Title: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Vol. 3
Author: Masahi Kishimoto (Creator), Mikio Ikemoto (Art), Ukyo Kodachi (Story)
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Genre: Shonen, Battle
Publication Date: March 6, 2018
The Story
In the third volume of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, the battle with Momoshiki has come to an end. The ending to the battle felt like a classic Naruto movie moment with Naruto lending Boruto some chakra to create an Oodama Rasengan. Momoshiki fell to the attack but didn’t disappear completely. He warned Boruto that his blue eyes would cause him great trouble one day. There was even a mark on his palm afterward that no one could explain. Not even Sasuke with his Rinnegan knew what it was.
Afterward, we had some miscellaneous developments as well as our first new pieces of material outside of the Boruto movie adaptation! Apparently, Katasuke from the science labs was under some sort of mind control which caused him to act erratically. The issue is that there really wasn’t much information on who was controlling him and for what reason, but we were left with Shikamaru handling the interrogation so we’ll probably get answers to that in a future volume.
Outside of this, Boruto’s receives a new mission to act as the bodyguard to the son of the Daimo of the Land of Fire. His name is Madoka Tento and right off the bat, Boruto senses that he’s not going to get along with him at all.
Nice to see the manga finally move away from adapting the Boruto movie. While it was great to see the movie get a manga adaptation, the new material just felt so much fresher. Since the Boruto anime is taking its own unique route, the new material in this volume was even more unique because it’s not being covered in the anime… at least not yet.
Characters
Boruto seemed a lot cooler towards Sarada here in the anime. In the anime, Sarada and Boruto have a mutual disgust for one another, but Boruto seems a lot more compassionate about Sarada in the manga. That all gets thrown out the window when Boruto blatantly disobeys his orders during another mission where they have to catch a gang of thieves. Despite blowing the mission objective, Sarada actually seemed worried about Boruto as she had recognized that something was off about him during that mission. Boruto was pre-occupied with that Momoshiki had said him after his defeat and that weighed very heavily to the point where anyone… even Sarada too notice of it.
I’m really liking this new dynamic between Sarada and Boruto. It’s quite obvious that Sarada is starting to like Boruto. That was even more evident when Sarada blushed when Boruto said his shinobi way was to protect Sarada on her path to becoming Hokage. In fact, Boruto said that being Hokage was his grandfather’s story and his dad’s story. It’s just one path for him, but it’s not the path he wants to walk. So kudos are in order for not making Boruto (the series) a carbon copy clone of Naruto. It’s nice to see them switch it up!
Madoka Tento is our new character. He’s a bit of a rich snob who believes the answer to everything is money. Right now, I’m having horrible flashbacks to the Money no Jutsu filler episode from the original Naruto anime. It seems like this all over again but done from a slightly different perspective. It doesn’t really seem like it will end in the same fashion, but I couldn’t help but dig up those old, painful memories. Like Boruto, I, too, want to punch Tento into the head. The kid’s super annoying.
Final Thoughts
While we did get a conclusion to the Momoshiki fight, this was simply a transitional volume of Boruto. There were several storylines set up here with no conclusions to them which is great. Now is the time to start sewing the seeds for what’s to come and that’s exactly what they did here in the third volume. It’ll be interesting to see where they take the story from here and with the movie adaptation done and over with, it’s all new material from here on out!
Compared to the anime, I’m really liking the Sarada character a lot better here. She still has a bit of the temper, but she seems a bit… I don’t know… sweeter? I guess that’s the best way I can describe it. It makes me wonder if there will be something between her and Boruto in the future. I’m also interested in that curse mark and with Momoshiki talking about Boruto’s eye, I wonder when we’ll see him awaken his dojutsu. So much great stuff to come! Can’t wait for the next volume!
Be sure to follow me on Twitter @TheAnimePulse
You can also check out other The Outerhaven reviews on your favorite social media networks:
Subscribe to us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theouterhaven
Subscribe to us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOuterHaven
Subscribe to us on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/theouterhavennet
This item was provided for review by Viz Media
