Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 141 [Review]

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Boruto: Naruto Next Generations - Episode 141 [Review]

Following its latest smattering of one-off misadventures, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations dives into a brand new story arc this week. When Kokuri, a former member of the Mujina Gang, is arrested in the Land of Grass and imprisoned in Hozuki Castle (the setting of Naruto Shippūden: Blood Prison), Naruto and other Hidden Leaf brass see an opportunity. Although the Mujina Gang has been creating chaos all over the Land of Fire, its leader's identity and ninja techniques remain a complete mystery. Since Kokuri had fled the organization after stealing money, he's a prime target for assassination—especially now that Tsukiyo, the gang's second-in-command, is doing time in Hozuki Castle as well. In return for protection, Kokuri has agreed to spill the beans, but since his temporary protection order is being held up by the Land of Grass, Naruto decides to send Team 7 to keep him safe until the government is able to sort things out. While Boruto and Mitsuki pose as inmates, Sarada enters the prison in the guise of an aspiring journalist. Shortly after Boruto makes contact with the perpetually timid Kokuri, a mysterious assailant who's in possession of one of Hozuki Castle's key cards is able to stab the would-be snitch in the shoulder and escape before the guards arrive.

As a table-setting episode, the latest arc's introductory installment is fairly solid. The show wastes no time in laying out the stakes, clearly outlining the gang's latest mission and introducing us to this adventure's key players. At no point do the proceedings feel too vague or like too much of an info dump, and the direction does a great job of creating a distinctly prison-like atmosphere. Naruto's rationale for assigning this mission to a trio of genin feels contrived, but they had to get these kids into Hozuki Castle somehow. Nonetheless, two young boys seem noticeably out of place in a facility full of adult convicts, but fortunately, no inmates see fit to remark on this. (Though it's weird how despite being undercover, Boruto and Mitsuki continue using their real names.)

This arc also marks the first time in a good long while we've seen Team 7 (sans Konohamaru) undertake a big mission together. Since Mitsuki and Sarada were largely absent from the past two arcs, it's satisfying to see the main trio function as a cohesive unit again. As is often the case, Mitsuki emerges as this week's MVP—first by turning the “finders keepers” rule around on his cellmate, and later by craftily using his snakes to obtain the Chinese lantern plants Boruto needs. Sarada feels underutilized thus far, but as this is only the introductory episode, it's entirely possible she'll play a more active role in the coming weeks.

Episode 141 is a strong start to what appears to be an intriguing story arc. While there's likely to be plenty of action down the road, this episode helps illustrate that Team 7 isn't all about brute force and is capable of stealth and deception under the right circumstances. Boruto's latest mission has all the trappings of a good prison intrigue story, and it's exciting to see where things will go from here.

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In/Spectre - Episode 3 [Review]

Well, I have to eat some of my words from last week's review. In/Spectre did actually end up resolving last week's cliffhanger, and although I maintain that my way of resolving it (i.e. not) would have been a lot funnier, the way Kotoko assuages the snake's curiosity does not at all invalidate my larger point about this mystery. She spins a tragic tale about a miscarriage and a futile search for closure on the culprit's part, and that ends up appealing both the snake's hangup about the woman's quick prayer and their own perception of what people are like. All's well that ends well, right?

Except later Kotoko privately admits to Kuro that even her final answer is not necessarily the correct one. She came up with the best she could based on the information she was able to collect, but the overall dearth of evidence prevents any degree of certitude. She even says that there's no guarantee that the snake god didn't mishear the woman, which might have changed the context of the entire whydunit. However, these considerations are ultimately unimportant, since her role was not to unearth the truth but to come up with an answer that satisfied her audience. This can be read both as a commentary on real life crime solving and as metatext about the nature of mystery writing as a whole. In both cases, the degree to which we can know and define “the truth” will always be at odds with telling a good story. Storytelling is the art of weaving lies together into a cohesive whole, and its success has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with the audience's perception.

This is a meaty, ambitious way to conclude In/Spectre's first full foray into these genre conventions. While it likely portends further self-aggrandizing cleverness down the road, I have no problem excusing its indulgences if its writing remains this sharp. Not just any author can make a full episode of a girl talking to a snake engrossing. It's also delightful to watch Kotoko's confident smugness clash against the begrudgingly besmitten Kuro. Truly the best romantic chemistry is found bubbling between two different flavors of self-assured jerks.

With the lake mystery solved, In/Spectre surprises with a matter-of-fact two-year timeskip into a completely different location with completely different characters. Two cops on lunch discuss the recent rumors surrounding a new yokai called Steel Lady Nanase, supposedly the vengeful ghost of a recently-deceased idol. It's immediately easy to see why Nanase has (from what I've seen) been the poster-girl for the series—a spooky faceless idol decked out in hot pink and wielding a giant steel beam strikes quite the imposing image. I like too that this means In/Spectre will not only be dealing with creatures from established Japanese folklore. While faceless ghosts (nopperabou) are part of the yokai canon, Nanase's appearance and backstory fall more neatly into the category of a modern urban legend. The steel beam itself is a symbol of modernity. Of course, today's urban legends are also tomorrow's folklore, so it's nice to see In/Spectre acknowledging that continuity.

One of the two cops, Saki Yumihara, happens to be Kuro's ex-girlfriend, and she's primed by her experiences with him to believe that Nanase is a real supernatural threat. We already got the gist of her backstory from Kotoko and Kuro's discussions, but seeing things from her perspective also proves to be illuminating. Most importantly, it becomes easy to sympathize with her position, as Kuro's otherworldliness seems to have been exacerbated by either his inability or his reluctance to properly explain things to Saki. The damage was already done, however, and Saki now finds herself more aware of yokai without being able to do a single thing about it. It's an unenviable position manifesting itself as depression, and it might have even been what drove her to join the police in the first place. This Nanase situation is just one example: her colleague doesn't believe in ghosts, but he does believe that weird rumors often coincide with trouble on the streets. Saki, on the other hand, knows that there's no point in the police allocating resources towards this, but nonetheless feels powerless to do anything helpful herself.

Luckily, fate comes bounding into her in the same fashion that Kuro first fell into Kotoko's arms. This time, however, it's Kotoko doing the falling and Saki doing the catching, with an angry Steel Lady Nanase on the prowl in front of them. Saki is understandably confused by the situation, but she manages to channel both that confusion and her years of sadness into raw anger at the yokai. While her attack is totally ineffectual, this moment marks a turning point for her character, transmuting her passive awareness of yokai into an active desire to fling herself fist-first into that world. Kotoko responds to Saki's passion by pummeling Nanase enough to make her retreat, and the ensuing banter between the two remaining living humans is as full of personality as the rest of the show. Kotoko might want to invest in a reinforced bonnet, however, since Saki's fist-first philosophy also extends to the girl currently dating her ex.

That more or less covers the episode, but here's a small postscript: I love that the first line of dialogue out of Kotoko post-timeskip is pretty much “yep, I've had s ex.” The reference to her “deflowering” is totally out of left-field and absolutely not anything a real human would say, but it nevertheless does feel like something Kotoko would say to a stranger who turns out to be her boyfriend's previous squeeze. So much art and literature is so weird about sex, and it's honestly refreshing for In/Spectre to have such a matter-of-fact acknowledgement that its heroine has canonically fucked and it's super not a big deal. After two years of dating, I would hope she and Kuro have a healthy s ex life!

In/Spectre continues to be funny, snappy, and thoughtful to a degree nearly without peer this season (the presence of Eizouken forces me to include “nearly” as a qualifier there). It's just chock full of good, character-rich writing, and I can't wait to see more of Kotoko's delightful gremlin antics next week.

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ID: INVADED - Episode 5 [Review]

It may be true that no two head holes are the same, as The Perforator says this week. Certainly he, Hondomachi, and Haruka are all reacting to their head traumas differently, although I feel we don't truly know, or at least understand, what Hondomachi's deal really is yet. But perhaps the statement is better taken less literally – what The Perforator may really be saying in a metaphorical sense is that no two cases of psychiatric trauma, or just psychiatric condition, are the same. Two people with diagnoses of anxiety may react very differently to the same stimulus, and while Haruka's head wound appears to have altered his impulses towards love and murder so that they cross paths inside his brain, that's clearly not the case for The Perforator, nor is it for Hondomachi. We may lump all three in the same category, but that's beginning to look like we're making a dangerous assumption.

Granted, it's kind of a tortured metaphor, and the more nit-picky among us are likely wondering why the hell there are three people with open wounds on their heads just walking around like bacteria isn't a thing. (Okay, we saw Hondomachi rip her bandage off, but still.) It's also a sign that ID may be trying to tackle a few too many crime show themes all at once – brilliant detectives and profiling and serial killers and rogue cops and psychoanalysis? That's a lot for any story, and this one seems to just keep piling things on with each passing episode. There's no certainty that it won't be able to pull things together – episode four, the strongest thus far, absolutely made good use of most of them – but the foray into more focused psychoanalytical content this week doesn't feel quite as balanced as last. That may be due to an increased focus on telling rather than showing – in episode four, we could draw our own conclusions as to why it was so important to who Sakaido is as a person that he desperately needed to save the little girl. Episode five is much more about Hondomachi talking out her theories before launching them at the suspect, which just isn't as effective in terms of storytelling.

That's certainly not to say that it doesn't work at all, though. The slow build towards the reveal of who The Gravedigger really is is definitely effective, from the way she can't stop looking at the blood from Hondomachi's wound (both on the body and on the tissue), the implication that she's still clutching the bloody tissue in her hand when she sits back down (note her clenched fist where the other hand is relaxed), and the shots of the house that let us see how totally impersonal it is are all very nicely done, as is the small detail of three cups of tea being out for two people, Hondomachi's partner never having entered the house in the first place. When this show is at the top of its game, it really knows how to play.

This is also evident in the links back to the first two episodes. Not only is one of the Gravedigging Duo a victim of the first serial killer explored, but two of the visuals from that case also make a return. The first is the dapper gentleman Jack, a man in vaguely 19th century dress with a pixelated face, while the second is the fact that victims who appear in an ID well may be somehow disguised. In the first case, the killer had melded with Kaeru, becoming whole, while in this case all of the victims appear as a single person with morphing features. Both of these depictions speak of the way that the killer sees his prey, either as no one person worth remembering, or as incomplete human beings made of interchangeable parts. Jack is a little more nebulous, as the name in English and American folklore is a sort of everyman placeholder. But his clothing may link this Jack more to the 19th century legend of the monstrous Spring-Heeled Jack, a sort of evil Batman figure often said to be a gentleman in his everyday life.

It'll be worth watching to see how and if these two themes continue to recur in the series. Even though this is the fifth episode, I feel like the show is still trying to reach firmer ground. That may be deliberate; only time will tell if that's a storytelling method that's going to manage to pay off in the end.

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Haikyu!! To The Top - Episode 3 [Review]

In college one of my friends had a sign on her door that read “Think – there must be a harder way to do it.” In some ways, that sentiment applies to Hinata, who takes the idea of being unafraid of hard work to a level that's fairly impressive. He could easily have just stayed at Karasuno and continued working with his team while Tsukishima and Kageyama were off at their training camps, improving in a steady but predictable way, and he probably would have made some progress. But his incredible drive to be as good as he possibly can – and then to take it a step farther – is what keeps him going back to the camp at Shiratorizawa that he's crashing, even though it's far from the easiest way to improve his game. That he's clearly making the rest of the boys uncomfortable by insisting on being there as well as raising Washijo's ire doesn't phase him in the slightest.

Actually, he may not be aware of the other boys' discomfort, although I daresay that even oblivious Mr. Hinata is aware that Washijo doesn't want him there. (That may be behind part of his determination to keep coming back in the face of the man's jackass tendencies; Hinata's always been stubborn.) We certainly see that the guys aren't sure what's going on, and it's clearly eating at Tsukki as well, although with him there could be several reasons behind it, the most likely two being embarrassment at his teammate's behavior or concern over how his teammate's being treated. Either way, he clearly resents being made to think and/or care about Hinata; as we've seen in past seasons, Tsukishima isn't a fan of interacting with others and he's also not particularly good at it. Yamaguchi is the only person who has managed to break through his icy shell, and even that feels like it's on sufferance, although that's probably just Tsukishima trying to not show that he cares about having a friend. Admittedly that's not a great attitude in a team sport, but Hinata's treatment and behavior at this Shiratorizawa camp is wearing him down in one way or another, and the end of the episode where he calls Hinata over may mark a change in his attitude. Either that or he's going to scream at him or confess to him.

That the camp is having a positive effect on Hinata's game is certain. He's learning to really think and pay attention in ways that he never has before, and while he's still moving on instinct a lot, he's also observing other players in ways that he couldn't (or maybe just didn't) during games before. Because he can't stand out while he's just being the ball boy, he's forced into watching the game in a different way, and he's not only figuring out new moves (speaking to his innate athletic ability), but he's also learning how to analyze what he's seeing. That's not an easy skill for everyone, and it's not one that comes naturally to the physically-inclined Hinata. But he's learning it, as well as how to think outside the game, as we see when he calls Ukai to ask what he should be eating, since Washijo refuses to feed or house him. (Again, the man should not be allowed to work with children, teens or otherwise.) Simply put, Hinata's growing up, and that's not necessarily something he could have done in his comfortable place on his team.

Speaking of his team, we get a brief glimpse of Karasuno playing a practice game this week, reminding us that yes, the other characters are still important. Kageyama gets a short moment too, which more serves as a reminder that A) he still exists and B) he's gotten way too used to playing with Hinata at this point. His clip is also another visual introduction to some of the new characters who will be important once the tournament actually starts, and may I just say that the guy with the feathery hair and eyes that look like lenses at an optometrist's office does not translate well into anime. He's much creepier than in the manga, which is saying something.

Next week we'll return to Kageyama, and even if he's not your favorite character, it's still important to see what he's up to. And if he is your favorite character, get ready. The King is definitely in danger of realizing that he's been wearing a paper crown.

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