Boruto Episode 102

Boruto Episode 102

Melee!

The curse mark filler arc continues, and at the end of last week’s episode it was revealed that Tosaka was actually the villain all along. You might also remember how I’ve repeatedly brought up the fact that the Boruto series pushes an anti-science agenda. Well, this episode reinforces that.

It’s kind of hard to see argue against that point when the antagonist’s goal is to create the ultimate weapon and they’re saying things like, “the power of science will control the curse mark at last” and “now you know how passionate I am about my research.”

Nothing is left to the imagination. When the power of science and being passionate about research are the signs of a villain, it’s easy to make a connection between science and bad things.

Another pairing of science and bad guys comes from the Land of Rivers researchers using stun guns. Maybe you didn’t pick up on this, but it stood out to me as soon as Suigetsu got electrocuted the first time.

Typically we’d expect lightning style jutsu to be used in a situation like this, but the antagonists don’t do that. Instead, they use stun guns, which remove the user from the act of electrocuting their opponent slightly. Good guys electrocute people themselves, bad guys use technology to do it for them.

Maybe in a future arc we’ll see a bad guy use a drone to drop bombs on a village, and the good guys will have to stop them by defeating the bad guys the old-fashioned way, with their fists, jutsu, and the power of teamwork.

Karin and Sarada

Speaking of fists, jutsu, and the power of teamwork, the first of two main fights to take place in this episode is between Karin, Sarada, and one of the curse mark twins (the dinosaur one). I actually liked this fight for three reasons:

  1. The dinosaur curse mark user got punched in the face.
  2. I forgot the Uzumaki clan specialize in sealing jutsu.
  3. It reminded me of Sarada’s potential.

Skipping over that first reason, I tend to forget that the Uzumaki clan specialize in sealing jutsu. The spiral seal which was (I don’t think it still is) on Naruto’s stomach was an Uzumaki clan seal, and the one who placed it there was his mother. Other than that, the fact that the Uzumaki clan specializes in this never matters.

So, you can probably understand why I forgot this was something the clan was known for until Karin breaks out a chakra chain jutsu in the middle of this fight. But, what I loved about this so much is that I didn’t think, “wow, she’s suddenly acquiring new jutsu that fit the situation.” Instead I thought, “oh, right. She can do that.”

Sarada Uchiha beating one of the curse mark twins from the anime series Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Sarada beating one of the curse mark twins

The other reason I liked this fight was because it, and Karin, reminded me of Sarada’s true potential. She has the Sharingan like her father, and she’s perfected her chakra control like her mother. Together, this is a pretty lethal combination.

Historically, members of the Uchiha clan relied heavily on their dōjutsu and ninjutsu, making them great at mid-range combat. However, while Sarada can certainly still fight in that way, her true power lies in close quarters combat.

No, she doesn’t (yet) have the self-healing capabilities of Sakura, but thanks to her strength she can finish a fight in just one punch man. The problem, there is landing that punch. But, thanks to the fact that Sarada also has the Sharingan, this isn’t really an issue as we saw.

Team 15

The other fight of the episode wasn’t as interesting as far as I was concerned, although I do enjoy watching Wasabi fight. I’m pretty sure I brought this up in my ranking of the Boruto genin, but Wasabi would be so much more fun to watch if she swapped cat cloaks mid-fight.

It’s also actually kind of nice to see that Namida is no longer completely useless. I don’t exactly like that she has an ethereal, rainbow megaphone with wings that floats in front of her face, but her new jutsu is pretty cool, especially since we don’t see many that are sound-based anymore.

But, the star of this fight was Sumire without a doubt. Even when she wasn’t using Nue, she was doing a decent job of holding her own against the second curse mark twin. None of the original Naruto cast specialized in water style jutsu, so it’s pretty fun to watch her fight.

She used the water pistol jutsu, the water clone jutsu, and even a water wall jutsu (which failed to stop boulders). But unfortunately in the end she relied on Nue to finish the fight. I get that Nue is really what sets Sumire apart, not her use of the water style, but I just don’t like Nue.

It’s not the summon part I dislike, it’s Nue itself. If Sumire used a summon that wasn’t a mythical creature I think I’d be more accepting of it. It’s not like toads, snakes, and slugs are the only real animals available for summoning. Those are just the ones used by the Sannin.

We’ve also seen dogs, tortoises, sharks, salamanders, hawks, monkeys, and more used as summons. Why not give some more love to these other summons rather than sticking to the Toad/Snake/Slug trio and then using a mythical creature like a nue?

I know this is getting off topic, but do you know how disappointed I was when Konohamaru went for the toad summoning pact over the monkey one like his grandfather? Maybe in the future it will be revealed that he has a dual pact like Sasuke.

Perfect Curse Mark

Back to the episode at hand, all of Tosaka’s evil research was for one purpose: to create the ultimate, weaponized curse seal. To do this, he had to observe Jūgo’s curse seal in action, as well as obtain some samples of it.

Thanks to teams 7 and 15 he was finally able to accomplish this, and his perfect curse mark is the result. However, let me make it perfectly clear that I don’t believe Tosaka was able to actually perfect the curse mark.

I refuse to believe that Orochimaru wasn’t able to perfect the curse mark, but then after only a single day with a sample from Jūgo, Tosaka was able to. My prediction is that something’s going to go terribly wrong with this “perfect” curse mark.

Tosaka's curse mark from the anime series Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Tosaka’s curse mark

Tosaka also uses himself as the test subject for his perfect curse mark, so there’s even more of a hint that it’s all going to go wrong. Theoretically, Jūgo could simply remove the curse mark from Tosaka, but this won’t be viable since Jūgo’s currently undergoing a curse mark transformation of his own.

So, why did Tosaka infect himself with his newly created curse mark, and why did he then force Jūgo to also undergo a curse mark transformation? Simply put, because he wants to prove that his artificially created curse mark is stronger than the original.

It’s your classic case of technology vs. the natural world, and that’s how we know this isn’t going to go Tosaka’s way (also the fact that he’s the bad guy). But, I still think that Jūgo won’t be the one to defeat Tosaka. In the end, Tosaka’s curse mark will defeat itself in some way.

As for what his curse mark looks like, it’s the same, boring pattern that we saw on the curse mark twins as well as Wasabi and Namida while they were infected. His partial transformation also resembles Jūgo’s, so we can assume the complete transformation will as well.

Remember when curse marks and their transformations were actually unique and more demonic?

Conclusion

So, what did you think of this week’s episode of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations? Which of the two fights did you enjoy more? Did you like watching Karin and Sarada, or did you like watching Sumire carry Team 15? Let me know in the comments.

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Boruto episode 111 is my next available review of this series.

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