u/Docfeen

Fanart

I think people are looking at Sarada’s Mangekyō problem way too small.

A lot of the discussion is basically “is she getting nerfed?” or “will Sakura/Hima/Amado fix her eyes?” but I don’t think Chapter 34 is setting up a quick fix. I think this is literally Sarada’s main TBV character trial.

Sarada finally has the power people wanted her to have. Ōhirume is not some regular power up. She can create those black gravity spheres, choose what gets pulled in, crush attacks, fly with it, and actually threaten Shinju level enemies. That’s insane for her scaling.

But the catch is also very Sarada specific: the stronger she becomes, the more her future as Hokage gets put at risk.

That’s why Chapter 34 lands different to me. Sakura checking Sarada’s eyes is not just a medical update. It’s the manga telling us Sarada’s dream has a cost now.

Chapter 21 already set this up perfectly. That whole chapter was basically Sarada accepting her feelings, thinking about her Hokage dream, and finally stepping out of the “protected by Boruto/Sasuke” role. She uses her Mangekyō, beats Ryū, and proves she can actually hang in this new era.

But immediately after that win, she collapses.

So the story gives her the power up and the penalty in the same chapter. That feels intentional.

Then Chapter 33 makes it even more obvious. Boruto is holding Sarada and he’s not just worried that she’s hurt. He’s worried that using Mangekyō is affecting her vision. Himawari heals the bleeding, but the eye problem doesn’t just disappear. That matters because it separates “battle damage” from “Mangekyō damage.”

And now Chapter 34 basically confirms it: this is not just fatigue. Her eyesight is actually getting worse.

So when people say “Sarada is being nerfed,” I kind of disagree. This feels less like a nerf and more like the start of her real mastery arc.

Sarada’s whole thing is wanting to become Hokage like Naruto, but she is still an Uchiha. That means her strongest power comes with the old Uchiha curse attached to it: love, trauma, sacrifice, and self destruction.

That’s what makes her different from Boruto and Kawaki. Boruto’s problem is fate. Kawaki’s problem is obsession. Sarada’s problem might be that her dream requires her to keep seeing the village clearly, while her power literally takes her sight away every time she uses it.

That’s honestly dark.

She wants to protect Boruto, protect the village, live up to Sasuke, and still become Hokage. But every serious use of Ōhirume puts her closer to blindness.

If she holds back, people can die.
If she goes all out, she damages her own future.
If Boruto saves her, people call her useless.
If she saves herself, people say she’s too strong.
If she suffers consequences, people call it a nerf.

That’s actually a good character conflict.

This also makes Sakura way more important than people are admitting. Sakura isn’t just there to say “your eyes are bad.” She is the one person who can understand all sides of this. She is Sarada’s mother, Sasuke’s wife, one of the best medical ninja alive, and probably the only person in Konoha who knows how ugly the Mangekyō path got for Sasuke and Itachi.

Sasuke is a tree right now. Naruto is gone. Kakashi is still MIA. Sakura is the adult who actually has to look Sarada in the face and decide whether to stop her, heal her, or trust her.

And I think Sakura trusting Sarada is the important part.

Because Sarada becoming Hokage can’t just be “Naruto but Uchiha.” Her arc has to prove she can inherit Uchiha power without repeating the tragic Uchiha pattern. Itachi protected the village by destroying himself. Sasuke protected people by isolating himself. Sarada has to find a third answer.

That’s why I don’t think the solution is as simple as “just give her EMS” or “Amado gives her cyborg eyes.” Maybe those options come up, but if the story just fixes her eyes instantly, then what was the point of making Sakura warn her in Chapter 34?

The real question should be whether Sarada can master Ōhirume in a way that doesn’t destroy her. Maybe using it more precisely lowers the drain. Maybe Sakura helps her develop better chakra control. Maybe Sasuke’s return ties into it. Maybe she has to learn a version of Mangekyō that doesn’t run on the usual Uchiha self sacrifice logic.

But either way, I don’t think this is just a temporary injury.

I think this is Sarada’s TBV trial.

She finally has the power to stand in the same battlefield as Boruto, Kawaki, and the Shinju. But every time she uses that power, she is gambling with the same dream that made her character important in the first place.

So yeah, Chapter 34 made Sarada’s future way darker than people realize.

Is Sarada being nerfed, or is this the start of her real mastery arc?

Episode 62, “The Otsutsuki Invasion,” is still one of the most important Boruto character moments imo.

A lot of people remember it as “Boruto got caught cheating,” but the way Naruto handles it is what makes the scene lands. He doesn’t cover for him. He doesn’t quietly pull him aside. He takes Boruto’s headband in front of everyone: the crowd, the other Kage, his friends, and his family.

It’s brutal, but it needed to be.

Boruto’s problem at that point wasn’t that he had no talent. It was that he wanted the result without fully respecting what the result meant. He wanted Naruto to see him, but he didn’t really understand Naruto’s position, the weight of being a shinobi, or why shortcuts like the Scientific Ninja Tool made the win feel empty.

That’s why the timing of the Ōtsutsuki attack works so well. One second Boruto is embarrassed over a fake win, then suddenly the arena gets attacked and he sees what real responsibility looks like. Naruto isn’t just the dad who missed my birthday anymore. He’s the Hokage who protects the village even when everyone is watching him fall apart.

Then Episodes 64–66 feel earned because Boruto isn’t instantly forgiven and magically mature. He has to watch Naruto and Sasuke fight, contribute in a real way against Momoshiki, and then go back and apologize for what he did.

That humiliation was basically Boruto’s low point, but without it, his growth after Momoshiki wouldn’t hit nearly as hard.

Do you guys think this was the moment Boruto started becoming a better MC, or did that happen later for you?

This is honestly one of the better Kara era scenes because Koji vs Jigen never really feels like a regular shonen fight to me.

Koji isn’t there to beat Jigen in the normal sense. He’s not trying to prove he’s stronger, he’s not trying to out hype Naruto and Sasuke, and he’s definitely not walking in like some rival looking for a fair 1v1.

It feels more like a stab.

Everything about the fight is weirdly clinical. Koji waits until Jigen is weakened. Amado is already in Konoha explaining the plan. The whole thing is being watched like an operation, not a battlefield. Even Koji’s use of flames feels less like a flashy jutsu and more like a loophole he was saving for this exact moment.

That’s what makes it work for me. Koji fights like someone built for one purpose: force Isshiki out.

And once you realize that, the fight gets kind of sad too. Because Koji is dangerous, skilled, calm, and clearly prepared, but he’s still being used. Amado doesn’t treat him like a partner. He treats him like the piece on the board that had to be sacrificed to make Isshiki vulnerable.

That’s why this scene lands harder than just Jiraiya clone vs Isshiki. Koji is basically a manufactured ghost of the old era being thrown at the monster behind the new era.

He looks cool as hell doing it, but the whole time it feels like the plan was never really for him to survive.

They did Might Guy dirty here

Source

This fanart really nails what makes TBV Boruto feel different from early series Boruto.

It’s not just the cloak, sword, or calmer attitude. It’s the feeling that Sasuke’s influence is still pushing him forward even when Sasuke himself isn’t physically beside him.

That’s why the sword pointing forward works so well. It doesn’t feel like Boruto is being saved. It feels like he’s being reminded to keep moving.

After Chapter 80, Sasuke becomes the one adult who chooses to believe in Boruto when almost everyone else turns against him. Then TBV shows how much Boruto actually absorbed from him; not just fighting style, but restraint, patience, and carrying pain without making it everyone else’s problem.

That’s the biggest shift for me.

Kid Boruto wanted to be seen. TBV Boruto has basically accepted that he might not be understood for a long time, and he still keeps going anyway.

This fanart captures that perfectly. Sasuke isn’t just his teacher here. He’s the reason Boruto learned how to move forward without breaking.

Source

I keep coming back to the Thorn Soul Bulb plotline because it feels way too important to just be a simple “beat Hidari and save Sasuke” objective.

What if saving Sasuke is actually one of the routes Koji was trying to warn Boruto about?

In TBV Chapter 5, Sasuke’s last real order to Boruto is basically: survive, carry what I taught you, and protect Sarada. Then Boruto comes back later and finds Sasuke turned into a tree. That already ties Sasuke’s fate directly to Boruto and Sarada.

Then Hidari appears, and that makes it messier. Hidari isn’t just “Sasuke clone villain.” He’s a Shinju born from Sasuke’s chakra, and his target is Sarada. So the thing that can save Sasuke is also connected to the monster trying to eat his daughter.

That’s why Chapter 12 feels like a massive red flag. Boruto finally gets Hidari’s Thorn Soul Bulb and says it can save Sasuke. That should be the clean win. Instead, Jura immediately snipes Boruto and takes it. The manga basically lets Boruto touch the cure for five seconds before turning it into another problem.

That’s not normal setup to me. That feels like the story saying: “Yes, Sasuke can be saved… but not for free.”

And then Chapter 13 makes the theory stronger because Koji’s Prescience is all about possible futures, not one locked timeline. Koji isn’t just guessing. He has seen branches where certain choices lead somewhere terrible. So if he knows the Thorn Soul Bulb can save Sasuke, why is everything around it treated like a future disaster waiting to happen?

My guess: saving Sasuke creates a tradeoff.

Maybe restoring him weakens Boruto’s path somehow. Maybe it gives Jura or the Shinju new information. Maybe it puts Sarada directly in the center of Hidari’s obsession. Maybe Sasuke comes back, but the process damages Konoha or forces Boruto into the exact fate Koji was trying to avoid.

Because so far, every “solution” in TBV has had a nasty side effect.

Boruto gets stronger early because of Koji’s future knowledge, but that also makes him a bigger threat in Jura’s eyes.
The Thorn Soul Bulb appears, but Jura steals it.
Hidari being defeated doesn’t end the problem, it just proves the Shinju can regenerate around these bulbs.
Koji tries to prepare people, but changing the future keeps creating new timing problems.

So I don’t think Sasuke’s return is going to be a clean rescue scene. I think it’s going to be one of those moments where Boruto technically wins, but the future gets worse anyway.

The scary version is this:

Sasuke can be saved, but saving him might be the exact move that pushes Sarada, Konoha, or Boruto into the broken future Koji saw.

Not because Sasuke is evil.
Because in TBV, even the right choice can still be the wrong route.

Source

Source

This Boruto Karma art works because it keeps everything simple.

Boruto is almost completely in shadow, but the Karma glow on his right hand is loud. That instantly makes the hand feel like the center of the whole piece, not his face or his pose. It gives the impression that the power is taking over the frame before Boruto himself does.

The red background helps a lot too. It makes the blue Karma marks look colder and more unnatural, which fits Karma perfectly. It was never a clean heroic power up. It always felt more like a curse disguised as strength.

The white spiral effects are probably my favorite part. They pull your eyes into his palm and give the image that vortex/Rasengan feeling without needing to show the actual attack clearly.

What I like most is that his expression is hidden. It makes the piece feel less like cool Boruto transformation and more like Boruto becoming a weapon he never asked to be.

Credit to the artist in the watermark.

Source

Truly wholesome

Source

Source 2

I don’t mean Koji is secretly evil or anything like that. I mean in the butterfly effect sense.

The more TBV goes on, the more it feels like Koji’s Prescience isn’t “saving” the future. It’s breaking the route and forcing the story into a different disaster.

Chapter 13 is the big setup for this. Koji explains Ten Directions/Prescience as seeing possible futures, not one fixed timeline. That sounds helpful at first, but it also creates a problem: the second Koji acts on that knowledge, he’s no longer watching the future. He’s interfering with it.

That’s basically what happened with Boruto’s whole training. Koji used future knowledge to teach Boruto things early, including techniques Boruto was supposed to learn later. So Boruto comes back way stronger than he should be, which helps stop some outcomes, but it also speeds everything else up. Code gets pressured. The Ten Tails situation escalates. The Shinju become active threats instead of just some distant worst case future.

Chapter 2 already has Boruto warning Code that he doesn’t understand the real horror of the Ten Tails. Then by chapters 4 & 5, that horror changes form. It’s not just Code’s army anymore. The Ten Tails evolves into thinking Shinju with individual targets: Jura wants Naruto, Hidari wants Sarada, Matsuri wants Konohamaru, Mamushi wants Eida. Koji/Boruto avoided one disaster, but the replacement disaster is smarter and way harder to control.

Chapter 12 is probably the clearest example. Boruto defeats Hidari and gets the Thorn Soul Bulb, which should be a win because it can save Sasuke. Then Jura immediately snipes Boruto and takes it. So the good future exists for like five seconds before the story twists it into another loss. Boruto didn’t fail the same way Koji predicted, but the future still corrected itself around him.

Then chapters 32 & 33 make it even more obvious. Koji teaching Inojin the Mind Transfer Formation ends up helping, but it also changes the timing of events. Mamushi attacks earlier than expected, and everything lines up with Lord Kobu being there. That’s not random. That’s the story basically saying future knowledge has a cost. Koji moves one piece, and the board moves back in a worse way.

So my theory is this: Koji isn’t preventing the worst future. He’s fragmenting it.

Every time he uses Prescience, he blocks one route, but the danger leaks into another route. Naruto doesn’t die there, so the world gets Omnipotence. Boruto avoids dying in one future, so Jura becomes the hunter in another. Sasuke has a possible cure, so Jura steals the key. Mamushi’s attack gets planned around, so the timing breaks and civilians/political figures get dragged into it.

That makes the broken future title way more interesting to me. Maybe the future isn’t broken because Koji failed to see enough.

Maybe it’s broken because he saw too much.

And now Boruto is living in the consequences of a future that keeps getting rewritten by someone trying to save it.

Source

This little animation honestly gets what makes timeskip Boruto’s Rasengan feel different.

It’s not just chakra ball in hand anymore. The whole clip is built around control. The rear shot, the cloak movement, the blade being sheathed, then Boruto calmly raising one finger and forming the sphere there instead of in his palm.

That detail matters. Naruto’s Rasengan usually felt like impact and force. Boruto’s feels more surgical now, like he’s compressing rotation into a smaller point instead of just overpowering someone with it.

The blue and pink chakra also gives it a weirdly unstable look, which fits Boruto after the timeskip. Cleaner technique, but way more dangerous energy behind it.

Boruto already showed the ability to compress Rasengan chakra in the anime, so a fingertip Rasengan doesn’t feel random. But manga wise, I’d treat this more as visual speculation unless the story directly confirms it.

Source

This new Before the Reversal guidebook cover is actually a pretty good reminder of how much manga material the Boruto anime already adapted before it stopped.

People talk about the anime like it barely touched the manga, but the main spine is there. We got Sarada’s family arc in Episodes 19–24, Mitsuki’s origin in Episode 39, the Momoshiki/Chunin Exams material through Episodes 51–66, the Mujina Bandits stuff around Episodes 148–151, then the real Kara stretch with Ao, Koji, Kawaki, Jigen, Boro, Isshiki, and Borushiki across Episodes 181–220.

Then the anime came back to manga material again with Code’s setup in Episodes 287–293, ending on Boruto and Kawaki’s Karma crisis instead of going into the full “reversal” part yet.

That’s why this cover feels kind of fitting. Boruto and Kawaki staring each other down basically represents the whole pre-TBV story: the anime covered the setup, the bond, the Karma problem, and the point where their paths start splitting.

The crazy part is the anime stopped right before the story fully flips.

So whenever Part 2 of the anime happens, it’s not really starting from scratch. It’s picking up after years of setup that the anime already did. That makes this guidebook feel less like random merch and more like a marker for the end of Boruto’s first era.

Source

Back side of poster, the front side I’ll upload in the comments

*designs are still under development

Sarada

Kawaki

This is one of the better Sarada/Kawaki contrasts in TBV, because they both orbit Naruto’s legacy in completely different ways.

Sarada wants to become Hokage because she actually understands what Naruto represents.

Not just strongest guy in the village. Not just “hero who saved everyone.” She looks up to Naruto because he treats the village like family. That’s the whole point of her Hokage dream. It’s not about control, status, fear, or forcing peace onto people. It’s about protecting people while still trusting them.

Kawaki is the opposite.

Kawaki worships Naruto, but he doesn’t really understand Naruto’s way of living. He understands Naruto as the person who saved him, gave him a home, and made him feel human for the first time. That part is real. I don’t think Kawaki’s love for Naruto is fake at all.

The problem is that Kawaki turns Naruto into an object to protect.

That’s where he breaks away from Naruto’s actual ideology. Naruto spent his whole life opening bonds, trusting people, saving enemies, and refusing to throw people away even when it made no sense. Kawaki does the complete opposite. He closes everything off. He cuts bonds. He lies. He imprisons. He decides that his fear matters more than everyone else’s freedom.

That’s why Sarada and Kawaki are such clean opposites.

Sarada is trying to inherit Naruto’s dream.
Kawaki is trying to preserve Naruto’s body while killing everything Naruto stood for.

And that makes Sarada’s Hokage dream feel way more important in TBV. She isn’t just the Uchiha girl who wants to be Hokage. She’s basically the character carrying Naruto’s old answer into a world that’s getting colder and more paranoid.

Kawaki is what happens when love turns into ownership.

Sarada is what happens when admiration turns into responsibility.

That’s why I think Sarada understands Naruto better than Kawaki does. Kawaki loves Naruto more obsessively, but Sarada understands the kind of world Naruto wanted to build. And that difference matters a lot.

Because being Hokage was never just about protecting the village.

It was about protecting the village without losing your humanity.

Episode 9, “Proof of Oneself**,”** is one of those early Boruto episodes that aged better than people probably expected.

At the time, it just looked like Boruto was being stubborn and trying to prove he had the Byakugan because he saw something nobody else could see. But looking back, the whole scene feels like the anime was already telling us this wasn’t just about him being Naruto and Hinata’s kid.

The Hanabi fight works because it puts Boruto directly against the Hyūga side of his family. Hanabi knows what the Byakugan looks like. Hiashi knows what it should look like. Naruto is watching too. So when none of them can confirm it, it makes Boruto look like he’s either imagining things or reaching for attention.

But we know he wasn’t lying.

That’s what makes it interesting. Boruto was wrong about the name of what he had, but he wasn’t wrong about seeing something real. The adults are judging it through the Byakugan lens, while the show is clearly teasing a different eye entirely.

I also like that Hanabi doesn’t treat him like some random kid making stuff up. She pushes him, tests him, and still seems to believe there’s probably something going on even if it isn’t the Byakugan.

For an early anime only scene, this did a solid job making Boruto’s bloodline feel relevant without just handing him the usual Hyūga power. It’s less he inherited Byakugan and more something about him is already off.

Image from Naruto wiki

Since it’s Kawaki’s birthday, I was thinking about how weirdly sad that is when you look back at the Kawaki arc.

Like, did this kid ever even have a real birthday before Konoha?

Episode 192 basically shows that Kawaki’s childhood was just work, fear, and adults deciding what he was worth. His actual father treated him like something he could sell off, and then Jigen came in acting like a “father” while really just turning him into a vessel. So even the idea of celebrating Kawaki as a person feels kind of ironic, because most of his life was people treating him like property, a weapon, or a problem.

That’s why Naruto taking him into the Uzumaki house in Episode 193 works so well for me. Naruto doesn’t “fix” him right away, and the story doesn’t pretend Kawaki suddenly knows how to act like a normal kid. He’s rude, guarded, paranoid, and constantly ready for things to go bad. But Naruto still gives him something he probably never had before: a place where he isn’t being used.

The vase stuff in Episode 195 is a good example too. It seems small, but it matters because Kawaki is actually being asked to care about something emotional, not just survive. Himawari’s vase is not a mission, not a weapon, not a Karma problem. It’s just a family thing, and Kawaki struggling with that says a lot.

Then Episode 201 lands harder because Kurama explaining Naruto’s past gives Kawaki the first real reason to understand Naruto. Not as Hokage. Not as some overpowered adult. But as another kid who was feared, isolated, and treated like a monster before he found people who cared about him.

That’s why Kawaki’s birthday lands different to me. It is not just happy birthday to a cool character. It feels more like the first birthday he actually deserves to have as a person.

Tweet that takes you to a Column dedicated to Kawaki birthday. SPOILERS WARNING.

Source

Happy Birthday to Kawaki, 5/13. Already wishing him in Japan.

Love him or hate him, it’s hard to deny how much of Boruto’s current story runs through him. He went from being treated like a tool by Jigen to finally finding a home with Naruto, and then somehow turned that love into the most extreme protection complex in the series.

That’s what makes him interesting to me. Kawaki isn’t just the rival. He’s basically what happens when trauma, loyalty, fear, and power all get mixed together in the worst way possible.

Also this birthday visual goes hard. The teal/black color scheme fits him way too well.

Don’t you dare!!