Detailed Video Script

Naruto is one of the greatest anime franchises of all time. It’s a series that defined an entire generation of anime fans, introduced some of the most iconic characters in Japanese entertainment, and gave us moments that people are still talking about decades later. But despite all that success, its sequel, Boruto, has struggled to capture the same magic. And with the new Naruto anime project promising to bring us back to the original series, I think there's a genuine opportunity for Naruto to reclaim its place at the very top of the anime industry.

Now, before anyone gets upset, I'm not saying Boruto is a terrible anime. In fact, I think Boruto has some genuinely excellent moments, some fantastic fights, and a handful of characters who deserve far more appreciation than they receive. But there's a difference between having good moments and being a consistently great anime. And for me, Boruto never managed to recreate the feeling that made the original Naruto so special.

The interesting thing is that I don't think Naruto needs to reinvent itself to succeed again. Quite the opposite, actually. I think the biggest opportunity for the new anime is to remember exactly what made Naruto so successful in the first place.

And the first thing we need to talk about is something that Boruto was always going to struggle with, regardless of how good the writing was. Expectations.

When Naruto first appeared, we were introduced to this loud, obnoxious kid who was hated by practically everyone in his village. He wasn't particularly talented, he wasn't respected, and he certainly wasn't somebody you would expect to become one of the most powerful ninja in history. Naruto was an underdog, and that was absolutely fundamental to the appeal of the series.

We watched him struggle to master basic techniques. We watched him get humiliated by more naturally gifted characters. We watched him desperately try to earn the respect of people who wouldn't even acknowledge his existence. And when Naruto finally achieved something, it actually meant something because we'd seen just how difficult the journey had been.

Boruto was almost the complete opposite.

Here was a character born into one of the most important families in the entire ninja world. His father was the Seventh Hokage, his grandfather was the Fourth Hokage, and his mother belonged to the Hyuga clan. Boruto was naturally gifted, grew up in relative comfort, and lived in a village that was enjoying an unprecedented period of peace.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that premise. In fact, the idea of a privileged child struggling to understand the sacrifices made by his father could have been an excellent story. But it created a fundamental problem for audiences who had spent years watching Naruto fight his way up from absolutely nothing.

We went from watching a boy desperately trying to gain the acceptance of his village to watching that boy's son complain because his father was too busy being Hokage.

And although Boruto's frustrations were understandable from the perspective of a child who wanted his father's attention, that wasn't necessarily the story longtime Naruto fans wanted to watch.

Naruto's achievements were supposed to feel like a reward. We'd watched him suffer, struggle, lose friends, and fight wars to create a better future. Then Boruto came along, and suddenly we were being asked to sympathise with somebody who was frustrated by the very peace and stability Naruto had sacrificed so much to achieve.

I think that's one of the reasons Boruto struggled to win over sections of the original fanbase from the very beginning.

But there's another problem, and I actually think this one was even more damaging.

Boruto inherited a world where the power scaling had already become completely ridiculous.

One of the greatest things about early Naruto was that being a ninja actually meant something. Battles weren't simply decided by who could produce the biggest explosion or summon the most powerful supernatural ability. They involved strategy, deception, preparation, and an understanding of your opponent's weaknesses.

Think about the Land of Waves arc. Zabuza was genuinely terrifying, not because he could destroy an entire continent, but because he was an incredibly skilled assassin who knew how to use his environment and techniques to his advantage.

Or think about the Chunin Exams. Rock Lee fighting Gaara was one of the most memorable battles in anime history, and the emotional impact of that fight had absolutely nothing to do with world-ending powers. It was about hard work against natural talent. It was about determination, physical limitations, and the heartbreaking realisation that sometimes giving everything you've got still isn't enough.

Even something as simple as Shikamaru outsmarting Temari demonstrated how compelling Naruto could be when intelligence mattered just as much as strength.

By the end of Shippuden, however, we'd reached a point where characters were practically gods. Naruto and Sasuke were operating on a completely different level from the ninja we'd grown up watching, and the story had introduced threats that were almost impossible to surpass without becoming increasingly absurd.

Boruto inherited that problem and then made it even more difficult by leaning further into the Otsutsuki, Karma, and increasingly extraordinary abilities.

How do you create tension when your starting point is already characters who can fight beings from another dimension?

How do you make an ordinary ninja feel relevant when the biggest threats are essentially alien gods?

And perhaps most importantly, how do you convince audiences to care about the next generation when the previous generation contains some of the most beloved and powerful characters in anime history?

This is where the new Naruto anime has a huge advantage.

By returning to the original era, it has an opportunity to bring audiences back to a time when fights could be smaller, more personal, and more tactical. A time when kunai, substitution techniques, shadow clones, and clever use of chakra could genuinely determine the outcome of a battle.

I don't need every Naruto fight to end with a gigantic Rasengan or somebody unlocking another godlike transformation. Sometimes I just want to watch two incredibly skilled ninja trying to outthink one another.

And I suspect I'm not alone in that.