Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has finally started the Chunin Exams arc, an arc fans have been waiting for since the series began and hinted it was going to adapt the material covered in Boruto: Naruto the Movie.
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The last episode saw Boruto cheat in order to make it past the second round, and now the preview for Episode 58 of the series is teasing the next major step in the story with the solo tournament.
Just like in its predecessor, the solo rounds of the Chunin Exams will be just as important for Boruto: Naruto Next Generations. In the preview, we see Boruto facing off against a member of the Hidden Cloud team as his fellow Hidden Leaf Genin face off against the Hidden Sand.
In the film version of these events, Boruto is eventually caught cheating with the Ninja Tools and a series of events afterward lead to the kidnapping of his father by members of the Kaguya clan. As the anime series has more room for development, fans are not expecting the arc to follow along the same story beats.
There are reports of the solo tournament of the Chunin Exams lasting a bit longer before this goes down, and that certainly would be good news for fans of the series as the original set of Chunin Exams provided some of the best moments of its predecessor series.
Naruto fans often look back to the Chunin Exams fondly with such fights as the one between Rock Lee and Gaara, Ino and Sakura, Shikamaru and Temari, Hinata and Neji, and Neji and Naruto still topping many “Best Anime Fights” list.
So if Boruto’s Chunin Exam solo tournament can come close to the original, or offer interesting match-ups fans wouldn’t expect, then it will certainly be a joy to watch. Which means the wait for Episode 58 is going to be even tougher now that everything is set to finally begin.
For those unfamiliar with Boruto’s predecessor Naruto, it has quite a storied history. Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto, the series ran in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump for 700 chapters. The story follows Naruto, a young ninja with a sealed demon within him that wishes to become the leader of his home village. The sequel, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is set several years after the events of the original Naruto story and featuring the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata.
