Doesn’t get any simpler than the title, eh? I’ve gotta confess first that I was so busy all week preparing for Army things to last the next few months (not a deployment or rotation, that would last way longer) that I didn’t even think to look at my topics list until last night and even then I was so tired I didn’t have much prepared until this morning save for this opener. Now that I’m well-rested and caffeinated, I’m going to spend this post talking about my journey into hentai, some of my favorite artists, and some updates; one related to work which may or may not have an impact on future blog posts, and one that covers an event in the city where I’m currently stationed.
Now, what is hentai? If you’ve been around the internet or can call yourself a veteran weeb, you might have instantly thought of an image involving an anime girl, tentacles, or in some cases, both. By which I mean a tentacle girl.
Out-of-schedule topics haven’t been a thing on this blog in over two months since I wrote about BLACK TORCH rising from the grave. The next topic will cover an anime I was really on the fence about watching, so take this one as a calm before the storm, so to speak. And thankfully one I’d been looking forward to for years.
This came straight from nowhere for a lot of people and right out of a mausoleum for me. I wrote about BLACK TORCH’s lifespan in October 2023 and I faintly recall doing it out of jealousy over a similar manga that debuted the same year it ended.
This week’s post was gonna be about more webcomics, but I kinda already talked about that last week. Country of origin be damned, there’s distinction between manhwa/hua and western webcomics, but there’s not a lot of difference. So instead, we’re following up on a nearly 2-year-old newspiece:
Hello, subscribers and tourists catching this on the fly. I’m known as the one who publishes ironically non-controversial takes on entertainment, mostly video games and animanga as of late. As I recall, the only hot takes I have on hand are these three:
1. Kratos did nothing wrong (sorta)
2. Boruto is slightly above average, and;
3. Chainsaw Man was predictable (to me)
And some others that might be expressed in the future. I’m writing to inform you all of something I should have updated everyone on in October 2023. After ten long years, I’d finally self-published my book. It’s called Dawn of Freedom. It’s a fictional crime story set in the early 2010s in New York, which was modern-day when I wrote it years ago. I’d struggled trying to navigate the publishing world and had to rewrite the manuscript multiple times, but I pushed through and saw it come to print. If you’d like to check it out, I have an Amazon link below for you.
Surprise Post: Boruto’s time-skip has finally arrived
When I say the time-skip was a long-time coming, I mean it. The anime’s first episode in Spring 2017 dedicates the opening scene to a flashforward between Boruto and Kawaki battling on the destroyed Hokage Stone Faces. So does the first volume of the manga.
As an out-of-left-field scene, it was one of the most vague scenes in anime/manga. With almost no prior context, newcomers to the series would have to piece together the preceding events as the manga went on. As the chapters released, fan theories and articles arose attempting to contextualize the scene better, the most popular one that I’ve seen being Ohtsutsuki possession.
It’s become even stronger with the exposition provided by Amado about both Kara and its leader, Jigen. The karma seals on Jigen, Boruto, and Kawaki are the marks of Ohtsutsuki vessels and the series has introduced a couple of ways to get the seal. Boruto got his after defeating Momoshiki with one of the largest rasengans ever seen at this point. Kawaki was one of a number of candidates to survive having his implanted by Jigen himself. And Jigen interestingly was a vessel for one of the strongest Ohtsutsuki seen: Isshiki.
Further evidence to turn this theory into a fact were the different times that both Boruto and Kawaki have either been possessed or activated their seals in some manner. The opening scene of the series suggested that they’d both found a way to do so on command, but Kawaki’s own anecdotes and Boruto’s performance reveal the curse that the karma seal really is, especially if a vessel’s chakra level is near-depletion.
Fortunately, Amado has developed a medicine that can help keep the symptoms down long enough so that karma could be studied without any further surprises. Speaking of which, Kawaki’s solution to the Ohtsutsuki/karma problem thus far has verged on the extreme side with an attempt on Boruto’s life… that failed.
When Momoshiki emerged to explain the circumstances of Boruto’s “death,” he explained that the karma was supposed to convert the vessel into an Ohtsutsuki, similar to what had happened to Jigen who, before his encounter with Isshiki, was a monk, and Kawaki who was in the middle of becoming a vessel for Isshiki to migrate to. But when Boruto was killed, the Ohtsutsukification had accelerated to revive him. As of recent, the manga has made it clear that Kawaki’s mission is to kill Boruto and prevent Momoshiki from coming back, but the first time this happened, Boruto specifically requested it. But now that Boruto is officially 100% Ohtsutsuki, Kawaki hasn’t stopped and a few of the answers to the questions about their time-skip appearances among others have been found in the latter chapters of the manga.
First up: the line about Kawaki having sent the Seventh Hokage somewhere. Nothing about that line suggested Naruto was dead, and even if Naruto was under threat, he’s always found a way to bypass it. From Naruto original to the Boruto manga, he’s had close calls but hardly ever died as I can recall. Kawaki followed that trend by sparing Naruto and Hinata. After declaring that he intends to finish off Boruto for good, he anticipated the resistance from his parents and sent them away to another dimension with the space-time ninjutsu leading directly to this part.
Number two: Without the strongest ninja in the Leaf Village to stop him, Kawaki makes a beeline for Boruto for an assuredly fatal round two. Sarada is standing in his way though and in a nostalgic repeat for those who remember how Kakashi got his scar, Boruto got his while protecting an Uchiha with aspirations for higher office. Not content with this outcome, he attempts once again to do it the right way, but fails to consider the rest of the Hidden Leaf Jonin and other shinobi on standby. Shikamaru, Sasuke, Konohamaru and others all witness the aftermath and get an update as to Naruto’s and Hinata’s whereabouts. With no other options, he flees the scene with Eida in tow.
Scene three: Kawaki’s on the ropes after learning about the immediate kill order on him for threatening/maiming the Hokage’s family. In desperation, he confesses to Eida who inadvertently activates her Omnipotence ability. Immediately after, Kawaki’s and Boruto’s roles are literally reversed. To all but a handful of ninja, Boruto is now remembered as an ungrateful outsider who seemingly killed the Hokage while Kawaki is remembered as the Hokage’s son. Now Boruto’s the one with a kill/capture order. With Sarada and Sumire being the only confirmed individuals who know what happened before the Omnipotence event, Sarada makes a desperate plea to her father to protect Boruto from harm, culminating in her awakening the Mangekyou Sharingan.
Part Four: Reluctantly agreeing to honor his daughter’s wishes, Sasuke helps Boruto escape. This doesn’t mean he’s unaffected by the Omnipotence — he very much is. But Sarada’s Mangekyou Sharingan and Boruto holding Sasuke’s old headband was enough to convince him to protect and train Boruto, even if it means risking his life and the ire of the ninja villages again.
Now that Two Blue Vortex has recently debuted, it opens with everyone’s new designs. Boruto, Kawaki, and Sarada were all seen before this, but some others were missing. Mitsuki, the new Ino-Shika-Cho trio, Himawari, Code, and even Shikamaru and Honohamaru in probably the last positions I was ever expecting them to be.
Make no mistake, I’ve never doubted Shikamaru’s intellect. His old sensei, Asuma Sarutobi, said himself that Shikamaru’s wit is unmatched. With an IQ level at 200, Naruto was wise to make him an advisor. Yet, for a lot of people that’s arguably the best position for him and nothing else. Since Kawaki’s been in the village, he’s been skeptical of his motives, practically pleading with Naruto to put him literally anywhere else besides under his own roof. It’s possible that he knew Kawaki wouldn’t be a threat as he was just a kid, or even if he was, there’s no getting past a Hokage who’s both a Jinchuriki and a master of Sage Mode, but the series has made it clear that Naruto saw him as a guest, then a son, and a possible reflection of himself if he’d gone down a darker path. A familiar sentiment to another shinobi in the series.
Talk no jutsu jokes aside, Naruto does have an innate ability to connect with people and subvert expectations. If you told a random villager that that demon fox boy would soon become Hokage, you’d probably get laughed out of the room if not sectioned for such bonobo babble. Over the course of the series though, the boy who had nothing eventually gained a vast wealth of friends which morphed into wide respect from the village. It was only natural that he’d ascend to the level of Kage, especially with the high-level ninjutsu that comes with being a Kage.
Shikamaru’s a master tactician, but we haven’t seen him use a lot of high-level ninjutsu. As a Nara clan member, his specialty has always been Shadow Possession along with other conventional shinobi tactics. These would be fine for, say, a Chuunin even one who’s up for promotion, but considering the threats that have come close to killing some of the Kage, sometimes successfully, Shikamaru has to come up with new strategies to battle someone as dangerous as Code and his army of claw grimes.
As for Konohamaru, this felt a bit like a slap in the face to me. Of all the characters I could see becoming Hokage, despite getting bodied in nearly every battle, I a least forgave Konohamaru for trying his best as a teacher, as a team captain, as a protégé of sorts to Naruto, and as another user of the famed rasengan. Maybe I can blame this on the writing.
For character trajectories, there’s a few interesting changes that I can get behind, one of which subverted my expectations though in a positive way.
Details don’t exist yet, but I have a theory based on Himawari’s appearance in the debuting chapter. Since she’s shown to be training with the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, and has admitted that she thinks Boruto is innocent, I think she’s another one who was largely unaffected by both Eida’s Omnipotence and her charm. Moreover, Eida’s brother Daemon said he could detect something powerful within her. Whatever it could be might also explain why Daemon felt so intimidated or why she feels the Leaf Village is wrong about Boruto for the most part.
If my theory has merit, then along with Sarada and Sumire, Himawari may stand as another player in the crusade to prove Boruto’s innocence and unmask Kawaki. She probably doesn’t need to do much against Code the walking L, but just in case, she has innate knowledge of the Hyuuga clan’s Gentle Fist technique to go with her Byakugan, if the rest of the cast allow her or anyone else to get a hit in at all.
This is the most recent Code L to take the cake. I saw on the Boruto subreddit that someone drew comparisons between Boruto’s trajectory and that of Dragon Ball Z with Code being compared unfavorably to Cell, a hilarious if misleading statement considering what’s above. But to entertain that theory for a bit, if Code is functionally similar to Cell than I’d hate to see what happens when he reaches perfection.
Finally, there’s time-skip Boruto.
With as many introductions, fan theories, articles, fan art pieces and more about time-skip or, according to the Naruto Wiki, Vortex Boruto, he really doesn’t need anymore intros. But what he does still need is context. In 2017, the introductory scene came apropos of nothing and put as much as it could on display for us to watch. Over the course of the series, though, we’ve been given gradual clues as to what’s become of him during the series’ run. Curse mark? Karma. Scratched headband? A gift from Sasuke. Scar? A parting gift from Kawaki himself. And this only covers his appearance.
His performance on the field remains to be seen and the next chapter might explain piecemeal what he learned from Sasuke. Clearly, he was influential enough for Boruto dress in a cloak and bear a sword. He’s also been shown to have a talent for certain chakra natures, the most important ones for Boruto being Wind, Water, and Lightning; all of which Sasuke also knows very well. Whatever he learned from Sasuke might incorporate one or more of those.
As it stands, the follow-up is on the same level as its predecessor and will likely release the second chapter after September 20. This gives me an idea. On the one hand, surprise updates are a highlight for me and the blog, but on the other hand, honestly speaking, squeezing it into my schedule and rearranging things gets to be tedious. The 20th day of the month isn’t also guaranteed to land on a Friday in accordance with this blog’s schedule. So instead, whenever I get more Boruto news, manga or anime related, I’ll make a post on or the day after as they release.
I still hesitate to call myself the Boruto guy as I personally consider Twitter user Abdul Zoldyck to hold that honor for their largely spot-on news and leaks. This is also an experiment of sorts before I try it with other series from different mediums. Who knows? I might be there in time to watch the first episode of Hokkaido Gals. And by the way, yes, I do still have a topic for Friday.
I intended for this week’s post to be about the rakugo manga Akane-banashi, but I guess that’ll be saved for next week, which works for me as I still need to do my research on the manga. About a month ago, I made a post talking about what could be expected of a timeskip in the Boruto series. I said that after Boruto gets his scar from Kawaki in a misguided attempt to protect his new hero Naruto from the threat of the Ohtsutsuki, Kawaki will be closely monitored while Boruto gets more intensive training from Sasuke and most likely Kakashi who also suffered a similar fate: losing an eye while protecting an Uchiha and gaining a dojutsu afterwards. Kakashi got Obito’s Sharingan; Boruto got the Jougan, which is explained in the wiki as a combination between the Hyuga clan’s Byakugan and Naruto’s ability to detect malice, which explains why it was so prominent in the early episodes when Sumire’s summon, Nue, started eating chakra for power.
But when the threat was neutralized, Boruto’s Jougan fell dormant, occasionally glitching awake for the rest of the series for the eagle eyed fans to catch until the Ohtsutsuki threat reemerged to ruin the Chunin Exams as had happened in the movie and the manga.
Momoshiki Ohtsutsuki is the one who implants a Karma seal on Boruto’s palm. The Karma seal is a type of curse mark that enhances the abilities of the owner (Boruto, Kawaki, Jigen/Isshiki) while also holding the biological information of the Ohtsutsuki in question. If the holder of the Karma seal dies, their body undergoes an Ohtsutsukification which can rob them of their original identity while the Ohtsutsuki member takes over. In Jigen’s case, he was a monk who was possessed by Isshiki Ohtsutsuki; and when Kawaki tried to eliminate Momoshiki’s presence in Boruto, the process to Ohtsutsukification sped up rapidly that by technicality, Boruto’s not human anymore.
Additionally, when his chakra runs low, Momoshiki takes over his mind and his body goes on autopilot. The crux of the Boruto series is to show that the Ohtsutsuki threat wasn’t as absent as the shinobi of the previous generation thought. The OG Team 7 had difficulty fighting Kaguya, and now that for them a decade-and-a-half of peace have passed, while the Kage and S-level shinobi can still body major threats, but the Ohtsutsuki prove that, whether alone or in numbers, even the best shinobi would struggle.
The reason I bring Boruto up for a second time and so soon after the first one is because it was publicly announced that episode 293 of the anime is where Part 1 will end. Last month, we were given rumors and glimpses of a possible indefinite hiatus with not a lot of information following on why that was. The most popular reasons being to let the animators rest and also that TV Tokyo’s license to distribute series was ending this summer.
But now we know that the Boruto Timeskip or Shippuden (or realistically Raiden if we note what it would look like in kanji characters) is on the horizon. The manga alluded to such when Kawaki sent Boruto’s parents away and gave Boruto himself the scar. I have to admit that I’m abysmally slow on the anime itself, but recent episodes have shown that the Eida and Daemon have been summoned by Code to track down Kawaki and Boruto for the purpose of becoming a real Ohtsutsuki while getting revenge on the Leaf for what happened to the Ohtsutsuki-led Kara organization and Isshiki.
Between Boruto getting scarred by Kawaki and the destruction of the Leaf as alluded to in the first episode, over the course of the series we’ve learned that Kawaki and Code aren’t working together. They both hate each other, surely, though there’s still no way to tell who or what destroys the Leaf village like that. Maybe the blame falls on one, both, or all three in the heat of battle, but again we’ll have to wait and see what comes up.
I know that my predictions for what might happen during a timeskip it focused only on Boruto and his training. Following up on that, there’s a few things I can expect while others can be said to be speculation.
Boruto’s teammates: During the Chunin exams, Sarada got the promotion and her vest, which makes the new Team 7 eligible for middling C-rank and low B-rank missions, with her as team captain. Mitsuki may follow suit and advance the difficulty of their missions, though this may leave Boruto in the dust as a Genin much like what happened to the previous generation of shinobi when Naruto was training with Jiraiya before his grand return to the village. The rest of Boruto’s graduating class with exceptions might also follow suit with some overachievers making it to Jonin or going on to be ANBU shinobi in the process, but with the boosts Boruto and characters like Sumire, Mitsuki, and Tsubaki all have, whether Boruto or other characters advance or not doesn’t really matter, when you don’t need a high rank to sleep your opponent with minimal movement. The main changes are responsibilities and pay, which is not dissimilar from real-life military ranks. The U.S. military for example expects the junior enlisted to do a lot of the heavy lifting while high-ranking sergeants and above are gradually put into administrative roles. Medal of Honor recipients and servicemembers awarded similarly high awards get a totally different treatment, rank notwithstanding. In similarity to the Naruto franchise, neither Naruto nor Sasuke made it to Chunin, but wound up being the most powerful shinobi in the lands.
Family: Naruto and Hinata are still missing at the time of writing this post and will likely be stuck there until Boruto brings them back or Kawaki is forced to return them to the real world from custody. Likewise, the anime also has an arc where Kawaki and Himawari are attending the Ninja Academy. Initially, I was given the impression that she wouldn’t have the mentality or drive to become a shinobi all her own, but the anime proves that notion incorrect. Not to mention, she’s the one who has the Byakugan and when she activates it, she exhibits the shinobi’s killing intent, and has done so several times in the series.
Furthermore, one of the more recent chapters (Spoilers) shows Daemon attempting to confront Himawari while she’s walking home with groceries in hand. Daemon was confused as to why she didn’t strike, as he sensed an untapped power coming from her. This could be the Byakugan, though it still remains to be seen what he saw in her specifically. What is known is that she is still an academy student and while her brother is off training, she most likely becomes a shinobi herself as well, becoming a Genin or Genin Promotable, not unlike the promotable positions of U.S. servicemembers who are scheduled to attend a promotion board. However, with the direction Kawaki has gone, she and the rest of the class will be one student short, which is also a parallel to that of the original Naruto series.
Deaths: The ninja world lives and dies by the sword. Before, during, and after the establishment of the ninja villages every shinobi was on the battlefield, including child soldiers like the young sons of the Senju and Uchiha clans. This many bodies on the field of battle brought the average life expectancy down to just 30 years with so many children dying in wars alongside their older veteran counterparts. The Third Shinobi War brought these dangers back as Kakashi, Obito, and Rin barely survived unscathed. Even in these relatively peaceful times, the life of the shinobi benefits from technological enhancements while also suffering the same kind of dangers from yesteryear. The more things change and all that. Shinobi dying on the field of battle or on a mission or by any other means is a fact of life that everyone expects to face, though specific character trajectories are left to some conjecture. I have no way to tell who will die or how; predictions aren’t 100%, and characters fans believed were marked for death wound up surviving, while the least likely death wound up happening. Reception to X character’s death/disappearance/etc. will depend on how well written they were. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that fan-favorite characters like Naruto or Sasuke might be one of the few on the chopping block, and fans would likely sooner see them incapacitated than dead, myself included. As for shinobi who preceded them but are now senior citizens in the Boruto era, they could also be up for death or incapacitation, though ideally it’s done in a way that doesn’t make a joke out of them. No promises, though.
Miscellaneous/Free space: Most of what I’ve said so far in this post might be suited for a light novel or an OVA in the future: Ino-Shika-Cho diverging even slightly from their respective parents; Team 15 having a more important role going forward; other ninja teams getting their time of day; the Hyuga clan’s response to Hinata’s and Naruto’s disappearance; and most likely Shikamaru behaving as the interim Hokage if Sasuke does go on to hasten Boruto’s training, after he likely gets healed by Sakura and/or Tsunade. All of this is up in the air, but at least with the short hiatus, I can play catch-ups.
Opinions on Entertainment 