Naruto was Konoha's #1 Knucklehead Ninja for nearly two decades. But since 2015, there's been a new knucklehead in town--Naruto's son, Boruto. The son of Naruto and Hinata, Boruto Uzumaki spends much of the early parts of the series acting out for the sake of getting attention. It sounds incredibly familiar, but there are a lot of differences between the two characters despite their similar appearances.
And while Boruto: Naruto Next Generations has its issues, it's managed to create an interesting story surrounding all the children of the Konoha 11. These ninja of the next generation are better than their parents in some ways (some of this is due to power creep), but they all have a long way to go to catch up in others. This is certainly the case for Boruto and his father.
10 BETTER: He's Smarter Than Naruto Was When He Was A Genin
One thing that’s clear is that Naruto was never the smartest member of any of his classes. He didn’t defeat other ninja through being a genius, but rather because he was passionate and kept fighting and found a path to victory. But Boruto is completely different. He wasn’t neglected like Naruto was, and because he had Hinata around to nurture him, Boruto is actually one of the smartest members of his class. He was known for passing ninja academy tests with relative ease and rarely ever needed to study.
9 NOT: Naruto Never Cut Corners To Reach His Goal
Boruto was never quite taught the value of hard work. Thanks to him being talented from the beginning, his abilities were never in doubt. If he’s lacking, he’s not afraid to work hard, but he’ll also cut corners if he has to. During the Chunin Exams, Boruto cheated multiple times to make his way to the finale and eventually get the victory. Meanwhile, Naruto lived his life with the belief that his goals could only be achieved by working as hard as he could all the time.
8 BETTER: Boruto Was More Talented At A Younger Age
When Naruto first started out, he was decent in terms of physical attributes, but that was the limit. He wasn’t great at ninjutsu and had almost no genjutsu skills to speak of. But with the training Boruto was lucky enough to receive, he is a far more talented ninja, having access to a wider variety of ninjutsu than his father did at that same age. He’s got a lower ceiling on him than Naruto did, but he’s also starting from a higher floor.
7 NOT: Naruto Is Much More Experienced In Combat
Naruto is more experienced, and it’s not just from him being older than his son. This is due to the more peaceful era that Boruto has grown up in. Naruto created an environment in which the children would be much safer. Even the need for ninja has dropped since his youth, the Chunin Exams aren’t nearly as dangerous, and the cities aren’t as callous as they were when Naruto was a child. Naruto’s got more natural experience dealing with combat as a result.
6 BETTER: Boruto Has Access To The Jogan Eye
Boruto has been gifted with the Jogan eye, one of the eye techniques belonging to the Otsutsuki Clan. The ability itself is described as troublesome and something that Boruto actually can’t control for much of the early parts of Boruto.
The technique would instead activate when he was somewhere close to dangerous targets, giving Boruto the ability to see someone’s chakra, know when it’s changed, and track people’s unique chakra.
5 NOT: Naruto Can Go Into Sage Mode At Will
Naruto has access to the power of natural energy, allowing him to achieve the perfected Sage Mode. This is actually something that even Naruto’s trainer Jiraiya didn’t have the power to pull off, often doing an imperfect version of the transformation whenever he needed to power up. Naruto on the other hand is not only capable of using it, but he did so to defeat Pain after he attacked Konoha. Boruto has never trained in this ability, though it has been noted that he’s capable of taking on natural energy for this purpose.
4 BETTER: Boruto Had The Respect Of His Team From The Beginning
Though Naruto would eventually earn the respect of his teammates, it often felt more begrudging than anything. Early on, they looked at him more as a burden dragging down the rest of Team 7. Even after he’d proven himself to be a useful member, the story often found a way to make him the butt of jokes. Naruto basically had to take down Pain before everyone gave him the respect he'd long deserved. But Boruto was respected from the very beginning as he’s a top member of his class at the ninja academy and a candidate to become a chunin, let alone a jonin.
3 NOT: Boruto Doesn't Have The Nine-Tails Chakra
The Nine-Tails Chakra gives Naruto an edge that Boruto simply cannot surpass. Boruto isn’t lacking in chakra compared to most people his age, and he's actually got more than most people thanks to being the child of two families that have always had large chakra reserves. But compared to Naruto, he can’t compare.
The Nine-Tails chakra inside of him allows him to have virtually limitless reserves to draw on. He has multiple transformations, several of which rely on the power of Kurama’s energy inside him.
2 BETTER: Boruto Has Been Taught The Gentle Fist
Boruto is the son of Hinata Hyuga, and as such, they allowed him to train in the ways of the Gentle Fist. Of course, without the Byakugan, he can’t see an enemy’s pathways and can’t use them to disrupt an opponent’s chakra, but he still knows enough of it to make him a more formidable taijutsu user. Comparatively, Naruto's pretty good in martial arts but it's largely because of his impressive speed and strength rather than his technique.
1 NOT: Naruto Is The Master Of Shadow Clone Jutsu
Boruto isn’t terrible at the Shadow Clone Jutsu. He was never as bad as Naruto was at it before the first episode of the series, but he also doesn’t have the talent with it that Naruto does. Part of this comes down to Boruto’s lack of chakra. For a large part of the series, even leading up to the Chunin Exams, Boruto only had enough chakra to summon three or four clones. Naruto was constantly summoning dozens, sometimes hundreds of clones to help him in combat, making this an ability that he vastly outshines his son with.
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