Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
I want to preface this by saying that I really tried to give Boruto so many chances and am still reading the series, but reading the most recent chapters made me so annoyed that I am now writing this review.
When I read the first like 5 pages of chapter 1 of Boruto, I was immediately expecting a dumpster fire. At the end of Boruto's Dad's story, Naruto fulfilled his dreams, became Ninja Jesus, Sasuke became Ninja Batman, and Naruto had an annoying son to remind him of what he used to be. It wasn't a perfect ending, but I still remember feeling happy and emotional because I grew up with Naruto and felt like he worked hard to get his happy ending.
And then BAM, they're flipping dead in the opening scene of Bort and we are subjected to a slog of meeting the titular protagonist who has all of Naruto's annoying aspects without any of the sad back story or redeeming aspects, and I think that really summarizes the weaknesses and failings of this series in a nutshell. For as much as people love hype fights and powerful characters in anime, the greatest strength of the original Naruto series in my opinion was its empathy and ability to get people emotionally invested in incredibly limited exposure to its world and characters. Many other people have written that we shouldn't judge this series on its early chapters since it was essentially just movie recap, and although I'm not focusing on these parts, I think it still exemplifies the fundamental lack of understanding of what made Naruto great in the first place. It just feels like the author only watched the Ninja War arc and took the worst parts of the series to write this one.
I actually think the dynamic of having Boruto develop an inferiority complex over being Naruto's son and having Naruto have zero idea on how to interact with his family is great, but the execution is not there. Boruto isn't as terrible of a protagonist as everyone makes him out to be, but that doesn't make him a good character, and he's certainly not a deep enough character to carry the story by himself, which is why most everyone seems more excited to see other characters. That being said, there are some interesting additions to the cast like Mitsuki and Sarada (who I still would have preferred as a main character over Boruto), but unfortunately in the manga it feels like they rarely get any chances to shine and are instead overshadowed by Kawaki and Boruto who are just kind of bland characters.
Boruto as a series also inherently suffers from the terrible power scaling at the end of Naruto, and has to somehow genjutsu not only the readers but also the author into believing that any of this makes the slightest bit of sense. Naruto and Sasuke especially get the short end of the stick after arguably being among the strongest individuals ever in the history of their world, but get nerfed to the point where Sasuke runs out of chakra by going for a walk, and a random drunkard on the street says they are part of the Otsutsuki clan and beats up Naruto so Boruto can remain relevant and also somehow defeat a god on day 1. Between the Space Ninja and the robo-ninja of the Otsutsuki clan, Naruto and Sasuke rarely seem to win any fights, especially in the most recent chapters, which feels like a massive betrayal to the powers they obtained in the original series (whether they were earned or not *cough* Six Paths BS). The real issue comes down to the villains, AKA the Otsutsuki clan which I still think was the weakest part of Naruto. The villains have no real personality, very little build up, are strong because the author said so, and also just keep popping up with BS technology and techniques that feel out of place in the series, and I am not a fan of the very paper-thin reason that Boruto and Kawaki have relationships with the Otsutsuki clan in the first place.
But now, let's get to the real reason I wrote this review: the arc with Isshiki. Without spoiling anything, this arc was really the boiling point for how much BS I was willing to tolerate, and it felt completely disrespectful to characters and story that came before it. One of the recurring themes in Naruto, is that the new generation will always surpass the previous one, and I still think that is a good message and was one of the few reasons that I was still holding out on this series was for Boruto's potential character growth to impress me. But it's clear that the author doesn't care in the slightest about the previous generation. It's one thing for Naruto and Sasuke to be defeated, but they get defeated by basically every new enemy and after a major character died in the most recent arc, Naruto barely says anything of value despite their long history together and the character's passing is capped off by Kawaki pretty much saying "Who cares, can we go home now". It's just awful.
In summary, Boruto as a series could have had some potential, but for some reason willingly chose to dive headfirst into all the worst pitfalls of the original series and disrespects both its characters as well as the readers who fell in love with the original series. It's no wonder Boruto has an inferiority complex with a sequel series like this.