Boruto Episode 201

Empty Tears

I want to say that about 90% of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 201 was recap or other filler. In fact, I almost wasn’t going to review this episode and instead replace it with a series review from the winter season. But, that other 10% of the episode is why we’re here.

Before we get to the good stuff, though, let’s run through some of the recap. Luckily, the recap here wasn’t going over events we’ve seen within the Boruto series. It was recapping some events from the original Naruto series, which aired a long time ago.

I think recapping parts of Naruto (and Shippūden) every once in a while isn’t a bad idea. As I’ve said many times in the past, there’s probably a good chunk of Boruto viewers who never watched those because of their (the viewer’s) age.

Obviously, I would prefer it if people who enjoy Boruto go back and watch the previous two series so they have all of the context. But, at the same time, I recognize that expecting people to watch 720 episodes isn’t very realistic.

So, in this episode, the Kurama explained how Naruto used to be alone when he was a child and how he was very similar to how Kawaki is now. Both of them were forced to become vessels for some immense power and suffered because of it.

If you read my review of Episode 200, you may have noticed that something I predicted regarding Kurama’s retelling of these events was wrong. I really didn’t expect Kurama to mention the fact that he was the one who killed Naruto’s parents. And, I also didn’t expect that Kawaki would have no reaction to this.

Brothers

It might have been last week, or it might have been a bit earlier than that, but I stated at some point fairly recently that it feels like we’re at a turning point for the Boruto series. There was everything that came before Kawaki, and now that Kawaki is here, we’re moving into the “real” story.

Way back in Episode 1 we got the scene of Boruto and Kawaki facing off in the ruins of the Leaf Village. That hasn’t come to pass in the story yet, but it told us from the very start that Kawaki was going to be a major character as far as the plot is concerned.

Then, over the next 190 or so episodes, everything that happened was leading up to the eventual introduction of Kara. You can look back at just about any arc and see how it ties into what Kara is doing, whether it be creating homunculi, using white Zetsu cells, etc.

Now, we’re at the point of the series where Kawaki has been introduced and solidified as a main character and all of the Kara members have been revealed. We’re finally able to look back and see how Kara has been involved in the shadows all along and how everything has been leading to this point.

And the reason I wanted to bring this all up now is that Boruto and Kawaki made a declaration in this episode that signifies this turning point. Boruto refers to Kawaki as his brother and the two of them vow to take down Jigen, the leader of Kara.

This is the first time that the “end game” of the series has been brought up. Jigen is the big bad guy who’s been looming in the background. And we finally have our main characters declaring that they’re going to defeat him and thereby wrap up all of the events that have happened thus far.

Sasuke’s Trip to the Kara Dimension

Now, onto that 10% of the episode that was really new. It turns out that the data Konohamaru extracted from Kara’s airship had some coordinates located within another dimension. So, naturally, Sasuke was sent to check it out.

When he arrives there, we see that behind him is a large wall that has six symbols carved into it, with two of them destroyed. These destroyed symbols appear to have been purposefully destroyed rather than being destroyed due to natural circumstances.

We don’t yet know what all of these symbols mean. But my guess is that each one represents an Ōtsutsuki clan member. And if that’s correct, then the destroyed symbols could imply that the Karma of those members is lost.

Throughout the series, we’ve met five Ōtsutsuki clan members. And considering I’ve theorized that Jigen could be one too, that would make six just like the symbols. The other five are Kaguya, Toneri, Momoshiki, Kinshiki, and Urashiki.

Kaguya and Toneri were both sealed and so couldn’t have passed on their Karma — this may be why two of the symbols are destroyed. Momoshiki killed Kinshiki, Boruto killed Momoshiki, and Naruto and Boruto killed Urashiki.

Since Momoshiki, Kinshiki, and Urashiki were killed, my guess is that Jigen couldn’t definitively say whether or not they passed on their Karma, and so their symbols weren’t destroyed. Basically, I think Jigen is using the wall of symbols as a checklist to keep track of the remaining Karma.

My guesses are that the top left is Momoshiki, bottom left is Kinshiki, bottom middle is Urashiki, and top middle is Jigen. These are based on the “horn” shapes for Momoshiki, Kinshiki, and Urashiki as well as how the top middle one has a darker circle, which may imply that person is still alive.

Conclusion

What do you think of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 201? Are you glad that recap of Naruto was included? Do you think Jigen is actually going to be the final boss? And what do you think the symbols Sasuke discovered represent? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 202 is available now.