Boruto Episode 86

Kozuchi’s Will

I enjoy world and character building as much as the next person, but this week’s episode of Boruto was pretty lackluster. The majority of the episode focused on Ohnoki explaining to Boruto why and how he created the homunculi and akuta army, and I just couldn’t bring myself to care.

It all started after the fourth shinobi war, when Ohnoki’s grandson, Kozuchi was killed while attempting to stop thieves from stealing village secrets. Ohnoki then decides that he wants to create an army of artificial beings without wills of their own so that no human needs to die in battle ever again.

Sounds kind of like that Obito Uchiha guy who literally ruined everything for everyone during the fourth shinobi war. Remember, his whole motivation was to make a world in which everyone could be happy and in peace as well after the death of Rin Nohara.

And, just like Obito, Ohnoki is using the white Zetsu to create his perfect world. His misunderstandings about the white Zetsu eventually led to Obito’s downfall, and there’s no reason Ohnoki should believe there will be a different outcome for himself.

It’s unclear exactly how the white Zetsu was used to help create the Hidden Stone’s homunculi and akuta, but what we can assume is that Ohnoki will somehow lose control of them due to this. As I’ve mentioned before, a main theme of the Boruto series is that technological advancements can be dangerous.

Interestingly, although Ohnoki claims that this army of homunculi will make Kozuchi’s dream of protecting those in need live on, Boruto never argues against this. I really expected Boruto to say something along the lines of, “Kozuchi wanted to be a strong shinobi, but by creating this army all you’re doing is replacing shinobi.”

Instead, he seems to agree with Ohnoki that the homunculi army could be a good plan. However, this isn’t the first time that Boruto has thought a bad idea was actually a good idea. It’s very possible that by the end of this arc he’ll come to realize that there’s no replacement for actual people (thus probably commenting on how machines shouldn’t replace humans in our own society).

But, although Boruto sees nothing wrong with the general idea of using an artificial army instead of human soldiers, he still doesn’t believe that the homunculi created by Ohnoki are all that different from humans. If he saw them as an “other,” then I’m sure he would have been on board with Ohnoki’s plan.

Instead, Boruto sees the homunculi as people just as much as he does Mitsuki. To him, they’re the same as anyone else and even have their own personalities, dreams, and most importantly, wills. And, what Boruto doesn’t want to believe is that if the homunculi don’t have wills, Mitsuki might not either.

Attack of the Clones

So what are the homunculi doing the whole time Ohnoki is explaining to Boruto how he plans to bring about world peace? They’re taking over the Hidden Stone village and planning to execute some of its citizens to prolong their own lives, of course.

It’s possible that their leader, Ku, doesn’t have a true will of his own due to him being an actual clone of Ohnoki and not simply an artificial human. Even when he has everything he needs in place to continue onto the next stage of the plan, he still waits for confirmation from Ohnoki because he knows he wouldn’t take the killing of Hidden Stone shinobi lightly.

However, the other homunculi aren’t the same. While they do follow Ku’s orders and search for Ohnoki rather than killing the five captured shinobi immediately, we see that they do so begrudgingly. Specifically, Kakou seems to think they should ignore what Ohnoki wants and kill the shinobi as quickly as possible.

With this in mind, if even these homunculi have differing personalities and apparent wills, then it should be no question that Mitsuki has a will of his own too, considering he’s a more advanced artificial human. It should also come as little surprise that Ohnoki is eventually going to come to see the homunculi as human.

In the next episode, Kakou is going to come to Ohnoki’s rescue and probably end up fighting against Boruto. I’m predicting that Ohnoki will order him to stand down, but he’ll refuse, thus illustrating that he does, in fact, have a will of his own.

There are a couple of different ways this fight between Boruto and Kakou could end, so I won’t make a specific prediction about it at this point, but we can assume that Boruto will be the victorious party in the end. We can also assume that all parties will be happy by the end of the arc.

Conclusion

I know this week’s episode review was a bit shorter than usual, but I really don’t feel like there was all that much to discuss this time around. Yes, we got the backstory behind why Ohnoki is attempting to create an army of Akuta and homunculi, but it wasn’t anything particularly unique.

What did you think about this week’s episode of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations? Did you find it as standard as I did or did you think this was a good episode? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments.

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My review of the next and final episode of the year is available here.