculously powerful. Of course you then have the “supporting” main cast but I won’t get too much into them.

Remember these are kids of the greatest generation of Shinobi - Heroes of the 4th Ninja War. Of course they'd be powerful early on - It's pure genetics!

Remember earlier I wrote about the umbrella that is Naruto and Sasuke - well rest assured. We’ve already had new characters introduced who are scary powerful and with abilities we haven’t seen before. It’s clear that they upped the ante setting up more complex challenges for the main cast and the older generation. Without getting into any spoilers there’s a certain new dodgy characters that have their own plans - which makes things fascinating to read. Even their designs is amazing to behold. Fun fact, it is based on the Spanish Inquisition from the 15th century.

Kawaki. It seems rash to talk about someone who’s never appeared aside from one iconic scene at the very beginning- but that is also the reason why. His name is already synonymous worldwide just for that. So his character is intriguing. Who is he? Friend or foe? What happens that’ll lead to “that” scene? His design is so unorthodox even in the Naruto Universe. Props to Kishimoto, Kodachi, and Ikemoto for being even more original - Something that’s unbelievably difficult considering how the Universe has been on-going for 20 years. I can't wait to see more of him in the future.

With Boruto you have to look passed the surface and focus on the subliminal moments. As I said in both my review for the anime and manga.

In terms of enjoyment - I love Boruto and the community surrounding it online. I enjoy reading the manga on a monthly basis discussing theories and upcoming chapters. It is consistently great. Once you get around Chapter 15 and above It is a rollercoaster of a ride.

Overall, I stress patience. It needs time to create it’s own success - but it’s surely heading there. Great and rising sales in Japan are proof of that. I hope it can become weekly soon but I’m glad nonetheless that it exists. It had definitely added to the Naruto Universe - Kishimoto would be proud.

People hate Boruto due to anime adaptation. They don't read manga because of that. Now those who read manga drop it fast. They are writing review by reading only 10 chapters. They have to read to latest chapter and i don't know why but i think because people hate boruto it has become my favorite manga by defending boruto. . In first the art was bit off but its improving every chapter. when i saw review who gave low score i clicked on there and they read upto 10 or 20 chapters(there are exception too). I am glad to give it 10 by 10.

Naruto spoilers btw

A lot of people have very negative views on Boruto, this can be attributed to the Anime and its shaky start. Unlike the anime there is obviously little filler and begins later on, just before the chuunin exams. in that sense, imagine the first ~50 episodes of Boruto's anime almost fully filler, like the ending ~100 of Naruto. Characters like Denki, the rock dude, and many of the students haven't been introduced in the manga. this is of course, to let the manga progress but since the manga is monthly it is likely that the Boruto anime will be full with filler.

Hence, you should read the manga.

Story:
Borutos story is solid, however and has a lot of inspiration for Naruto, there is an organisation that wishes to acomplish a goal and is usually done by taking some people, in Naruto its the Akatsuki taking Jinchuriki and in Boruto its spoilers. The story has a main theme of modern vs tradition, tools vs technique.

- Small Spoiler section-
- Chuunin exams ending -
I don't think Boruto beating Momoshiki is a bad thing, people dont understand or ignore that Naruto gave basically all the rasengans chakra and Momoshiki just fought 5 Kages + Sasuke, him absorbing Chakra gives him more chakra to work with, it wouldn't cure exhaustion. I understand why naruto gave Boruto the rasengan is a bit weird but the main argument people use to dislike Boruto "He already beat a god" is giving a very out of context argument saying he is already god tier


Art;
The art is the worst part of boruto, its a bit bland and has no impact however it is consistent and there are no immediate problems from rushing the art, this, in my opinion doesnt take away from the series as a whole. Boruto isnt a story to be read for its art.

Characters:
There are very few new characters in the Manga, only consisting of Borutos squad, Kawaki and the Akatsuki equivalents of the series. Boruto heavily uses its adult cast from Naruto to carry the series, mainly Naruto and Sasuke , this is used as a slope to transition to the new cast as the old ones are (presumably) killed in the timeskip. Naruto and Sasuke are well established characters, Boruto is a lot more bearable but acts like your average shonen mc, I wont talk about Kashin but he is a decent characters, Borutos teammates are honestly cast aside in traditional naruto style pther then a few moments and the main villains, at least the ones established are good characters with varied motivations.

Enjoyment:
Its a fun read, you could do it all in one night if you tried, its only ~50 chapters as of now, i found it a lot more enjoyable than the anime (of which ive watched 50 episodes)

Overall:
Its good, if I somehow convinced you to read it, read it from the start, idk how far the anime is but i think Kawaki is yet to be introduced so there isnt much to read before you get to new chapters. a solid 8/10 id say a worthy sequel to Naruto.

This review may contain spoilers. I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't have high hopes for the manga impressing me. I heard a negative review of it and it was hard for me continue to watch Boruto past the pre-Momoshiki arc filler. The pacing of the story in the anime was slow, Boruto didn't have an established motivation for being a ninja, and there was a lot of focus on the tension in Boruto's relationship with his father and Hokage of the Leaf Village, Naruto Uzumaki. However, I've been having a pleasant experience with the manga. The art is great, the story surprises me with every new plot development, and I like the development in Boruto's character after the Momoshiki arc. He seems to take being a ninja seriously and tries to live up to the same ideals of being a ninja as his father while forging his own path. Boruto's generation doesn't really have as much of a focus in the manga as they do in the anime. But I'm not really bothered by that since (in my opinion) they don't really have the same charm as Naruto's generation. Some of them are copies of his generation in their personalities and techniques. If you're someone who dropped the anime but is curious about how the story proceeds during and after the Momoshiki arc, then I would give the manga a try.

Giving you all some context, I used to love Naruto back in the day, but after the time skip, every thing just fell apart, and I stopped watching. A show about ninja's shouldn't try to be DBZ, and a story about a ninja boys coming of age story should at least allow the plot to give the boy some breathing room to develop. Instead we got the clusterfuck that was shippuden.

Boruto, while not perfect, gives you a story similar to what Naruto used to be. You could argue that Boruto is whiny and insufferable, but his attitude makes sense given his age and upbringing, and he doesn't take long to mostly conquer his daddy issues, which could be taken as a good thing or a bad thing. I honestly like how he's more laid back and a bit smarter than Naruto was. On the other hand, I don't like how they lazily made his motivation "I want to be like Sasuke!". Still, if it gives him some good moments between Sarada who DOES want to become the Hokage, I can roll with it. I also don't like how his eyes have to be some new hybrid variant that's super relevent to the plot. Hinata's eye trick was simple, cool, and it even gave her cool bulging eye veins. Would that not have been enough for Boruto? Sure, his teammate Sarada also has an eye trick, but they could have maybe found a way to explore th differences between the sharingan and byakugan and maybe allowed the two to work together and get around each others weaknesses.

Most of the other characters are a problem, and until they develop enough I'm going to label them as forgettable ripoffs. The first main villian was absolutely terrible, and the story so far has mainly put the focus on Boruto and Sarada. Sarada is to Sakura what Boruto is to Naruto, and while she is kind of a ripoff, she lacks some of the negative qualities Sakura had, and right off the bat she actually gets opportunities to fight, not only that, she's actually good at it. Let's hope she doesn't get shoved to the side like Sakura was.

The story has it's ups and downs so far, and also has inconsistencies. For example, I'm not sure I follow Naruto's train of thought when he was scolding his kid so hard. When Naruto was a kid he had a super powerful demon fox sealed inside him that he could rely on when shit hit the fan. He comes off as a hypocrite. I'm also not a fan of how Boruto is given a marking similar to how Sasuke got one. But hidden within the worse parts are nice little gems that made Naruto good back in the day. Sasuke's "loser" quote is a good example of this. The story is nothing special, but it does have a bit of charm.

There are also little things I enjoy. Boruto can actually make a rasengan without relying on a clone to help him. Remember how it was hinted that Naruto was supposed to learn that, but they never let him have that? Boruto also seems less rely less on the clone technique than Naruto did. Let's hope he can learn a bunch of new techniques instead of using the same ones over and over again like his father did. I'm also hoping his eyes don't give him a "super powered evil side" like Naruto's fox abilities. I'm also hoping that Boruto will be given the opportunity to raise up in the ranks like his father was supposed to.

Now for the final part: Would I recommend it? If you enjoyed Naruto back in the day but hate what it became, you might find a bit of enjoyment in this...for now. This story could just as easily go south like the original did, especially the first battle in Boruto is a sign of what's to come. If you're not looking for that nostalgia factor the original series did however, I'd have to say no. There are much better shounen stories out there. Here's hoping that Boruto learns from some of the mistakes it's predecessor had.

Boruto is one of the most dissed franchise. Everyone has heard it, and thinks it is bad. But reading the manga put a whole new spin. I believe you should read the manga as it quite good, and contrasts Naruto quite a bit. Unlike the people who blindly hate on it, I think that it has great potential. The main problem is that everyone has watched the anime which has 5 episodes that are cannon, and all other 130 episodes are filler.

Story 8/10
Now the story is quite unique. Unlike Naruto, the story does not focus on Boruto becoming the Hokage, but starting as a flawed character and finding himself. The story has many mysteries that also drive the plot. It starts off with the movie arc but adds a twist, A mark appears, which is revealed as "karma." The story makes this a huge plot point and slowly unravels mysteries that make you on the edge of your seat. It also utilizes its shortness. Using these short arcs it builds a complex but understandable story for readers to read as well making the experience a short but good one. I won't delve into the story too much as the mysteries make it quite good, but I will say this. It is a master at its storytelling.

The other thing I will talk about is the worldbuilding which is some of the best I have seen. The author seems to realize this is Kishimoto's world and while he doesn't make major changes he certainly adds to it.

After the event of the 4th great shinobi war, the world is at peace. The nations are friends, and there are few enemies. With this, the demand for ninjas has dropped pretty low. There are very few missions to complete and there are very few threats that each village face. Ninja training is no longer mandatory and many people don't consider it a viable job.

There are these things called ninja tools that have also risen in the absence of war. There are now trains, TV's, electricity, and various weapons. People have lost interest in ninja, as people assume a more regular life. Boruto has many subtle pieces of world-building that beautifully mirror the old world of Naruto.

Art 7/10
Now art is a lot of people's problems with the show. The newer generation ninjas look like copies of the Konoha 13 when they were kids. The art also seems very amateurish, creating them with very round faces. They for the most part look VERY childish. Same with the Older characters. These characters seem to have rounder faces, different hair, and a lack of designs. The author seems not to use any shading either. The pages are quite white and that might be a turn-off. To be fair, I disliked the art in the first 4 volumes as the fights also seemed to be quite bland, but none of this was bad enough for me to stop reading.

However hitting the fifth book things start to reel you in, and that also when the plot gets good. The author creates a new group of villains with interesting powers, and unique designs, and while it was too late to change the designs of the previous characters they are fixed in subtle ways to make them more adult-ish. The fights also improve and go to a 9/10. Now, most naruto fights consisted of people lobbing jutsus in the manga. While taijutsu existed, it was rarely utilized. What the anime did however was using this taijutsu in between these moves, creating these cool-looking fights. Kishimoto must have realized that it would take forever to draw taijutsu so he gave up on drawing it. Not in Boruto however.

The author seems to create these amazing taijutsu scenes that feel like they are speedy and the hits have weight. You feel them move and it is pretty cool. Now because of this, the author has to sacrifice some things. He is not a master artist, nowhere on the level as Murata(one Punch man artist) so it takes a while for him to create these fights. This also means that he has to sacrifice the backgrounds. While in some manga you can find stories in the backgrounds, they tend to be quite bland, as the author doesn't have enough time.

Characters 8/10
Now, this is controversial so sit down. I like the characters better than the ones in naruto. Now I have seen naruto and I quite like it but there is a difference between the two. Naruto seemed to give most of its characters these short mini-arcs, which were amazing, but then throw them off and forget about their character arc completely. But in this review, I will be talking about Boruto.

Now Boruto's character could never work without naruto. If you remember, naruto was always striving to be the best and be the Hokage. Naruto was his whole struggle to be there and to be acknowledged. He was hated by his whole village, and he wanted to prove them wrong, becoming the hokage to be accepted. This was the main premise of the story, and was for hundreds of chapters.

Now going into Boruto you might expect the same thing and maybe a generic reason, but you are wrong. Boruto hates his father, a trait that no one likes. Everyone expects him to like him because we saw his story from where he was to the Hokage. However Boruto doesn't know this at the beginning, and just see's a horrible father. Because of this he rebels and uses these ninja tools. His father outs him and he is humiliated by his father in front of half the village. This makes him hate him even more, but as he tries to justify this his father is taken away right in front of him.

It is then when he saves him he learns about his father. He realizes how wrong he was, and knows he likes his dad. And he blames himself, but most importantly the ninja tools. But In the next arc, our and his view of these tools change. He realizes that these tools are not just bad. As he goes to guard the katasuke, the one who made him use the tools, he sees the other side. A dog who was saved by this, tools that saved a ninja's life, and even tools that are good. A quote I like comes from Ao, who says "This tool isn't inherently good or evil, It all depends on how you use it, no matter what." As he starts to see the good side of these tools, his views are again shifted.

He sees Ao turn evil, and use these tools in ways that hurt people. This arc shows him the good and the bad, and makes him decide for himself, are they good. Not only that but he has a fascinating motivation, and doesn't want to be the best. After seeing how Naruto is he ideologies Sasuke aims to be the supporting shadow. He doesn't want to be the Hokage, he wants Sadara too, and be the supporting shadow. The character development is fit in with the arc usually, maturing the three main characters, Boruto, Sadara, and mitsuki. And while there aren’t as many people who develop, the show takes time to develop the right people. Boruto’s character further develops, but the rest of his development his HUGE spoilers. I think that he is an amazing protagonist and has some amazing character development.

I also love what they did with Naruto and Sasuke. I see so many people saying how weak they got and they hate what they did with him, but it really makes sense. They have not seen war in 16 years, and if you go 16 years without any combat, your powers are sure to weaken(even if you have broken eyeballs and a giant demon fox inside of you). They act as both the mentors and the main characters. Despite being the protagonist, Boruto rarely fights the main villian, Naruto and Sasuke doing that. They get a simular amount of screentime as Boruto and defeat more enemies, showing that being the protagonist doesn’t mean you get all the fights. They are both the mentors and something for Boruto to strive for, and I like how even though Boruto is the main character they get more fights then he does.

The cast overall is pretty decent in a 40 chapter manga with heavy focus on the main 3. While it seeks to only develop 2-5 characters, if you focus on the plot and other aspects you are sure to get over the rather weak supporting cast. (And also while the anime does take time to do it, many of those Ideas have been retconned in the manga, leaving you not to trust the anime with anything, especially the whole Karma mark, which can’t sense chakra and was not there all along)

Enjoyment 8/10
I have quite enjoyed this manga and the twist and turns it brings. It is unique and different from the OG naruto and has some amazing mysteries that build upon themselves. With the Mystery of the karma mark, Kara, and Jigen It fully grasps your attention. There are two downfalls, however. First is that the beginning is quite slow, and only builds things up. These arcs are important, and there are some slow parts too. The other one is that it is a monthly manga, meaning only 12 SHORT chapters come out in a year. At this point, I can foresee the manga finishing in the next 20 chapters quite short compared to naruto. And that shortness works in its favor.

Overall 8/10
Overall I would rate this above average. And recommend you READ this. Unlike the anime, it is quite good.

Where i begin? this sequel that follows the enormously popular shonen Naruto, its to be honest mediocre at best, the mangaka doesnt know how properly distribute the panels in one page, and that kills the momentum almost in every sfight oriented chapter. It is sad for grand part of us that grow fond of naruto in our youths, and that we follow this manga for the sake of loyalty.

Art 3/10: The fashion and round face desing that Ikemoto tries to put simply does not fit well, the design of the manga and anime characters are very different.

Character 4/10: I am being generous with this one, the new cast is plain af, and are a copy paste of their parents, excepet the ambition of boruto and sarada that are inverted (Boruto shares sasukes way of life and sarada naruto way of life) The only great character in this shonen and i are perplexed that im writing this is sasuke, sasuke is the only one that genuily learns for his past mistakes and tries to be a better person, and his dialogues and actions are fine, in counter part naruto is completely wasted and a shell of himself, he just do paperwork, doesnt share time with his family and is nerfed horribly, sakura has some prominence with his labor as a medic but tbh every woman of the old cast it just a housewives, the worst being hinata (the last one a completely wasted character) .

Story 3/10: Anything that includes the otsutsuki clan is nonsensical, and brakes all of the meaning of the series being a clash between ninjas. The power levels are random af, the new cast is practically on pace with the old ones, i mean seriously?

Overall i will put it a 5/10 because it is a manga that its airing and can correct his course or at least be less lackluster, it its truly a shame that naruto got a sequel that never meant to be.

Okay, I will update this when the story gets into NEW content, whenever that will be. For now, however, I will simply give it a 5/6, because it's nothing but a recap of Boruto: Naruto the Movie, currently.


NEW REVIEW DETAILS BELOW (SPOILERS FOR AFTER THE CHUNIN EXAMS):
So, the series has come a long way since the start. The art is better, the story is great, and fans wait each month for it.

THE STORY:
The story now focuses on Ninja Tech, with the villains utilizing it in various ways. While this may sound blasphemous to the original Naruto, that is the point. It has basically become Past VS Future, with the shinobi of "old" stuck in their ways of ninjutsu, and the Akatsuki of the story, "Kara," using the tech which has been fused into their bodies. Many old characters return, some in good ways, and others in ways you would not imagine. The story is somewhat predictable, but also has an element of surprise that will keep you hanging on for another month, waiting to see what happens next. It is like that of social media. You don't want to miss anything, so you keep coming back for more, and more, and more, resulting in you being invested in it without noticing.

THE ART:
Mikio Ikemoto received backlash for his art at the beginning of the serialization, ranging from Sarada's... Uh... Sarada's outfit, to Snapesuke, to characters just looking as if they had been stung by bees before the manga began. Over the past few years, however, the manga has had a gradual shift in style, slowly coming to resemble Kishimoto's own artwork. It is easier on the eyes, and after a while, you won't even seem to notice it.

THE CHARACTERS:
The characters have undergone growth since the Chunin Exams at the start, some in noticeable ways. Take Boruto, the titular character himself. He has come to understand his father, and now trains with him from time-to-time. He has matured slightly, stopping to think things through, before doing something rash. Sasuke has also grown closer to Sarada, and the two occasionally train and have dinner with Sakura, whenever he is home. Seeing the old generation mature, and grow alongside the newer generation is heartwarming, especially to old fans of Naruto.

ENJOYMENT:
As stated before, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has come a long way since the start, with each chapter released feeling like that of an appetizer, the time-skip being the main course. You keep devouring chapter after chapter, with each plate only making you more and more hungry as time goes on. Kodachi/Kishimoto continue to drop small hints, and teases, relating to things in the future, though not outright saying so (like the multiple instances where you think Boruto will lose his eye, only for something to intervene). I think the series will continue to grow even better, especially with the release of Ch. 35.


OVERALL:
B:NNG is a great continuation of the original series, despite the nostalgia-drowned comments from toxic OG Naruto fans, stating otherwise. If you enjoyed Naruto, and don't want the universe's story to end, check it out. You will not be disappointed.