Boruto Episode 165

The Quadruplets’ Duty

In Boruto: Naruto Next Generations episode 165, we saw two more of the quadruplets use their signature, self-sacrifice jutsu. And to be honest, I think the two we saw in this episode are actually somehow worse than the one from episode 164. I’m hoping we get to see the fourth brother’s jutsu as well so I can compare his to the others.

But before I get into discussing the two, newly revealed jutsu, I want to talk about the quadruplets’ goal and what I expect from them going forward.

First, Crunchyroll’s English subtitles said that the quadruplets were completing this mission to repay the Land of Silence for taking them in. That’s a mistake, as should be expected from Crunchyroll. The quadruplets infiltrated the Land of Silence and are completing the mission on behalf of the Land of Haze.

It was revealed that the quadruplets were orphans who grew up starving until, presumably, they were taken in by the Land of Haze and trained as shinobi. They then took on this mission to steal the Hashirama Cell because they were told that it would end the suffering and starvation plaguing their homeland.

You may also recall that although there were originally four brothers, we never saw how the first one died. Well, actually we did. It turns out that the man found dead outside the mansion in the Land of Silence was Yoruga. I had completely forgotten about that until it was brought up in this episode.

But, what’s to come of the two remaining brothers? Will they live out their days in order to honor the memories of their siblings? Probably not. I think we’ll see the two of them team up to fight Deepa while the Hidden Leaf shinobi escape — and they’ll die in the process.

If this comes to pass, I’m sure they’ll both use their self-sacrifice jutsu. But, of course, that won’t be enough to kill Deepa.

Another Self-Sacrifice Jutsu

Going back to Yoruga, his signature self-sacrifice jutsu is Gate to the Afterlife. And I have to say, this jutsu really doesn’t make any sense to me. Everything about it just makes absolutely no sense.

So to explain what it is first, this jutsu is a type of summoning jutsu just as the other two self-sacrifice jutsu we’ve seen from the brothers are. What this one summons is, you guessed it, a gate to the afterlife. And when the gate is fully summoned, the user of the jutsu shrivels up and dies.

At this point, you should be noticing the first problem with the jutsu — it doesn’t really do anything. The user trades their life to summon a gate to the afterlife. That’s all fine and good, but what does summoning the gate do exactly? Does it suck in and trap enemies? Does it kill those who enter it?

No. It does none of those things. It’s simply a gate that, I assume, goes to the afterlife.

Okay, so you’ve traded your life to summon a gate to the afterlife. Now what? Well, apparently it can be used as a gate to pass through powerful barriers. Of course, you can’t use it for that because you’re dead. But if you happen to be a quadruplet, your three brothers can infiltrate a mansion thanks to your death.

That’s right, the Gate to the Afterlife jutsu that Yoruga traded his life to summon wasn’t even used to go do something in the afterlife. It was simply used to bypass a barrier. Also, how was it used to bypass a barrier? We clearly saw that it led to the afterlife, so was another gate summoned on the other side of the barrier for them to exit through?

Not the Worst Self-Sacrifice Jutsu

Originally, this section was going to be titled, “The Actual Worst Self-Sacrifice Jutsu.” But after writing about Yoruga’s Gate to the Afterlife jutsu, I’ve decided that it’s actually worse than Hiruga’s Hellish Obliteration jutsu in just about every way.

Before explaining why Hellish Obliteration is actually better than Gate to the Afterlife, though, I need to explain why it’s also extremely bad. This jutsu summons a swamp that pulls anyone in it down into the afterlife. That sounds pretty nice until you remember that this is a self-sacrifice jutsu, meaning that the user is one of those people who’s killed by it.

But, in theory, at least this jutsu seems to guarantee that the user will take their opponents down with them, unlike the first jutsu we saw Yuuga use. Unfortunately, the jutsu doesn’t work that way in practice. The closer someone is to the user, the faster they sink. This means that the user will always be the first to die, thus releasing everyone else from the jutsu.

That’s right, you’re sacrificing your life to mildly inconvenience your opponents for a while.

That certainly sounds like it would be the worst of these jutsu, but there are some benefits (if you can call them that) to using this jutsu over the other two we’ve seen. The most important is that the user can release the jutsu at any time to prevent their own death. So unlike the others, simply activating the jutsu doesn’t seal your fate.

The other benefit of this jutsu over something like the Gate to the Afterlife is that it can actually be useful if used on a team. The main problem for Hiruga is that he’s using Hellish Obliteration on his own. If his brother stuck around, he could have killed all the Leaf Shinobi stuck in Hiruga’s jutsu and then allowed Hiruga to release it, thus saving himself.

Effectively, Hellish Obliteration is an area-of-effect version of the Shadow Paralysis jutsu that kills the user if they use it for too long. It’s honestly not a bad jutsu if you don’t use it as a self-sacrifice jutsu and instead work with a team.

Conclusion

So far, I think the ranking of the quadruplet’s self-sacrifice jutsu goes Hiruga > Yuuga > Yoruga. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the final of the quadruplets’ jutsu looks like. I can’t imagine it being worse than automatically killing yourself to open a door. But where do you think it will rank? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.