Naruto Preview Teases Boruto’s Mission Regarding the Mujina Bandits

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations fans have a complicated relationship with the anime series. The original manga run of the series is exploring new powers and villain groups that potentially have ties to the Otsutsuki Clan, but the anime has to take its time with this manga material given its monthly release schedule. This meant that there was a 70 episode or so string of original anime stories, and fans were even hoping that the series would get a full relaunch and fix itself. But soon the anime will be returning to the manga with the upcoming Mujina Bandits arc.

It’s not quite as simple as that, however, as the next episode of the series will be officially kicking off the Mujina Bandits arc. But it’s going to look a lot different than the arc in the original series as it features a completely new setting and new characters not seen in the original iteration of the arc.

Episode 141 of the series is titled, “The Shinobi Prison: Hozuki Castle” and the synopsis for the episode teases that Boruto and Mitsuki will be making their way into a shinobi prison in order to protect a new character who is the target of the mysterious Mujina Bandit group, “The mission starts! They’re to escort Kokuri to a prison full of criminals! Managed by the Village Hidden in the Grass exclusively for shinobi — Hozuki Castle.”

Elaborating further, the synopsis teases that this arc will kick off with a whole protection mission and that’s a far cry from how it began in the manga, “Boruto and Mitsuki infiltrated Hozuki Castle as prisoners to help protect Kokuri from being assassinated by the Mujina [Gang]. Team Seven’s guard mission at the inescapable prison begins.”

The Mujina Bandits arc is one of the shortest in the manga thus far, so this expanded content does make a lot of sense and further helps the anime stand out from the original story. Anime original content has been dubbed filler in this series because of how the anime seems to have halted the main storyline, but it seems this arc presents a unique opportunity to beef up that original story with supplemental material.

Are you excited for the Mujina Bandits arc? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!

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.