Major Naruto Reveal May Change Everything About Boruto's Flash-Forward Opening

The latest chapter of the Boruto: Naruto Next Generations manga may not have featured its namesake (Boruto) at all, but it certainly made up for that absence with an epic Naruto and Sasuke team-team battle! The chapter opened with the two famed Shinobi continuing their battle against Jigen, the leader of the clandestine group, Kara. Jigen reveals his the true scope of his power (and his form) during the battle, and those revelations will no doubt have massive influence on the future of Boruto! Not only that, but the truth about Jigen may also completely redefine everything Naruto fans thought they knew about the epic flash-forward sequence that started the Boruto series!

WARNING - Boruto Chapter 38 Spoilers Follow!

Previous chapters of Boruto revealed that Jigen and his Kara group have major connections ot the Otsutsuki Clan, and that Jigen himself was the partner to the vanquished Kaguya Otsutsuki! However, in Chapter 38 that twist gets even more twisted, as we learn that Jigen himself is not actually one of the Otsutsuki Clan members: he's actually the vessel for one. The true villain at work here is "Isshiki Otsutsuki," who has taken possession of Jigen's body in what seems to be a coercive union, rather than a cooperative one. In fact, Isshiki's last scene in the book sees him berating his Jigen half, while a crucial details about this whole body-switching process:

"Does your body hurt, Jigen? To shed tears is pathetic. You're not worth of being Otsutsuki Isshiki's vessel, you defective failure."

This bit of monologue - taken along with "Jigen's" own internal concerns during the fight with Sasuke and Narut - are now forcing us to entirely rethink the opening sequence of Boruto. That sequence showed a teenage Boruto who was very leveled-up as a shinobi warrior, and battling a mysterious foe. We've since learned that foe is Kawaki, it's been assumed that he and Boruto have a falling out and eventually become rivals; now it seems as though Kawaki's turn to the dark side won't be voluntary, and the foe that "Teenage Boruto" will actually be facing is Isshiki Otsutsuki!

That hint creates massive new impressions about where Boruto is headed. What are your theories? Let us know in the comments!

Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto for Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999, Naruto follows a young ninja, with a sealed demon within him, that wishes to become the leader of his home village. The series ran for 700 chapters overall, and was adapted into an anime series by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex that ran from 2002 to 2017. The series was popular enough to warrant a sequel, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations which is set several years after the events of the original Naruto story and features the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata.