Boruto has taken charge as the next phase of Naruto, and the sequel has been praised by fans worldwide. Still, there are some lamenting the lost spotlight on Naruto Uzumaki, and one viral ad just took that oversight to a whole new level.
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So, you can thank Hot Topic for this one.
Over on Twitter, anime fans started buzzing when the hilarious ad surfaced online. The photo was posted by a fan known as wakebloo, and they didn’t beat around the bush with the offending sign.
“I went inside Hot Topic today and saw this,” the fan wrote, and the picture is plenty telling.
i went inside hot topic today and saw this??? pic.twitter.com/eZSIz9Sq4B
โ jacob โ seriida au ๐ (@wakebloo) March 16, 2019
The image, which can be found above, shows a stack of t-shirts being sold at Hot Topic. They are for Naruto, but this Hot Topic store did not go with that title. Instead, the shirts were listed under Boruto’s Dad, a famous meme within the anime fandom.
Shortly after Boruto was released, fans began to pass around the Boruto’s Dad joke when they referred to Naruto. It was meant to poke fun at how this sequel focuses more on Naruto’s son than it does anyone else, but this ad has taken it to a new level. There is a difference between addressing Boruto’s Dad online and in real life… and it turns out Hot Topic found a way to cross that line with hilarious composure.
So, are you surprised to see Hot Topic embrace this meme? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!
Originally created by Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto ran in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump for 700 chapters. The story follows 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 features the children of many of its key characters such as Naruto and Hinata.