Trickle down exposition

I haven’t forgotten about this month’s release of the latest chapter. Just spent the last two days studying it and organizing my thoughts so far. Based on what I saw of this chapter, we have more exposition of what we saw in the first two chapters followed by a last-minute twist.

Of the things introduced and explained in the chapter, Boruto expands on what the Uzuhiko technique. The basics are that it’s tied to the planet’s rotation. If hit with the Jutsu, the afflicted will be hit with a semi-permanent sense of “the spins,” so to speak. It can run for as long as the Jutsu caster (read: Boruto) desires, or until the afflicted (read: Code) dies — and this new teenage Boruto seems to be happy with the latter.

A technique that causes whoever’s hit by it to nearly infinitely spin in some manner… that sounds familiar…

Honestly, not the first time the franchise made a JoJo reference.

So let’s backtrack a bit in regard to the Rasengan. So far we have the following users:

• Jiraiya
• Minato Namikaze
• Konohamaru Sarutobi
• Naruto Uzumaki
• Boruto Uzumaki
• Sasuke Uchiha*
• Kakashi Hatake

For Sasuke, he used it as a demonstration before asking Boruto if he could develop it himself. After that, he went through an intense and heated training session from Konohamaru before revealing to Sasuke the results of admittedly three days of training. Before him, Naruto worked on the Jutsu with Jiraiya’s guidance for little over a week, and before him, Minato developed the Jutsu over the course of three years.

Furthermore, Minato’s direct legacy has accidentally or deliberately put their own spin on the Jutsu, no pun intended. Naruto developed the Rasenshuriken, a powerful Jutsu that was unfortunately shelved as a double-edged sword, at least until the Akatsuki brought Pain to the Leaf Village.

For Boruto, the first of several variants had come in the form of the Vanishing Rasengan, though he didn’t acknowledge it until he, Sasuke, and the Gokage fought Momoshiki in the other dimension.

So this Jutsu keeps Code immobile yet conscious to answer a question on Boruto’s mind: the location and status of the Ten Tails. Keep this nugget in mind, it’ll be important toward the end. Just as the interrogation gets moving, Leaf ninja respond to the rogue ninja in their village, among the responding party is the object of Boruto’s vengeance: Kawaki. Speaking of Kawaki, he was in contact with Shikamaru who gives him the go-ahead for a kill order, but the opportunity is missed when Code summons a claw grime to escape through.

Earlier I wrote that Boruto was asking about whether Code knew the location and status of the Ten Tails. Out of concern for the safety of the world? Well, let me clarify: the tone of voice suggested by the panel was less of a desperation and concern and more of a boast, as if to say that after 2.5 years of training and keeping an eye out for Code, Boruto is finally one step ahead. This is where that twist comes in: before Code could get away, Boruto planted a mechanical toad on Code’s person.

Credit: Shueisha, Mikio Ikemoto, Masashi Kishimoto

Kawaki lost his chance to deliver the final blow and will most likely blame Boruto for allowing him to run off, but the last panel reveals why he allowed him to get away. Observe:

Creator: Shueisha, Mikio Ikemoto, Masashi Kishimoto

So now we wait for the week of November 20 to learn how this happened to the Ten Tails. Was it Boruto’s doing? Borushiki? Did he learn it from Sasuke? However we get to that answer it will likely be over the course of the next few months. As far as this chapter goes, it steadily creeps back into the trickle down expositional method that seems to be more emblematic of Kishimoto than Kodachi who seemed to employ what I believe was a healthy zigzag pattern of storytelling.

Clearly, I’d like to see more of this from the succeeding chapters, but it’ll probably be until at least January or February when we get more of these types of answers, and while this is largely fantasy, some of the answers to be revealed may ironically be less fantastical than whatever theories are out there proposing. But we’ll get them soon enough.