Title. I've been thinking about how disliked Boruto is and why it is so. One of those reasons is definitely the higher level of technology in Boruto than in Naruto, which I've just a few days ago seen the youtuber Dygoknight, the chief Boruto hater in my opinion, take a jab at. To many people, it seems painfully jarring to see Naruto characters working with computers, riding on trains, use chakra-powered miniguns or whatever it was that Ao used against Boruto, fight dinosaurs and aliens and so on.
Objectively speaking, the distaste for this is rather weird. Kishimoto himself has said that the tech level in Naruto is roughly equal to our world, if maybe a bit lower. Naruto was first published in 1999, and the overall tech level seen in Konoha is definitely similar to what you'd see in a smaller Japanese town in the 1980s or 1990s. Boruto was first published in 2016, in-universe it likewise takes place some 17 years or so after the 4th Great Ninja War, and this alone makes the aforementioned jab from Dygoknight at the series rather weak. Said jab was him complaining about the Chunin exams in Boruto being overseen by proctors through live cameras, despite him admitting in the same video that in the Chunin exams we've seen in Naruto, there already was at least one camera in the arena, and there's nothing weird about camera technology evolving over 17 years to allow people previously using standard wired cameras inside to place wireless ones outside.
However, I can't really fault the guy, or anyone shitting on the tech level in Boruto, because of the one decisive difference between our and Naruto's world. Naruto's world has no guns.
This fact is absolutely crucial. Konoha, and the other Hidden Ninja Villages, are essentially military towns. And in this world, militaries are the one thing that is completely different from what we have, since their soldiers are people who throw shurikens and fireballs at each other. In an entire world overall quite similar to ours, this series is focusing on the few places which are the most different from ours.
Over and over again in Naruto, because we are focusing on the few places most different to our world, we see people not interacting with anything even approaching modern technology. Again and again, the focus is on people who work with medieval-tier weapons and who use what is pretty much magic. Sure, when you look at the background, it's clear that this is a modern world, but who looks at the background when you can watch cool ninja fights?
Every single time we actually see some modern technology in Naruto, it's just in the background, never really interacted with and quickly forgotten. Sasuke has a TV and toy dinosaurs in his room, but we never see him watching that TV and he only plays with those toys in like one flashback panel. Orochimaru and Kabuto use computers and advanced medical technology for their experiments, but once again, we know this only because of a few panels and we never see them actively use those. I've even seen people mention that there already were electricity and ACs in Konoha right after it was established, but again, they are never interacted with, instead we see the Senju and the Uchiha fight themselves with swords and other medieval weapons.
Time and again, the fact of Naruto world's actual technological level is pushed into the background, and all we see are medieval-type battles with swords, kunais, shurikens, and, of course, jutsus. And then... we fast forward to the next generation, and suddenly Konoha is a metropolis with trains and omnipresent electronics. As it should be, given its tech level in Naruto and expecting a level of technological progress similar to ours. And of course, people dislike it, but can anyone blame them for not liking it when the previous serious itself had done everything it could to make itself look like a medieval series as much as it could? We know for a fact that there are dozens and dozens of normal, modern cities and towns outside of the Hidden Villages, with people living just like we did during the time when Naruto first started publication, with modern technology, economy and so on.
And we never see any of it. The closest we ever get to get an actual glimpse of the rest of the world apart from the Hidden Villages is in the Land of Waves Arc with Gatō and his organization. And... that's it. Gatō is the only non-ninja antagonist in the entirety of Naruto, filler included. Everything else is about fighting other ninjas, coming from other Hidden Villages, with the outside world apart from the ninja bubbles not interacting with it at all.
The only thing that comes even close to showing us modernity and the current technology in the Naruto world is the Hidden Rain Village, and that is, likewise, only peeked at and in the background with all the focus being on Pain, ninja fights, and so on, and it never appears again after it's no longer needed.
So, of course, when Boruto comes out and people see computers and such everywhere, they don't like it, because why would they? What's that stuff doing in a story where ninjas with each other with swords and magic? When Sasuke finally fulfills his childhood dream and goes from a child playing with toy dinosaurs into an adult fighting actual Edo Tensei'd dinosaurs with an ice kunai, people don't like it, because what's that doing in a ninja setting? Even though those panels in the manga make it clear that dinosaurs once existed on this world people know it, and Edo Tensei is one of the most prominent jutsus in the entire franchise, they still meme on it and dislike it.
And, of course, when the Otsutsukis appear and become the new main antagonists, people absolutely hate it, because what are aliens doing in a ninja story?? That's the thing though. Is there anything weird or wrong about aliens appearing in a ninja story with swords and magic? YES. There's everything weird and wrong with that. But there's much, much less wrong about aliens appearing in an 80s or 90s setting, and Naruto is a 1980s/1990s setting with swords and magic. The problem is, the latter part of its identity had been basically all we've been shown, while in the entire manga only tiny glimpses of the former, 80s/90s part, was shown. And so, people hate everything modern in there, because it just feels like it shouldn't be there, even though we know that that was never the author's intention.
Objectively speaking, the distaste for this is rather weird. Kishimoto himself has said that the tech level in Naruto is roughly equal to our world, if maybe a bit lower. Naruto was first published in 1999, and the overall tech level seen in Konoha is definitely similar to what you'd see in a smaller Japanese town in the 1980s or 1990s. Boruto was first published in 2016, in-universe it likewise takes place some 17 years or so after the 4th Great Ninja War, and this alone makes the aforementioned jab from Dygoknight at the series rather weak. Said jab was him complaining about the Chunin exams in Boruto being overseen by proctors through live cameras, despite him admitting in the same video that in the Chunin exams we've seen in Naruto, there already was at least one camera in the arena, and there's nothing weird about camera technology evolving over 17 years to allow people previously using standard wired cameras inside to place wireless ones outside.
However, I can't really fault the guy, or anyone shitting on the tech level in Boruto, because of the one decisive difference between our and Naruto's world. Naruto's world has no guns.
This fact is absolutely crucial. Konoha, and the other Hidden Ninja Villages, are essentially military towns. And in this world, militaries are the one thing that is completely different from what we have, since their soldiers are people who throw shurikens and fireballs at each other. In an entire world overall quite similar to ours, this series is focusing on the few places which are the most different from ours.
Over and over again in Naruto, because we are focusing on the few places most different to our world, we see people not interacting with anything even approaching modern technology. Again and again, the focus is on people who work with medieval-tier weapons and who use what is pretty much magic. Sure, when you look at the background, it's clear that this is a modern world, but who looks at the background when you can watch cool ninja fights?
Every single time we actually see some modern technology in Naruto, it's just in the background, never really interacted with and quickly forgotten. Sasuke has a TV and toy dinosaurs in his room, but we never see him watching that TV and he only plays with those toys in like one flashback panel. Orochimaru and Kabuto use computers and advanced medical technology for their experiments, but once again, we know this only because of a few panels and we never see them actively use those. I've even seen people mention that there already were electricity and ACs in Konoha right after it was established, but again, they are never interacted with, instead we see the Senju and the Uchiha fight themselves with swords and other medieval weapons.
Time and again, the fact of Naruto world's actual technological level is pushed into the background, and all we see are medieval-type battles with swords, kunais, shurikens, and, of course, jutsus. And then... we fast forward to the next generation, and suddenly Konoha is a metropolis with trains and omnipresent electronics. As it should be, given its tech level in Naruto and expecting a level of technological progress similar to ours. And of course, people dislike it, but can anyone blame them for not liking it when the previous serious itself had done everything it could to make itself look like a medieval series as much as it could? We know for a fact that there are dozens and dozens of normal, modern cities and towns outside of the Hidden Villages, with people living just like we did during the time when Naruto first started publication, with modern technology, economy and so on.
And we never see any of it. The closest we ever get to get an actual glimpse of the rest of the world apart from the Hidden Villages is in the Land of Waves Arc with Gatō and his organization. And... that's it. Gatō is the only non-ninja antagonist in the entirety of Naruto, filler included. Everything else is about fighting other ninjas, coming from other Hidden Villages, with the outside world apart from the ninja bubbles not interacting with it at all.
The only thing that comes even close to showing us modernity and the current technology in the Naruto world is the Hidden Rain Village, and that is, likewise, only peeked at and in the background with all the focus being on Pain, ninja fights, and so on, and it never appears again after it's no longer needed.
So, of course, when Boruto comes out and people see computers and such everywhere, they don't like it, because why would they? What's that stuff doing in a story where ninjas with each other with swords and magic? When Sasuke finally fulfills his childhood dream and goes from a child playing with toy dinosaurs into an adult fighting actual Edo Tensei'd dinosaurs with an ice kunai, people don't like it, because what's that doing in a ninja setting? Even though those panels in the manga make it clear that dinosaurs once existed on this world people know it, and Edo Tensei is one of the most prominent jutsus in the entire franchise, they still meme on it and dislike it.
And, of course, when the Otsutsukis appear and become the new main antagonists, people absolutely hate it, because what are aliens doing in a ninja story?? That's the thing though. Is there anything weird or wrong about aliens appearing in a ninja story with swords and magic? YES. There's everything weird and wrong with that. But there's much, much less wrong about aliens appearing in an 80s or 90s setting, and Naruto is a 1980s/1990s setting with swords and magic. The problem is, the latter part of its identity had been basically all we've been shown, while in the entire manga only tiny glimpses of the former, 80s/90s part, was shown. And so, people hate everything modern in there, because it just feels like it shouldn't be there, even though we know that that was never the author's intention.
