Boruto Episode 204

Isshiki Ōtsutsuki’s Vessel

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 204 was a very good episode. It wasn’t on par with Episode 189, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. Episode 204 is still one of the top episodes of the series so far for many reasons, not just its animation.

Getting right into the biggest reveal of the episode, Jigen is the vessel of Isshiki Ōtsutsuki. I’ll probably swap between the names Jigen and Isshiki when referring to him. But generally, if I’m talking about Isshiki within Jigen’s body, I’ll call him Jigen.

So, why does this reveal matter? Well, it confirms that Jigen is a vessel, and therefore that Ōtsutsuki’s have used vessels successfully in the past. However, there’s still a lot we don’t actually know about how these vessels work.

We don’t yet know exactly how the transfer of an Ōtsutsuki soul into a vessel works. Is Boruto at risk of becoming Momoshiki’s vessel? Or, since Momoshiki died, is Boruto safe? Does the Ōtsutsuki have to be alive to transfer into a new vessel?

One thing we can be fairly certain of is that Isshiki is the first Ōtsutsuki we’ve seen using a vessel. This is because Jigen’s body is that of a human, while Kaguya, Kinshiki, and Momoshiki all had very inhuman bodies — such as with extra Rinnegan eyes.

And, as the sole vessel-using Ōtsutsuki, I’m sure we’ll eventually get a background for Isshiki that explains why that is.

We know that Kaguya was originally meant to harvest the chakra of the planet, but turned her back on her clan instead. My guess is that she killed (or thought she killed) Isshiki at this time. But, he’s actually been hopping from vessel to vessel ever since, waiting for a time to finish his mission.

Naruto & Sasuke vs. Jigen

Going into this fight, I was a little concerned that Naruto and Sasuke were going to be significantly nerfed to make the fight more suspenseful. That actually didn’t really happen, which is good. Did they use every attack they have? No. But they didn’t hold back either.

One thing I noticed, though, is that Sasuke never attempted to use any genjutsu on Jigen. Why is this odd? Because genjutsu is kind of the specialty of the Sharingan. However, at the same time, genjutsu probably wouldn’t work on someone like Jigen.

Even so, I think I would have liked to see Sasuke at least try it, even if it only slowed Jigen down for a second. I feel like we haven’t seen Sasuke, or really anyone for that matter, use genjutsu in a very long time. I’m sure someone has used it since, but the last person I can remember using it was Mirai Sarutobi.

As for Jigen’s abilities, they’re simple, yet effective. We saw him use a total of four abilities in this fight. First, of course, he has his Karma which enhances his physical combat. Second, he can absorb and release jutsu. Third, he can use time-space jutsu. And fourth, he can resize matter.

With just these four abilities, he’s strong enough to go toe-to-toe with both Naruto and Sasuke. He didn’t even need to break out whatever that attack was that he was going to use to destroy the entire Leaf Village.

And, what I think is most important about the abilities Jigen has is that it never really felt like he suddenly and unexpectedly gained an advantage. He didn’t pull out any move we hadn’t seen before at the last second. Everything he did, we had already seen him do previously.

Kawaki Isn’t a Traitor

I’ve been saying this for a few weeks, but I don’t think Kawaki ever actually betrays Boruto and the rest of the Leaf Village. I’m certain that what we saw in Episode 1 was Isshiki using Kawaki as his vessel and attacking the Leaf Village (probably to capture Boruto).

The events of Episode 204 seem to confirm this theory. Kawaki’s reaction to what happened, the reveal about Isshiki, the state of Jigen’s body, and Naruto’s fate all come together to tell me that Kawaki isn’t going to end up as a traitor.

Looking at Kawaki first, it should be obvious that he has no intentions of betraying Boruto, Naruto, and the rest of the Leaf Village. He hates Jigen and respects Naruto way too much. There’s no way he does a complete 180. It’s not going to happen.

The reveal of Isshiki and the state of Jigen’s body go together here. We now know that Isshiki has successfully used a vessel before and that his current vessel (Jigen) isn’t going to last much longer. So, naturally, he’s going to need to take over Kawaki’s body as his new vessel soon.

And, lastly, there’s the fact that Jigen sealed Naruto away. In Episode 1, Kawaki says that he’ll send Boruto where he sent Naruto. This makes a lot of sense if you consider that it’s Isshiki in Kawaki’s body at that point — he’s saying he’s going to seal Boruto away as well.

Why would Isshiki want to seal Boruto away? Probably because Boruto is Momoshiki’s vessel. Isshiki likely views Momoshiki as competition since they both want to drain the chakra of the planet. So to eliminate that competition, Isshiki plans to seal him.

Conclusion

What do you think of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 204? Do you think Kaguya betrayed Isshiki? Should Naruto and Sasuke have been able to defeat Jigen? And have you finally come around to my theory about Kawaki? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 205 is available now.