Whether I Want to Love You or Want to Kill You: Code, Mamushi, and Depictions of Contemporary Misogyny in Boruto

The introduction of Eida, a gorgeous all-seeing cyborg with the Senrigan and an involuntary ability to force all who witness her (with a few notable exceptions) to fall in love with her signaled a thematic shift during the second-to-last arc of Boruto. The early manga focused on familial relationships—the parent-child conflict between Naruto and Boruto, Kawaki's abusive childhood compared to the normalcy of the Uzumaki household, Kawaki's growing protectiveness of Lord Seventh along side of Sarada's admiration for him because he treats the whole village like family. While the theme of romantic love is not absent from the story, exemplified by Sumire's declaration of liking Boruto and Sarada's concern for him, it does not steal the focus until Code awakens Eida from a stasis chamber, bringing both her feelings and the feelings of others towards her into the forefront of the story.

Eida is both a beneficiary and a victim of her charm ability. Her enchantment forces others to submit to her every whim while in her presence and protects her from violence, but she views this loss of free will as something that erased her ability to experience authentic human connections, romantic as well as platonic. Her primary wish is to experience authentic love, a love that comes from someone who chooses to love her rather than being forced to. The only people immune from her abilities are Otsutsuki and her own family members (as well as Sarada and Sumire, for reasons that have yet to be revealed), which means her only two options for heterosexual romance are Kawaki and Boruto, both Otsutsuki.

Due to this complexity, Eida can be viewed as inhabiting in two different roles in the story: an enchantress that steals the hearts of others or a girl who was cursed by the Otsutsuki DNA in her body, robbed of the one thing she truly desires. What features heavily in both interpretations of her is a lack of consent. Eida did not agree to be modified by Amado, her ability is not one she consciously chose and cannot control, and those who fall in love with her do not choose to do so, either. In many ways, Eida's power feels akin the experience of a beautiful young woman in society, pursued by suiters due to her outward appearance. While beauty grants her status and some degree of power, she's always aware that the people who interact with her are drawn to her body rather than her inner self, valuing her for her physical form instead of innate qualities she may have.

While others—Delta, ChoCho, Inojin, Konohamaru—are deeply affected by Eida's abilities, there are two characters whose reaction to their attraction to her is worthy of deeper examination—Code and Bug (and, later, Bug as the Shinju Mamushi). Both Code and Mamushi feel as though they're entitled to Eida, though Code desires her affection and access to a romance while Mamushi desires her body and access to her superior genetics. Simply put, Code wants a relationship with her while Mamushi wants her body. Paired together, they represent two different aspects of incel culture and interpretations of the male loneliness epidemic.

When Code awakens Eida against Bug's warnings, his plan is to kill her if she won't work with him, something he quickly realizes he can't do due to her charm effect. His shock at not being able to enact violence upon her quickly morphs into a giant crush. He transitions from a cold-hearted killer into a teenage boy, telling Bug (a short, old Kara employee with poor dental hygiene), "Right. She's a girl, after all. And what I did lacked class. Hey Bug. Whadda ya think? Is she interested in me?"

Despite his immediate attraction to her, Code agrees to help her pursue a romance with Kawaki if it means he can carry out of his plan of revenge on the citizens of Konoha and sacrifice Boruto to the God Tree, following the orders of Isshiki Otsutsuki. In other words, Code is willing to put his fanatical belief in the Otsutsuki above his desire to have a relationship with her once he understands that she's captivated him as well. However, as his plans for revenge slip through his fingers and Eida turns on him, Code's attraction to her merges with his desire to eat the fruit of the God Tree, which would turn him into a true Otsutsuki so he can determine if his attraction to Eida is real or fabricated—or, as he tells her, "Then, I'll know my true feelings towards you. Whether I want to love you... Or want to kill you."

Code's character is driven by jealousy and entitlement. He loathes Kawaki for being compatible with Karma and usurping his opportunity to be Isshiki's vessel. Likewise, his hatred for Kawaki grows, knowing that Eida is attracted to him. While Kawaki rejects Eida and the Otsutsuki, going so far as to make it his goal to kill all of them (himself included), Code wants to possess what Kawaki has.

Code's self-centered nature is demonstrated through his interactions with Eida as well over the course of their alliance. She tells him frequently that she'll get rid of him if he's an hinderance and that she doesn't approve of his behavior (from transporting her little brother mid-battle to win a fight to his abuse of Kawaki). Eida makes it clear their relationship is purely business, that they're not companions or friends, but Code doesn't change his behavior to accommodate her or make himself more desirable to her.

Even after she betrays him, Code's focus remains on understanding his feelings towards her rather than asking if she'd be attracted to him. Just as Eida chose Kawaki over Boruto originally, if she does have the ability to experience a real romance with Code, she might still choose not to because of his personality and behavior. However, he doesn't recognize this possibility, desiring to understand if he loves her rather than seeking out his goal of becoming Otsutsuki while also becoming someone she'd want to love. He assumes that if he can love her, she'll love him back.

To understand the Shinju Mamushi's desire to consume Eida, we first need to start with Bug's dynamic with her. In a Q&A, Ikemoto was asked about the Shinju's personalities. His response should enlighten how we look at Mamushi:

"Everyone has two faces. The one they show the public and the one you keep for yourself. Something very useful to live in society. Since the HitoShinjuu have just been born not too long ago, they don't have this notion. They are thus primitive and true to their instincts. Even if they give a different vibe from their original selves, this may be a hint of the original's true personality."

While we know nothing about Bug's past, we do know that he fell under Eida's spell long ago. He doesn't behave as though he's attracted to her, but according to Eida, he is:"Bug is so shy. He doesn't show it externally. And he's a chicken. I think he's scared." In line with Ikemoto's quote above, Eida is calling out that Bug has an external self and an internal self, the latter which he keeps hidden. Interestingly, more than most other characters in the series, we see Bug's internal monologue about Eida and Code, showing a misalignment between what he thinks and what he says.

What's clear from Bug's thoughts is that he hates Eida and hates being controlled by her, but he's also unable to disobey her. He tries to find ways to get rid of her, going so far as to give Code intelligence on how to defeat Daemon, which would leave her vulnerable. Because of this, Code takes Bug with him when he retreats, protecting him from the siblings' wrath. It seems as though Bug also becomes the first victim of the Claw Grimes, turned into a tree and later spawning the Shinju, Mamushi.

When the Shinju declare their targets, the individuals they want to consume in order to evolve, Mamushi names Eida. Early on, we see that he display the ability to disrupt her visions of the present, watching her as she watches others. This is this is the first counter we've seen to her Senrigan, Mamushi stalking her inside her mind as she watches others, causing her to feel gross and violated. Only in chapter 26 do we finally hear his reasoning for wanting to consume her: "I wanna devour her. Not just simply in the sense of consumin' her, but for control. I want to make her superior genetic information mine... I don't give a squat about love or what all. I just feel that we divine trees oughta thrive more as a species."

Similar to Code, Mamushi's desire is to possess her, but he wants her body, her "superior genetic information" rather than her love. His desire to control her likely stems from the lack of control Bug felt when she was ordering him around. We cannot discuss Bug without talking about his physical features, ones that Mamushi shares. He's old, balding, short, and missing most of his teeth. Unlike Eida, who is physically perfect even before cyborg modifications, Bug appears to have lost the genetic lottery. Taking her Otsutsuki abilities, Shibai's DNA, and her own genetics would help him evolve into a more powerful, attractive being.

Though Ikemoto provides us with this neat narrative to understand Mamushi's motivations, he throws in another element: Mamushi's reading material before he declares why he wants to consume Eida—a girlie magazine.

It's only as he's is actively looking at pictures of attractive young women in bikinis that he realizes why he wants Eida. While Jura is crying over a touching fictional novel, Mamushi is ogling a girl who looks close to Eida in age with long hair, her poses highlighting her breasts and butt. This makes it explicitly clear that what Mamushi desires is her body and his means of possessing it is through consumption.

While we have yet to see the evolution of a Shinju through consuming one of their targets, we know that the way evolution traditionally takes place is through successive generations, the mixing of genetics through biological reproduction and the survival of the offspring with the most beneficial traits. Mamushi rejects the idea of love that the other Shinju focus on, but he wants to control her body and make it his own.

Interwoven in incel ideology is the concept of biological determinism, the idea that women, especially attractive ones, are destined to seek out the most attractive men and make themselves sexually available to them while the less desirable men are left celibate. Mamushi's motivation and behavior seems coded as rape culture, his obvious enjoyment of stalking her and violating her in her private moments, his desire to control her rather than love her, his plan to improve the genetics of his species by consuming her, ending her individuality for his own benefit. Unlike Matsuri who felt compelled to eat Konohamaru out of love and jealousy, Mamushi feels entitled to her body for his benefit alone.

Compared to Mamushi, Code's desire to understand his love for Eida feels more virtuous. By contrasting the two and their motivations, we almost see a path for Code's redemption if he works on bettering himself for Eida. However, at the beginning of Boruto: Two Blue Vortex (TBV), Code seems similarly sadistic, cornering Sarada and telling her to "scream real pretty" to summon Boruto, after which Boruto lands directly on her face, saying, "It's that kind of sick thinking that creeps girls out," directly calling out his twisted interactions with girls. While Code and Mamushi (through Bug) could be considered victims of Eida's abilities, Code's treatment of Sarada and Mamushi's fascination with the girlie magazine let readers know their their behavior toward Eida is a manifestation of deeper personality traits. After all, no one else who Eida has ensnared feels owed her affection or her body.

With Code and Mamushi, Ikemoto is bringing two similar brands of misogyny into his story: the entitlement to a woman's affections and the entitlement to her body. Both attitudes feature heavily in both incel circles and modern discourse about the male loneliness epidemic. While some solutions to the latter discuss men forming stronger friendships with each other, at its core is often the idea that women are withholding love, support, and relationships from them, thus leading to their sadness, instability, and inclination to lash out at society. Similar to Denji's alienation in Chainsaw Man and the theme of sexual assault in Dandadan, Boruto is exploring the dark side of male/female interactions using the lens of love, continuing Ikemoto's practice of using the villains to provide discourse on modern societal ills.