Confused About Boruto's Face Marks? We Can Explain

Spoilers ahead!

Summary:

• Boruto’s face marks make fans theorize about their origins.
• They might be inherited from Naruto or be a result of exposure to the Nine-Tails’ chakra.
• They can play a role in the story later on.

If you have been watching Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, then you might have been wondering about some of the character designs. A lot of them have features that make the characters stand out, and one noticeable thing is Boruto’s whisker-like face marks.

Where did they come from, and is there any hidden meaning in them that will become relevant later?

They are probably inherited from Naruto

At first, the answer might seem obvious. The marks, of course, are inherited from Naruto — and indicate a relation to Kurama, the Nine-Tails. However, the more you think about it, the weirder this whole situation becomes.

Some fans assume Naruto had the face marks because the Nine-Tails was sealed into him. However, others suspect that they are actually a result of being exposed to Kurama’s chakra indirectly, with his mother Kushina being the jinchuuriki before him. Kushina, however, didn’t have the face marks when she wasn’t accessing Kurama’s chakra.

These face marks indicate connection to the Nine-Tails

Another curious part about the face marks is that not only Naruto’s family had them. Kumogakure’s Gold and Silver Brothers, Kinkaku and Ginkaku, also had them — we can see them being resurrected in The Fourth Great Ninja War arc. The brothers ate some of the Nine-Tails’ flesh before ultimately getting out — that’s how they can access Kurama’s chakra.

That said, not all who come in contact with Kurama seem to have the face marks. As mentioned above, Kushina didn’t have them — and neither did her predecessor, Mito. Sora — an anime-original character who was a pseudo-jinchuuriki of Kurama as well — didn’t have them either.

Fan theories

Because of this, fans speculate that Boruto’s (and Himawari’s) face marks might actually play a bigger role in the story. They might indicate that Naruto’s children are actually able to somehow access Kurama’s chakra, which will mean they’re more powerful than one might initially expect.

Currently, they show no such abilities, but this plot point might be saved for later.

That said, they might also not mean anything. Many Naruto characters have strange and bizarre appearances that can be explained by being warped by some of their techniques, except they… never are, really. Kisame Hoshigaki, despite being fully human, has shark-like blue-gray skin and seems to have gills.

Shizuma, another member of the same clan introduced in Boruto, seems to share that appearance — which isn’t explained by anything. Perhaps Boruto’s face marks are just there for aesthetics.