Boruto Episode 90

Boruto Episode 90

Mitsuki and Sekiei

Today we’re going to go through this week’s Boruto: Naruto Next Generation episode a bit out of order by starting with the fight between Mitsuki and Sekiei. Specifically, there are two main parts of the fight I want to discuss, chakra type-effectiveness and the conclusion.

I’m sure we’ve seen cases of chakra type effectiveness before this episode of Boruto, but those examples probably just used water and fire chakra natures, which are pretty easy to figure out. But, in case you need that broken down, water beats fire.

However, there are actually five different basic chakra natures and each one is strong against one of the others. In this week’s episode, new viewers were introduced to the lightning vs. earth match-up, and I think it was actually done in an interesting way.

For those of us who have been fans of the Naruto franchise from the very start, the fact that lightning-style jutsu beat earth-style jutsu is common knowledge. One of the first times, if not the first time we were introduced to this match-up, was the Sasuke vs. Deidara fight from Shippūden.

And, because these basic chakra nature match-ups have all been explained in-depth before, it would be easy for me to say that it was unnecessary for Mitsuki to explain to Sekiei how his Snake Lightning jutsu defeated Sekiei’s Clay Detonation jutsu. But, we have to remember that Boruto is being created to specifically cater to a new generation of fans who may not have watched the previous 720 episodes.

So, what was so interesting about how this specific chakra nature match-up was introduced? The specific jutsu involved and how they were used to illustrate the point that lightning beats earth.

I mentioned that Sasuke vs. Deidara was the original fight which showcased this match-up, and for those of you who aren’t aware, one of Sasuke’s specialties is lightning-style jutsu, and Deidara’s signature jutsu is the Clay Detonation jutsu, which is what Sekiei uses.

While Sasuke uses Chidori instead of the Snake Lightning jutsu as Mitsuki does, they were both used to illustrate this match-up by disabling the Clay Detonation jutsu of their opponent. I don’t know about you, but I thought that was a great way to add a bit of fan service for the older viewers.

And, if you’d like to read more about how all the different chakra natures are related to each other, I have another post which breaks them all down in an attempt to determine which chakra nature is the best.

Friends

As for the conclusion to Mitsuki and Sekiei’s fight, Mitsuki wins, as should have been expected. However, what I didn’t expect was for this fight to be the end of Sekiei. Over the past few week’s I’ve expressed my prediction that Sekiei was going to survive the arc and become an ally of Mitsuki in the Hidden Stone, but this doesn’t turn out to be the case.

Instead, Sekiei succumbs to his injuries and the stress his own jutsu put his body under. But, before he dies, he once again recognizes Mitsuki as one of his friends and understands that Mitsuki was simply trying to help him.

Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed that Sekiei had to die because I really liked his character, but at the same time I understand that his death can be used to help Mitsuki’s character develop. Also, I have a feeling that this entire arc is filler, so it makes sense not to keep him around due to that as well.

The deaths of Sekiei and the other homunculi also reminded me that, to my knowledge, no named, human character has died in the Boruto series so far. In this arc, the four homunculi under Ku have died, and in an earlier arc, Shin Uchiha was killed by his own clones.

You could probably make an argument for Shin being a human, but I’m pretty sure he’s actually an artificially created clone of some sort, much like Mitsuki. But, this brings up the question, is there a particular reason that everyone to have died isn’t human?

Kirara

Speaking of dead homunculi, Sekiei wasn’t the only one to die in this episode. In fact, he wasn’t even the first, Kirara was (spoiler). While I really liked Sekiei’s character, I actually didn’t like Kirara all that much until just this episode. I found her dōjutsu to be interesting, but as a character she wasn’t all that special.

Her primary quirk was that she collected “cute” human objects to make herself feel more human, but part of me feels like the only reason her character was really like that was to explain away her character design. Rather than her design being based on her personality, I got the feeling her personality was based on her design.

As an aside, I think her name, Kirara, is a play on the word “kirei,” which means “pretty” in Japanese. If you’re interested in fun facts like this, then stay tuned for a future post about how you can learn a lot about an anime character just by their name.

The Giant Akuta from the anime series Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
The Giant Akuta

So, why do I now like Kirara? There are two main reasons, the first is that she’s actually shown to be more than just a one-trick shinobi, and the second is that I like how desperate she becomes when faced with death.

While Kirara does use her dōjutsu a little bit during the end of this fight, she primarily uses a giant akuta instead. Now, this may not seem like anything particularly special, but this giant akuta appears to be one of her own creations, as well as her magnum opus, meaning that she can use more than just genjutsu.

Also I just really like how this giant akuta looks. The normal akuta are pretty lame, but this giant one is more what I picture when thinking of a stone golem. I do find it strange that she still refers to it as an akuta though, because this is clearly something different (like the Stone Golem jutsu).

To me, the reason Kirara uses her giant akuta is because she feels she can no longer rely on her genjutsu. She doesn’t know how they did it, but she knows Boruto and Sarada were able to break free from it once before.

However, when Sarada gets behind her, Kirara still falls back on her genjutsu out of desperation. This time she also makes sure to quickly finish Sarada off, which shows that she’s not taking any chances this time around (although she was actually tricked by Sarada’s Sharingan).

Then, after she’s hit by Sarada’s lightning-style attack, and just before she’s crushed by a piece of her giant akuta, we really see how much Kirara is afraid to die. I know this might not be all that important to a lot of people, but I like seeing characters who show real emotions like anger, fear, and sorrow.

Conclusion

Before concluding for today, I’ll also briefly mention that in next week’s episode we’ll be seeing the fight against Ku. While this fight will probably start off with Team 7 fighting him, the next episode preview shows that the battle shifts to Ohnoki vs. Ku later on.

I’m actually really looking forward to this battle because I think we might see some cool Team 7 combos, and I also just want to see Ohnoki absolutely destroy Ku. But, even with the final battle of the arc beginning next week, I don’t see this arc concluding until at least episode 93.

So, what did you think of this week’s episode of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations? Did you see the similarities between the Mitsuki vs. Sekiei and Sasuke vs. Deidara fights? Also, what did you think of the giant akuta fight animation? I thought it looked really smooth at first, but partway through it seemed to be skipping frames.

If you enjoyed this review, then be sure to let me know by clicking the like button ❤ down below. Also remember to follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content such as the anime character names post I mentioned earlier.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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