“Boruto: Naruto Next Generations” Manga Issue 54 Review: Bro

Chapter 54 of the Boruto manga, titled ‘Bro’, showed Sasuke and Kawaki trying their best to face the Momoshiki-possessed Boruto.

The battles finally came to an end this month. The Boruto manga has been lacking in proper storytelling. So, hopefully, now that a possessed Boruto has been dealt with, the narrative can be fleshed out to offer answers to a list of questions.

‘Bro’ opened with Momoshiki being glad about taking over Boruto’s body. He took out Sasuke’s Rinnegan in the previous chapter. So, our heroes are stuck and Sasuke can’t use a range of attacks.

The latest manga issue had Momoshiki mention how Kawaki should be happy because Isshiki’s dead.

Now, there have been certain fans who theorized that Isshiki was still around. I don’t blame them for holding such an opinion. As far as these fans are concerned, the way Isshiki died didn’t make a lot of sense. There was no way such a powerful villain got stomped to death by Kawaki, right? 

Well, it turns out that Isshiki is indeed no more. His soul’s gone and that’s why he can’t be revived. Meh!

I have said numerous times that the current villains in the Boruto manga are incredibly boring. Fingers crossed the trend changes. But having said that, I won’t be holding my breath. The entire Otsutsuki Clan is just bland and seeing them continue to be used in the current narrative isn’t doing the story any favors.

Anyway, even though Isshiki’s dead, his data still existed in Kawaki for some weird reason. That’s why Momoshiki wanted to feed Kawaki to the Ten-Tails. Kawaki’s death won’t cultivate the perfect Chakra Fruit, but it would be enough for Momoshiki.

One of the things I enjoyed about ‘Bro’ was that it focused on Sasuke and Kawaki making strategic moves. See a battle that didn’t follow the “my-punch-is-stronger-than-yours” cliche felt refreshing. Sasuke and Kawaki knew they couldn’t beat Momoshiki in a fight of brute strength. They had to come up with a plan to take him down.

Sasuke’s analytical skills were able to figure out the reason behind Boruto’s possession. It was revealed that Momoshiki’s data took over Boruto’s body whenever our titular young ninja ran out of chakra. Seeing Sasuke and Kawaki trying their best to force Momoshiki to absorb chakra was fun.

The move Kawaki pulled, of hurting himself, to make Momoshiki absorb the Fire-Jutsu (because he needed Kawaki to stay alive) was genius! He tried reaching out to Boruto by calling him brother (hence the chapter’s title), but that didn’t work. So, he had to make such a move out of desperation. 

Another interesting thing that occurred during their confrontation dealt with Sasuke’s willingness to kill Boruto. It made me laugh.

Fans of the franchise know that Naruto went to extreme lengths to save Sasuke from the path of darkness. Naruto faced a lot of hardships to connect with Sasuke and not once did Naruto even think of ending the life of his best friend (boyfriend, soulmate, basically husband, etc.).

Heck! Even though Sakura wanted to save Sasuke, too, and they ended up marrying each other, the thought of killing Sasuke crossed Sakura’s mind (even if she couldn’t go through with it).

So, while killing Sasuke was never an option for Naruto, seeing Sasuke ready to end Boruto’s life to save the world was funny. Sasuke wasn’t playing games.

Anyway, with Boruto finally being able to regain control of his body, I’m looking forward to seeing what will happen next. I hope the manga series gives us an explanation about why Boruto breaking Momoshiki’s horn was important. The Boruto manga’s lacking context and proper lore-building.

Now, before I end my review of ‘Bro’, I have to talk about something. As of right now, Boruto and Kawaki are on higher power levels compared to the other two members of Team 7. Mitsuki, at least, has the Sage Mode. However, Salad’s got nothing.

I’m disappointed that similar to how Sakura’s the weakest member of the previous Team 7, Salad doesn’t stand a chance against Mitsuki, Boruto, and Kawaki. It’s again the girl of the ninja team that’s being pushed away.

It looks like even being the daughter of Sakura and Sasuke doesn’t matter when it comes to the narrative deciding to create a random character (Kawaki) to bench Salad.

Sigh!

Let’s see if Salad will go through some kind of character development and growth as a young ninja now that the story’s ready to take a breather from continuous battles.

What did you think of ‘Bro’? Naruto isn’t dead, right?

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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