Title: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Vol. 6
Author: Masahi Kishimoto (Creator), Mikio Ikemoto (Art), Ukyo Kodachi (Story)
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Shonen, Battle
Publication Date: June 4, 2019
The Story
In the sixth volume of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, we get a thrilling battle between our group of Konoha ninja and Ao, formerly of the hidden mist now reconstructed with scientific ninja tools. They end up battling him but the battle takes a turn when he takes Katatsuke’s arm from his ninja tool suit, the part that can generate a jutsu absorbing orb. They retreat for now and come up with a plan to defeat him, to which Boruto ends up doing. They are about to take Ao into custody when Kashin Koji from the Kara group shows up.
At that moment, a strange new power awakens inside of Boruto. Kashin lets them live as a reward for showing him something interesting. On the way back to the hidden leaf village, they come across some of the puppets they fought earlier but they are all destroyed. Among the wreckage was a boy who was knocked out. The volume ends with Boruto noticing that the boy has the same mark on the palm as his hand that he does.
Really interesting story! We’re getting right into what makes the Naruto/Boruto series so good. Lots of questions were opened up in this volume to keep the reader hooked which is what a good volume does. This isn’t just a typical story arc where they are focusing on one aspect (what was in the vessel). They are branching out into multiple storylines in addition to the vessel such as Kara, who is Kashin, Boruto’s powers, and how it relates to our unknown new character. There is a high level of intrigue being had here and as long as the manga doesn’t stray into meaningless filler material as the anime does in between every arc, this should prove to be very interesting.
Characters
Ao got the typical treatment in this volume. In his defeat, he has words said to him by Boruto that makes him think differently about his actions up until that point. He even tries to protect Boruto when Kashin discovers that he has been defeated. It was just another typical, generic attempt to turn a villain into a tragic hero right before their untimely demise. We’ve seen it so many times throughout both Naruto and Boruto that it’s pretty much become its own trope.
Kashin was the most interesting character as he showed off his abilities. Toad summoning and a version of Amaterasu that’s not black? A close up of his eyes made me think that he was Jiraiya and I wondered how in the hell they were going to explain that. Yes, I do know that Jiraiya is dead but this is the world of anime and manga and if the 4th great ninja war taught us anything, nobody ever truly stays dead. While the possibilities of him really being Jiraiya are less than 0%, I just thought it would be a fun little theory. Still, he knows a LOT about all of our characters. He knows about Boruto’s lineage, that Mitsuki is the son of Orochimaru, Konohamaru’s family lineage, etc. That’s why I suspected him to be Jiraiya in some possible impure world resurrection form or something. The marking under his eyes, the toad summoning, the knowledge, it all seemed to add up. All that was missing to the theory was how and why. Most likely, it’ll just be some new character who did his homework or has some long, historic ties to the hidden leaf village or something like that. We’ll see, I guess.
Final Thoughts
This was a fantastic volume for the Boruto series. We had a great mix of action, new characters, and tons of questions that we are left waiting on answers for that will surely come over time. Looks like we may start to get some of those answers next volume when we get introduced to our new character. We might even learn a bit about Boruto’s power, which has been dubbed as Karma. Since Kashin mentioned that the power came from someone who defeated Momoshiki Otsutsuki, it adds even more mystery to our unnamed new character.
There’s certainly enough interesting content here in this volume to make you want to read volume seven.
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
