the sequel that shouldn't be

Ignatius Bagus.

⭐ 2.25

[ MyAnimeList ]

flashback inception

boruto opens with a dramatic scene of destruction — the village in ruins after an apparent major battle. great hook, but then it jumps backwards years into the past and forgets it even teased us with something exciting. every episode after feels like a stalled prequel, with little to no plot momentum. even if they do eventually deliver on that opening scene, can they really tie it back well after hundreds of episodes of fluff?

the anime is being written alongside the manga, which means no solid foundation and zero confidence in long-term storytelling. flashbacks within flashbacks become the norm, and “plot” is more like improv.

filler hell

i can’t even count how many filler episodes there are anymore, but i’m pretty sure it’s at least over 60% by now. episode 156 was the final straw for me — “i can’t stay in my slim form”. a chocho filler. out of all the characters. after a two-month hiatus. i mean, sure, they might’ve already finished that episode before the break, but it still feels like a slap in the face nonetheless.

i read somewhere, someone said “i’m fine with character-x filler, or perhaps character-y filler, anything else, anything but chocho fillers”, and i couldn’t agree more.

visual degradation

the animation quality feels consistent… consistently degrading. most of the episodes looked like a rushed school project. don’t let the official artwork fool you — the actual visuals feel like 360p gameplay with every setting turned off. again, this is one of the reasons why i don’t like weekly anime. the production team is stretched too thin, the art style is barely passable, and the action scenes lack the fluidity and impact that a seasonal anime would’ve had the time to polish.

characters with no pull

some stories are carried by the animation, some by the plot, and some by the characters. boruto has none of those. the main cast is a bunch of bland archetypes with no real depth or development. boruto himself is insufferable (early on). his entire arc revolves around daddy issues: naruto doesn’t spend time with the family because he’s running the village, and somehow that’s a problem? there’s no meaningful internal conflict.

let’s not even get started how off the power balance is. how much they nerfed the original cast. i can’t…

afterthoughts

i know this review is harsh, but i really wanted to like boruto. okay, to be fair, maybe i was also a spoiled brat like boruto coz i watched naruto kai instead — the naruto fan project that removes all the filler and nonsense that dragged the original series down.

even so, exactly because i liked naruto and wanted to “successor” of it to succeed. why or how could they not learn from the mistakes and not repeat them? i wanted it to be a worthy successor, but it just doesn’t deliver (yet).

only time can tell, but i’m not holding my breath.