Boruto: Two Blue Vortex Chapter 25 Review

Cover

Himawari is literally repping fashion from when I was a teen, so if you haven't read my blog post on Y2K fashion in TBV, I suggest that you do! The spaghetti straps! The chunky belt! The sandals! I can practically feel the gross weight of embellished wet flare jeans soaked in rainwater on my ankles in high school all day. This is practically giving me flashbacks.

But let's talk about the actual design for a minute because there's some cool shit going on. Her sunflower symbol remains on her choker, but we see her internal metamorphosis represented on her clothes, the flaming sun on her hip (more sun imagery to come later!) and her shirt representing a merging of herself and Kurama.

But let's talk about the coolest part of her new design: the spiral.

"So fucking what?" you'll ask me, "It's the Uzumaki spiral."

Dear friends, it is not.

The Uzumaki symbol, worn here on Boruto's necklace, spirals to the left. Himawari's symbol spirals to the right, similar to Naruto's seal and the leaf symbol. Bonus... it looks like the Arabic number nine, referencing both Kurama's tails and a certain other Uzumaki family member who has the Roman numeral for nine tattooed beneath his eye. Considering that Himawari expressed sympathy for and faith in the 'outsider' Boruto, I think this might suggest further plot points between her and Kawaki in the future.

Want more proof?

Himawari's cover shares a very similar shade of green to the color that's on Kawaki's pants, almost matching the background of his cover as well. This is something we've seen throughout the second arc of TBV, Konohamau's cover matching Moegi's, Boruto's cover matching Jura's. and now Himawari's cover matching Kawaki's.

A few other note on the cover. I love pop art inspiration in the colors and the pattern, the lines feeling as though Himawari and Kurama are traveling on the same path with him tripping her up. I love Ikemoto for giving us a mini-monster for Kurama rather than something cute and cuddly.

As for the title, Those Girls refers to so many things in the chapter. Sarada and Sumire's conversation and resolution, Moegi's rescue, Himawari working with Kurama, and maybe Momoshiki being a diva as well.

Starts With a Hug, Ends in a Hospital

We finally get to see what happens when an individual is freed from a tree! But first, in a story rife with sun symbolism, it feels significant that the Thorn Soul Bulb forms yet another sun pattern when it's sucked into a tree.

So, brief summary. Konohamaru plus Team 10 plus their junior member, Himawari, stand by as the tree explodes, freeing Moegi into Konohamaru's arms. He hugs her, tears in his eyes. Moegi whispers her pet name for him, proving she remembers him. Boruto floats high above, a much better wingman this time than during the Remon Arc. We find out that Shinki has been saved as well, Gaara is in the hospital, and no mention of Yodo, leaving the door open to the possibility that she's been saved as well.

A brief interlude to the Hokage's office has Sai (who needs some volumizing shampoo) telling Shikamaru that the elders are waiting, probably setting up some future tension. We know they're upset he let Boruto get away, but his plan led to a successful mission, recovering both Thorn Soul Bulbs... So, I guess we're going to find out what the amoral raisins who are on the council have in store next chapter.

Back at the hospital, there are seven people (soon to be eight) crowded around Moegi's bed, making me wonder if they need stricter visitor policies. Sarada is here to do what she always does, delivering a bit of medical advice before the plot forgets she Sarada's mother and that they might, you know, acknowledge on another.

Moegi's is fine, except she's weak and hungry, which makes me a bit worried about what sort of shape Sasuke will be when he gets out of his tree, given how much longer he's been on arboreal sabbatical.

Maybe 75% of the fandom thinks Konohamaru is a bum, but he's Moegi's hero.

A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More Yuri

Sarada asks Sumire if they can talk. Thus, they end up back where the infamous hug scene occurred, both of them looking over the village. We finally get Sarada calling Sumire by her real name, acknowledging that she was listening to what Sumire said in chapter 16. Both girls apologize, Sumire for being rude and Sarada for being insensitive, telling her friend "what you said, every single bit of it, was absolutely true."

We finally get clarity on Sarada's feelings for Boruto, that she didn't have them when Sumire initially asked her about them, but they'd grown over time, particularly after she worried about him so much. But she was confused, if her feelings for him were due to them being teammates and all the awful things occurring, or if they were true feelings. But having true feeling for someone felt as though it would make her a loser.

Honestly, we get a very poignant feminine observation about being driven by professional aspirations from Sarada here—she wondered if her attraction to Boruto took away from her goal to become Hokage, that she spent time thinking of something so "meaningless," it took away from her goals. I think this is a trap women often find themselves in. Men are the ones who can "have it all," a career, love, family. But as a woman, you need to give so much of yourself to proving you're worthy to achieve you goals that you suppress the rest of your life, whether you actively have it or put off pursuing it. For women, love can seem like a vapid pursuit. The fruits of romance, marriage and children, are a status symbol for men, but they're weaponized against women, proof that they can't achieve because they have familial responsibilities.

(I've been reading Careless People, a book about the inner workings of Facebook by Sarah Wynn-Williams who worked for their global affairs, and she very clearly outlines this dichotomy of female executives who have children and families but are never allowed to get distracted by them or risk losing their jobs. They do everything to stuff their personal lives away, trying to manage them from the shadows while men play board games and party on private jets. Anyway, it's a horrifying read about social media and the tech elite. But back to Sarada...)

Sarada finally admits to herself and Sumire that she likes Boruto, saying she'll use it to make her stronger—similar to her conversation with Mitsuki in chapter 69(?). Both girls recognize that they are attracted to Boruto and will stop letting it get in their way. Eida is a little miffed that they had such an intense conversation without her present and asks the sensory unit to get her in touch with them immediately. We see them skipping way, holding hands, in step with each other, but there's something ominous in Eida's framing of her desire to speak with them.

Himawari and Kurama

Himawari is sitting cross-legged in her family's home, training with Kurama in her brain. He once again reiterates she's more like him and Jura (a Biju and a Biju incarnation) than a human. (Poor Uzumaki parents, having no human kids left.)

After failing during their mental sparring bout, Kurama tells her that she shouldn't be relying on physical strength to fight, focusing instead on chakra control. She needs to learn a fighting style that will teach her that to maximize her potential. Then, like the diva he is, Kurama takes a nap, leaving her to figure it out.

I said this on Twitter long ago and it caused a ruckus, but I see a potential for Sakura to train her in chakra control, bringing her into the story. It's possible that the Hyuga would be introduced as well to combine her family's gentle fist style with Kurama's abilities... what seems clear now is that she needs someone other than Kurama to enlighten her.

Boruto and Kurama

Boruto sits on the roof across from his childhood home, watching his sister. As she yells at the demon inside her, he closes his eyes and confronts the demon inside him, Momoshiki lounging in his unconsciousness, cheering on Boruto's eventual death.

Lemme say, first of all, I love how Boruto has gone from calling Kawaki freeloader to calling Momoshiki freeloader.

Momoshiki has joined the ranks of the suicide boys, wanting nothing more than for Boruto to die so he can cease living, admitting that saving him was a mistake because he can no longer take control of his mind. That last part is an interesting detail because we've seen Boruto almost lose control multiple times, stating that it feels like he's dying and Momo will take over, but our favorite dramatic alien doesn't express that he's experiencing a similar opening to escape into the world.

Anyway, Boruto has a little proposal for Momoshiki: Help him destroy Jura, and he'll give Momo his body once it's done. This is similar to the deal Kawaki strikes with Amado for more power in exchange for reviving Akebi. We're left to assume that after seeing Kawaki against Jura, Boruto thinks Kawaki will be able to destroy Momoshiki... But I don't think Boruto is powerscaling correctly, unless he thinks that together with Kawaki and Momo's powers, they'll be able to kill Jura. Elsewise, would Kawaki really be able to end Momoshiki?

That Last Page

While Boruto is offering Momoshiki his life, we flash back to Sumire and Sarada walking side by side, discussing the fact that Boruto is clueless that either of them are attracted to him—something Sarada says is endearing. Of course, is Boruto unaware of it, given his access to knowledge of the future via Koji's visions? This little throwaway panel might have more ramifications than it seems.

Overall Thoughts and Future Desires

I am relieved that Ikemoto has opted for a path of unity between the girls rather than a love triangle devolving into fighting—something I wrote about after chapter 16. On my reread of Naruto last year, how the female characters were portrayed in relation to their crushes stood out to me as something that didn't age well at all. TBV feels like nature healing in some ways. I doubt the best-girl wars and shipping wars are going to take anything from this, but the plot itself seems to be telling them to shut the fuck up, which I appreciate greatly.

As we see the second arc of TBV wrapping up, I feel as though each Shinju is going to address a different type of love and an aspect of themselves the characters are struggling with. If Mamushi is up next against Eida, he is a mirror if her own obsession, targeting her through visions (as she targets the girls here). He cuts off her ability to see all, stalks her, taunts her, a kind of toxic, obsessive love like she displayed for Kawaki when she was first introduced in the Code Arc. If that's the focus of the next arc, I expect we'll see her coming to terms with her own behavior and feelings as well—or failing to do so and dying for it.

One of the cool things about how this arc wrapped up is that it gave us a full perspective of romantic love, from Sarada struggling with Sumire's truth bomb at the start, then moving on to Moegi's feelings for Konohamaru. At first, she doesn't understand them, similar to Sarada. It's only when Konohamaru brings up another girl—Moegi—that Matsuri understands that she wants him to be hers and tries to devour him rather than share his heart with anyone else.

Sarada and Sumire defy this path, leaning into their own friendship and humanity, which (a Boruto says) is what makes them different from trees. Instead of seeking to possess Boruto individually, they are going to use their feelings to make them stronger. Going through this conflict makes them both stronger characters and stronger within the story, their honesty having a positive outcome rather than a negative one—really, it's exactly what I'd desire out of a love triangle, if one has to be in the story. I kind of feel that the theme of romantic love has been dealt with, and both of them are now free to move on while still working toward the same goal. I'm actually seeing a lot more development in the cast of girls—Sarada, Sumire, Eida, Himawari—than the boy are getting at the moment, which is a welcome change for a shonen series.

That's not to say that I'm without my complaints, but I expect they'll be addressed in the future, one way or another.

We finally got Sarada in a room with her mother and... nothing. But I constantly have to remind myself that the Uchiha family dynamic I love was almost fully in the anime, not in the manga, and asking for the manga to do the things that the anime did is unrealistic of me.

That said, I do think we'll get Uchiha family development in the future. As noted previously, each of the Shinju will deal with a different aspects of love, and I expect similar types of awakening to occur when the Hidari vs Sarada conflict finally happens—but we're going to be waiting for it for at least another arc. We need to keep in mind that there should be yet another Mangekyo Sharingan power reveal in her future, one that I hope (and assume) is going to come from her family.

I'm a little confused over the Team 10-saving-Matsuri tease in the first arc, then their lack of involvement in saving her. I'm not going to gnash my teeth much over it because future visions showed that Shikadai and Inojin are going to play a significant role in the future... Will Jura "miss" Matsuri and target her again? Will ChoCho get consumed by a Claw Grime (perhaps trying to protect Hima), then we'll get an arc about friendship love? Koji has basically said they'll have their moment, so I'm content to wait for it.

I wish we spent more time with the Sand ninja. I'm guessing we're going to get a reveal later that Yodo didn't die. Similar to the Uchiha family, the only time we saw them before in the manga was in the very first arc, so there's a lot more room for anime development.

It would have been nice to get a little check-in with Kawaki as well, though this was a chapter focusing on the girls (plus Momo, I guess). He had so much aura in the last two chapters, but we still don't know much about what's going on in his head.

As I say a million times over, this isn't the story that I'd be telling, given the same elements, but how lame would it be to just be served up what my imagination can conjure up? Overall, I think I'm starting to see the vision that the Shinju are laying down, and I'm strapped in for what's going to be an interesting ride.