Bail o' Lies

6) Shipping & Character Relationships.

I have gone over why the Shipping in the story is pointless before but let's go over it again. The goal of the character Boruto at the start of the manga is the be the Shadow Hokage/Hokage's Shadow for Sarada like Sasuke is for Naruto, and Danzo was for Hiruzen when he was Hokage. So what matters is, why does he want to be her shadow enforcer when she becomes Hokage? Does he agree with her policies? Does he agree with her moral views? Does he agree with her philosophy? Does he support any reforms she wants to enact? Does he think she has good economic policies? Does he think she would be good at governing the village? Why does he support her? Whether he ends up with her romantically or not doesn't matter because his dream job is still to be her shadow enforcer. Whether he ends up with Sarada (Salad), Mitsuki (Cups,) Kawaki (Nail,) Eida (Hime,) or Sumire (Clone) does not matter as working for Sarada is still his goal regardless to who he ends up with; if he ends up with anyone. Neither the anime nor manga, as far as I know, have even attempted to cover this in the slightest. The only answer that might have been given is that, he is in love with her. If that the case, if that is the only reason he has to support her when she become hokage. Then, he must end up with her and all other pairings considerations are a distraction. As he has no other reason for his stated end goal, besides his feelings for her.

This also brings up another problem of Salad constant under utilization in the story. Her becoming Hokage is the end goal for both her and the Protagonist Bolt. But it is never address, never explored, never examined in the story. The only thing she has is her feelings for Bolt she is unwilling to admit she has but everyone can see. Why should the audience care about when she becomes Hokage at the end, when the story won't till the ending?

Let me make this clear. The damage of not going with NaruSaku as the end pairing for Naruto is minor compared to them not going with BoroSara for Boruto. Not going with NS negatively affected Naruto as what was the point of the promise of a lifetime, why did Sakura confess to Naruto and try to kill Sasuke to atone for how she burdened Naruto, why did Naruto forgive Obito, and the bench scene meaning a purpose being erased made Sakura have a flat to not even having a character arc as she loved Sasuke at the start and she got him by doing nothing. But it didn't destroy the story entirely by not going through with it. That was the Last that did so, by making it why NS didn't happen worse. As instead of just Naruto moving on, so his two friends could be happy together. They made it, he never had feelings for her, and was only pretending to for over a decade to spite Sasuke, like an utter scumbag. While in Boruto, the only reason for the purported end goal of the story is their feelings for each other. They have never given another reason. They have never explored another reason. This story has been running for nearly ten years now, as even if they started next chapter. It feels too late to do something that should have been a part of the story all along.

And what did the story focus on instead of developing the end goal of the story? An attempt to make an improved Naruto-Sasuke conflict with Bolt and Nail. Their "Bond of Bros" is the primary if not the sole story focused in the manga and its not interesting. While one of the major weakness of the chase after Sasuke is we didn't spend enough time with team 7 together. So fans got tired of why Naruto focused so much on a character they barely spent time with and didn't want to return to the village. In Boruto, most of the actual story in part one is building and bashing you over the head that Bolt and Nail are total Bros. They are the ultimate bros that totally care for each other like brothers. Please ignore that Nail constantly acts like an ass and Bolt is a spoiled brat. They are totally bros with a deep bond. Has the story mentioned that they are real bros enough yet, no? Then just have every chapter just constantly go on about how much they are bros. Of course that's till the end of part one, with the "tragedy" of Nail deciding to kill Bolt, his bro who he totally cares about bro, to destroy the Otsutsuki within him in order to protect Naruto his father figure. The problem is he tells no one of this, so the entire cast has to guess his motivation, and when Naruto and Hinata refused to kill their son just because Nail wants to. He seals them away, pretends they are dead, with the plans to release them after he kills their son, and anyone else that gets in his way. However, the first time we see Femmy in Bolt's head in part two, he makes it clear he has no power over Bolt, he can't take over his body, he can't influence in the slightest, he is just a voice in the back of Bolt's head waiting for him to die so they can both end it; unless Bolt gives him control. Which he had even given up on that by the time we saw him again. So, for the reason for the conflict between them is moot.

Now, you can argue that the story can say, "well, Nail doesn't know that and can't believe Bolt even if he tells him." Sure, but the problem is the audience knows Femmy is no threat. Beyond maybe a fake out there is no risk or danger of Bolt being taken over by Femmy. So there is no suspense and it just an excuse for the conflict to continue as there is no other reason conflict or the story to continue without it.

Sasuke's reasons made sense in character for why he left the village. He wanted power to avenge his family and felt the village was making him too soft to accomplish this goal. Of course to keep it going so he didn't just return to the village after he killed his brother. Therefore, the chase after him unnecessary. As Naruto should've just trusted Sasuke would have returned after he killed Itachi and all he had to do is give him a heads up on why Orochimaru wants his body. But the way Kishimoto went about that, the village order his clan to be purged by his brother, made so Sasuke was justified in never returning to the village and in fact making him an enemy of the village. While Naruto's reason for obsessively chasing was under developed because of the limited time they were on a team together, and not coming up for a reason Sasuke should return to the village beyond bonds.

What is going to happen at the end of Boruto is obvious. After defeating all the tree people. They will have a fight where Bolt just keeps going over and over, "Just trust me, Bro." Until he wins convinces Nail to release his parents. Then gets instantly forgive him despite entrapping them for years while he brainwashed the world to chase down and kill their son.

5) Characters.

I was mocking the original cast. I was mocking their underuse and how Ikemoto treated them. Ikemoto does not want to use most of Kishimoto's characters unless he forced to, he wants to focus on his own original characters(, like Nail, Moe, Madoc, & Hime,) and there are only a handful he clearly likes Jiraiya, Moegi, and Ino. While loathing using the rest. The worse and most consistent example is Shikamaru, the smartest of Kishimoto's characters, is constantly treated like an absolute moron and is constantly dismissed and disrespected by any Ikemoto character he interacts with. This would be less of a problem if his cast left the village on missions so they can be focused on, like Kishimoto did in Naruto, but Ikemoto refuses to leave the village for his fights. So you constantly have to ask two question. Where are they!? When they are not around while half the village is destroyed. Why are they so useless!? When they are involved in the story.

It also doesn't help he doesn't care about his inherited cast of Bolt's generation either. If Bolt's name wasn't in the title he likely would have been left in the dust as well. So, Ikemoto could focus solely on his original characters. Who are uninteresting and most readers do not care about. So, he had to start including more of his inherited cast in part two.

Now I don't want focus on every single character at there is in Naruto-Boruto that cast is too large for realistically any medium to handle. Want I want is to know is, who are the main characters, and what is their story? In One Piece, its the Strawhat Pirates. Sure Luffy is the main character and the rest of the crews importance varies depending on the arc. But you know who the main characters of the arc are and who are there just for the arc. In Naruto it was in theory team 7 that was the main cast. Of course Kakashi had less focus because he was the mentor. But, Sakura rarely got any focus. Kishimoto, got bored of Naruto and eventually just turned him into the ninja Messiah. And Sasuke nearly consumed the plot. But in Boruto, who are the main characters? Is it Neo-Team 7? Konohamaru got no focus in part one. Mitsuki (Cups) and Salad were pretty much background characters to show Bolt was on a team in the manga. Is it ikemoto's original characters? Nail, Hime, Amando (Madoc,) and Daimon (Moe.) Well fans didn't care for them. So now the cast has been expanded to add the next generation characters that ikemoto didn't care about in part one. For example, it was hinted that Moe had feelings for the daughter and they were going to be a pairing. In Part two she is in a Pairing with Inojin (Blond Sai) who was constantly one of the most popular characters of the new generation in the anime.

Which is why I want the main cast to leave the village on missions more so we can focus on the main cast. Instead of wondering, where is everyone? When half the village is being destroyed again in another battle.

4) Power Levels and Fighting in General.

I cover this last month, but to reiterate. The fights are not interesting because they can be boiled down to, the villain is invincible till a mid-fight power up, after that they die in one attack. This upcoming fight is the first one hinted to be different, as they have already laid out the power up the main cast have gotten and the villain's power and tactics beforehand. However it so basic that its unimpressive, and feels like someone else has come in and order a change to the story instead of something naturally develop by Ikemoto.

Fighting in Konoha. Nearly every fight has been in the village. I think I have gone over this before but let me go over it again. Beside getting sick of this story almost never leaving the blasted village. The other problem is power scale and other ninjas. In Naruto, battles rarely happened in the village, as shown when the Teams Sensei battle Itachi. Long battles tend to run the risk of other ninja sensing the battle happening and coming over to help their fellows. It also happened when Naruto and Sasuke fought on top of the hospital, Jiraiya and Kakashi both sensed it and rushed over. So, any fight needs to either be quick so the intruder isn't swarmed or you need someone so strong that it doesn't matter a la Pein. So, by constantly having the battles in the village, this in theory runs the risk that the old cast would and should sense what's happening and get involved. And they should still be, in theory, stronger then the current cast. So any fight the get involved with would and should be quickly resolved. However, Ikemoto doesn't want their involvement as he wants to focus on his own cast. So it leads to questions of are where are the adults and why are they so useless when they get involved? 

Explaining the powers. Normally, a manga would hint at what gimmick abilities someone uses so their opponent can show how smart they are for figuring out the gimmick mid fight and find a way to counter it. Both the hero and the villain can do it and in Naruto, especially in part one, both sides did. However, Ikemoto is terrible at anything that is standard for those fights. He does not know how to set up or limit powers so they become broken (until they are fixed later on.) For example, Moe's counter power was invincible when first introduced. Later on Ikemoto was order to add the requirement of contact for it to work. Second, is that normally the main character spends half the fight slowly trying to figure out the gimmick. You know in increments. "Ok, they are doing x. I see they can only do X with in a certain range. Oh they have a recharge rate of y many seconds. Oh they can't affect something or it has some sort of limit." Sometime it will be, "wait I got it their power isn't X its Z." In Boruto, anytime someone reveals a foe's powers it all at once and is accurate to the letter. It doesn't feel like they figured out their opponents power as much as they been given the script. So they don't come off as smart. Then, once they figure it out they have to come up with a way to counter it to defeat their foes. Which shows of the character's creativity, ingenuity, and adaptability. In Boruto, they just keep fighting till they win, at best they get a power up. I swear most fight end in part one with..."and Bolt activates his karma seal and it one-shots the enemy."

So, this revealing a power early is normally done because the opponents power is so strong or tricky; that the main character needs time to think of a way to beat it. Here, its so Ikemoto understands what the power is so he doesn't overhype it or make Tree-Bug unbeatable, because normally he gives them some powers that makes them dominate the first half of the fight till the contrivance happens (normally the karma seal activates and becomes an instant win.) Now, he as at least laid out how the fight will go. They have wait till Tree-Bug spams copies till their about 25 of them. Blond Sai will use his mind powers to screw with them. Bolt will combine his new super cool sword with Uzuhiko to one shot them or something.

3) Plot Devices.

Omnipotence was some cheap shock event at the end of part one to hopefully get the reader interested in part two. "Oh no Bolt is now hated and chased by the village while Nail took his place." But the mechanics and how it would be played out in the story was not thought up beyond. "Bolt will slowly convince the cast that he is Naruto's son in their heart, and after defeating Nail he will release his parents, who were unaffected by the spell, who will tell the rest of the cast he is their son." Of course there always the possibility of a "shock twist" that they are also affected and believe Nail is their son, but that would be cheap. However, they do not know how to reach that point while keeping the story thread going till they reached that point. So, they have to constantly reexplain why people can't break the spell. Which again just makes it clear they shouldn't have done this storyline.

Karma Seal. That totally original unique cool power up and plot device that Kishimoto could never come up with. It looks exactly like Tsunade's & Sakura's Yin Seal; which they eventually justify by saying theirs is based off it. When activated it slowly spreads out and corrupt the person who has it like Orochimaru's curse seal. And, it has a entity inside of it that is trying to take over the host body like the various Jinchuriki seals. It is an USB stick/seal containing the information of an Otsutsuki member that they download into a person to take them over after sacrificing themselves to the World tree so it produce its chakra fruit...don't look at me like that. This IS the explanation they give in the manga. It also powers up its host and give them millennia worth of combat experience which part of the reason is why Bolt and Nail are stronger than Naruto by the time the are twelve; this was also explained in the manga. Its suppose to be the ticking time bomb of the story especially in part one where we slowly, very slowly in long info dumps, learn about it. The thing is the first time we learn about its infection rate, we learn that its almost complete. Then in the next fight its resolved. There are hints that the Otsutsuki could still take over Bolt, but nope made clear in Part two he can't. Its rare to see a story flub one its primary elements so hard and so often. 

Shinjutsu. Divine Techniques. The new tier of power that apparently the Otsutsuki always had that Madoc is able to equip through making people cyborgs or through the Karma seal. Making anyone that does not have one powerless. Leaving only the cast Ikemoto grants these powers to are able to fight against his villains, anyone else is fodder. Does matter if even they are Kage level ninja, without Shinjutsu they will lose fights to any of Ikemoto's mooks. Limiting the cast that can fight. But they often aren't that impressive as they are hype up to be. Looking at Bolt's signature Shinjutsu the Uzuhiko hype up to be an ultimate attack, that just gives people vertigo, people pointed out how unimpressive it was, and so they changed it to a rasengan-spirit bomb.

Scientific Ninja Tools. Now I understand, this idea was thought up by Kishimoto. Ikemoto just inherited it and has to incorporate it into his manga. It doesn't mean i have to like it or that I feel he has done a good job in using it. For one, it breaks the feel of the world without really adding anything. For example when he gave characters guns. In anime, gun are either instant kill weapons or utterly useless. His were useless. Two, often it is just an excuse to give a character a power up, most often Nail, and not need to explain it because its Magical Science.

2) Narrative.

The plot often has a yearly cyclical structure that allows it to be repetitive and feels that nothing is happening. In part one, at the start of the year it will often try to wrap up the fight from last year for about 3 chapters. Then 6 chapters in the village setting up the next fight and having character moments. Then for the last 3 chapters of the year the new villain arrives at the village to fight the cast. Now while editorial/executive pressure has changed this somewhat (mainly the timing) in part two; the problem still persist. It also doesn't help that they never really defeat the organization their foes are coming from. In Part One, Kara, who can just reveal more members and in Part Two, the Tree-People, who can just make more if they run out. So, it feels like they are largely doing nothing but sitting around and waiting to be attacked; while nothing is really ever resolved. Hell, this latest time is the first time they have honestly trained in preparation for the attack. Hell, even then its not even really training but set up the power ups that are going to be important for the up coming fight.

There is also the problem of the manga chapters feel like the chapters are just extended weekly chapters, and are also not worth waiting a month for. But also means that each month the manga was only giving their weekly anime enough material for at best one episode. More likely half.

I want you all to remember that it took so long for the manga to do anything. That the anime didn't even introduce his True Main Character Nail (Kawaki) until well passed episode 200; well into four years into the anime's run. By that point so much filler has been done anime fans had already decided on which character they wanted Bolt to end up with. Salad because either she is Sasuke's daughter or they understand the storyline. The Clone which the anime supports as she is their character and they want another Hinata-like character to be the heroine and love interest. Or Cups for the fujoshi which the worse for Ikemoto as those are the ones who should be loving his Nail. So, as the anime ended around 300 episodes they didn't spend as much time on the "Bond of Bros," that Ikemoto wants to be the main story.

Think about it. It took him so long to actually get his story deep enough into it that anime could adapt the manga's story, and they went through it in half the time the spent making filler waiting for it. When in theory, the manga is suppose to be the main story and a skeleton for the anime to fill out with their own arcs. To expand on story ideas introduce in the manga but doesn't have time to cover. The problem with that is, for one, it clear the anime staff like with Bleach were sick of making endless filler and decided to just cancel it and wait for the story to get done to adapt it. Which hurts the story because its very hollow and was designed for the anime to fill in to make deeper. They didn't even finish the story of part one. They ended it after the arc Nail "killed" Bolt, from what I recall. Which means his pacing helped to destroy the justification for the risky idea of a monthly manga with a weekly anime. The second problem is that he is arcs are very...sequential each one clearly leading to the next with very little logical time in between them. Often it feels when an arc ends and the new one start that very day in story at best a week later. When the story needs for the arc to feel like there is enough time between them to justify putting in several anime original arc between each; to expand on the previous arcs ideas, to give focus on characters the manga isn't focusing on, and lead into the next one. There were only two break points the manga gave the anime. One they used when Nail was first adopted by Naruto there was implied weeks if not months where he bonded with everyone in the village. Than another one when Madoc gave Bolt those magic pills to stop the karma seals advancement. Which was clearly internal story justification and an excuse for the anime to put more anime arcs before the next fight. Instead, the anime instantly went to next fight to finish the arc then cancelled the anime.

There is also the problem is that they fired the guy who job was to work with the anime staff to keep the manga and the anime story aligned; Kodaichi. There was apparently a problem with the anime constantly going against the manga's story and making mistakes. hell, even when he was there they did that as the core of the first anime arc. The flash-forward had Nolt's right eye had a scar and byakugan. The implication being like Kakashi that something happened to that eye. Implant or traumatic power awakening. When it turned out to be a side effect of the Karma seal integration or possession by that Otsutsuki. The anime wanted to give Hinata's son a special eye that was more than a byakugan and tie the Last into the story. Then it was never used again, even in the anime after the first arc.

Also, the story has made it very clear that Tree-Jenga (Jura) is so strong that he could kill the entire cast if not the entire world in a second with barely any effort if he wanted to. He doesn't because of mere whim and the story would be over if he did. So the main villain is doing nothing because if he did anything he would win. The story requires that he has to let his kind be killed off and eventually the protagonist find a way to beat him. While he largely does nothing, because if he doesn't, he'd beat them all in a panel.

Since Boruto takes a lot of "inspiration" from Dragon Ball, and their villains can also be described as able to kill the Heroes in one shot but don't. So, lets compared them.

Raditz was stronger than Goku and Piccolo combine, but he didn't originally want to kill them. He wanted his brother Kakarot to join his squad. By the time he got serious the trio were able to stun him long enough to kill him.

Vegeta wanted to punish Goku for defying him and get the Dragon Balls to wish for immortality. So he had his goon Nappa play around with them while ordering him to avoid killing Piccolo because he realized he must be connected to the Dragon Balls. But once he realize Goku was actually a threat he increasingly stopped playing around and tried to go for the kill.  

Freeza could not find them for most of the arc because he can't sense energy. Also, he had minions to do the searching and fighting for him. When Vegeta starts killing them; he orders in the Ginyu Force. When he finally finds them he wants to slowly torture them as punishment for denying him his wish. Which backfires as his screwing around drained his stamina.

Cell was actually weaker than the cast, or at least Piccolo till he could start absorbing the androids to achieve his perfect form. So he hid while slowly absorbing energy till he could find the androids. Once he did that, he was stronger than the entire cast, but was curious how they can get stronger in a day's time. So he organized the Cell Games to play with them as none of them were stronger than him. Once Gohan showed that he was, he twice tried to blow up the planet. 

The Majin Buu arc is more the heroes refusing to take him seriously despite numerous warnings till he blows up the planet.

Tree-Jenga sits around reading books, talking to Tree Sasuke, eating ice cream going on about love while his kind are being killed. When he could travel through the belt network to be their in an instant to defeat anybody. Never really helping his comrades eat their desired people for the goal to evolve/complete themselves/what ever they go on about.

Tree-Jenga knows that the cast can beat the tree people, knows that they know how to free the people stuck in a tree, and knows there is someone helping them that can see the future. Therefore, is setting up a plan to beat them. Yet, he barely bothers to try to achieve his goals of devouring certain people despite every opportunity and barely set up any counter measures. Beyond sending Punk to go look for Bolt's ally. It also doesn't help that Dragon Ball villains are arc villains so they are gone once their arc is over...unless they turn good. Tree-Jenga is the over arcing Penultimate story villain, once he is defeat it is likely all that will be left is to convince Nail to release Bolt's parents. Yet, he does nothing except show up every once and awhile to show how deep, dangerous, and powerful he is; when he is none of those.