Seriously, the series doesn’t explore the already established world enough.
Summary:
- The worldbuilding of Boruto is a significant downgrade compared to Naruto.
- Boruto relies too much on Otsutsuki clan members as enemies.
- This isn’t an issue that can be fixed at this point.
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has always been a somewhat controversial sequel. The original Naruto, while not perfect, has ended conclusively and never needed any kind of continuation.
Boruto got extensive criticism for multiple reasons. From being completely unnecessary to Masashi Kishimoto not being fully involved, and to the anime initially being mostly filler content, it was usually dismissed by Naruto fans. Another issue with Boruto — one that was actually never fixed — was its worldbuilding.
Not the most consistent, but good enough
Naruto has never been a great example of consistent worldbuilding. Many things contradict each other, and elements introduced in the earlier arcs of the manga were slowly forgotten about. Still, the world of Naruto is absolutely epic and has a certain charm — and compared to that, Boruto is really disappointing.
Why it doesn’t work
One of the most glaring issues of Boruto is the technological progress. The tech levels in Naruto were already pretty weird in the original series — and in a span of roughly two decades, the world progressed several hundred years. Boruto’s version of Konoha is jokingly called “The Village Hidden in Manhattan.”
As if this wasn’t enough, we now get a whole alien race of antagonists. More specifically, Otsutsuki is a clan of alien-like immortal beings who live on the moon, and they’re really underwhelming as villains — and that’s an achievement, because the first Otsutsuki antagonist, Kaguya, was already the most hated villain of Naruto.
In Boruto, they are apparently a whole clan/race (it’s not exactly clear) who live on the moon. This contradicts what we were told about them in the databooks for Naruto — and their continuous existence makes no sense either. Apparently, they just sat there and waited until the Boruto plot started.
Instead of exploring the already interesting Naruto world, Boruto relies on introducing enemies from outside of it, relying on completely insane powers that make no sense. These often contradict the limits established in the series before, and as such, Naruto fans feel like Boruto doesn’t work as a sequel and ruins the worldbuilding of the entire franchise.
This probably can’t be fixed
Of all the issues with Boruto, its worldbulding is the only one that is basically impossible to fix. While both the anime and the manga have improved — both at keeping the story interesting and at character writing — the world is still not the same world of Naruto we used to love.
Many fans believe that the developments of Boruto shouldn’t be considered canon at all, and we can’t blame them for that.