BORUTO-ボルト- -NARUTO NEXT GENERATIONS-

BORUTO: NARUTO NEXT GENERATIONS

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
20
RELEASE
April 21, 2023
CHAPTERS
81

DESCRIPTION

The ninja adventures continue with Naruto’s son, Boruto!

Naruto was a young shinobi with an incorrigible knack for mischief. He achieved his dream to become the greatest ninja in his village, and now his face sits atop the Hokage monument. But this is not his story... A new generation of ninja are ready to take the stage, led by Naruto's own son, Boruto!

Years have passed since Naruto and Sasuke teamed up to defeat Kaguya, the progenitor of chakra and the greatest threat the ninja world has ever faced. Times are now peaceful and the new generation of shinobi has not experienced the same hardships as its parents. Perhaps that is why Boruto would rather play video games than train. However, one passion does burn deep in this ninja boy’s heart, and that is the desire to defeat his father!

(Source: Viz Media)

Note: Includes the one-shot "Naruto: The Path Lit by the Full Moon".

CAST

Boruto Uzumaki
Mitsuki
Sarada Uchiha
Kawaki
Naruto Uzumaki
Sasuke Uchiha
Shikamaru Nara
Hinata Hyuuga
Sakura Haruno
Ino Yamanaka
Himawari Uzumaki
Konohamaru Sarutobi
Shikadai Nara
Inojin Yamanaka
Sumire Kakei
Momoshiki Ootsutsuki
Eida
Koji Kashin
Chouchou Akimichi
Shinki
Code
Jigen
Amado
Delta
Isshiki Ootsutsuki

CHAPTERS

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REVIEWS

GhostSSS
89/100
Better than the anime
The Boruto manga is an enjoyable read from start to finish. Instead of starting the manga when Boruto achieved the Genin rank, they decided to start at the Chunin exams. This is one thousand time better than starting at the academy. This allows the reader to get instantly hooked. The first ark of the manga features amazing battles with a neat story. The manga always feels like its going somewhere when the anime is doing 100 episodes of anime canon stuff. There is only one arc that I don't like that much, that being the second arc of the manga. It feels pointless to me. After that, the manga really starts to become my favorite. The Ao arc was great. It reintroduced a character from the Naruto manga everyone had forgotten about. This arc had amazing fights with improving are knowledge on how far the ninja world has come in terms of technology. The Kawaki arc is still ongoing at this time, but it's amazing. Kawaki has become my favorite character. The introduction of karma has been a fun one. The design of karma, especially Kawaki's, is one of my favorites the series. It just looks so dang good. The recent twists and turns have kept me on the edge of my seat. With a time skip coming soon, there is no reason not to read this manga. However, there is still two things keeping the manga from a perfect 100. This manga has the same problem as Naruto. That problem is that it doesn't flesh out its side characters. Some of the main characters also don't have enough time to shine. Sarada and Mitsuki are severely under utilized. We don't see them enough to know there full personality. The side character have the same story, but worse. Shikadai, Inojin, and Chocho are barely seen in the manga. They never do anything. The only time they shine is in the Chunin exams, THE FIRST ARC OF THE MANGA! There is also another problem, and that is the time between chapters. One chapter a month is not good for the story. This might be what is making there be no development for the characters. We have received 58 chapters since May 9 2016. Assuming that Boruto will go on for 15 more volumes, we will end up with only 120 chapters in total. This is why there is no character development. Because there is not enough chapters, there is not enough time to flesh out the characters. Characters like Konohamaru have been left out of all chapters since like chapter 30, and only recently appeared in chapter 58. The Ao arc was the last time we saw Konohamaru. We have no idea about how he fights, we have no idea about his character as an adult. Overall, the manga is a great successor to the legendary Naruto manga with a few flaws that hold it back from being a 100/100
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Greyrato
65/100
It's better than the anime ig
__Mild Spoilers till Chapter 67__
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is a sequel series that takes place years after Naruto Shippuden ends. Lot of people, including myself did not like the anime at all due to the abundance of bad filler episodes. I dropped the anime and gave the manga a try, because 80% of the anime is filler, the first manga canon arc doesn't start until 40-50 episodes into the anime. Boruto does have a pretty nice concept to it – whether the Shinobi would become outdated due to peace and advancements in technology.

The first arc in the Boruto series is the Momoshiki arc which is only 10 chapters long while in the anime it’s 16 episodes, the mangaka quickly rushes the entire arc probably because there already has been a Boruto movie and since chapters are released monthly they didn’t want to drag it on for too long. Although the Momoshiki arc in the manga is a lot different from the movie with extra scenes. The arc itself isn’t executed very well, while it starts off decent, the ending of the arc is really cheesy, there's some cameos, stuff happens and everything is resolved in the end because Boruto beats the big bad alien and everyone buys into that so he doesn't have to pay any consequences for his actions. It merely manages to set-up future arcs.

After that 2 arcs just breeze by with the introduction of this new Organization, Kara. Boruto is really fast paced and doesn't develop much outside of it's protagonist for the first 20 or so chapters. The only promising thing that happens is when this guy named Kawaki is introduced and we learn about this thing called the 'Karma' and how Kara wants to exploit it. Kawaki is probably the best thing that happens in this series, I really like the dynamic he has with Naruto and Boruto. A really good father-sons relationship where the characters adjust and grow closer to each other similar to a family. Kawaki is pretty likable and compassionate as a person while retaining the Sasuke-ish edge factor.

But that's where the good qualities end, one of the problems with Boruto manga is that it's a little too rushed. It doesn't give enough screentime to characters other than Boruto, Kawaki, Naruto and Sasuke. Members of Team 7 - Konohamaru, Sarada, Mitsuki are just there for the fight scenes. The new generation ninja are barely present and several of the Naruto characters don't even seem to exist in this universe, it's literally just Naruto and Sasuke solving all problems with Shikamaru and Ino helping from time-to-time. Although I still prefer this over over the anime which has it's own filler arcs for filler characters with some cameos.

And another thing is how forcefully the plot moves forward at times. Every 3-5 chapters the author introduces a new element out of nowhere, random power-ups and asspulls, new pieces of info or abilities whenever the author seems to be stuck. This also leads to power escalation problems which fucked Naruto during the war arc, Boruto and Kawaki are waay too powerful for Genin.

Aside from these nitpicks it does have some good moments here and there, the strategic fights is another positive about the manga. Boruto-shiki is a cool villain and Code does look promising, the characters do need a little bit fleshing out. Hopefully Boruto Shippuden is able to improve things and perhaps even surpass it's predecessor someday.
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Renamamiya29
30/100
This review will contain spoilers all the way up to the most recent manga chapter!
Boruto is the continuation of Naruto or more so rather important to say it's a sequel to the ending of the series. When i read the first few pages of chapter 1 i was excited for the series but sadly that excitement would be short lived.

The series starts off after giving us a few "teaser" pages( that's never addressed again) and then months of recapping the Boruto Movie. For being a monthly manga (instead of the regular weekly format that Naruto is known for) this was a very bad move, it did nothing but leave months and months of recapping a most recent movie for the franchise. Considering how "new" the Boruto movie was it was very easily to skip these chapters. If the recapping of the movie was needed that badly i really do wish they would've just allowed the anime to recap it instead of wasting months on content people knew about( i didn't give DBS a pass for doing it nor will i give Boruto a pass). If you were an already established fan of the franchise then waiting months for new content was frustrating, not to mention the art at the beginning was very Mediocre at best.

And speaking of the art compared to Naruto the art work at the beginning was very lackluster. I believe this is probably due to it being drawn by Mikio Ikemoto(a different artist that wasn't Kishimoto) but while Ikemoto's art style did improve in later chapters, the beginning was very rough especially when taking into consideration that this is a sequel series.

When Boruto finally gets to it's first new arc i didn't really find myself enjoying it. The Mujina Bandits arc for me was un-memorable and lackluster. But it's really the second arc where the series started going south for me. First off, i wasn't a fan of how they brought him back when he should've died in the 4th great Ninja War, to me that just felt like them repeating the whole "not really dead" concept again and while the lead up was to the Kara members, i really wish they wouldn't have done that because it felt like a cheap way to bring back an old character. In fact, they end up doing it again with another but beloved character and for me i didn't like that because it felt like something you would expect Dragon Ball to do.

The main antagonist who compared to the Akatsuki for me was a complete let down. The series hasn't reached it's time-skip yet and these so called "threats" have been let's say on a story impact kinda lackluster, the Akatsuki at least lasted until the end of Naruto, do Kara have cool designs and powers? yes but for story impact i felt let down. Code is probably the only antagonist i actually can say i like in this series. I did find myself liking Eida, but this recent chapter ruined that for me because it felt like they were just taking advantage of it being the 69th chapter on 04/20 for a silly meme.

And speaking of characters being a let down to me, i will be honest the main cast hasn't been interesting to me at all. At least in Naruto the side characters and main characters got some development in the manga, but here they might as well be non-existent. I know i keep comparing it to Naruto, but it feels like Kishimoto's writing has been off with this series.

Overall the series just lacks a lot, and it's not even due to Nostalgia but more so with it's rough start and treatment of characters from both the old generation and new generation.
The story as a whole does have a lot potential, but with the pacing of most recent chapters being kinda slow for a monthly manga (in fact they have had the same pacing as the anime) has made it very hard to enjoy the series.

I personally give Boruto a 30/100 it may seem harsh but i do hope the series can improve and get better, but if i'm only looking forward to a time-skip compared to Naruto that enjoyed from start to finish is telling.
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