Boruto is back with another fun episode.  Here are my highlights and thoughts for episode 2 called The Hokage’s Son.

Boruto returns for a second episode a few weeks after the incident with the train car.  Boruto’s suspension has ended and he is now having his first day at the ninja academy.  Luckily he has a few friends there, Denki and Shikadai, but we soon see that he already has some enemies as well.  As the title suggests, he has huge shoes to fill being as he is the son of the Hokage.  Some people believe that he is riding on his father’s coattails.  Naruto tries to make friends with his classmates, but he is finding it hard to do so.

This episode was really a introduction of all the characters I feel will definitely play a large role in the series.  I will go over my impression of the new characters near the end.  I am most interested in Sarada, Iwabe, and Inojin.  Boruto jumps right into his class, and is tested by his teacher, who happens to be Shino, to measure his abilities.  Boruto proves that he does have natural talent in Ninjitsu and Taijitsu, but he comes in second to a boy named Iwabe.  Iwabe, unfortunately, is a chronic class skipper as well.

We soon meet Iwabe who is a very angry and arrogant boy.  He is extremely proficient in Taijitsu and Ninjitsu, but has been held back because he can not pass any of his other classes, classes that have recently been added to the academy.  He instantly takes a disliking to Boruto as he thinks Boruto only got into the academy because of his father.  He challenges Boruto to a fight to prove who is better.

Boruto accepts the challenge, and the entire class goes to the old arena where Naruto fought Kiba in the preliminary for the third round of the Chunin exams.  At the beginning of the fight, Iwabe states that he will not use the weapon he has with him as to have a fair fight.  The fight begins, and it is intense.  The entire class soon comes to realize that Boruto has his own abilities.

In this fight, I saw some similarities and important differences between Naruto and Boruto.  Boruto fights with confidence and he seems to make less “stupid” mistakes.  There were times when Naruto seemed absentminded and he won through sheer luck which made it funnier to watch.  Boruto on the other hand is quick on his feet and in his mind.  The one similarity is that he has the same heart, stamina and dogged determination to never back down as Naruto.  He also has a chip on his shoulder to prove that he is not his father.

We soon get to the real heart of the problem with Iwabe and that is that he is angry with the new system and feels that he should have graduated a long time ago.  If Naruto had had to pass other classes in his day, he also would not have passed.  Naruto (and Iwabe) are not the best academic students.  So I can understand his frustration a bit, but Iwabe was being a little bit of a spoiled brat used to bullying others to get his way and this time it did not work.

When Boruto tells Iwabe to stop blaming others for his faults, Iwabe gets mad and goes for his weapon despite telling Boruto (and the class) that he would not use it.  It was at this moment that Inojin (son of Ino and Sai) steps in and breaks up the fight by using the Super Beast Scroll ninjutsu and takes the weapon out of Iwabe’s hands.  He reminds Iwabe of the rules of engagement of the match and calls him “uncool”.  This is the last nail in Iwabe’s defeat and he admits as much.  Boruto wins fair and square, and makes a new friend, but most importantly, he proves to the entire class that he has talent and ability.

The next day, everyone returns to class, but there are still some naysayers against Boruto.  That is until Inojin steps in once again and reminds them that Boruto protected Denki when no one else would step in.  It seems that Boruto has found a new ally and Inojin is not the only one.  Iwabe decides to not skip class, as he was notorious for doing before, and take Boruto’s advice.  He decides that he is going to stop blaming others and try to pass these classes and graduate.  He takes a seat right behind Boruto, and we see a possible new friendship on the horizon.

Now here are my thoughts on the characters introduced in this episode:

Sarada, ChoCho, Sumire

This is an interesting team of girls in this new generation.  In the Naruto series, the girls rarely ever hung out with each other.  You had Sakura and Ino who were more like Frenemies than friends and Hinata never hung out with any other girl either.  This time there is a whole girl clique and it is made up of Sarada Uchiha, ChoCho Akimichi and Sumire.  Sarada is probably the most well known of the three in this series as she is the daughter of Sasuke and Sakura.  Sarada seemed to be an interesting mixture of the intelligence that Sakura has and the cool silence of Sasuke.  She states that she knows Boruto through family connections, and that she has no real interest in him, but when she was watching the match, Sarada generally seemed worried for Boruto.  ChoCho even called her out on it and even suggest that she may like Boruto.

ChoCho was interesting and unexpected character.  She is the daughter of Choji and Karui.  I’m not quite sure how I feel about her as she seems to be a little insensitive and a bit of a bully.  She asked Denki for his homework so she could copy it, and she called both Sarada and Sumire out for liking Boruto. On the other hand, she is the daughter of the sweet Choji, so I may see a much different side to her as well.

Sumire is a new character that seems really sweet and shy.  She is reminiscent of Hinata and even kind of looks like Hinata with longer hair.  Sumire does seem to a voice of reason in the class and she also seems to have a little crush on Boruto.  It will be interesting to see these three girls interact together and with other characters.

Inojin

Inojin really intrigued me as a character as he seemed to be a perfect mesh of both Sai and Ino’s personalities.  At the start of the episode, he says something nasty in Boruto’s direction and Shikadai calls him out for it.  Inojin seems to be a loner in the class, but he doesn’t seem too bothered by it.  He is perceptive, but can be blunt and cold like Sai.  Unlike Sai though (who insulted people unintentionally), Inojin seems to have a little more of Ino’s mean streak in him.  He is very intentional with what he says and who he says it too.

Inojin holds nothing back just like his father and he will point out your flaws or when you are acting “uncool”.  Despite this side of him, he also seems to have a sense of fair play and he is willingly to give people chances.  He definitely had a change of heart towards Boruto at the end of the episode as he saw that Boruto had talent.  It is Inojin who puts a stop to Iwabe when Iwabe tried breaking the rules of engagement in the fight by using his weapon.  It seems Inojin highly values fairness and standing up for those who are being picked on.  This is exactly what he did when he called some of his classmates for attacking Boruto when they knew Denki was being bullied and did nothing about it.  I am very interested to see where his character goes from here.

It was so cool to see the children of the characters that fans have grown to love all the years and see how they are similar and different from their parents.  I am interested to see what will happen with all these new characters.