BORUTO - Chapter 17 - Ao

There’s enough world built to create something unbelievable inspired – how hard it was to hire 5 extra assistants* to put some soul into the artwork when you have already become one of the most successful mangaka in the world?

I’m not even offended about the whole ninja tech, or the pandering of potential portable /trading card games. One can even understand the blatantly random power level structure spikes to rewrite a new story altogether, however preposterous they are (Having the Eight Tails wiped just like that? For real?)

But the fact that manga is becoming but a checkbox (when everything has to become a franchise to meet whatever customer criteria the Quarterly Charter du jour has to show to tantalize investors) is demoralizing, especially for a successor of something as solid as Naruto.

It has the chance to become actually good at some point, but usually you see the best efforts of the art studio on the first volumes until the ideal weekly pace is achieved (try drawing 19 pages a week for 15 years and tell me how it’s going).
In any case, here’s hoping things go well for this series.

*5 average-level mangaka could theoretically replicate Kishimoto’s storyboarding depth for a weekly series.