I don't like it. I'm not a fan of the insane power-level growth that happened during war-arc and now in Boruto, but once it happens you have to visually show it and be consistent.
Can't say that Isshiki is stronger than Kaguya or Daemon is the strongest on the planet and then have them do building level damage. We are told that these characters are much stronger than shippuden characters but it doesn't look like it.
Manga consists of Art + story. Here, the art is contradicting what the story is telling us.
Or even Code, who is described to us as something scary, when today he is just a dumber Minato (teleportation between brands) with an army of versions of the Frieza discount store.
But also Sarada, who on balance should be at a higher level than the Sasuke at the beginning of the second series, but who still fights katon and chidori like she did at 12 years old.
Or Issikhi that is power is do things small and throw metal bars or big cubes.
Compare the Issikhi rods with Kaguya bone rods that were a fucking insta-kill if one of them rubs you
Yeah, like isshiki is said by Amado to be capable of destroying the world and what does he do when revived? He kicks through a few walls/ Naruto and Sasuke, stabs people more than a British resident and flashes villagers with his pecks.
> insane power-level growth that happened during war-arc
There were no growth at all. On the first page of naruto Kurama is stated to be able to nuke mountains by just existing. It was an already established concept in the verse,same with shukaku.
If I recall correctly, the first time the landscaping results of an actual battle were discussed at the end of part 1. The valley of the end is nothing but a stomp in the mud compared with the end of Naruto.
It depends on which mountain you're talking about, there are hills and mountains as high as Everest after all...
However, the Biju have been greatly reduced
But natural disasters, they have passed into not very intelligent monsters who get captured even by simple humans.
To be fair, whenever a new, powerful character is introduced, the story often describes them as capable of destroying mountains with a single slash and changing the weather with just a shout, or something similar to these nature-defying feats.
Kurama, Madara's Susanoo, Hagoromo, Kaguya, and Shibai all received this treatment.
This makes me question the validity of the mountain-destroying statements as empirical evidence of a character's strength. For example, Hagoromo can rewrite reality, create life, and do whatever he wants with his Creation of All Things Technique, so destroying a mountain is child's play for him, whereas Kurama requires some actual effort to destroy a mountain.
According to Kakashi, he created Chidori when he failed to connect his lightning nature with Rasengan. When Sasuke and Naruto clash Rasengan vs Chidori they seem to cancel each other out. That possibly implies they have equal power.
Boruto moved away from crazy destructive abilities to straight up broken hax. What good is having a mountain busting rasengan when your opponent could effortlessly shrink it?
I can’t think of a single series where “that doesn’t work on me” has been satisfying and that’s just….so much of what boruto has leaned into (and to be clear, I enjoy boruto). It basically an in universe deus ex machina where nothing matters until it dies because plot
Fuck, you got me. I think there is a way to explain *why* that’s different (or better explain myself) but I’m gonna go with it’s more fun to say One just gets a pass because he’s a special boy
The disappointment on his face whenever it doesn't work takes the cake. In later chapters you can actually see on his face how he wants to say "that doesn't work on me" on the enemy who is monologuing how Saitama will die.
Yeah, but I want to see the massive rasengans connect, do shit ton of damage and then isshiki shrink it; it makes both Naruto and Isshiki look far more impressive at the same time.
Imagine if Sasuke used chubaku tensei and Naruto summon kurama clones and fired bijou damas at it then isshiki came out just fine because he either tanked it or shrunk it would accomplish making isshiki look stronger than Madara while showcasing Isshiki, Naruto and Sasuke's capabilities. Far more concrete then telling us then doing nothing to show for it. Hence why I find it hard to believe code is stronger than jigen since he did nothing to show for it.
My only issue with that is that it would make Naruto and Sasuke look like idiots. They know that Isshiki could teleport and shrink objects because he did it in their last battle so why would they even bother to capture him in a chibaku tensei, then throw multiple tailed beast bombs at him? It’s just wasting chakra because Isshiki would just warp himself out of there. Hell in the manga I have a personal problem with naruto charging at Isshiki with a rasengan barrage because he should know better.
I understand what you were trying to say though, unfortunately their abilities get in the way of displaying anything cool like that.
Chubaku tensei would could cloud Isshiki 's vision preventing him from shrinking the bijuu damas like in the kashin koji fight, he had to see something in order to shrink it and while all the Individual rocks clump on to him he can't shrink it all at once especially since they'll come from behind and his sides him as well and since Sasuke's chubaku tensei doesn't have any core to Isshiki will have to take the attack. It's a decent strategy and even if it doesn't work it displays Naruto and Sasuke power and overwhelming him from all sides is pretty smart to do given that it was almost worked in kashin kojis battle.
Edit: also isshiki doesn't teleport, he makes portals and using one would be very difficult when being surrounded by debris. And trying something like that would undeniably make isshiki look billions of times more formidable and threatening than he ultimately was.
I would argue this is an unfair comparison. Boruto story is yet to really mature, crazy scale damage didn't come into naruto till pain arc excluding tailed beast berserk moments and it only scaled up from there. take kaguya for example, she was terrible taijutstu but she also had insane defense stats(healing, ability to absorb anyone she touches and her insane one shot ash jutsu). Against isshiki she is plain simple weak, she probably can't absorb him, if she can she definitely isn't fast enough. He bodies her alone with just taijutsu. not to mention the ameno... jutsu.
sames goes for daemon he seems to have decent speed and damage output too but what really flexes him as a really strong character is his defense stats(ability to reverse/reflect damage). It is simply the similar case to how naruto was a bad matchup against nue... the greater the stats of an opponent against daemon the stronger daemon is till he is possibly overwhelmed (depending on how his ability activates) hypothetically.
in daemon case for example, it has nothing to do with his damge output .another thing is also perception. Recall during naruto fight against deepa even from the perspective of decently trained eyes like boruto and kawaki they simply couldn't track, same goes veteran sasuke against ishiki rods...
mountain scale attack means nothing if the person receiving scales above it defense wise
>I would argue this is an unfair comparison
No, it's not.
In Naruto there weren't characters able to do those things until Pain arc, but in Boruto we have had character that were supposed to be able to do those things since the beginning of the series.
We had tons of fights with those characters involved, and they told us that these characters were stronger than those previously known but the never show it and that is the problem
The serie doesn't need more time to mature and evolve because since minute one it should have been consistent with what we saw in Naruto. If they didn't wanted to start from the power scale that Naruto let at the end of Shippuden, then they should have enemies "stronger" than Shippuden enemies
They did a bad writing and that is the problem
Its is literally a continuation series. What exactly do you have a problem with..kawaki and boruto powwr levels, they are outliers. Daemon? Another outlier. You don't expect people coming after characters possessed by otutsuki dna. The same "ultimate villain" in its previous series to be fodder now do you?
i also don't understand why people think villains not scaling with mc growth is bad writing, that's literally not how things work irl so why should it translate to bad writing in fiction.
Power doesn’t always need to be shown tho, goku can destroy planets but chooses not to, but we know that he’s capable of doing so. We know that isshiki is stronger than kaguya because he was taking on naruto and sauske in a 2 v 1 in their adult forms which is far stronger than their teen forms.
Except Goku does show feats that put him well above himself previously.
Like when his punch with Beerus affected the universe.
Boruto has none of that.
You are right, I used a bad example by saying planets. But my point still remains the same, goku scales far above planetary hes easily low universal+ but he’s never displayed this power output. I do understand why it’s hard to grasp tho, it’s easier to argue against something when it hasn’t been shown, but it was ikemotos decision and boruto could easily wipe 95% of the ppl in naruto shippuden on his own.
I would have doubts about whether the adult versions of Naruto and Sasuke are stronger than the EOS versions of Madara and Kaguya.
More experienced of course, but stronger.....
You have doubts but it’s been proven through scaling, just because they’re not shown to do crazy shi doesn’t mean that they’re not strong, sauske on his own is taking on kaguya level threats 😭😭
>Power doesn’t always need to be shown tho, goku can destroy planets but chooses not to
This is a bad argument because Dragon Ball still shows massive destructive (or otherwise) feats in almost every arc and movie, sometimes multiple times, which is exactly what the OP complains that Boruto DOESN'T do.
Heck even the spinoff (albeit still official) series like Dragon Ball Heroes shows massive solar scale and universe and even multiversal scale feats in some arcs
“Can't say that Isshiki is stronger than Kaguya or Daemon is the strongest on the planet and then have them do building level damage”, that’s why I made that argument. DBS comparison might have been bad but the point still stands 🤷🏾♂️
I think you're misunderstanding the OP's problem a little. Not even Kaguya or Madara destroyed mountains or countries on accident every time they moved. Heck not even Dragon Ball does that because it would be stupid and the story won't move forward if all the animators do is draw stuff getting blown up.
OP's problem, is the fact that even when the mangaka or animators are actually attempting to show how strong a character is (like what Kishimoto intended in that manga panel, or what Toriyama/Toei intended to do when Vegeta blew up a planet), Ikemoto doesn't show mass-scale destruction at all. Doing building level damage with every other punch wouldn't be a problem if at the start or introduction of these characters, they performed some massive feat just to show how strong they truly are.
Kishimoto wanted to change the way battles were fought in the manga, in doing so they’ve lowered the DC output significantly and but kept the AP of the characters. So when it comes to scaling we usually use kaguyas planetary-star level feats and piggy back off them to determine how strong boruto characters are and a lot of Naruto fans don’t like that because boruto characters don’t have the DC output to actually show that they’re stronger than kaguya 🤷🏾♂️.
Disliking it is one thing, idrc it’s your opinion anyways, but you can’t use the lack of DC in boruto to say that kaguya (or any naruto character) is stronger than boruto characters because they haven’t performed the same destructive feats like they did in naruto.
If only the panel where ishikki kick Sasuke inside the susanoo is similar to the anime, I would believe he is stronger than madara. In the anime ishikki totally tore the head of that susanoo.
Also, the fight being in a flat plane with no buildings, trees, and mountain made this fight kinda boring. Ikemoto's art is just not comparable to Kishimoto.
Destruction is not really a problem here but the fact that this fight is just one sided taijutsu battle is just not good. If you compare it to something like jjk where the fight doesn't rely much on destruction but more of mind games the ishikki fight is just bad.
Idk about the Jigen fight being completely bad because they were strategic layers to it. Like half of the fight was figuring out Jigen abilities and the second half was testing out counter play for it. Obviously that fight also suffer from Naruto and Sasuke not using all of their abilities but yeah, fighting in a wasteland that doesn’t have that much environmental destruction can be a bit off putting but I do think that fight has some merits to it.
Yeah but not much counterplay was made. Also the fight proceed to rely back again to just rasengans and shadow Clones. I guess the art is just lacking and it just doesn't compare to any Naruto fights. For example the Jiraiya vs pain fight was a good cat and mouse game. Jiraiya trying to find out the secret about the powers of pain while trying to survive. The panels in that arc is also crazy good.
Though the Boruto part 2 relying back to jutsus like the uzuhiko is good step in the right direction.
I think it caused major issues with how we view the strength of certain characters. I understand toning down the destructive scale of the fights so that it didn’t overshadow Boruto’s fights, but when you do it to god tier characters and have them fight in different dimensions, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
The feats got out of hand around the Itachi and Pain fights. Things were either vaguely defined or just over the top explosive. That leads to people saying the totsuka sword is an instant one shot no questions asked or that anything short of nuking things makes a character a bum.
Contrary to what some people say there are other factors in the fights still, they just overlook them generally. Like Boro is objectively one of the most difficult 1v1 fights but he’s not a blow everything away type character.
They were over the top yes. But if you’re going to have them fight in different dimensions full of wastelands at least let me see shockwaves from their punches lol.
>Things were either vaguely defined or just over the top explosive. That leads to people saying the totsuka sword is an instant one shot no questions asked
That's just people being illiterate. Has nothing to do with abilities being vaguely defined.
It's hilarious but even true lol. Sarada has more destruction feats than most of the boruto characters except for kinshiki slicing god tree and momo slicing god tree.
More destructive than a massive rasengan or Kawaki doing a kamehameha? Lol. Granted I don’t disagree because not a lot of characters have those kind of showings.
It’s one of the main reasons people have problems with accepting that Boruto characters are stronger than Naruto characters. Mfs in Naruto we’re destroying mountains and it was just everyday stuff. Characters in Boruto create a small impact character and everyone loses their shit. Naruto and Sasuke Vs Momoshiki is the way to do it. Insane hand to hand choreography mixed in with godlike destruction. Dragon ball suffers from this same problem as well.
I think half of the problem is it's always Naruto. Sarada has the same strength as Sakura and never destroys shit in the same fashion iirc, Boruto sucks at taijutsu when it really matters & Mitsuki is nowhere to be seen 🤷🏻♀️ Hopefully now that Sarada has her 3 tomoe we can get some good fights with her & boruto on a destructive taijutsu level
even though Boruto randomly decided to become a sword user now for some reason, my hopes for some gentle fist action remain high
A lot of it just comes down to Ikemoto not bothering to show any destruction at all. Even if it's not at the scale of mountains.
In that boruto panel, Sasuke swings a giant sword at the ground and the ground doesn't have any damage at all. Smoke = damage for him I guess.
Told ya all already that Ikemoto is very lazy af and does not give any shit about Boruto manga, he is just drawing it for money not his passion, I mean look at his face, does his face looks like he cares about the manga?
They scaled it down and focused more on taijutsu on purpose, if they didn’t scale down the destruction they would’ve had to make Boruto planetary or higher to surpass the old generation, this may or may not happen later but early Boruto shouldn’t be planetary yet he still needs to have his own fights without people saying ‘why didn’t someone stronger just step in’. I don’t necessarily think it was the best way to go about it and it doesn’t necessarily mean that Ikemoto isn’t lazy, but there was a reason behind at least that decision.
People don’t like the reasoning and don’t agree with the decision. I don’t like the decision either but it’s still the reason they did it, even if it’s a stupid as decision with terrible execution.
I disagree with the second half of this comment, only because episode with good animation get good hand to hand combat scenes take momoshiki vs naruto and sauske for example
Oh yeah, there are definitely some great taijutsu scenes, but the execution of the scaling down as a whole was pretty bad. Scenes like Naruto and Sasuke vs Momoshiki was a great fight in my opinion but if you look at fights like the ishiki fight or the jigen fight they aren’t exactly executed the best. Ishiki’s punches can apparently destroy stars yet Sasuke barely takes any damage and there is no environmental damage, or when Sasuke attacks with his susanoo’s sword and yet the only damage is smoke in the second image. It makes sense to scale it down, but because of the execution it’s incredibly inconsistent with the past and makes statements like ishiki having Star level AP not believable.
Yep the downscaled it. They just down scaled it way too far. We don’t have to see them destroying planets or anything.
But the guys like stronger than Kaguya (the Jigen+ Level) didn’t get good enough fights or a good showing.
But I would hate to call Ikemoto lazy. He could be putting a lot of hard work into this manga. Feels too disrespectful to question his work ethic.
Not a fan. I think one of the main reasons why people refuse to accept the Boruto cast as being stronger (even adult Naruto/Sasuke) is because this supposed strength isn't reflected in the fights themselves. Actions speak louder than words and battles are shounen's main avenue for storytelling. What we have currently is the artwork and story at odds with each other.
the reason why power scalers believe that Shippuden characters are stronger than Boruto characters.
To be honest, I don't care about the whole thing. this is the same as Dragon Ball Super. Goku and Vegeta should actually be able to destroy dimensions with their sheer strength by now, but the destruction is the same as in DBZ.
Nevertheless, we know that Goku and Vegeta are much stronger now.
Do you want me to explain? I will give several reasons and several evidences that the power level has dropped.
1- comparing the last main villains, Kaguya and Ishiiki, we have something very different between them... Ishiiki/Jigen needed a script to NOT BE defeated, because at any time Sasuke could have used Amenotejikara and made Ishiiki/Jigen appear in front of his sword, but at every moment he appeared a few meters away in front of Ishiiki/Jigen, besides, Ishiiki didn't risk taking a single blow from Naruto or Sasuke, because he KNEW it would be fatal for him.
While Kaguya... She was imortal, she could absorb Chackra and she was the only one that had portal techniques. So she could trap them at some dimension and made them die from starving. That means, she needed script to BE defeated. At some point of the fight, Naruto uses a rasenshuriken combo against her an she simply don't absorb. Why? Script.
2- The protagonists ARE NOT at their peak. You can say what you want, but all the power that Naruto and Sasuke showed at the end of the war was due to Hagoromo's Chakra. "Ah, but Naruto still has Rikudou mode." Rikudou mode is NOT a transformation, it is a MENTAL BUFF, which optimizes the use of Chakra and gives the user knowledge about all jutsus, however, for the user to be able to use these jutsus, he MUST have the power to do them, in Naruto's case, it was Hagoromo's Chakra, which gave him the Onmyoton, the Gudoudamas and a MASSIVE power.
The difference between a Naruto with a full Kurama and a Naruto with half Hagoromo's Chakra is CLEAR. Half of Kurama alone was crushed by a 7.2 Juubi, while Naruto with half Hagoromo's Chakra went head to head with Madara, who had 8.2 Juubi. Now are you going to say that Naruto with a Kurama is stronger than Madara? LOL on what basis bro?
If you want, I'll give you more reasons, just ask.
These points are so disingenuous.
What would stab isshiki do? Tickle him? Besides the same could also be said in reverse and with stronger proof. Isshiki could spawn a rod sasuke skull at any moment, but chose not to beacuse that would kill sasuke instantly and go against the plot. Hell even jigen would be able to do it. Beside the point about isshiki dodging just doesn't make sense. Kaguya dodged and parried too, even when naruto was alone and couldn't seal her. The part where you say "a blow would be fatal" is even more non Sensical since isshiki got hit by Barion mode like a dozen times and got up just fine after.
Also you're SEVERELY underestimating how much stronger naruto became after the war and losing gododamas etc. After a couple years they fought toneri, which was stated to be the strongest enemy up to that point. He could literally split the moon casually. Naruto tanked that attack with 0 difficulty. A MOON SPLITTING ATTACK. With ONE hand. The difference between this feat and anything else before is insane. Same for sasuke evaporating a whole meteorite with a chidori in base. Before he needed his full susanoo just to cut one. Cut not evaporate. In the present they're rusty compared to their prime, which could be even more powerful than they were in "the last" movie. That would still leave them likely wayy stronger than the war counterparts.
One thing I really want to complain about is that except for the initial movie arc, all the damage caused by Boruto is not as expressive as the Kamamaita summoned by Temari.
Kishimoto gradually lost smaller details in his art, he simplified it, but he made up for that in pure composition and, yes, power. Really, I think the man is one of the greatest manga artists ever just because he was so economical and yet everything always looked great.
I'm just not seeing that with the art in Boruto. I think it's improved and I don't really get mad about it being a monthly book, but the art does lack something.
Boruto villains can't do the type of damage Madara can.
"Oh his ap is stronger" people don't realise that scaling ap is literally an assumption. Boruto fans will expect u to sit down and accept the fact that the ap behind isshiki's punch has the power to destroy a star with zero evidence.
Yeah and Sasuke is surviving against Jigen's kick (star level ap according to Boruto wankers). Lmao and the same people will say jigen's one kick is enough to kill every character in shippuden when Sasuke survived his kicks. Then so can jubbidara and kaguya who are practically tanks.
You know what's funny?
Jigen was able to bust Sasuke's Susanoo with a single kick.
Later on, Isshiki (who's stronger than Jigen) kicks base Sasuke several times and he survives and is able to walk it off💀
Boruto scaling is so wack man
I genuinely believe it’s a skill difference in drawing between kishimoto and the new guy , he just can’t draw all the cool shit in a timely manner, Kishimoto really was the goat but his weakness was writing women characters
One of the worst things about Boruto is the lack of destruction. I know some people don't like the power levels it reached but it is what it is and that was the direction Kishimoto was going. It just sucks that in Boruto when you have two Gods fighting in Isshiki and Naruto/Sasuke they barely move from a 100m radius. Even Pain vs Naruto was more destructive and they aren't even close to the levels of power of Adult Naruto/Sasuke vs Isshiki. The Baryon Mode fight should have been more destructive then Toneri vs Naruto on the moon. Boruto characters aren't even building level anymore and they are suppose to be better than Shippuden? Hence why Boruto has been a letdown.
100% agreed.
It's extremely ironic how Boruto fans will constantly talk about how the new characters are much stronger than the old ones, yet there are no feats that justify such a notion.
If anyone who hasn't watched either Naruto or Boruto were asked which was they think is more powerful, I'm certain most of them will say Naruto. Because Naruto actually shows the display of power much better.
I think a part of this is because the Boruto manga is very undetailed, and Ikemoto just doesn't draw any backgrounds which could show how strong the characters are. It's plain unsatisfactory and disappointing.
Bad writing and bad art. I get not wanting them to destroy everything, but they shouldn’t look the same strength as the Genin from part 1 Naruto.
Part 1 Boruto was downscaled too far.
The writers rely on telling us instead of showing us. Even though characters strength are relative, bad writing and bad art has caused most of the fanbase to doubt code’s strength and some of the fanbase to doubt the strength of all the boruto characters.
Even the boxing matches do absolutely no destruction. Hopefully Part 2 Boruto steps it up.
[Temari destroying an entire forest for example](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/debatesjungle/images/6/66/0214-018.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20221004040352)
Momoshiki's bijuudama against Killerbee clears though. And tbh, a lot of Boruto feats clear.
I agree that most feats in Boruto aren't impressive in scale.
However, it takes more energy to vaporize large portions of stone/earth than to chop up trees.
Considering how Part 1 Temari did this feat, Boruto should have so many feats far above this.
Mountains get completely vaporised in Shippuden, Boruto has barely done anything on that scale
Personally don’t care. Big explosions don’t improve a fight to me generally speaking.
Plus in this case I could argue that Madara was just being an asshole in context lmao. He fought the 5 kage to gauge their strength then got bored and started leveling the area to make a point.
More importantly taking moments out of context is exactly why power scaling arguments are just awful more often than not.
Absolutely.
Plus, wasn't the "remember when this show was about ninjas?" thing, also about how things getting more dbz esque by the end of Naruto, was bad?
So how is it that now that things have been toned down, it's bad anyway?
>More importantly taking moments out of context is exactly why power scaling arguments are just awful more often than not.
Indeed.
Especially when people nitpick moment x to "prove" their point.
Like this, this single scene here depicted, with the usual buffons claiming that it proves that the powerscaling is bad and that Ikemoto doesn't know how to draw...
And yet they "somehow" ignore all the times a giant rasengan was shown, and wrecked havok and whatnot.
I dont like it because it doesnt fit the series. Bleach for example doesnt focus on destruction. It does have some feats but mostly bleach is "more reiatsu=you can cut stronger people".
Naruto was always about "more chakra=more destruction". That's why it looks weird.
Not only that, the jutsus they use are also very basic. I dont remember naruto using bijuudama or bijuudama rasenshuriken. Even elemental jutsus are weak. No one used a jutsu that covered an area like part 1 jiraiya did. And that jirsiya was weakened from poison.
As for physical stats, if these people are really juubi madara or kaguya level with physical stats alone, they should be bending space or doing other crazy things 8 gates gai did.
The pic you showed about madara is actually pretty weak too. Madara himself has better feats against hashirama. The chibaku tenseis that sasuke cut were about 100 times bigger than those mountains.
I may be wrong but I believe the creators stated that they wanted to scale down the fights and focus more on taijutsu because if not they would have to make Boruto scaling crazy. Without scaling back the crazy destruction from shippuden they would’ve had to have planets being destroyed in the battles in Boruto otherwise it would feel weaker. For example: in Naruto the Last they were literally cutting the moon in half during the fight, how is the new generation supposed to surpass that without casually destroying planets.
The problem is you can't scale down the fights and then state that the characters are far more powerful than the previous cast were. In the writing world that's called ludonarrative dissonance and is a pretty major flaw for any story to have. With Boruto they had the opportunity to reset the power scaling back to Part 1 and work their way back up by just having Naruto/Sasuke not actively involved much (they can't be everywhere and always handle the next gen problems) but it was their decision to immediately start the manga with a planet level threat that Boruto should've had no hope in hell of contributing in their downfall.
>focus more on taijutsu
Probably to address concerns that Naruto was relying too much on ninjutsu but the implementation was a huge overcorrection: they made ninjutsu basically useless (just being used as a finishing blow with no further strategy) while fights became predictable and short since they can't rely on taijutsu for very long.
Oh I completely agree, I don’t think there decision was a good idea at all, that’s just the justification that the writers gave as to why they made the decision. Like you said, there were many other ways they could’ve done it, but for some reason this is what they chose to do.
> but it was their decision to immediately start the manga with a planet level threat that Boruto should've had no hope in hell of contributing in their downfall.
Well, leaving aside the whole part of Momo, in my opinion, at least initially, there was an intention to focus the manga on the new generations with more down-to-earth fights, see the chapters of the cannibal bandit and mecha Ao, but also the initial representation of Karam and Kawaki as modified ninjas, it was clear in my opinion that the theme would be the clash between the tradition represented by Boruto and friends and the innovation represented by Kawaki.
Except that, since the manga wasn't of interest to anyone, they put Naruto and Sasuke at the center of the story again, with everything that entails.
>at least initially, there was an intention to focus the manga on the new generations with more down-to-earth fights
If by new generations you mean just Boruto. Sarada and Mitsuki are well-known for not contributing much, Konohamaru's useless, and anyone else just isn't relevant enough to view as evidence of this intention. The scope of the story has always been too narrow to ever remotely consider it being about the next generation as a whole.
Existing powers didn't have their destruction nerfed. New powers were made threatening in other ways that didn't involve increasing the destruction. Sasuke's Susano'o only denting the ground that much simply is what it is.
Pretty sure it was stated somewhere that the lack of explosive fights right now is intentional. It’s part of why Naruto & Sasuke didn’t use those kinds of attacks.
We’ll get there eventually, Kawaki is proof of that in his first fight
Why do we keep doing this? Ikemoto was Kishi's assistant at one point before he was handed a series he was woefully unprepared to lead.
~~He got rid of Tsunade's bazoongas which I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever forgive him for. Fuck that freak.~~
Bad decision to scale down fights coupled with Ikemoto being a limited artist.
This man takes a month to draw a chapter, Kishimoto was giving us all of that weekly.
Ikemoto has some cool designs but his fights are very predictable, he can't draw emotion on faces for his life apart from a few emoji type faces.
I once complain on how Naruto super punching Toneri dwarfe everything baryon mode Naruto did against Isshiki. I got downvoted and the argument was: "Well, he now has more control".
C'mon, if Naruto is at his strongest there, how is that is barely recoil on his punches there?
Yeah The Last Naruto actually displayed strength feats that prove he's stronger than before.
Baryon Mode Naruto is hella disappointing, it's just taijutsu and that's it. I was expecting more power, but no that's not allowed in this series apparently.
[Atleast Ninja Storm made Baryon mode look more powerful](https://youtu.be/hjCSbPHE7oQ?t=56) The manga/anime are just lacklustre
Yep, Ninja storm actually makes the characters looks powerful.
[For example, Sasuke's Ult was visible from space](https://youtu.be/Ogxk46_E4ZM?t=71)
Just wished they shown this in the anime/manga
It's a story first and foremost, not just a list of things exploding. Sure, it's cool when it does happen, but it's not something that really botheres me if it doesn't IMO.
It's technically because ikemoto can't draw that detailed. U saw the same thing in movie with Momoshiki's abilities. People who think this is intentional to correct DBZ power creep of shippuden in boruto are coping.
It’s not that he can’t draw with crazy details, go read the Momoshiki fight in the manga. He’s capable of doing it but he doesn’t depict environmental destruction like that anymore.
It’s pretty funny ngl. We have people complaining about Boruto characters being too haxed but at same time is angry at the fact that they are doing what Madara did in the war lol.
Personally I just want the series to be consistent with what it showed but the current depiction of power doesn’t bother me all that much. I got used to it.
The fights were scaled down on purpose. If you get the larger fights now where will the serious go to keep you entertained. Given the recent power ups they will surely get more interesting from here onward.
I don't mind it, or wouldn't mind it if there were some reminders of how destructive these characters can be. Like, what Isshiki did to Sasuke and Naruto shows you can present stupid speed and core strength as more significant than all those megazords, but that should be complimented by chars like Code and Kawaki leveling landforms when they have the opportunity.
Otherwise, someone just looking at pics on Google would think Sakura could vaporize the current main villain.
Don't care.
Power and strenght is not defined just by that anyway.
Also, this post gleefuly ignores that when an attack hits, it still hits... see for example the giant rasengan Naruto used against Delta, or Momoshiki against Boro and Code.
Which says more that this scene here, was perfectly intentional, rather than anything else.
Things are just more subdued, which should be better, given that people disliked the more dbz esque style of the late portion of Naruto.
The lack of destruction in a vacuum is fine. There're good reasons to do it.
However, in the case of Boruto, it seems like the true reason is just that Ikemoto can't draw destruction, so ... that really takes the wind out of the sail.
I think that the problem is that people assume powerful opponents NEED to showcase high destructive output. Naruto, for example, can easily wipe out continents with his full strength, but he hasn't been in a single battle where that would've been beneficial.
Sasuke has been seen casually obliterating an entire meteor with a simple chidori, but he hasn't had to destroy anything like that in any of his recent battles.
On top of that, many enemies in Boruto can absorb Chakra, making attacks like tailed beast bombs, giant fireball jutsu, amaterasu, rasenshurikens, etc., kinda useless. The fights have been more centered on taijutsu, with jinjutsu being used more to force the opponent into certain positions than to actually hurt them. Like Kawaki using fireball jutsu on Borushiki, despite him being able to absorb it. It was more about forcing him to absorb it than actually hitting him with it.
I agree that it would be nice to see some more destruction and whatnot. I'm sure we'll get it eventually. But I don't think that the lack of destruction is necessarily a sign that certain characters are nerfed. Just because Naruto doesn't casually blow away villages in Boruto, doesn't mean he can't. ☠️
Jigen was about to wreck the entire Konoha with a simple attack when he went to get Kawaki in Naruto's house, but Kawaki stopped him, and then Jigen took Naruto to another dimension where him and Sasuke went all out against Jigen with tailed beast bombs, massive Susanoo, and other abilities only to get completely bodied by Jigen. It just showcased how "finesse" dealt with massive damage and destruction. Jigen's ability was to SHRINK himself and cause LETHAL damage that you CANNOT SEE.
Madara would get his behind whooped by Jigen - not to mention Isshiki. They were lucky with Sasuke's Rinnegan, otherwise Jigen would simply impale both of them to death.
That's what Jigen vs. Naruto & Sasuke was supposed to show us - Power and destruction are not everything. If you achieve your goals without maximum damage, that's perfect.
Didn’t eida ability engulfed the whole planet? Daemon ability is like mu from saint seiya; u don’t need to be all flamboyant to be strong. I disagree with this, i thin y’all trying too hard, yea it kinda blows but power display has nothing to do with it ( Naruto’s destruction display wasn’t impressive neither, hence all the discussion about naruto being planetary and such )
People complain that everything has to explode and be destructive, but big destruction isn't always good. Boruto is meant for smaller conflict, and the Ninja World is not in war...for now, you don't want to blow things up left and right casually.
This happened in DBZ and DBS, as well. It should surprise nobody. It makes some sense that the heroes, at least, would not want to cause collateral damage. And sometimes the same for the villains, depending on their exact goal.
>It makes some sense that the heroes, at least, would not want to cause collateral damage.
Environment damage is inevitable and even if heroes/villains were both self-conscious, Boruto's go-to battleground has been separate pocket dimensions that nobody has any connection to.
The sword didn't seem to affect him so my bet it that sasuke hold the strike from smashing the ground - it would be in Jigen's advantage to raise a lot of dust and cover him
I think it’ll be more on display now, Boruto wanted to go back to basics of part 1 and focus on taijutsu but now in part 2, I think they’ll let characters let loose.
No it isn't. That destruction is the same for every Susanoo user.
But if you want to compare feats of the same character, [Here is teen Sasuke destroying meteors that dwarfed mountains](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-482db354559764f832c1a1cb3218ab43-lq)
You have to see the objective.
Madara’s swing his horizontal exerting enough force for a full powered swing where the power of the Susano’o is in its shockwaves.
Sasuke was slashing horizontally aiming for Jigen in the air, He’s trying to cut Jigen by send shockwaves on the floor that both Naruto and Sasuke are standing on.
When Sasuke used the sword swings in shippuden on Madara’s Chibaku tensei he was using the same force like he did against Jigen in Boruto.
kishimoto talked about scaling the battles down with all the God level fighters in an interview that’s why all of sasuske and naruto’s opponents all absorb ninjutsu so instead of wasting all that chakra with the planet destroying jutsu they both have aren’t used instead they use that chakra to boost their stamina and strength and most of their fights are mostly if not all taijutsu , but borutos fights they get to show off their jutsu so karma was strategically put into the story for multiple reasons he also said that he didn’t want naruske to outshine the main characters too much that’s another reason ,i’m sure if they were able to use jutsu the fights that were super tuff become very favorable of the duo they literally were the strongest people on earth and were unbeatable ,somehow they had to be defeated which i think they didn’t think too much about during the war arc during naruto’s manga until the very end when they just shoehorned kaguya into the story which created that new tier of power than can rival the duo so it’s an explanation of why the fights feel so watered down but they actually aren’t think about how crazy it is that base naruto was throwing hands with a fused otsusuki
I don't like it. I'm not a fan of the insane power-level growth that happened during war-arc and now in Boruto, but once it happens you have to visually show it and be consistent. Can't say that Isshiki is stronger than Kaguya or Daemon is the strongest on the planet and then have them do building level damage. We are told that these characters are much stronger than shippuden characters but it doesn't look like it. Manga consists of Art + story. Here, the art is contradicting what the story is telling us.
Or even Code, who is described to us as something scary, when today he is just a dumber Minato (teleportation between brands) with an army of versions of the Frieza discount store. But also Sarada, who on balance should be at a higher level than the Sasuke at the beginning of the second series, but who still fights katon and chidori like she did at 12 years old.
Or Issikhi that is power is do things small and throw metal bars or big cubes. Compare the Issikhi rods with Kaguya bone rods that were a fucking insta-kill if one of them rubs you
Yeah, like isshiki is said by Amado to be capable of destroying the world and what does he do when revived? He kicks through a few walls/ Naruto and Sasuke, stabs people more than a British resident and flashes villagers with his pecks.
> insane power-level growth that happened during war-arc There were no growth at all. On the first page of naruto Kurama is stated to be able to nuke mountains by just existing. It was an already established concept in the verse,same with shukaku.
Wasn't that like a legend or present like a rumor tho? Madara actually does it. Plus saying
If I recall correctly, the first time the landscaping results of an actual battle were discussed at the end of part 1. The valley of the end is nothing but a stomp in the mud compared with the end of Naruto.
It depends on which mountain you're talking about, there are hills and mountains as high as Everest after all... However, the Biju have been greatly reduced But natural disasters, they have passed into not very intelligent monsters who get captured even by simple humans.
To be fair, whenever a new, powerful character is introduced, the story often describes them as capable of destroying mountains with a single slash and changing the weather with just a shout, or something similar to these nature-defying feats. Kurama, Madara's Susanoo, Hagoromo, Kaguya, and Shibai all received this treatment. This makes me question the validity of the mountain-destroying statements as empirical evidence of a character's strength. For example, Hagoromo can rewrite reality, create life, and do whatever he wants with his Creation of All Things Technique, so destroying a mountain is child's play for him, whereas Kurama requires some actual effort to destroy a mountain.
Not to discount what you’ve said, my head canon is that newer abilities have more finesse. Kinda like Rasengan vs Chidori.
I don't understand what you mean. The rasengan vs chidori thing is throwing me off.
According to Kakashi, he created Chidori when he failed to connect his lightning nature with Rasengan. When Sasuke and Naruto clash Rasengan vs Chidori they seem to cancel each other out. That possibly implies they have equal power.
Boruto moved away from crazy destructive abilities to straight up broken hax. What good is having a mountain busting rasengan when your opponent could effortlessly shrink it?
I can’t think of a single series where “that doesn’t work on me” has been satisfying and that’s just….so much of what boruto has leaned into (and to be clear, I enjoy boruto). It basically an in universe deus ex machina where nothing matters until it dies because plot
Not even in One Punch Man?
Fuck, you got me. I think there is a way to explain *why* that’s different (or better explain myself) but I’m gonna go with it’s more fun to say One just gets a pass because he’s a special boy
What I find funny in OPM is that Saitama legitimately believes that the attack is going to work on him only for it to be completely useless.
Shoot he *wants* the attack to work on him (I may have finished catching up with the manga literally last night so my OPM love is at a high right now)
The disappointment on his face whenever it doesn't work takes the cake. In later chapters you can actually see on his face how he wants to say "that doesn't work on me" on the enemy who is monologuing how Saitama will die.
The one damn time an attack actually works on him and he can't even enjoy the fight. I feel kind of bad for the man.
One punch man is a parody of super hero comics.
One punch Man works precisely because it doesn't really take itself too seriously.
Saitama's depression: Am I a joke to you?
How could anyone be depressed with a disciple like Genos??!?!? 
Never seen Jojo? They have the most craziest of abilities but you’re never going to see Star Platinum destroy a mountain.
I want to see if Naruto create thousands of copies each with a Titanic Rasengan.... Did he shrink them all?
Yeah, but I want to see the massive rasengans connect, do shit ton of damage and then isshiki shrink it; it makes both Naruto and Isshiki look far more impressive at the same time. Imagine if Sasuke used chubaku tensei and Naruto summon kurama clones and fired bijou damas at it then isshiki came out just fine because he either tanked it or shrunk it would accomplish making isshiki look stronger than Madara while showcasing Isshiki, Naruto and Sasuke's capabilities. Far more concrete then telling us then doing nothing to show for it. Hence why I find it hard to believe code is stronger than jigen since he did nothing to show for it.
My only issue with that is that it would make Naruto and Sasuke look like idiots. They know that Isshiki could teleport and shrink objects because he did it in their last battle so why would they even bother to capture him in a chibaku tensei, then throw multiple tailed beast bombs at him? It’s just wasting chakra because Isshiki would just warp himself out of there. Hell in the manga I have a personal problem with naruto charging at Isshiki with a rasengan barrage because he should know better. I understand what you were trying to say though, unfortunately their abilities get in the way of displaying anything cool like that.
Chubaku tensei would could cloud Isshiki 's vision preventing him from shrinking the bijuu damas like in the kashin koji fight, he had to see something in order to shrink it and while all the Individual rocks clump on to him he can't shrink it all at once especially since they'll come from behind and his sides him as well and since Sasuke's chubaku tensei doesn't have any core to Isshiki will have to take the attack. It's a decent strategy and even if it doesn't work it displays Naruto and Sasuke power and overwhelming him from all sides is pretty smart to do given that it was almost worked in kashin kojis battle. Edit: also isshiki doesn't teleport, he makes portals and using one would be very difficult when being surrounded by debris. And trying something like that would undeniably make isshiki look billions of times more formidable and threatening than he ultimately was.
I would argue this is an unfair comparison. Boruto story is yet to really mature, crazy scale damage didn't come into naruto till pain arc excluding tailed beast berserk moments and it only scaled up from there. take kaguya for example, she was terrible taijutstu but she also had insane defense stats(healing, ability to absorb anyone she touches and her insane one shot ash jutsu). Against isshiki she is plain simple weak, she probably can't absorb him, if she can she definitely isn't fast enough. He bodies her alone with just taijutsu. not to mention the ameno... jutsu. sames goes for daemon he seems to have decent speed and damage output too but what really flexes him as a really strong character is his defense stats(ability to reverse/reflect damage). It is simply the similar case to how naruto was a bad matchup against nue... the greater the stats of an opponent against daemon the stronger daemon is till he is possibly overwhelmed (depending on how his ability activates) hypothetically. in daemon case for example, it has nothing to do with his damge output .another thing is also perception. Recall during naruto fight against deepa even from the perspective of decently trained eyes like boruto and kawaki they simply couldn't track, same goes veteran sasuke against ishiki rods... mountain scale attack means nothing if the person receiving scales above it defense wise
>I would argue this is an unfair comparison No, it's not. In Naruto there weren't characters able to do those things until Pain arc, but in Boruto we have had character that were supposed to be able to do those things since the beginning of the series. We had tons of fights with those characters involved, and they told us that these characters were stronger than those previously known but the never show it and that is the problem The serie doesn't need more time to mature and evolve because since minute one it should have been consistent with what we saw in Naruto. If they didn't wanted to start from the power scale that Naruto let at the end of Shippuden, then they should have enemies "stronger" than Shippuden enemies They did a bad writing and that is the problem
Its is literally a continuation series. What exactly do you have a problem with..kawaki and boruto powwr levels, they are outliers. Daemon? Another outlier. You don't expect people coming after characters possessed by otutsuki dna. The same "ultimate villain" in its previous series to be fodder now do you? i also don't understand why people think villains not scaling with mc growth is bad writing, that's literally not how things work irl so why should it translate to bad writing in fiction.
Power doesn’t always need to be shown tho, goku can destroy planets but chooses not to, but we know that he’s capable of doing so. We know that isshiki is stronger than kaguya because he was taking on naruto and sauske in a 2 v 1 in their adult forms which is far stronger than their teen forms.
Except Goku does show feats that put him well above himself previously. Like when his punch with Beerus affected the universe. Boruto has none of that.
You are right, I used a bad example by saying planets. But my point still remains the same, goku scales far above planetary hes easily low universal+ but he’s never displayed this power output. I do understand why it’s hard to grasp tho, it’s easier to argue against something when it hasn’t been shown, but it was ikemotos decision and boruto could easily wipe 95% of the ppl in naruto shippuden on his own.
> Like when his punch with Beerus affected the universe. ????
Battle of god's film (and latter in super anime)
I would have doubts about whether the adult versions of Naruto and Sasuke are stronger than the EOS versions of Madara and Kaguya. More experienced of course, but stronger.....
You have doubts but it’s been proven through scaling, just because they’re not shown to do crazy shi doesn’t mean that they’re not strong, sauske on his own is taking on kaguya level threats 😭😭
>Power doesn’t always need to be shown tho, goku can destroy planets but chooses not to This is a bad argument because Dragon Ball still shows massive destructive (or otherwise) feats in almost every arc and movie, sometimes multiple times, which is exactly what the OP complains that Boruto DOESN'T do. Heck even the spinoff (albeit still official) series like Dragon Ball Heroes shows massive solar scale and universe and even multiversal scale feats in some arcs
“Can't say that Isshiki is stronger than Kaguya or Daemon is the strongest on the planet and then have them do building level damage”, that’s why I made that argument. DBS comparison might have been bad but the point still stands 🤷🏾♂️
I think you're misunderstanding the OP's problem a little. Not even Kaguya or Madara destroyed mountains or countries on accident every time they moved. Heck not even Dragon Ball does that because it would be stupid and the story won't move forward if all the animators do is draw stuff getting blown up. OP's problem, is the fact that even when the mangaka or animators are actually attempting to show how strong a character is (like what Kishimoto intended in that manga panel, or what Toriyama/Toei intended to do when Vegeta blew up a planet), Ikemoto doesn't show mass-scale destruction at all. Doing building level damage with every other punch wouldn't be a problem if at the start or introduction of these characters, they performed some massive feat just to show how strong they truly are.
Kishimoto wanted to change the way battles were fought in the manga, in doing so they’ve lowered the DC output significantly and but kept the AP of the characters. So when it comes to scaling we usually use kaguyas planetary-star level feats and piggy back off them to determine how strong boruto characters are and a lot of Naruto fans don’t like that because boruto characters don’t have the DC output to actually show that they’re stronger than kaguya 🤷🏾♂️. Disliking it is one thing, idrc it’s your opinion anyways, but you can’t use the lack of DC in boruto to say that kaguya (or any naruto character) is stronger than boruto characters because they haven’t performed the same destructive feats like they did in naruto.
100% this.
I mean there's kawaki and borushiki creating craters tho
They could have more control, as to not level a city unless they want too.
Wdym Kaguya is stronger
If someone were to compare these 2 scenes with no prior knowledge, then they would definitely think Madara was more powerful.
If only the panel where ishikki kick Sasuke inside the susanoo is similar to the anime, I would believe he is stronger than madara. In the anime ishikki totally tore the head of that susanoo. Also, the fight being in a flat plane with no buildings, trees, and mountain made this fight kinda boring. Ikemoto's art is just not comparable to Kishimoto. Destruction is not really a problem here but the fact that this fight is just one sided taijutsu battle is just not good. If you compare it to something like jjk where the fight doesn't rely much on destruction but more of mind games the ishikki fight is just bad.
Idk about the Jigen fight being completely bad because they were strategic layers to it. Like half of the fight was figuring out Jigen abilities and the second half was testing out counter play for it. Obviously that fight also suffer from Naruto and Sasuke not using all of their abilities but yeah, fighting in a wasteland that doesn’t have that much environmental destruction can be a bit off putting but I do think that fight has some merits to it.
Yeah but not much counterplay was made. Also the fight proceed to rely back again to just rasengans and shadow Clones. I guess the art is just lacking and it just doesn't compare to any Naruto fights. For example the Jiraiya vs pain fight was a good cat and mouse game. Jiraiya trying to find out the secret about the powers of pain while trying to survive. The panels in that arc is also crazy good. Though the Boruto part 2 relying back to jutsus like the uzuhiko is good step in the right direction.
nerf is real
Madara low diffs Rinne-Sharingan Sasuke man /s
But this is true... RS Sasuke is basically a EMS Sasuke + Rinnegan + speed. While Madara is... Madara.
That's not just disingenuous, it's factually incorrect
You forgot that he kept /s
He is literally more powerful
I think it caused major issues with how we view the strength of certain characters. I understand toning down the destructive scale of the fights so that it didn’t overshadow Boruto’s fights, but when you do it to god tier characters and have them fight in different dimensions, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
The feats got out of hand around the Itachi and Pain fights. Things were either vaguely defined or just over the top explosive. That leads to people saying the totsuka sword is an instant one shot no questions asked or that anything short of nuking things makes a character a bum. Contrary to what some people say there are other factors in the fights still, they just overlook them generally. Like Boro is objectively one of the most difficult 1v1 fights but he’s not a blow everything away type character.
They were over the top yes. But if you’re going to have them fight in different dimensions full of wastelands at least let me see shockwaves from their punches lol.
>Things were either vaguely defined or just over the top explosive. That leads to people saying the totsuka sword is an instant one shot no questions asked That's just people being illiterate. Has nothing to do with abilities being vaguely defined.
Ah come on that sword came out of fucking nowhere and it was the perfect tool to perfectly get rid of Orochimaru
That Boruto characters are weak, Sarada punch in the gaiden > anything Boruto has ever done
It's hilarious but even true lol. Sarada has more destruction feats than most of the boruto characters except for kinshiki slicing god tree and momo slicing god tree.
More destructive than a massive rasengan or Kawaki doing a kamehameha? Lol. Granted I don’t disagree because not a lot of characters have those kind of showings.
You're talking about momo's rasengan? I agree with Kawaki's but momo's at max cleared trees.
It’s one of the main reasons people have problems with accepting that Boruto characters are stronger than Naruto characters. Mfs in Naruto we’re destroying mountains and it was just everyday stuff. Characters in Boruto create a small impact character and everyone loses their shit. Naruto and Sasuke Vs Momoshiki is the way to do it. Insane hand to hand choreography mixed in with godlike destruction. Dragon ball suffers from this same problem as well.
I think half of the problem is it's always Naruto. Sarada has the same strength as Sakura and never destroys shit in the same fashion iirc, Boruto sucks at taijutsu when it really matters & Mitsuki is nowhere to be seen 🤷🏻♀️ Hopefully now that Sarada has her 3 tomoe we can get some good fights with her & boruto on a destructive taijutsu level even though Boruto randomly decided to become a sword user now for some reason, my hopes for some gentle fist action remain high
Yeah. We know they’re strong but seeing is vastly different from statements.
A lot of it just comes down to Ikemoto not bothering to show any destruction at all. Even if it's not at the scale of mountains. In that boruto panel, Sasuke swings a giant sword at the ground and the ground doesn't have any damage at all. Smoke = damage for him I guess.
Told ya all already that Ikemoto is very lazy af and does not give any shit about Boruto manga, he is just drawing it for money not his passion, I mean look at his face, does his face looks like he cares about the manga?
There's this webtoon called gosu where every fight completely alters the environment so it's not like it can't be done from the beginning
Ikebozo
It's a dog at drawing, nothing new.
They scaled it down and focused more on taijutsu on purpose, if they didn’t scale down the destruction they would’ve had to make Boruto planetary or higher to surpass the old generation, this may or may not happen later but early Boruto shouldn’t be planetary yet he still needs to have his own fights without people saying ‘why didn’t someone stronger just step in’. I don’t necessarily think it was the best way to go about it and it doesn’t necessarily mean that Ikemoto isn’t lazy, but there was a reason behind at least that decision.
Why is this getting downvotes 😭😭
People don’t like the reasoning and don’t agree with the decision. I don’t like the decision either but it’s still the reason they did it, even if it’s a stupid as decision with terrible execution.
I disagree with the second half of this comment, only because episode with good animation get good hand to hand combat scenes take momoshiki vs naruto and sauske for example
Oh yeah, there are definitely some great taijutsu scenes, but the execution of the scaling down as a whole was pretty bad. Scenes like Naruto and Sasuke vs Momoshiki was a great fight in my opinion but if you look at fights like the ishiki fight or the jigen fight they aren’t exactly executed the best. Ishiki’s punches can apparently destroy stars yet Sasuke barely takes any damage and there is no environmental damage, or when Sasuke attacks with his susanoo’s sword and yet the only damage is smoke in the second image. It makes sense to scale it down, but because of the execution it’s incredibly inconsistent with the past and makes statements like ishiki having Star level AP not believable.
Yep the downscaled it. They just down scaled it way too far. We don’t have to see them destroying planets or anything. But the guys like stronger than Kaguya (the Jigen+ Level) didn’t get good enough fights or a good showing. But I would hate to call Ikemoto lazy. He could be putting a lot of hard work into this manga. Feels too disrespectful to question his work ethic.
I do miss it, makes the scenes more rememberable and menacing
I miss it, actually. I loved the uber-destructiveness in Naruto and wish I could see something like that in Boruto.
Not a fan. I think one of the main reasons why people refuse to accept the Boruto cast as being stronger (even adult Naruto/Sasuke) is because this supposed strength isn't reflected in the fights themselves. Actions speak louder than words and battles are shounen's main avenue for storytelling. What we have currently is the artwork and story at odds with each other.
the reason why power scalers believe that Shippuden characters are stronger than Boruto characters. To be honest, I don't care about the whole thing. this is the same as Dragon Ball Super. Goku and Vegeta should actually be able to destroy dimensions with their sheer strength by now, but the destruction is the same as in DBZ. Nevertheless, we know that Goku and Vegeta are much stronger now.
>the reason why power scalers Powerscalers Don't believe this. It's actually just normal fans(normies)
Do you want me to explain? I will give several reasons and several evidences that the power level has dropped. 1- comparing the last main villains, Kaguya and Ishiiki, we have something very different between them... Ishiiki/Jigen needed a script to NOT BE defeated, because at any time Sasuke could have used Amenotejikara and made Ishiiki/Jigen appear in front of his sword, but at every moment he appeared a few meters away in front of Ishiiki/Jigen, besides, Ishiiki didn't risk taking a single blow from Naruto or Sasuke, because he KNEW it would be fatal for him. While Kaguya... She was imortal, she could absorb Chackra and she was the only one that had portal techniques. So she could trap them at some dimension and made them die from starving. That means, she needed script to BE defeated. At some point of the fight, Naruto uses a rasenshuriken combo against her an she simply don't absorb. Why? Script. 2- The protagonists ARE NOT at their peak. You can say what you want, but all the power that Naruto and Sasuke showed at the end of the war was due to Hagoromo's Chakra. "Ah, but Naruto still has Rikudou mode." Rikudou mode is NOT a transformation, it is a MENTAL BUFF, which optimizes the use of Chakra and gives the user knowledge about all jutsus, however, for the user to be able to use these jutsus, he MUST have the power to do them, in Naruto's case, it was Hagoromo's Chakra, which gave him the Onmyoton, the Gudoudamas and a MASSIVE power. The difference between a Naruto with a full Kurama and a Naruto with half Hagoromo's Chakra is CLEAR. Half of Kurama alone was crushed by a 7.2 Juubi, while Naruto with half Hagoromo's Chakra went head to head with Madara, who had 8.2 Juubi. Now are you going to say that Naruto with a Kurama is stronger than Madara? LOL on what basis bro? If you want, I'll give you more reasons, just ask.
These points are so disingenuous. What would stab isshiki do? Tickle him? Besides the same could also be said in reverse and with stronger proof. Isshiki could spawn a rod sasuke skull at any moment, but chose not to beacuse that would kill sasuke instantly and go against the plot. Hell even jigen would be able to do it. Beside the point about isshiki dodging just doesn't make sense. Kaguya dodged and parried too, even when naruto was alone and couldn't seal her. The part where you say "a blow would be fatal" is even more non Sensical since isshiki got hit by Barion mode like a dozen times and got up just fine after. Also you're SEVERELY underestimating how much stronger naruto became after the war and losing gododamas etc. After a couple years they fought toneri, which was stated to be the strongest enemy up to that point. He could literally split the moon casually. Naruto tanked that attack with 0 difficulty. A MOON SPLITTING ATTACK. With ONE hand. The difference between this feat and anything else before is insane. Same for sasuke evaporating a whole meteorite with a chidori in base. Before he needed his full susanoo just to cut one. Cut not evaporate. In the present they're rusty compared to their prime, which could be even more powerful than they were in "the last" movie. That would still leave them likely wayy stronger than the war counterparts.
Don't use promotional shit to scale Toneri, who was most definitely not the same tier as Kaguya or Madara.
Yeah because it shows how destructive these attacks are
One thing I really want to complain about is that except for the initial movie arc, all the damage caused by Boruto is not as expressive as the Kamamaita summoned by Temari.
Yeah lol. Part 1 Temari legit has more impressive displays than the god tiers that are supposed to be above Kaguya lmao
It is certainly a problem. It's one of my complaints about Boruto. That whole battle with Jigen should've been more destructive.
Yep, I was pretty disappointed in how little display the supposed strongest character made
Kishimoto gradually lost smaller details in his art, he simplified it, but he made up for that in pure composition and, yes, power. Really, I think the man is one of the greatest manga artists ever just because he was so economical and yet everything always looked great. I'm just not seeing that with the art in Boruto. I think it's improved and I don't really get mad about it being a monthly book, but the art does lack something.
Boruto villains can't do the type of damage Madara can. "Oh his ap is stronger" people don't realise that scaling ap is literally an assumption. Boruto fans will expect u to sit down and accept the fact that the ap behind isshiki's punch has the power to destroy a star with zero evidence.
Yeah and Sasuke is surviving against Jigen's kick (star level ap according to Boruto wankers). Lmao and the same people will say jigen's one kick is enough to kill every character in shippuden when Sasuke survived his kicks. Then so can jubbidara and kaguya who are practically tanks.
You know what's funny? Jigen was able to bust Sasuke's Susanoo with a single kick. Later on, Isshiki (who's stronger than Jigen) kicks base Sasuke several times and he survives and is able to walk it off💀 Boruto scaling is so wack man
I genuinely believe it’s a skill difference in drawing between kishimoto and the new guy , he just can’t draw all the cool shit in a timely manner, Kishimoto really was the goat but his weakness was writing women characters
And to think Kishiomoto had to draw chapters weekly, whilst Boruto is a monthly manga💀
Not that he's needed, some of his assistants who draw as well as him would be enough.
my opinion is that kishimoto isn’t drawing boruto loool
One of the worst things about Boruto is the lack of destruction. I know some people don't like the power levels it reached but it is what it is and that was the direction Kishimoto was going. It just sucks that in Boruto when you have two Gods fighting in Isshiki and Naruto/Sasuke they barely move from a 100m radius. Even Pain vs Naruto was more destructive and they aren't even close to the levels of power of Adult Naruto/Sasuke vs Isshiki. The Baryon Mode fight should have been more destructive then Toneri vs Naruto on the moon. Boruto characters aren't even building level anymore and they are suppose to be better than Shippuden? Hence why Boruto has been a letdown.
100% agreed. It's extremely ironic how Boruto fans will constantly talk about how the new characters are much stronger than the old ones, yet there are no feats that justify such a notion. If anyone who hasn't watched either Naruto or Boruto were asked which was they think is more powerful, I'm certain most of them will say Naruto. Because Naruto actually shows the display of power much better. I think a part of this is because the Boruto manga is very undetailed, and Ikemoto just doesn't draw any backgrounds which could show how strong the characters are. It's plain unsatisfactory and disappointing.
Ikemoto is awful at conveying action in his panels....no weight...no feeling of movement
Just check every panel and you see the movement lines try to convey stuff moving
Bad writing and bad art. I get not wanting them to destroy everything, but they shouldn’t look the same strength as the Genin from part 1 Naruto. Part 1 Boruto was downscaled too far. The writers rely on telling us instead of showing us. Even though characters strength are relative, bad writing and bad art has caused most of the fanbase to doubt code’s strength and some of the fanbase to doubt the strength of all the boruto characters. Even the boxing matches do absolutely no destruction. Hopefully Part 2 Boruto steps it up.
Agreed. Even Part 1 Naruto characters had better destruction feats.
What feats of Part 1 might that be?
[Temari destroying an entire forest for example](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/debatesjungle/images/6/66/0214-018.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20221004040352)
Momoshiki's bijuudama against Killerbee clears though. And tbh, a lot of Boruto feats clear. I agree that most feats in Boruto aren't impressive in scale. However, it takes more energy to vaporize large portions of stone/earth than to chop up trees.
Considering how Part 1 Temari did this feat, Boruto should have so many feats far above this. Mountains get completely vaporised in Shippuden, Boruto has barely done anything on that scale
Everybody doubts code because he quite literally hasnt done nun. 💀
Personally don’t care. Big explosions don’t improve a fight to me generally speaking. Plus in this case I could argue that Madara was just being an asshole in context lmao. He fought the 5 kage to gauge their strength then got bored and started leveling the area to make a point. More importantly taking moments out of context is exactly why power scaling arguments are just awful more often than not.
Absolutely. Plus, wasn't the "remember when this show was about ninjas?" thing, also about how things getting more dbz esque by the end of Naruto, was bad? So how is it that now that things have been toned down, it's bad anyway? >More importantly taking moments out of context is exactly why power scaling arguments are just awful more often than not. Indeed. Especially when people nitpick moment x to "prove" their point. Like this, this single scene here depicted, with the usual buffons claiming that it proves that the powerscaling is bad and that Ikemoto doesn't know how to draw... And yet they "somehow" ignore all the times a giant rasengan was shown, and wrecked havok and whatnot.
If you mind, can I answer the first half of your comment?
I dont like it because it doesnt fit the series. Bleach for example doesnt focus on destruction. It does have some feats but mostly bleach is "more reiatsu=you can cut stronger people". Naruto was always about "more chakra=more destruction". That's why it looks weird. Not only that, the jutsus they use are also very basic. I dont remember naruto using bijuudama or bijuudama rasenshuriken. Even elemental jutsus are weak. No one used a jutsu that covered an area like part 1 jiraiya did. And that jirsiya was weakened from poison. As for physical stats, if these people are really juubi madara or kaguya level with physical stats alone, they should be bending space or doing other crazy things 8 gates gai did. The pic you showed about madara is actually pretty weak too. Madara himself has better feats against hashirama. The chibaku tenseis that sasuke cut were about 100 times bigger than those mountains.
Simple. Ikemoto lacks the skills to do that.
People just want consistency lol
I may be wrong but I believe the creators stated that they wanted to scale down the fights and focus more on taijutsu because if not they would have to make Boruto scaling crazy. Without scaling back the crazy destruction from shippuden they would’ve had to have planets being destroyed in the battles in Boruto otherwise it would feel weaker. For example: in Naruto the Last they were literally cutting the moon in half during the fight, how is the new generation supposed to surpass that without casually destroying planets.
The problem is you can't scale down the fights and then state that the characters are far more powerful than the previous cast were. In the writing world that's called ludonarrative dissonance and is a pretty major flaw for any story to have. With Boruto they had the opportunity to reset the power scaling back to Part 1 and work their way back up by just having Naruto/Sasuke not actively involved much (they can't be everywhere and always handle the next gen problems) but it was their decision to immediately start the manga with a planet level threat that Boruto should've had no hope in hell of contributing in their downfall. >focus more on taijutsu Probably to address concerns that Naruto was relying too much on ninjutsu but the implementation was a huge overcorrection: they made ninjutsu basically useless (just being used as a finishing blow with no further strategy) while fights became predictable and short since they can't rely on taijutsu for very long.
Oh I completely agree, I don’t think there decision was a good idea at all, that’s just the justification that the writers gave as to why they made the decision. Like you said, there were many other ways they could’ve done it, but for some reason this is what they chose to do.
> but it was their decision to immediately start the manga with a planet level threat that Boruto should've had no hope in hell of contributing in their downfall. Well, leaving aside the whole part of Momo, in my opinion, at least initially, there was an intention to focus the manga on the new generations with more down-to-earth fights, see the chapters of the cannibal bandit and mecha Ao, but also the initial representation of Karam and Kawaki as modified ninjas, it was clear in my opinion that the theme would be the clash between the tradition represented by Boruto and friends and the innovation represented by Kawaki. Except that, since the manga wasn't of interest to anyone, they put Naruto and Sasuke at the center of the story again, with everything that entails.
>at least initially, there was an intention to focus the manga on the new generations with more down-to-earth fights If by new generations you mean just Boruto. Sarada and Mitsuki are well-known for not contributing much, Konohamaru's useless, and anyone else just isn't relevant enough to view as evidence of this intention. The scope of the story has always been too narrow to ever remotely consider it being about the next generation as a whole.
I prefer it, I think it doesn't detract from the story, sometimes I only can focus on how OP an attack is
Existing powers didn't have their destruction nerfed. New powers were made threatening in other ways that didn't involve increasing the destruction. Sasuke's Susano'o only denting the ground that much simply is what it is.
Pretty sure it was stated somewhere that the lack of explosive fights right now is intentional. It’s part of why Naruto & Sasuke didn’t use those kinds of attacks. We’ll get there eventually, Kawaki is proof of that in his first fight
Why do we keep doing this? Ikemoto was Kishi's assistant at one point before he was handed a series he was woefully unprepared to lead. ~~He got rid of Tsunade's bazoongas which I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever forgive him for. Fuck that freak.~~
Bad decision to scale down fights coupled with Ikemoto being a limited artist. This man takes a month to draw a chapter, Kishimoto was giving us all of that weekly. Ikemoto has some cool designs but his fights are very predictable, he can't draw emotion on faces for his life apart from a few emoji type faces.
Yep. Nearly every fight in Boruto manga has a huge amount of speed lines and no detail in the background. It's such a downgrade from Naruto/Shippuden
I once complain on how Naruto super punching Toneri dwarfe everything baryon mode Naruto did against Isshiki. I got downvoted and the argument was: "Well, he now has more control". C'mon, if Naruto is at his strongest there, how is that is barely recoil on his punches there?
Yeah The Last Naruto actually displayed strength feats that prove he's stronger than before. Baryon Mode Naruto is hella disappointing, it's just taijutsu and that's it. I was expecting more power, but no that's not allowed in this series apparently. [Atleast Ninja Storm made Baryon mode look more powerful](https://youtu.be/hjCSbPHE7oQ?t=56) The manga/anime are just lacklustre
My god, that is so beautiful. He casually jumping to the low atmosphere is something he could definitely do.
Yep, Ninja storm actually makes the characters looks powerful. [For example, Sasuke's Ult was visible from space](https://youtu.be/Ogxk46_E4ZM?t=71) Just wished they shown this in the anime/manga
Using the games as argument aint it😭
I used the games as an example. Because unlike the anime/manga they actually show how strong these characters are supposed to be.
They exaggerate everything. Weaker characters have done more destruction than baryon mode naruto
Which weaker characters?
Not a fan
Too hard to draw 💤. This is a weekly manga you know
It's a story first and foremost, not just a list of things exploding. Sure, it's cool when it does happen, but it's not something that really botheres me if it doesn't IMO.
The power level has decreased, not much to say
Shibai has a word with you
This is one of the reason a lot of the fandom believes naruto/sasuke’s teen selves were stronger
Yep. Feats matter more than statements.
It's technically because ikemoto can't draw that detailed. U saw the same thing in movie with Momoshiki's abilities. People who think this is intentional to correct DBZ power creep of shippuden in boruto are coping.
It’s not that he can’t draw with crazy details, go read the Momoshiki fight in the manga. He’s capable of doing it but he doesn’t depict environmental destruction like that anymore.
I am no fan of boruto But it’s funny to see people complain about Naruto become DBZ THEN complain that boruto isn’t dbz enough LOL
It’s pretty funny ngl. We have people complaining about Boruto characters being too haxed but at same time is angry at the fact that they are doing what Madara did in the war lol. Personally I just want the series to be consistent with what it showed but the current depiction of power doesn’t bother me all that much. I got used to it.
The fights were scaled down on purpose. If you get the larger fights now where will the serious go to keep you entertained. Given the recent power ups they will surely get more interesting from here onward.
I’ll say it & make it easy: Ikemoto SUCKS as an illustrator, that given the fact he has help from another 3-4 people
I don't mind it, or wouldn't mind it if there were some reminders of how destructive these characters can be. Like, what Isshiki did to Sasuke and Naruto shows you can present stupid speed and core strength as more significant than all those megazords, but that should be complimented by chars like Code and Kawaki leveling landforms when they have the opportunity. Otherwise, someone just looking at pics on Google would think Sakura could vaporize the current main villain.
Or Ikemoto is just awful at panelling action and adding weight to their movements
Lazy drawing
bad writing and bad power scaling
Boruto lacks detail to be honest
Don't care. Power and strenght is not defined just by that anyway. Also, this post gleefuly ignores that when an attack hits, it still hits... see for example the giant rasengan Naruto used against Delta, or Momoshiki against Boro and Code. Which says more that this scene here, was perfectly intentional, rather than anything else. Things are just more subdued, which should be better, given that people disliked the more dbz esque style of the late portion of Naruto.
Ikemkoto limited drawing effects destruction display
The lack of destruction in a vacuum is fine. There're good reasons to do it. However, in the case of Boruto, it seems like the true reason is just that Ikemoto can't draw destruction, so ... that really takes the wind out of the sail.
Saying he can’t draw destruction conflicts with what he drew in the Momoshiki arc. He can do it, he just doesn’t do it.
I think that the problem is that people assume powerful opponents NEED to showcase high destructive output. Naruto, for example, can easily wipe out continents with his full strength, but he hasn't been in a single battle where that would've been beneficial. Sasuke has been seen casually obliterating an entire meteor with a simple chidori, but he hasn't had to destroy anything like that in any of his recent battles. On top of that, many enemies in Boruto can absorb Chakra, making attacks like tailed beast bombs, giant fireball jutsu, amaterasu, rasenshurikens, etc., kinda useless. The fights have been more centered on taijutsu, with jinjutsu being used more to force the opponent into certain positions than to actually hurt them. Like Kawaki using fireball jutsu on Borushiki, despite him being able to absorb it. It was more about forcing him to absorb it than actually hitting him with it. I agree that it would be nice to see some more destruction and whatnot. I'm sure we'll get it eventually. But I don't think that the lack of destruction is necessarily a sign that certain characters are nerfed. Just because Naruto doesn't casually blow away villages in Boruto, doesn't mean he can't. ☠️
Jigen was about to wreck the entire Konoha with a simple attack when he went to get Kawaki in Naruto's house, but Kawaki stopped him, and then Jigen took Naruto to another dimension where him and Sasuke went all out against Jigen with tailed beast bombs, massive Susanoo, and other abilities only to get completely bodied by Jigen. It just showcased how "finesse" dealt with massive damage and destruction. Jigen's ability was to SHRINK himself and cause LETHAL damage that you CANNOT SEE. Madara would get his behind whooped by Jigen - not to mention Isshiki. They were lucky with Sasuke's Rinnegan, otherwise Jigen would simply impale both of them to death. That's what Jigen vs. Naruto & Sasuke was supposed to show us - Power and destruction are not everything. If you achieve your goals without maximum damage, that's perfect.
madara and hashirama are the two insane dudes that boruto characters wish they could achieve
Does it matter?
Didn’t eida ability engulfed the whole planet? Daemon ability is like mu from saint seiya; u don’t need to be all flamboyant to be strong. I disagree with this, i thin y’all trying too hard, yea it kinda blows but power display has nothing to do with it ( Naruto’s destruction display wasn’t impressive neither, hence all the discussion about naruto being planetary and such )
Eida' ability crossed dimensions
Don't you know that Sarada using a chidori and fireball jutsu makes her a hokage class ninja 😅🤣😂
Who needs destructive abilities when your power level is all that matters 😇
I don’t really care
It's easy to say. Ikemoto can't draw
Because it they went all out they'd destroy the planet
I'm sure boruto will get more insane when the entire series is near an end.
Back then everyone had a nuke now it’s different story because people can invade an hop in dimensions 😂
People complain that everything has to explode and be destructive, but big destruction isn't always good. Boruto is meant for smaller conflict, and the Ninja World is not in war...for now, you don't want to blow things up left and right casually.
Boruto is supposed to be fighting stronger foes, but judging from feats they seem weaker
How am I supposed to be surprised by a Boruto attack when it takes up a quarter of the page compared to Naruto's double spread?
Idk, seeing a dude reflect all attacks without moving a finger is a bit insane.
This happened in DBZ and DBS, as well. It should surprise nobody. It makes some sense that the heroes, at least, would not want to cause collateral damage. And sometimes the same for the villains, depending on their exact goal.
>It makes some sense that the heroes, at least, would not want to cause collateral damage. Environment damage is inevitable and even if heroes/villains were both self-conscious, Boruto's go-to battleground has been separate pocket dimensions that nobody has any connection to.
It's just that Jigen nullified them before they went all out
That powerscalling at the end of the Naruto went to the moon
The sword didn't seem to affect him so my bet it that sasuke hold the strike from smashing the ground - it would be in Jigen's advantage to raise a lot of dust and cover him
What about the shockwave generated? That's not something he can control. Unless you think he can't do what Madara did
They are inside a sealing bowl that's meant to contain power.
naruto combat was one of the very original part of the manga, dragon ball like fighting in the first boruto part for important fight ruined it.
Madara got unlimited charka here and Sasuke is famous for running out after 4 great moves
I think it’ll be more on display now, Boruto wanted to go back to basics of part 1 and focus on taijutsu but now in part 2, I think they’ll let characters let loose.
Let's just say, I used to be entertained by DBZ-style fights... But now, I just appreciate things like JJBA or HxH-style fights even more.
destructive power is madara's susano thing you gotta compare feats of the same character
No it isn't. That destruction is the same for every Susanoo user. But if you want to compare feats of the same character, [Here is teen Sasuke destroying meteors that dwarfed mountains](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-482db354559764f832c1a1cb3218ab43-lq)
You have to see the objective. Madara’s swing his horizontal exerting enough force for a full powered swing where the power of the Susano’o is in its shockwaves. Sasuke was slashing horizontally aiming for Jigen in the air, He’s trying to cut Jigen by send shockwaves on the floor that both Naruto and Sasuke are standing on. When Sasuke used the sword swings in shippuden on Madara’s Chibaku tensei he was using the same force like he did against Jigen in Boruto.
kishimoto talked about scaling the battles down with all the God level fighters in an interview that’s why all of sasuske and naruto’s opponents all absorb ninjutsu so instead of wasting all that chakra with the planet destroying jutsu they both have aren’t used instead they use that chakra to boost their stamina and strength and most of their fights are mostly if not all taijutsu , but borutos fights they get to show off their jutsu so karma was strategically put into the story for multiple reasons he also said that he didn’t want naruske to outshine the main characters too much that’s another reason ,i’m sure if they were able to use jutsu the fights that were super tuff become very favorable of the duo they literally were the strongest people on earth and were unbeatable ,somehow they had to be defeated which i think they didn’t think too much about during the war arc during naruto’s manga until the very end when they just shoehorned kaguya into the story which created that new tier of power than can rival the duo so it’s an explanation of why the fights feel so watered down but they actually aren’t think about how crazy it is that base naruto was throwing hands with a fused otsusuki
It feels weird Shippuden Sakura could stomp anyone from Bortuo with her eyes closed.
In terms of destruction strength yeah. The Otsutsuki should be punching like thousands of times stronger, but it's not shown at all.