By Dustin Cabeal
I thought that I might have a problem picking up this series again. Don’t get me wrong; I stand by my review for the first volume. I found that with the anime that after a couple of episodes, I didn’t care if I kept watching or not. So I didn’t. If I can go either way like that, then I usually accept that it’s just not for me at the moment and move on to something else. I half expect that would be the case here as well. Surprisingly, it wasn’t.
I was sucked back into this world easily. What honestly saved the story for me was the fact that whiny Boruto was wrapped up in this volume. It’s always frustrating to deal with a character that can only see their point of view and complains about the way that everyone else is living and acting. That’s been Boruto all through the first volume and most of this volume as well.
The story follows Boruto as he uses the Ninja tech to cheat through the testing and comes out in first place. Unfortunately for him, Naruto figures out what he’s doing and takes his victory away from him. It’s a short lived moment though as two bad guys attack the testing. The baddies are there to eat the fox inside of Naruto, which is weird right? Because this is Boruto’s story though, when he’s knocked out, we’re knocked out. He wakes up and finds out that his dad has been captured. This inspires him to look at his dad’s life and see it from a different perspective, which means he’s included in the mission to save his father.
It’s a quick read, but a strong one. The character development for father and son is spot on. That development and the story are paced steadily, never rushing, but hitting all the right spots along the way to the end of the volume. While I can see the formula being used, it never reads as if a formula is present. It’s masterful in that way.
The art has grown on me a lot. It’s mostly because of the simplicity of the line work in which there are no excess details, and yet everything is still very detailed. While this style and technique wouldn’t work for every shonen style story, it does work here. It also gives it a very American style in that it could be fully colored and resold.
If you were never hot on Naruto, like I wasn’t, then still give Boruto a shot. It’s really hard to ignore how good this series is when the world has been going for so long. Thankfully it’s not like Dragon Ball GT in which they dropped the ball after the success of Z. Have some faith and give it a shot because this is one Shonen that will surprise you.
Score: 5/5
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations vol. 2
Creator/Supervisor: Masashi Kishimoto
Artist: Mikio Ikemoto
Script: Ukyo Kodachi
Publisher: Viz Media