Bail o' Lies

Combined with the fact that he was originally gonna have Gohan take over Goku's place and let Goku stay dead, but editors and "popularity" caused him to change it. 

Now Gohan does nothing, but be a father. The new movie seems to show him being better, but these characters just get stronger for no reason now.

Originally, with the Cell arc from what I understand. He wanted it to end with Goku's death, and Gohan taking his place as Protector of Earth. When he was convinced to continued with the Buu arc, Gohan was the main character at the start, but actually focusing on Gohan as a character he realized that, Gohan is a scholar not a warrior. He played with Gohan alone for a very short time before bringing Goku back, but didn't put Goku back as the protagonist till around the fight with Super Buu.

So, it wasn't that he was forced to change back to Goku while not allowed to explore Gohan. Its that he tried Gohan as the hero didn't think it worked and eventually went back to Goku...with likely some suggestion from his editors.

I'm positive of one thing... Boruto's biggest flaw isn't actually the pairings, though excuse me when I say I do think they suck. Nah, it's the fact it's trying to, more or less, tell the same tired story Naruto went through while discarding all the characters we grew to like on Naruto's journey. Boruto and company, just by existing, are exponentially more powerful than Naruto, Sasuke, etc. all because, well, they're the "NEW" generation.

 

I'd like to compare it to the far more successful for the time but now seen as a meh series due to the series now having a "true" successor, Dragon Ball GT. At least with GT, when it decided to continue the Dragon Ball storyline, it knew exactly who everyone was rooting for and focused on. Goku, while definitely portrayed as a completely different character and also plot devised into de-aging and maybe given way too much focus, was still the main character. Compare that to how the story treats the title character of it's predecessor, Naruto. Dude literally takes all the L's imaginable despite being god of the ninjaverse. Oh and Kaguya, who was already a plot device used to defeat Madara, she was the weakest, uhh Ōtsutsuki?

 

Seriously, we went from ninja's with the ability to basically do magic... to kittening aliens. And the sales are going down? Who'd a thunk it lol

The thing is they had a solution to this in the story that if they had focused on Boruto may have actually been successful. Focus on Sarada's journey to become Hokage. Naruto's journey was pretty much abandoned and replace for the chase after Sasuke, and then killed by the last. So, this is a story that the audience didn't really see but they know there is interest in. Instead a repeat of the SNS conflict with a bit more build up, but is so blatant that no one cares about it.

I generally dislike comparisons to Dragon Ball because its status allows it to get away with things that other series can't. I haven't read Borotu in sometime, but the parts I did convinced me of the same things. That it was just Naruto's journey rehashed with new characters (and the old ones hanging around).

 

The GT team likely knew that from the experience Toriyama had in Z. Toriyama initially tried to end it with Frieza, tried to tank it with an out of nowhere pairing in the Cell sage, tried to kill off Goku permanently to pass the torch, tried writing an arc initially centered around Gohan, and still brought Goku back. My understanding is that fan backlash was so bad that they felt compelled to bring Goku back in the Buu Saga. So, by GT they knew it was Goku or bust. 

 

That said, I agree generally. People can and have done successful next gen stuff, but its both hurt and helped by its predecessor. Yeah, you have a built in audience, but that audience is attached to the previous characters. That attachment hangs over your attempts to create new characters. Avatar was very much like that for me. I liked Aang and Co and since they weren't going to be in Korra very much my interest was already low (some unholy fights in the fandom I saw killed off even that mild interest). For me, I'd be watch muching the same show without the characters I liked. 

 

For Naruto it was the same bit with less likeable characters and worse writing, so I stopped. 

 

As for the powers: yeah, that problem lies at the heart of the Shounen story structure and Hero's Journey form it uses. Dragon Ball wisely abandoned any concept of objective power level by the time it got to Cell because it couldn't be done without being ridiculous. For the most part, power is now relative between characters. But shounen uses has the arc of hero getting ass kicked, getting powered up, and defeating villain. Do that enough times and it's hard not to lose control of ever increasing power levels. Kishimoto's early attempt to focus on strategy and tactics was a good idea that I like, but was abandoned (especially in Part 2) and he lost control of their powers. It a shame because the initial fights were interesting because those kinds of ideas just got lip service it started to move toward who could fire off the biggest jutsu. 

 

EDIT: I'm not sure it about them being the new generation per se. If Boruto was facings the same level off stuff 12 year Naruto did, you always have Naruto and Sasuke able to swoop in an take care of it by farting in the enemies general direction. Those two ended stupidly powerful by the end, which meant you needed threats and circumstances sufficient that they couldn't just waltz in and fix everything (or at least leaving the audience wondering why they aren't doing that).

People have a misunderstanding of Toriyama and Dragonball.

Toriyama wanted to end Dragonball at the first arc but was convinced by his editor to continue. He wanted to end it after the Red Ribbon arc, but was convinced by his editor to continue. He wanted to end it with KIng Piccolo, but was convinced to continue by his editor. He wanted to end it once Goku defeated Piccolo Junior, but was convinced to continue. He wanted to end it with the fight with Vegeta, but was convinced to continue. He wanted to end it after Freeza, but was convinced to continue. He wanted to end it after Cell, but was convinced to continue. He wanted to end it after Buu, he did, finally, but the anime staff wanted to continue with GT which he allowed. Then years later, he got embarrassed by the Live movie adaptation of Dragonball to the point he revitalized Dragonball and made Dragonball Super, which he then passed onto a successor.

Toriyama always wanted and planned to end Dragonball on the arc he was on but was convinced by his editors to continue the manga. So, nothing outside the first arc was planned from the start. However, the foundations of the story built by previous arcs worked enough to build the manga we know as Dragonball. Also, his constantly planned ending the just become concluding the arc got him very used to resolving the story. So, when it finally ended most people where fine with it, but also allowed for the story to continue.

Naruto's story was abandoned at the last minute for Hinata so her son could be the true main character of the franchise. No satisfactory conclusion to be built off of.

Oh the power scale in Boruto has been broken from the start. Generic no name villains are S-Rank missing ninja. He is often fighting Kage level threat on his own or with his team tagging along.

On another news, latest Boruto volume sold only 67k for first week (7 full days).

That's about ~6% of what typical Naruto volume sales in the same time span (1st week, full 7 days) prior to vol. 64.

A good proxy to indicate 90% - 95% fans have done mass exodus, moving out of the franchise.

The last two volumes of Boruto sold less than 100k before it's thrown out of the top 50 list. The best part? Kishimoto's name was officially on it, replacing the previous editor. lol. As if slapping Kishimoto's name would solve the declining sales issue. It actually accelerates it.

Hinata and NH have practically killed the series. It's clear that Boruto is as good as dead the moment they moved it to VJUMP. It's basically KTLO (keeping the lights on) from that point onwards.
 
We're probably going to see sub 20k sales in first week within 3-5 years if this trend continues. It won't get cancelled. It'll just continue to be the sunken cost for the producer.

By being on that offshoot magazine they lost the ability to attract a new young audience besides the anime being on Sunday. But has anyone seen its competition on that day recently. Which means those declining numbers are the diehards. The "not continuing the contract of Kodaichi," really firing him was a clear sign that this manga was a failure to anyone who realize that.

It just shows the one big flaw of Studio Pierrot's Hinata bias-- they couldn't tell a convincing way for Naruto to fall for Hinata legitimately, so they go out of their way to retcon kitten, ruin Naruto’s relationships outside of Hinata, and turn Naruto into the ultimate Scumbag in the process by stupid crap such as he don't understand love in spite of how empathic he is by having made Zabusa, a heartless killer, break into tears!

The problem is that SP refused to allow Hinata to be Naruto's second choice when the story says that what she would be if she ended up with him. If they had done, Sasuke falls in love with Sakura. So, Naruto stepped aside for their happiness and married Hinata instead. They would not have this problem or at least not to this extent.

I'm sure Sarada has the intelligence to get into politics lol but obviously the political aspect would be no fun to watch. Besides rule of thumb is that that the Hokage is supposed to be unparalleled in strength generally since no-one bothers with meetings or negotiations unless it is relevant to the plot, and Sarada is not supposed to overtake Boruto in that department since she is technically his "arm-candy" quote, unquote. That said It'd be cool if she learned something like Kirin, as near impossible as it is.

Not really. What they should do with Sarada and the rest of Neo-Team 7 is the same thing they should have done with Naruto and team 7. Have them go on missions during those missions they discover a problem in the ninja world, have the one who seeks to become Hokage question why the current system is like that and resolve to change it. Do this a few times while eventually building toward some idea of what they are going to do. This impresses the rest of the team to slowly support them.

In Salad's case its go on a mission with three option. One, is to show how one of Naruto's policies has changed the world for the better, feel admirations for Naruto and resolves to become just as good as a Hokage as him. Two, show a current problem that Naruto is working on and Salad resolves to continue his work. Three, a new problem or one that Naruto hasn't addressed which Salad declares she will once she becomes Hokage. All the while Bolt watches her with admiration and gets an increasingly stronger desire to support her.

Also, some arcs aren't them going on missions but spending time in the village learning about how their system works.

Even if the anime is doing something like this for right now. They are doing it for Bolt who doesn't need it instead of Salad who does.

From this panel here I saw on twitter https://twitter.com/...iNKMxk3v4A&s=19

Also I believe chatte said kishimoto isn't writing boruto and that they are just using his original drafts

Ah, you right. I must have glossed over that twice. Thank you. I tend to gloss over conversations in this story some times if they are too long if I understood the gist of them.

Well, that part first. The village is a mercenary ninja village that sell themselves to settle conflicts. No conflicts. No contracts. No money. Naruto should have come up with an answer for this but never did, and even if he didn't this should be something already mentioned and Salad should be pondering that hinting that something she will solve. Funnily enough, I was thinking about that awhile back.

I don't know who is writing it. If its Kishimoto, if it Ikemoto, or someone else is ghostwriting. I tend to say if something from kishimoto if I feel its from him, and the main feeling I get is from him is trying to cut off the pairing conflict by sticking the anime staff's favorite with someone before they start demanding she gets with the main character. Who already has a love interest.

Looked a bit through that twitter. It's funny that the anime actually has to have Naruto act emotional over Kurama dying because the manga can't be asked to make him emote. Also, Boruto has finally failed to hit its reliable 100K it always got in sales.

https://twitter.com/...458766693847044