Boruto Episode 74

Introduction

This week we actually got two episodes of Boruto; episode 74 (this one) and episode 75. Despite there being two episodes this week, you may have noticed that this post is only titled “Boruto Episode 74” and not “Boruto Episode 74 & 75.” This is because I’ll be reviewing episode 75 tomorrow.

Sure, I could have reviewed both episodes together, but why do that when I can make you come back two days in a row instead? Also, I felt that if I combined my reviews of these two episodes, each one would only get half of the attention they really deserve.

I’ve also only watched episode 74 so far because I didn’t want to taint my predictions by watching episode 75 before writing this. Because of that, however, those of you who are reading this on Thursday, September 20 and have watched episode 75 already will have more insight than I do.

With that out of the way, let’s get down to business and take a look at Boruto episode 74: “The Enemy, Ino-Shika-Cho!”

Summary

As you may recall from last week, Boruto and Sarada traveled to one of Orochimaru’s hideouts in order to gather information regarding Mitsuki’s whereabouts. From there, Orochimaru sent them off to find Ryūchi Cave and the White Snake Sage who lives within it.

Meanwhile, Team 10, consisting of Moegi, Shikadai, Cho-Cho, and Inojin, have been sent out from the Hidden Leaf to track down and capture Boruto and Sarada so they can be brought back to the Leaf. This episode opens with the initial confrontation between both groups.

Last week I mentioned how I believe Team 15 would have been the better choice for tracking down Boruto and Sarada, but this week we learn exactly why Team 10 was chosen instead. While Team 15 is the tracking team, Team 10 is more suited for capturing opponents.

As far as jonin go, Hanabi clearly outclasses Moegi in every way, and it’s hard for me to really believe Moegi is a jonin at all, so Team 15 wins that round. However, while tracking is the specialty of Team 15, Inojin is still able to use his Super Beast Scroll Jutsu to track down opponents as well.

Further, once the enemy is tracked down, Team 10 is able to efficiently capture them, which is something Team 15 would struggle with to an extent. Sure, Namida could cry and knock everyone out, but Team 10 has a wider variety of options available to them.

Shikadai can use his Shadow Paralysis Jutsu, Cho-Cho can grab people with her Partial Expansion Jutsu, and Inojin can use his Tiger Vision Staring Bullet sealing Jutsu. Team 10 also has the added benefit of Shikadai’s brain, which as we know is one of the strongest weapons in the series.

However, despite having all of these tools at their disposal, Boruto and Sarada are still able to break free from their first encounter thanks to Boruto’s secret Lightning-style Rasengan. Now, I predicted last week that they would be able to defeat Team 10 even with Moegi, and this seems to prove that.

From there, Boruto and Sarada use shadow clones as a diversion so Team 10 needs to split up to continue tracking them down. Moegi goes after one Boruto/Sarada pair, and the rest of the team goes after the other. In the end, Moegi defeated the shadow clones while Ino-Shika-Cho caught up to Boruto and Sarada once again.

In this second fight, Team 10 is able to capture both Boruto and Sarada by using one of Shikadai’s plans. However, I still think that if Boruto and Sarada had gone all out they would have been able to defeat Team 10 again. Boruto didn’t even use his Lightning Rasengan this time.

But, after the successful capture of Boruto and Sarada, Mitsuki’s snake drops out of Boruto’s pocket and changes everything. Once he learns about the snake and the message it sent to Boruto, Shikadai decides that the best course of action is to actually go with Boruto after Mitsuki.

Cho-Cho agrees to go as well because she doesn’t want to be the one to stay behind and tell Moegi what happened. In the end, Inojin decides to go as well because he too doesn’t want to be left behind to incur Moegi’s wrath, but decides that he’ll claim the others forced him to go with them.

Now, although I mentioned that Team 10 was chosen for this assignment because of their ability to capture enemies, there’s actually a second reason. Shikamaru knows that Mitsuki’s disappearance isn’t all that it seems, and so he decided to send Shikadai and his team on this mission because he knows Shikadai will be able to adapt depending on what information is uncovered.

Shikamaru reminded Shikadai of a proverb before he leaves on his assignment about a knight who rushes in alone and is taken down by pawns because of it. Shikadai seems to think of himself as the knight and assumes Boruto and Sarada are the pawns who he should be wary of.

In the end, Shikadai is “taken down” by Boruto and Sarada when he agrees to join them, and so he says that he failed his father because of it. However, I don’t think that’s actually what Shikamaru meant when he brought up that proverb.

Instead I think Boruto is the knight and whoever the enemies Mitsuki is with are the pawns. In this scenario, Boruto will be brought down by the enemies if he and Sarada rush in alone, however, if Shikadai and Team 10 help Boruto and Sarada, they’ll all succeed together.

Maybe that’s an obvious prediction or maybe I’ve just watched way too much Naruto and thought about it way more than I should.

So, Team 10 joins Boruto and Sarada and together they continue on their path towards Ryūchi Cave. Meanwhile, after defeating the shadow clones, Moegi is attacked by Suigetsu as she tries to reunite with the genin. It’s revealed that Suigetsu was stalling her so that the genin could reach Ryūchi cave before she catches up to them.

Because I already knew it was Suigetsu even when he was hiding his identity, I found it a bit annoying that it had to be officially revealed that it was him, but I suppose maybe new viewers may not be as familiar with him as those of us who have been around since the beginning of the franchise.

Next Episode

In the next episode, which also aired today, Boruto and the gang appear to make it to Ryūchi cave, but must complete a set of trials before they’re able to see the White Snake Sage. These trials are likely in the form of combat, but since I haven’t yet seen it, I can’t be sure.

It also doesn’t appear from the preview that Moegi catches up to the genin in the next episode, so she may instead report back to the Hidden Leaf. If this is indeed the case, we may see Sasuke appear again in the near future, although probably not in this next episode.

If Moegi returns to the Leaf and mentions that the genin went to Ryūchi Cave, Sasuke will likely hear about it, and since he has a summoning pact with Ryūchi Cave, will be able to easily get there to bring the genin home once their adventure is complete.

However, even if the White Snake Sage does have information about Mitsuki, it’s unlikely Mitsuki is actually in Ryūchi Cave.

Finally, in the preview it appears that Boruto is in some pain due to the diamond-shaped marking on his palm. This could signify that in the next episode we’ll actually see something related to it happen, or maybe the White Snake Sage will have some information regarding it.

Either way, the next episode and the one that will follow it seem like they’ll be important.

Conclusion

Because this week had two episodes I don’t think that there will be an episode next week, but we’ll just have to wait and see because I don’t feel like looking it up right now. I’ll look that up for my review of episode 75, which is going to be uploaded tomorrow in case you’ve forgotten.

If you enjoyed this post, are looking forward to tomorrow’s post, or just feel like being a nice person, then leave a like down below. You can also let me know what your thoughts are regarding this episode in the comment section.

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My review of the next episode is available here.