I think I blocked out a lot of it

Some Random Reasons I Really Like the Boruto Anime.

(because yes it has it’s problems but honestly I’m tired of trying to enjoy my fandoms with everyone whinging that it’s “not as good as the original”. As if the original two Naruto shows weren’t utter dumpster fires with moments of Pure Awesome to keep it alive and half the fandom isn’t there solely to pick through Kishimoto’s junkyard world building looking for shiny bits to incorporate in their fanfics.  Which is not to say I don’t like the Naruto shows, but seriously ppl you can’t whine about how bad the fillers and slow pacing and weird world-building of Naruto was only to turn around and scream that Boruto is horrible of TRYING TO BE DIFFERENT. Let’s inject some positivity in here. Anyone who has no need for Boruto positivity can kindly move on with their lives and let me have my shiny fandom. Moving on.)

-Reason 1. Mitsuki exists. He is Best Boi™ and I adore him.

-Reason 2. The characters are not carbon copies of their parents, but neither are they polar opposites. They have some of their parent’s traits and some of their own unique traits and honestly it’s so refreshing to have a show that isn’t “Main Character X Take 2: This time with a New Color Scheme”

-Reason 3. Have you SEEN how many girl characters there are in this show? Even if most of them are side characters? Have you SEEN the fact they can actually DO STUFF other than flip their hair and whine about boys? One of them can use seals! And has CAT POWERS!! Another one was the antagonist of the first story arc! And was actually cool! And also got reformed rather than just being yote off the nearest cliff! The main female character is actually useful without being either a whim or a jerk!

Reason 4. The school system has been revamped in ways that make SENSE. The Naruto cast (especially Iruka as the new headmaster) looked back on their early life and went “You know what? It’s REALLY DUMB that we were so unprepared for shinobi life. Let’s change that.” And they did! Students actually learn water and tree walking BEFORE they get thrown into life and death situations! They know jutsu other than the Basic Three! They get to know basic sealing and learn that Summoning jutsu exists! There’s a student who knows medical ninjutsu, so that’s obviously an optional course or something kids can take! They also have an option to NOT BE NINJAS. If they decide partway through they don’t wanna be ninja’s, there’s a civilian middle school program incorporated into the academy! Do you know what that also means? Civilians who get to know BASIC SELF DEFENSE. So even if they aren’t Ninja, they at least know how ninja work and how to not Insta-die the next time someone breaks into their village!

Reason 5. THERE’S AN INTER-SCHOOL TRANSFER PROGRAM. Way to show just how tight the alliances of the different villages are. Even if it’s only mentioned here and there, it’s SUCH a cool thought with so much fanfic potential.

Reason 6. Chocho, flipping, Akimichi exists. Yes, she can be a little annoying with her running gag of “I’m so pretty” but like- SHE IS ACTUALLY PRETTY. And she knows and can use the clan jutsu really well! DO YOU KNOW HOW EASY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN for them to either make her utterly hideous and go “Hur hur look at the fat girl thinks she can actually be pretty lol” OR make her constantly whimpy and shy and lacking any confidence at all because “oh look at the poor girl, she’s FAT so she must feel UGLY all the time, and have no confidence because what FAT PERSON has any confidence unless they’re delusional?” Both of those would be so freaking stupid and defeating. But INSTEAD they make Choho 1. pretty and 2. self-confident. She dresses nice, she looks nice, she’s not stick thin like say, Sarada, but she is actually pretty and she OWNS it. She owns her love of food, and her clan jutsu, and just- herself in general. And yea they use it as a running gag sometimes when she plays it up a little too much, but like- there’s a body positivity character! Right there! Who is also a girl who kicks butt! One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen of the naruto show is that the girl characters are flat and useless and underused save for like- Tsunade. Here you have a useful girl who is also body confident! And that’s not even touching on Sarada “can use both super strength and the sharingan and owns this fact” Uchiha.

Reason 7. Boruto’s issues are not his dad’s issues. There are ... lots of “kid sequels” i’ve seen/read/heard of where all the problems are basically the main character’s problems rehashed. And yeah, the villains so far are that I’ve seen are callbacks to the main show, BUT. EMOTIONALLY. Boruto’s issues aren’t the same. Boruto doesn’t have the “nobody likes me I must earn their respect” issues Naruto did. Or the orphan issues. He has a loving mom, he’s a loving big brother (who makes mistakes and does argue with his sister, which #realistic kthanks), and he is popular. Being alone isn’t his problem. Being unpopular or hated isn’t his problem. His problems are that he doesn’t know how to bond with his always-busy dad (which- of course Naruto is always busy, that’s just the show writers continuing the Overworked Hokage gag from the original show, and yes Naruto uses his Shadow Clones to help with it but come ON he’s running a military force AND a booming village) and that he hasn’t had the same life experiences Naruto had at that age. He’s learning to mature in a different way. If Naruto and Naruto Shippuden were about children who grew up too soon in a brutal ninja world, then Boruto is about kids who grow up in the AFTERMATH of that world. The world where their parents never want their kids to suffer like that and so, just a little, coddle them. It’s kinda like the aftermath of the big wars. The kids who grew up during that war are adults now and their kids have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT life experiences and priorities. It’s just how it works, and I appreciate that.

Reason 8. We have a girl Uchiha who wants to be Hokage. I love the Naruto and Naruto Shippuden shows, but it got ... a LITTLE tiresome that Naruto’s dream was also the dream of both his dad AND his mom and I think also kid Jiraiya at one point? Like- it seemed like at that point the show was going “Of course you want to be hokage! It’s in your blood!”. Boruto couldn’t care less bout being the next Hokage. He’s lived what it’s like to be the Hokage’s kid (something Asuma, if he’s still been alive, could have sympathized with I’m sure) and he doesn’t want to be that person. Sarada on the other hand has lived the live of having no real dad figure until recently, and as such Naruto’s “all the village is my family” motto really rings home with her. She wants to be the next Hokage, not Boruto, and frankly that’s refreshing.

Reason 9. Shino the teacher. I’m pretty sure this is a controversial point but honestly I really liked this. I do have some issues with how the og characters are portrayed (looking at you Kiba and Anko), but Shino I have no issues with. This is an intelligent, helpful boy who grew up struggling to bond with people and who grew up with people constantly interrupting him/not listening. And this gag does make its frequent appearance in Boruto, but that’s not Boruto’s fault that’s actually a case of the show being consistent with its predecessor so, you know, go blame Kishimoto for how his students didn't listen to him in the early episodes. BUT. As the episodes go on, it’s so clear the students do love and respect their teacher. They wouldn’t talk to him if they didn’t. They might not see him as a terrifying warrior, but he’s their TEACHER. Even Mitsuki comes to respect Shino, going out of his way (spoiler) to fight Shino in the graduation exam because Mitsuki saw Shino as someone worth testing himself against. Mitsuki. Orochimaru’s “perfect clone bby”. Thought Shino was badass enough to fight. And also on the student body in general, OBVIOUSLY they listen to him off screen, because if they didn’t then they wouldn’t have learned the things they did and have actually succeeded in the graduation exam, now could they?

Reason 10. Naruto and Sasuke are still utterly epic WITHOUT stealing the spotlight the moment they come on screen. I’m not that far into the show, so maybe that changes, but from the arcs I’ve seen (mostly the Shin arc), Naruto and Sasuke are utter powerhouses, but they don’t ... they don’t just hax the show. In the same way Jiraiya didn’t hax everything and steal the spotlight from Naruto, neither do Naruto and Sasuke, but we still see they’re awesome (after all, they were perfectly capable while fighting all the Shins, and just- the moment one of them got a look at Kuruma it was OVER and it’s SO clear in that moment that Sasuke and Naruto were holding back because they didn’t want to kill a bunch of kids. Naruto or Sasuke on their own could have MASSACRED the Shins, but didn’t, because they’re former protagonists (and reformed antagonist in one case) like that.

So... tl:dr Boruto is not Naruto or Naruto Shippuden but considering all the massive plot holes and world-building errors that happened in those shows, as well as the utter lack of use of its female characters, that’s not a bad thing! Boruto has some stuff wrong with it, and some things that I can see annoying/ticking off fans who had their heart set on another path, but the show has potential, the characters are utilized much better than I expected, and as someone who did not grow up on Naruto and so doesn’t have shiny nostalgia glasses spot welded to my face, I think it’s a really good show.

Honestly if it wasn’t a sequel of such a monolith, childhood-forming show, I think it wouldn’t get NEAR as much hate, and the fact that it gets such flak because it dares have its own unique take on the post-Naruto Shippuden years rather than trying (and inevitably failing) to cater to the whims of every single fan out there makes me sad. If you want to see more of Naruto’s world and see female characters actually get some cool moments to themselves, then give it a try. If you’d rather go with your own Naruto HCs for what happened at the end of the war, then that’s FINE, just don’t get mad at those of us who enjoy Boruto for the glorious animated fanfic AU it is.