Boruto Episode 76

Introduction

It’s getting late and I’m tired, but I couldn’t just put of the review of Boruto episode 76 until tomorrow when there wasn’t even an episode last week now could I? You may have also noticed that this post is on a Sunday, not a Thursday, well, Boruto’s airing schedule changed again so these posts are on Sundays now.

Before we get into the episode I’d also like to point out that this week we got a new OP/ED combo. While I think the new OP is better than the last, I really did enjoy the previous ED (for the most part) and it’s sad to see it go.

So, quickly looking at the new OP, we see some interesting developments that are likely to come in the near future (roughly within the next 25 episodes). The first, and most obvious, is that Mitsuki is back as part of Team 7, so it’s already spoiled that the Mitsuki recovery mission is going to be a success.

Next up is something a bit more interesting. We see the Konoha genin fighting alongside Shinki of the hidden sand against what appears to be an ice version of a Susanoo, Complete Nine-Tails Cloak, or Gedo Statue. I have no idea what this is about, but I’m all here for it.

At the very least, I think we can assume that an ice-style user is likely to be one of the main antagonists of the next arc, and that’s kind of a big deal. Honestly, the last ice-type user I can remember (outside of the movies) was Haku all the way back from the beginning of Naruto.

Hopefully this is a sign that we’re going to explore more of the kekkei genkai in the future of this series. And, since Shinki, another kekkei genkai user, is also present, it seems that we’ll finally start including characters from beyond the Leaf Village into the main group.

There are probably a lot of other interesting things to pick apart in this new OP, and I may do that some time in the near future, but for now those were the things that I remembered and came to mind. With that, let’s get into the actual episode for this week.

Summary

In case you don’t remember, since the previous episode was a while ago, Boruto and the gang are currently in Ryūchi cave searching for answers about Mitsuki. In order to get the White Snake Sage to help them, they must first retrieve the reverse scale from the giant snake, Garaga.

Now, let’s be honest, this episode wasn’t all that interesting (nothing really happened), and the animation certainly wasn’t the best. So I’m not going to do a traditional summary here, but instead talk about things I liked and didn’t like throughout the episode. You know, kind of like a review.

The first issue I had with the episode was Garaga himself. I’m no snake expert, but Garaga really reminds me of a Bush Viper, or at least a viper of some sort. So, riddle me this, why does Garaga try to kill Cho-Cho by constricting her? Bush Vipers aren’t constrictors.

Bush Vipers also live in trees, but with Garaga’s size, I suppose I’ll let that one slide. Luckily, Garaga does eventually show of his “venom” (which isn’t really venom at all) and uses it to turn Cho-Cho to stone. This is likely what happened to all the other petrified snakes we saw earlier in the episode.

But, Garaga isn’t even the best snake in the episode, because our boy, Aoda, has made his first(?) appearance of the series. For anyone not aware, Aoda is the personal summon of Sasuke Uchiha, along with the hawk, Garuda (can we please get a hawk sage next?).

Because he’s the personal summon of Sasuke, Aoda comes to Sarada’s rescue when she’s about to be killed by Garaga, and only agrees to help the Konoha genin because Sarada tells him to. While Aoda’s subservience may make him seem weak, that isn’t the case.

It appears that Aoda is simply a polite snake, considering he refers to Sasuke and Sarada with -sama and doesn’t like Boruto because he’s rude. However, I like to think that the reason, at least in part, for Aoda’s politeness is because he knows what happened to his predecessor.

Before Aoda, Sasuke had a personal summon snake known as Manda. Manda was the largest of all the snakes of Ryūchi cave, and was formerly the personal summon of Orochimaru. Unlike Aoda, Manda hated literally everyone besides Orochimaru, although I wouldn’t exactly say he liked him either.

After Orochimaru’s “death,” Sasuke decided to use Manda as a meat shield to protect himself from an explosion, a really big explosion. As you may expect, Manda didn’t survive, and just before he died, he cursed Sasuke. RIP Manda.

Now, with that in mind, I think that part of the reason Aoda reveres Sasuke so much is because he doesn’t want to end up a meat shield like Manda, which is probably a good call.

While Aoda claims that the only reason he’s helping the Konoha genin fight against Garaga is because Sarada told him to, it’s likely that he would have helped them anyway. Can you imagine what would happen to him if he let Sarada die in a fight against Garaga? Sasuke would probably wear his skin.

So, if you couldn’t guess, I liked the inclusion of Aoda in this episode. I originally figured that Sasuke would show up to save the genin since he’s allied with Ryūchi cave, but having Aoda save them works just as well. I wouldn’t have been able to suspend my disbelief if the genin succeeded on their own.

And, while Garaga was definitely a part of the episode that bothered me, he wasn’t actually the worst part. Instead, the worst part of this episode is that the fight with Garaga didn’t end. That’s right, we get to see the second part of the fight against Garaga next week.

Next Episode

As I just said, next week we get to see the second, and hopefully final, portion of the fight against Garaga. Hopefully that won’t take up much of the episode though, because we’re also going to get some content revolving around my favorite Boruto character, Mitsuki.

It looks like we’ll finally find out just who it was that convinced Mitsuki to betray the Leaf, and to be honest, they remind me of Hidden Mist shinobi. It’s something about the bandages that just screams Hidden Mist to me, but all of the notable bandage-wearing shinobi I can think of came from other villages.

Samehada, one of the Seven Swords of the Mist, was covered in bandages, but that’s a sword, not really a character (although it is technically alive). I guess if I count Tonton the pig as a character I have to count Samehada too. Either way, there are bad guys in bandages coming next episode!

Conclusion

If you enjoyed my probable ramblings about this week’s Boruto episode (I’m sorry, I’m tired), then be sure to click the like button down below. You can also scroll down and leave a comment to let me know what you thought about the episode this week.

Did you like it? Hate it? Did you think the animation quality was bad like I did? Did you enjoy seeing best-snake (in Naruto that is; Nadeko is true best-snake) Aoda back in action? Let me know!

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My review of the next episode is available here.