Boruto: Naruto the Movie

Overview

I’ve only seen one or two other movies from the Naruto series, but Boruto: Naruto the Movie was better than those. In fact, it’s better than the Boruto anime series too so far (which is currently 49 episodes in).

The plot of this movie also takes place farther into the storyline than the series is so far, during the Chunin Exams. Original Naruto fans will recognize the Chunin exams as probably the best arc of the original series and once again it seems this is the arc where all the real action begins in Boruto.

The Exams are being held in the Leaf village, and once again the village is attacked in the middle of the final 1v1 match portion of the exams. However, this time the attack is not coming from another village, but another dimension.

You may recall Kaguya from the end of Naruto: Shippuden who was essentially the alien god who brought chakra, the energy used to perform jutsu, to Earth. Instead of Kaguya, however, since she was defeated by Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, the Leaf village is attacked by Kinshiki and Momoshiki, two beings from the same dimension as Kaguya.

Characters

Boruto: Naruto the Movie is our first anime introduction to the next generation of characters in the Naruto series since it premiered before the Boruto series. But have no fear, many of the old characters we know and love are still around. Except Neji of course.

New Generation

The main trio of new characters is the team made up of Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki so those are the only ones I’ll be going over here. The rest will be covered whenever I start writing about the Boruto series.

Boruto Uzumaki is the son of Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyuga. He has an exceptional mastery of jutsu for his age, but he cares more about doing things the easy way than doing them the right way. As you can probably assume, he’s the protagonist of this movie as well as the Boruto series.

Sarada Uchiha is the daughter of Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. She, like her father, has the visual jutsu known as the Sharingan which is the defining characteristic of the Uchiha clan. While she wasn’t as important in this movie, she becomes one of the most important characters in the series.

Mitsuki is the mysterious third member of the team. I don’t think we really learn much about him until the Boruto series, but I’ll spoil it and mention that he’s the son of Orochimaru.

Old Generation

As is true with the Boruto series as well, it’s not the new generation who make it any good, it’s the old characters coming back. Why would I care about Boruto when I could watch Sasuke doing cool things instead?

While there are a number of the old characters who have roles in this movie, the main two are Naruto and Sasuke.

Naruto is now the Hokage of the Leaf village and is still one of the strongest two ninja around (the other being Sasuke of course). After his battle with Sasuke in which they both lost an arm, Naruto had his replaced with a cloned arm made from White Zetsu cells which he keeps wrapped in bandages. As the Hokage, it’s Naruto’s job to oversee everything in the village and make sure the citizens are safe.

Sasuke has been out traveling away from the leaf village for most of the time ever since the end of Naruto: Shippuden. Unlike Naruto, he did not have his lost arm replaced and so only has one arm, but this doesn’t hold him back.

The reason for Sasuke’s disappearance from the village this time is due to him being on an important, top-secret mission. Using his Rinnegan he has been traveling through multiple dimensions attempting to find out more information on Kaguya and the others of her kind whom she mentioned will be coming after her. It’s in one of these other dimensions where the movie begins.

Conclusion

As I mentioned at the start, this movie is better than the Boruto series currently is. After watching it I thought it deserved a 7/10 because it was a genuinely good movie even if I don’t like Boruto’s character that much. Also it had still-best-girl Sakura cheering on Sarada in the Chunin Exams which is really all it needed to be a good movie.

I’ve heard that the arc from the Boruto movie is going to be redone in the series, which is a good thing, because otherwise there would be an awkward gap in the plot for anyone who solely watches the series. However, this arc has been hinted at in the series for what feels like months now and we don’t seem to be any closer to it, but hopefully it will start soon because it really is better than what we’ve gotten so far.

Instead of an OP, this time you get the intro scene of the movie which is a fight between Sasuke and Kinshiki. The intro is available here.