Why hating Boruto is becoming an ever-growing trend
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has divided the fanbase ever since its inception, and members from the animanga community have been making their hatred towards the show quite vocal. Social media platforms like Reddit have been the battleground for most arguments that constantly take place between hardcore fans of the series and those who find the show to be incredibly boring.
The thing about the series is that the anime adaptation certainly contributed to the majority of negative comments that this series has received. The source material from the manga, on the other hand, is actually an interesting read and doesn’t really suffer from pacing issues. The only downside to the manga chapters is that each issue gets released only on a monthly basis.
Given that this series receives a lot of hate, it is important to understand whether or not it is justified, and if so, what are the reasons that substantiate such negative comments.
Reasons why Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is hated by the anime community
Given that it is a sequel to Naruto, which is one of the most popular shonen anime and manga series big enough to have an impact on anime as a medium, fans' expectations were high, and naturally, the Boruto series failed to meet them. One of the most common negative comments that one could come across is the way the anime adaptation has been done.
The source material is released once a month, while the anime releases episodes on a weekly basis. This is a recipe for disaster since the anime will just have too many filler episodes with terrible content to make up for the lack of original content.
The series would have been far better if it was seasonal, and only adapted the original content since the source material isn’t all that bad. Most people who dislike the series often have little to no complaints surrounding the manga chapters. An extension of this series releasing episodes weekly, is a compromise in quality.
The animation studio is capable of great things, and we have seen some episodes with incredible animation and fight scenes. However, pumping out content every week certainly puts a strain on the budget and the animators as well. This has led to poorly animated episodes that blew up on social media platforms.
Another aspect of the series that seemed to garner hatred was the protagonist. Boruto is by no means a terrible protagonist, but he certainly isn’t great either. At first, he was portrayed as a brat who even went on to cheat in Chunin Exams. There is no doubt that he has come a long way since then.
However, there is nothing innovative about the series as a whole. He is extremely similar to Naruto, even in terms of how the character’s growth was shown in the series.
It’s a safe sequel that managed to stick to the same formula that worked for Naruto. The result of doing so was a show that was lackluster as a whole and didn’t really entice people to watch it in the first place.
This begs the question - why did Boruto manga and anime come into being in the first place? While plenty of people have speculated on this topic, the real reason might not be known to us. However, members of the anime and manga community cannot help but think that this series was created for monetary reasons only.
Stay tuned for more Boruto anime and manga news as 2023 progresses.
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Abhipsa Choudhury