Naruto’s Latest Episode Sees Boruto and Sasuke Go Back in Time

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has been setting the stage for a huge new arc celebrating the Naruto franchise’s 20th Anniversary, and a major draw of this new arc was that Boruto was somehow going to travel across time to meet the younger version of his father, Naruto. After teasing a mysterious relic in the background of the last few episodes, it seems that this would be the time machine to start everything. The latest episode of the series has kickstarted this all in motion after a surprising bout with Urashiki Otsutsuki has now had Boruto and Sasuke trapped in the past.

Episode 128 of the series sees Urashiki Otsutsuki make his move against the Hidden Leaf Village. He has been stealing chakra from various shinobi over the course of the last arc, and it’s revealed that he had been doing so in order to activate a relic that would allow him to travel back in time. But while he activated it, Boruto and Sasuke manage to catch up with him and jump into the time rift themselves.

After jumping into this strange new dimension, Boruto nearly gets knocked away but Sasuke saves him by using the last bit of his chakra to switch Urashiki in his place. This leaves Urashiki to fall away to some unknown area, but Sasuke and Boruto wind up in a familiar place to fans. It seems that their interference has caused the time machine to take them to a time Urashiki didn’t plan to, and now Sasuke and Boruto find themselves within the time of the original Naruto series.

They find themselves in the Hidden Leaf Village, but notice their surroundings are less technologically advanced than they are in Boruto’s time. But the biggest surprise is seeing that the mountain behind the village only shows four Hokage faces, rather than the seven seen in the sequel series.

Previews for the next few episodes tease younger versions of the Naruto characters interacting with Boruto and Sasuke, who have to keep their real identities hidden, but now fans are going to see just how these two will have an effect on the past and vice versa.

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.