Naruto fans were just handed the biggest reason yet to hate on Boruto (not that a lot of them needed one), thanks to the latest episode of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, “Boruto vs. Shikadai”.
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As the title of episode 59 suggests, we saw Boruto enter the semi-finals round of the Chunin Exams having to battle one of his closest friends, Shikadai Nara. Shikadai and Boruto have a pretty intense back and forth duel, all within the boundaries of friendly competition. Boruto thought he could take the victory with this Shadow Clone jutsu, but Shikadai had a secret weapon: he and his father Shikamaru has been secretly practicing a new technique, specifically designed to stop the likes of Boruto: after drawing Boruto in close, Shikadai immobilizes his friend using an impressive expansion of his Shadow Imitation Technique! Boruto was (literally) forced into a position where he would seemingly have to surrender the match – and that’s where things took a sad turn.
Just before the match with Shikadai, we see Boruto in the locker room, contemplating whether or not to wear his new Scientific Ninja Tool, given to him by Katasuke Tono for field testing in the Chunin Exam. So far, Boruto has used his secret ace-up-the-sleeve to pull victory out of defeat in the previous two rounds of the exams; but the way the scene before his match with Shikadai is constructed, there was hope that Boruto had made the right choice. However, when the decisive moment of the match arrives, Boruto is revealed to have taken the dishonorable route, totally disregarding Shikadai’s decree that they should, “do this fair and square with no hard feelings, okay?” Right when Shikadai calls for surrender, Boruto uses the Scientific Ninja Tool to pop out a capsule that allows him to distract Shikadai long enough to turn the tables on him. Shikadai is forced to surrender, giving Boruto another big (if not unlikely) win.
The episode ends on a somber note, with Shikadai learning to embrace his defeat as motivation to get better – while growing closer to his Ino-Shika-Cho teammates, who also had to learn from defeat. Conversely, Boruto was left isolated and lonely in his dishonest victory, feeling especially low after Katasuke praises their shared mission of killing the old ways of the shinobi world.
As the Boruto movie showed, Shikadai an Bortuo’s match is what leads Naruto to discover his son’s dishonesty, and punish him for it by disqualifying him from the Chunin Exams. We’ve already seen evidence that the Boruto anime will be doing things differently, so it will be interesting to see how much impact this moment between Boruto and Shikadai will have in the long run.
What’s for sure is that if you don’t like Boruto right now, you’re certainly not alone.
Boruto airs new sub episodes weekly on Funimation and Hulu.
