Boruto Episode 81

Boruto Episode 81

Introduction

For those of you who have already watched this week’s episode of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, it should come as little surprise that I found this episode to be one of the least entertaining ones in a while. For those who have yet to watch it, don’t get your hopes up.

While I wouldn’t exactly call this episode filler (the whole arc may be filler as far as I know), nothing of importance happens in it. Because of that, the summary this week will probably be fairly bare bones, but I’ll attempt to make up for it with a fair amount of insight and predictions.

Boruto’s Wish

The episode starts a bit after Mitsuki and his newfound comrades head off towards the Land of Earth after beating up Boruto. Due to the injuries Boruto sustained from Mitsuki’s attack, the genin have been unable to follow Mitsuki or turn back towards the Leaf.

Although his physical injuries seem fairly bad, what’s really preventing Boruto from making any progress is the fact that he’s unconscious. Spread throughout the episode we get glimpses of what he’s dreaming about, and it almost seems as though he’s under a genjutsu.

In his dreams, Mitsuki is back in the Hidden Leaf and it’s as though he never left in the first place. Every time Boruto gets a strange feeling about something not being right, Mitsuki is there to remind him that it doesn’t matter and he just needs to keep staying safe.

Garaga then appears in Boruto’s dream and seems to understand what’s going on even though Boruto himself doesn’t. Eventually, Boruto realizes that he’s in a dream because Mitsuki is acting strangely, and we’re taken to the “inner mind” of Boruto where he talks to Garaga.

While I previously thought Boruto was under a genjutsu cast on him by Mitsuki to keep him away from the Hidden Stone and therefore out of harm’s way, Garaga informs us that this wasn’t the case. Instead, the fantasy Boruto was dreaming was of his own design and worked as a sort of defense mechanism.

At first Garaga is disappointed in Boruto, and decides to eat him since he won the bet regarding Mitsuki’s return, but Boruto surprises him when he asserts that he hasn’t given up on Mitsuki yet. Their summoning pact is only supposed to last until the end of their bet, and it seems that bet is going to go on for a bit longer.

In fact, I’m still confident that the pact between Boruto and Garaga isn’t just going to be temporary. By the time Boruto does successfully bring Mitsuki back to the Hidden Leaf, I think the bond between him and Garaga will have grown to the point that they’re both fine with each other. Kind of like Naruto and Kurama.

Actually, since tailed beasts don’t appear to play as much of a direct role in this series when compared to Naruto and Shippūden, Garaga is essentially taking the role of a tailed beast. From what I can remember, this is the first time a summon has been shown in the inner mind of their partner. This is usually reserved for tailed beasts.

That said, it’s not as though the inner mind is a place only tailed beasts can get to. We’ve previously seen external shinobi enter this area as well, such as when Sasuke enters Naruto’s inner mind and confronts Kurama.

The idea that tailed beasts play a lesser role in Boruto than its predecessors brings up some other important questions. For one, what is the large, tailed beast-like creature we see in the current OP? It looks like it uses Ice Release, but its tail also looks like White Zetsu cells, so is it an artificial tailed beast?

Also, while tailed beasts have always been the obvious focus of Naruto and Shippūden, what’s the focus in Boruto going to be? I get that Boruto’s Jōgan is going to get more important as the series goes on, but I don’t feel like it’s going to be the main focus.

Remember, eyes were already the true primary focus of Shippūden. I’ve discussed this topic at length previously, but for those who aren’t aware, the general idea is that the entire Naruto, and more specifically Shippūden, plots are actually about stealing eyes, not tailed beasts.

Instead, I think we’re going to see more of a focus on whatever mark Boruto has on his palm. If you recall from the very first episode, Boruto was able to extend this curse mark across half of his body, and his adversary, Kawaki, had similar markings on his body.

The Chibi Akuta

Enough about that tangent, let’s get back to the episode at hand. While Boruto is unconscious, the rest of the genin are busy discussing what their next steps should be. Sarada believes heading back to the Leaf might be the best plan, but Shikadai seems to think continuing ahead is the better option.

Then, while on patrol, Inojin is attacked by a leftover Akuta. However, this Akuta is the size of a small child and doesn’t appear to be a threat. In fact, it acts like a mix between a child and some sort of animal.

Due to its size, and the rabbit-like projections on its mask which remind me of Chibiusa from Sailor Moon, I’ve dubbed this Akuta, Chibiuta. Since Chibiusa means little rabbit, Chibiuta would roughly mean little trash or piece of trash, if you will. A fitting name.

Chibiuta takes a liking to Inojin, following him and copying everything he does. When Inojin throws a stick for Chibiuta to fetch, Chibiuta instead throws one of Inojin’s scrolls. From this, it’s hard to imagine that Chibiuta will ever become dangerous like its full-sized brethren.

However, to distract Chibiuta, Inojin creates some birds using his Super Beast Scroll. At first Chibiuta plays with the birds, but when it accidentally kills one of them, it becomes enraged and kills the rest of them as well. It then attacks a rabbit (fitting), but Inojin stops its attack.

At this point, we can see that although it’s small and childlike, Chibiuta is still an Akuta at heart. Nonetheless, Inojin attempts to teach it that all life is precious by drawing Chibiuta and the rabbit holding hands.

In the end, the genin decide to keep Chibiuta with them, if only to use it as evidence. But, even if they decided it was too risky to keep Chibiuta around, I doubt Inojin would allow the others to dispose of it. Chibiuta seems to have grown on him.

Inojin Yamanaka and the Chibi Akuta from the anime Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Inojin and the Chibi Akuta

Like Garaga’s appearance in Boruto’s inner mind, the appearance of Chibiuta brings up both old and new questions. The first of which is, “where did the Akuta come from?” We can be pretty sure they’re created by Ku, but just how are they created?

I previously speculated that the Akuta may be the souls of the deceased which are bound to the masks the Akuta wear, and while Chibiuta doesn’t prove this theory, I still believe that to be the case. What Chibiuta does show us, however, is that the aggressiveness of Akuta may be tied to their size.

That’s not to say that a large Akuta is more aggressive simply because it’s larger, but instead that a small Akuta is small because it doesn’t have the full amount of chakra needed to make it both large and aggressive. It could also mean that Ku’s influence over the Akuta decreases with this lack of chakra as well.

The next question is, “what will happen to Chibiuta in the future?” I think Chibiuta’s future is fairly obvious based on what we’ve seen already, but let me first explain what I don’t think is going to happen.

I’m fairly confident that Chibiuta will not meet its end by going on a rampage against the genin, despite how it’s already shown itself to be potentially dangerous. That said, I do think Chibiuta isn’t long for this world.

Instead, Chibiuta will likely meet its demise by protecting Inojin from one of the other Akuta or one of Ku’s homunculi. I’m fairly confident that Inojin’s lesson about the preciousness of life is going to come full circle, and Chibiuta will give its life to save his.

The other possible outcome is that Chibiuta will spend the rest of its days in the Hidden Stone village with the third Tsuchikage, Ohnoki, but I feel like it’s more likely to meet its end as I explained above because of the lessons we learned in this week’s episode.

Next Episode

Speaking of Ohnoki, he makes an appearance in next week’s episode. The last time we saw him he appeared to be on his deathbed, but it would seem that he’s back in action after getting some rest. It could be that the news of Kurotsuchi’s disappearance gave him the kick he needed to keep on living.

The genin infiltrate the Hidden Stone village seemingly all too easily. You would think that the Hidden Stone would have some way to detect foreign intruders, or at least have some sensory-type jonin, but this doesn’t appear to be the case.

By comparison, the Hidden Leaf has a village-wide barrier which sends out an alert if any unauthorized persons attempt to cross it. Other than previous Hidden Leaf shinobi such as Itachi and Obito, I believe only Pain and Konan were able to successfully bypass this barrier.

Once inside, the genin then find Ohnoki, who previously took a liking to Boruto during his visit to the Hidden Leaf. While I don’t think we’re going to get much action during this next episode, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ohnoki helped the genin get to Mitsuki and Kurotsuchi.

It seems that this next episode is mainly going to be about exploring the Hidden Stone rather than accomplishing anything tangible, but I’m fine with that. The Hidden stone is one of the few places we haven’t really seen before across all 801 episodes of the franchise, so I welcome its exploration.

That said, along with little to no action, it doesn’t seem like we’ll be seeing much of Mitsuki and the homunculi either. It’s possible that we’ll catch up with them shortly, but I’m not expecting them to have much screen time if any.

Conclusion

What did you think of this week’s episode of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations? And, what do you think is going to end up happening with Chibiuta? Let me know your thoughts and predictions in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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