Thoughts on a Decade of Boruto

This is a chance for me to be sappy and stupid over this manga. Go elsewhere for analysis.

Happy 10th anniversary to the Boruto manga! The manga that made me a mother!

Wait...

checks notes

No, I guess the manga didn't make me a mother. That happened two years after the Boruto manga began, though I didn't stumble into the series until 2021, and I didn't pick up the manga until Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (NNG) chapter 66, which was a helluva place to jump in.

Despite the fact that the manga didn't make me a mother, no matter how many times I type "MY SON!!!!" whenever I see Boruto, the series is very near and dear to my heart. In honor of its 10th anniversary, I'd like to share a few lessons I've learned and things I've received over the years by being a fan of Boruto.

The Perfection of Imperfect Stories

A common bit of advice we're giving as writers is to not worry about telling a story others have told before (because so many things have already been done. Instead, focus on telling a story that only we can tell, the insertion of our voice and style into a series being what makes it unique. What I've learned from Boruto is that the observation goes both ways: when we're reading a story, it's written in the way the author (or in Boruto's case, mangaka) knows how to tell it.

Are there things I, as a writer, would do differently with Boruto? Most assuredly! But it's not my story to tell. Being able to sit back, accept that it's not mine, and enjoy it as a work of art unique to another human is a kind of artistic enlightenment I hadn't experienced previously.

One thing I've come to accept is that the Boruto franchise will never be perfect, but a story doesn't have to be perfect to be loved. The manga is too abbreviated and doesn't allow the characters room to breathe, the anime adaptation wanders too much, there are four different continuities for the Versus Momoshiki arc. When I mash all of the contexts together, I love the series even more. I love it despite its flaws, and I love it because of its flaws. We don't have to demand perfection of the things we love, and we don't have to argue that they're perfect to others who don't feel the same way.

Writing to Share with the World

Boruto is what finally got me writing fanfiction, and it's what made me share a lifetime's practice of writing publicly. Funnily enough, it wasn't a Boruto friend, but a random, non-anime college pal who pushed me to start posting my work, and I'm so thankful that I did. The world of professional publication had always felt so daunting and pointless to me that I wasn't able to separate my desire to write from a desire to be published until I found fanfiction, a way for me to create art and share it with the world in a form that's impossible to capitalize on.

Writing feels like a way of holding up a mirror and being able to see into my own mind, a reflection of what's in there. It lets me nod, seeing that what's going on in my head is beautiful, even if it has days when it's more beautiful and days when it's less beautiful.

Graduate School Methadone

I left my academic aspirations behind after not completing my master's degree, but I never lost my love of media criticism and literary critique. Boruto is a dense and multi-layered series, worthy of close reads, rereads, analysis, and reflection. It's doing a lot, and it goes underappreciated. Doing my reviews and critiques is like going to the gym, keeping those academic muscles limber even if I'm not running in races anymore. And Boruto continues to help me grow intellectually, reading academic texts and perusing journal articles and diving back into literary theory.

There's also something very important about the process of writing itself, especially in the AI age. Writing, as we know, is an extension of thinking. It's the way we frame our thoughts, get them out of our heads and onto the page, in front of us for examination. The Boruto series has given me something to write about, something to be a quasi-expert in, and I'm so grateful for it.

My Friends

On the subject of things I'm grateful for... my friends. Through my late teen and early adult life, most of my friends were cis-men. How ironic that a battle shonen series that focuses so much on boys would have brought me so many fantastic female and queer friendships. Perhaps it's the type of bonding that women need in a fandom of men, or perhaps it's how we focus on the girl characters in the series, perhaps it's because so many of us are writers... Either way, if I'd take one thing from the Boruto fandom, it's my friendships. The online ones, the real life ones, the ones that have transitioned from behind a screen to face-to-face. I've found the best, kindest, sweetest friends in this fandom and even as interest in the series has waned for some, our bonds have remained strong. I love y'all.

Internet Galaxy Brain

I have been a resident of the internet since my teens, but getting involved with the Boruto fandom on the internet—the first fandom that I'd truly sought out since my days of mIRC and Star Trek Voyager—taught me a lot about the modern internet, both good and bad. For the good, I realized how truly Americentric my view of the digital world had been, despite having been on Twitter since 2011. There was a whole internet out there that I hadn't been exposed to previously. My worldview and horizons continued to expand due to it, and I am thankful for that opportunity.

I learned some bad shit about the internet, too. I'd been on the outside of Star Wars fights, witnessing the harassment some mutuals went through, but I'd never been in the thick of it myself and seen the dehumanization of others over a work of fictional media. I learned how divisive fandoms were and extrapolated fandom radicalization into my understanding of political radicalization. I also learned that morality is often dependent on convenience, that the sense people have of right and wrong only extends to the point at which it begins to affect their own lives. That's one of the lessons that sucked the most.

On Joy and Whimsy

I think the biggest thing that Boruto has given me, that it continues to give me, is a sense of joy and whimsy in life. The world out there is rough, and Boruto gives me a place to retreat, something to constantly look forward to, one day a month to shut off the news and give my mind a little treat. Near the end of my time on Twitter, I found I was enjoying reading Boruto less and less, the constant fandom chatter getting into my head and superseding the series itself. I was reading it within the context of fandom in-fighting rather than just reading it.

Though I got off of Twitter for other reasons, doing so also reignited my love of the series, letting me read it without the context of infighting and character stans and shipping wars. It let me take joy in it again. Boruto is not a perfect series, but I also refuse to make my fandom experience one of negativity. If I stop enjoying it, I'll find something else to consume rather than base my interaction with it on complaints. One of the things the internet has taken from us in recent years is our ability to partake in and reflect on a series in non-performative ways. So often, we're reading with the expectation of posting about it later. And, yes, I do post here, but my audience is small, and I'm doing it for myself and my own love of the game, as it would be. And I hope something this blog does for Boruto readers is help them find the same joy in the series that I do.