Boruto Episode 211

Ino-Shika-Cho is on the Case!

When I saw the preview for Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 211, I figured that it would be all filler and not really matter. It seemed like the Ino-Shika-Cho trio were going to perform a make-believe investigation and that Kakashi would just play along.

Now I know that’s not the case. Sure, the parts of the episode focusing on Team 10 were effectively filler. But the episode as a whole had some good content — and more importantly, meaningful content.

Before I get to the good stuff, let’s briefly go over some of the not-so-good content featuring Team 10. To start, we have when Chouchou discovers Koji Kashin’s hideout. She describes what she’s looking for, her teammates say it won’t be that easy to find, and then it turns out it’s right in front of them.

Similarly, when chasing Koji, Shikadai literally sees Koji on a rooftop and then states that they lost him in the crowd. No, you didn’t lose him in the crowd. You saw him go onto a roof and then you forgot within seconds.

I get that losing Koji in the crowd then leads into Kakashi pointing out that he probably escaped via the sewer system. But you can’t use that explanation directly after we see that wasn’t the case. There’s a continuity gap there.

The first half of this episode really just felt like it failed at the storyboarding phase. Sure, it’s not important content that needs to be presented all that well. But I’d like for it to at least be presented in a way that doesn’t make its lack of importance so obvious.

Cut out the scene of Koji on the roof and replace it with a scene of Team 10 walking around a bit more before finding his hideout.

Slowly Untwisting the Twist

I’ve explained before how I’m 100% certain that Koji is actually a clone of Jiraiya. At this point, there’s so much evidence pointing towards that conclusion that I think it would be a real uphill battle to argue otherwise.

In this episode alone, we saw Koji use the shadow clone jutsu and yet another toad jutsu — things Jiraiya would be able to use. Further, he was attempting to steal data on old Leaf shinobi, and Shikadai even theorizes that he might be one of those shinobi featured in the scroll.

The problem I have with all of this is that when it’s inevitably revealed that Koji is a clone of Jiraiya, nobody’s going to be surprised. I seriously doubt anyone is going to view it as a twist. It’s been slowly untwisted for tens of episodes at this point.

To be fair, there are still a lot of things we don’t know about Koji even if we can be certain that he’s Jiraiya’s clone. For example, we don’t really know how he came to be a member of Kara. Though, as I’ll explain in the next section, that’s heavily implied.

We also can’t be sure why exactly Koji is working against Jigen. The answer might seem obvious at first — he’s the clone of Jiraiya. But considering Koji was attempting to steal the data on Jiraiya, I get the feeling that he doesn’t really know who Jiraiya was as a person.

As far as I understand it, Koji is a clone, not a direct copy of Jiraiya who retains all of Jiraiya’s past experiences and memories. That fundamentally makes him a different person than Jiraiya, and yet he’s still following in Jiraiya’s footsteps.

Koji and Amado

Something I’ll admit I didn’t really see coming was that Koji and Amado are allies and their goal is killing Jigen. Of course, we already kind of knew that Koji’s end goal was going to be to kill Jigen since he’s working against him.

The twist here is that Amado is his co-conspirator. But, if you think about it for a bit, this actually makes more sense than if Amado wasn’t working with Koji. After all, who do you think created Koji, gave him the idea to kill Jigen, and told him about his connection to Jiraiya?

I don’t really see the plan to kill Jigen being all Koji’s idea with Amado simply tagging along after the fact. It’s also somewhat hard to believe that they came up with the idea together considering I’m assuming that Amado created Koji.

If you were to create a clone, would you consider that clone your equal? My guess is probably not. You’d probably create them and then tell them what your plan is. And this is especially true if Koji doesn’t even know about Jiraiya, and so isn’t being influenced by Jiraiya’s memories.

For now, I’m not really interested in Koji. I’m more interested in Amado. Who was he before joining Kara? Why did he originally create Koji? Was his plan to kill Jigen from the start? Or did he grow disillusioned with Jigen after working under him?

Considering how little the five great nations know about Kara, I doubt Amado is a double-agent working for one of them. What seems most likely to me, for now at least, is that Amado was originally an actual follower of Jigen. But, somewhere along the way, maybe he learned of Jigen’s true goal and decided he needed to stop him.

Conclusion

What do you think of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 211? Would you hire detective Chouchou to solve a mystery? Do you have any doubts about Koji being Jiraiya’s clone? And why do you think Amado joined Kara? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 212 is available now.