“Boruto: Naruto Next Generations” Manga Issue 63 Review: Ask No Questions

Boruto manga issue 63, ‘Ask No Questions’, was boring, in my opinion. We got to learn something new about the Karma Mark, but overall, the pacing was just poor.

With Boruto being the son of the current Hokage and someone with the Karma Mark, how long do you think it should take for the Hidden Leaf Village’s Sensory Unit to figure out he ran away? As far as I’m concerned, Boruto should have rung alarms the moment he took a step out of the village gate. However, ‘Ask No Questions’ showed readers that the Sensory Unit wouldn’t even have realized Boruto was gone if Naruto hadn’t mentioned wanting to talk to his son. Eye roll.

I understand plot conveniences. But I expect authors (especially veteran ones like Masashi Kishimoto) to utilize said conveniences in a manner that makes some kind of sense. Having Boruto go after Kawaki without a single Sensory ninja raising an eyebrow came across as poor writing.

Now, I get that there’s a fan theory about how Boruto could have unknowingly suppressed his chakra because he’s 80% Otsutsuki. However, even that should have raised some kind of flag at the Sensory Unit. The Sensory ninjas and Naruto should have been immediately alerted about Boruto’s chakra disappearing if his body had unintentionally erased his chakra signature.

Talking about poor storytelling, what’s up with Eida? Seeing her heart starting to beat faster when Kawaki asked to meet Code’s superior and her getting all flustered over Boruto putting his life on the line to save Kawaki came across as annoying instead of comedic. At this point, Eida’s characterization has been paper-thin. Literally, her entire goal revolves around wanting Kawaki to fall in love with her. Fans of Naruto still complain about how Kishimoto can’t write fictional women. And going by how Eida’s been portrayed in Boruto, I guess he didn’t consider putting some focus on polishing his fictional women-writing skills over the decades.

Along with ‘Ask No Questions’ having Naruto realize quite late that Boruto was missing and Eida going heart eyes over Boruto and Kawaki, a large portion of the chapter came across as filler. It’s as if Kishimoto wanted to end on a particular cliffhanger and he simply opted to pad out a number of pages by having Boruto and Kawaki repeat their conversation in different ways. Kawaki wants to go with Code but Boruto doesn’t want him to. I get it. Move along! 

As for Boruto’s fight with Code. It was clear our young hero wasn’t going to win against such an opponent. Even Boruto realized that. His plan was to stall Code long enough for reinforcements from the Hidden Leaf Village to arrive. I liked how Boruto tried to land a hit on Code through the element of surprise. The move with the two shurikens and how one of them was revealed to be Boruto’s Shadow Clone was done quite well. While impressive, the attack didn’t even hit Code because of his annoying ability to instantly teleport using his Claw Marks.

Even though Code’s into worshipping the Otsutsuki, he knew he had to use Boruto as a sacrifice to transform the Ten-Tails into the Chakra Fruit. Code wanting to test the quality of the sacrifice was what led him to be interested in fighting Boruto. I was surprised he basically told Boruto (and a nearby Kawaki) about an important aspect of the Karma Mark. Turns out, along with gaining a tremendous boost in speed and power, the host of the Karma Mark could also tap into Karma’s ‘True Essence’ and get access to the Otsutsuki’s combat experience. I guess that would explain why Jigen was such an OP fighter?

With ‘Ask No Questions’ ending with Boruto unlocking a new level of his Karma Mark, I’m looking forward to seeing what type of combat experience he will be able to use against Code. Also, due to the Karma Mark’s current progression, did the cliffhanger show us Boruto or some version of Boroshiki? We will have to wait an entire month to find out.

What did you think of ‘Ask No Questions’?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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