Naruto’s Sequel Has One Major Problem It Needs to Overcome If It Wants to Succeed
Warning: Contains spoilers for Boruto: Two Blue Vortex chapter #19.Since its early days, Boruto: Naruto Next Generationshas largely been seen as a poor successor to Naruto. Between the anime’s excessive padding and inconsistent quality and the manga’s consistently controversial writing decisions, even if Boruto has its fans, it’s been hard to argue against why so many people have a problem with it.
Boruto will always have problems living up to Naruto’s legacy, and the latest chapter of Boruto: Two Blue Vortex is another major showing of why. Chapter #19 was another chapter that, in theory, should have done a lot to move the story forward, but with how the chapter was executed, Boruto: Two Blue Vortex chapter #19 served as another reminder of one of the biggest ways the series fails to live up to Naruto. It’s more important than ever for Boruto to become a success, but if it doesn’t fix this problem, that will never happen.
Boruto: Two Blue Vortex’s Latest Chapter Highlights How Bad The Pacing Is
Boruto: Two Blue Vortex's Biggest Shortcoming Explained
If there’s any problem that can truly be highlighted by Boruto: Two Blue Vortex chapter #19, it’s the pacing. Chapter #19 was the beginning of Sarada’s group’s fight with Ryu, but rather than focus primarily on that, most of the chapter was dedicated to Konohamaru dealing with Matsuri and Jura hypothesizing more on the nature of the Divine Trees. Granted, Naruto had many chapters that split the focus between action and exposition, but it was never to this extent, and Boruto: Two Blue Vortex’s continual failure to properly balance action and exposition only leaves the narrative suffering as a result.
Even worse is how lackluster the non-action segments are. Whenever Naruto had to pause its action, it still found ways to make the story move in a significant way, but in Boruto: Two Blue Vortex chapter #19, the moments of exposition are all largely slow and tedious, with Boruto and Jura’s sections not moving the plot forward by that much and Konohamaru now spending two months doing nothing to properly deal with Matsuri. Boruto: Two Blue Vortex’s focus on exposition is made worse by how little forward momentum it has, and that’s made it much harder to read than Naruto.
Boruto Continues To Use Its Monthly Format As A Crutch
Not All Monthly Manga Are Paced As Poorly As Boruto
The easiest explanation for Boruto’s pacing issues would be its monthly serialization, but even that idea doesn’t hold up. While it makes sense for a story to move a little slow with only 12 chapters per year, plenty of monthly manga like Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure have paced out their stories so that more than enough happens in each chapter to justify the smaller chapter count. The success of countless monthly serializations proves that shouldn’t be the reason why Boruto: Two Blue Vortex’s pacing is so bad, and that’s harder to deny with every chapter.
If anything, Boruto should be using its monthly format to its benefit. With roughly 40 pages per chapter, there should be, in theory, plenty of space for an incredible amount of content in every chapter, so the easiest way for Boruto: Two Blue Vortex to fix its pacing issues and overall shortcomings is to stretch its content out to work better in a monthly format. Something like that would probably require a complete overhaul of Boruto: Two Blue Vortex's production, but if it wants to become even close to matching Naruto’s legacy, it’s something that can’t be avoided.
- Writer
- Masashi Kishimoto
- Writers
- Masashi Kishimoto
- Penciler(s)
- Mikio Ikemoto
- Inker(s)
- Mikio Ikemoto
- Colorist(s)
- Mikio Ikemoto
- Publisher(s)
- Viz Media
- Artist
- Mikio Ikemoto
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