Despite debuting on the heels of Naruto's epic conclusion, Boruto still had an uphill climb to rise to the daunting task of living up to its legendary predecessor. Thanks to its impressive balance of honoring and graduating from Naruto, paired with new wrinkles added to the larger mythos, Boruto has become a reliable, action-packed continuation of the Naruto canon and a solid standalone watch.
More than adventures with a new cast of ninja fan favorites, Boruto is also a visual delight and isn't shy about embracing modern techniques and technology to serve animated feasts for the eye. While fans still squabble over its adaptation of the manga, which, like Naruto, doesn't shy from filler, Boruto benefits from modernity. Even the combat-heavy anime's quietest episodes include breathtaking visuals that time couldn't offer Naruto during much of its run. With its fresh aesthetic and compelling story, there's no shortage of stunning Boruto visuals.
10 Episode 20, "The Boy with the Sharingan"
Visual Highlight: Sarada awakens her Sharingan
Boruto really started to hit its stride during the Sarada arc, which finally gave Sasuke and Sakura's daughter her rightful spotlight. In particular, Boruto's 20th episode "The Boy with the Sharingan" is a perfect example of the show's best merits, successfully placing its next generation of heroes like Sarada in conflict with the Naruto generation, putting familiar abilities on display with stunning new animation styles.
The episode continues Sarada's hunt for her father, who she tails Naruto in hopes of following him to her father's door. While she shadows Naruto in secret, an action-packed encounter with a Sharingan-wielding boy named Shin forces her to reveal herself and Naruto to save her. The fight between Naruto and the boy, while impressive, is not the episode's biggest visual treat. That, instead, comes at the episode's closing moments when Sarada's love for her father and excitement about meeting him finally awakens her own Sharingan.
9 Episode 192, "The Past"
Visual Highlight: Kawaki's Goldfish Fantasy
"The Past" is a heartbreaking installment recounting young Kawaki's abusive upbringing. Traumatic imagery and innovative, borderline psychedelic animation help imbue the episode with a nauseating aura befitting the gruesome abuse Kawaki suffers. Kawaki struggles to survive under his alcoholic father's oppressive rule over their shared household, woozily bouncing from one painful, heart-rending memory to the next.
Kawaki's one respite throughout the episode is a kind goldfish salesman in his village. He clings to the image of those goldfish in his lowest moments. First, they dreamily swirl around him when he tries to distract himself while locked in a shed by his father, and then most painfully when running away from the very same goldfish salesman, now revealed as a child trafficker.
8 Episode 216, "Sacrifice"
Visual Highlight: Boruto's reaction when Isshiki breaks his arm.
Boruto's impressive visuals aren't exclusive to glorious acts or heroism. They're often found in moments of devastation, too, like in "Sacrifice," the 216th installment of Boruto. The episode features numerous notable visual displays to pair with the episode's emotionally impactful moments, which all resonated with audiences as pivotal to the canon as soon as the episode aired in 2021.
Considered one of Boruto's best episodes by any metric, "Sacrifice" sees the Uzumaki boys put their lives on the line for the greater good. The perilous circumstances make way for Naruto's first Baryon Mode transformation and a bone-crunchingly good battle between Isshiki and the title character. The Baryon Mode is impressive but isn't fully revealed until the next episode. The episode's most heartbreakingly perfect animation occurs when Boruto reacts in agony as Isshiki shatters his bones.
7 Episode 80, "Mitsuki's Friend"
Visual Highlights: Mountainside heart-to-hearts
Boruto's 80th anime installment sports no action to its name. With a bit of old-fashioned hearty, emotional retrospection, a beloved element of Naruto's universe, the episode transcended its subdued story and enthralled audiences.
Despite its scaled-back plot and introspective pace, the episode, titled "Mitsuki's Friend," used Sekiei's power-drained state as an impetus to wax poetic; the episode highlights character and visual depth in spades. Sekiei and Mitsuki spend the episode cliffside, swapping philosophy and thoughts on humanity as Sekiei is on the ment. In a meaningful moment with imagery not to go unnoticed, Mitsuki, while bathed in golden sunlight, describes Boruto as his "sun" — an elusive, fleeting partner he relies on just as much as he mourns the absence of.
6 Episode 204, "He's Bad News"
Visual Highlight: Jigen vs. Sasuke and Naruto
While not the first reunion between old compatriots Sasuke and Naruto on Boruto, there's enough evidence to argue their encounter against Jigen is the most must-watch. "He's Bad News" puts three of the canon's most formidable fighters face to face and unleashes their full strength.
Kawaki's fate hangs in the balance of the high-stakes battle, lending cause for Naruto and Sasuke to release their Kurama and Susano'o forms. Sasuke's Susano'o, a majestic avatar of indomitable force, clashes with Jigen's swift and precise movements, each one a masterstroke of combat finesse. Naruto's Kurama roars with fiery determination, its tails swirling in a mesmerizing display of power that rivals its best outings on Naruto. Jigen proves to be a more-than-worthy opponent, elegantly air dancing as he penetrates Susano'o's defenses and shatters swords to pieces with ease.
5 Episode 65, "Father and Child"
Visual Highlight: Sasuke and Naruto reuniting.
Boruto kept fans waiting for 65 episodes before unleashing the joint powers of Sasuke and Naruto once again. The esteem its creators held for two of its most important characters was evident in their showcase here, with each second of Sasuke and Naruto's fight against Momoshiki rendered in meticulous detail.
Sasuke and Naruto's movements were a symphony of precision and power, an evolved version of a familiar dance performed by two of anime’s fiercest warriors perfectly in sync. Up until that point, the consistency of Boruto's animation was a point of criticism, but each carefully captured strike felt loaded with promise for the show’s future and a reinvigorated legacy for the Uzumaki and Uchiha clans.
4 Episode 189, "Resonance"
Visual Highlight: Kawaki vs Garo
By the time "Resonance" hit the small screen, manga-current Boruto fans had been eagerly waiting to see Kawaki's unique and powerful skillset unleashed in anime. A quick and acrobatic super-shinobi, Kawaki's limbs shift between forms and get uniquely weaponized as he debuts in fisticuffs against a lumbering Garo. Their fight is a controlled frenzy, cutting through the green countryside like a tornado.
Kawaki and Garo's fight is fun while it lasts for the audience, but miserable the entire way through for Garo, who rarely gets the upper hand before dying at Kawaki's killing blow — a walloping punch through the torso. Notably, the fight's most breathtaking moment might come at its most idyllic, when, after receiving a Garo suplex, Kawaki capitulates to gravity and falls back down to Earth enveloped by the quiet breeze.
3 Episode 254, "The Spiral of Revenge"
Visual Highlight: Ikada and his Sea Dragon saves Boruto
Some fans malign Boruto's Funato War arc for offering a less-than-exciting adaptation of a well-liked arc in the manga. While those criticisms hold merit, it does have one of the most breathtaking sequences of any Boruto arc.
The full potential of Ikada's power had been hinted at before, audiences even bearing witness to a flashback in Episode 241 depicting its awakening. Though it was known his family could control the sea, what occurred when Ikada rescued a drowning Boruto was grander than fathomable. Harnessing the ocean itself, Ikada gloriously introduces his Sea Dragon and spirits Boruto away from death.
2 Episode 217, "Decision"
Visual Highlight: Naruto goes Baryon Mode vs. Isshiki
The power of the Nine Tails has always been inside Naruto, but when in Baryon Mode, the jinchuriki works alongside him. Studio Pierrot knew they had a momentous occasion for the canon on its hand when rendering Naruto's Baryon Mode in Boruto's 217th episode. Successfully Naruto's beyond-Kage-level-power was no small feat, but the results did not disappoint.
Baryon Mode's imbued Naruto with quite literally next-level confidence and prowess, and Studio Pierrot spared no expense in showcasing the raw new power in every frame. As Naruto volleyed Isshiki across terrain and seas enacting vengeance, it was clear a legendary new Boruto entry was unfolding.
1 Episode 292, "Hunger"
Visual Highlight: A possessed Boruto fights Kawaki
Boruto's best animation arguably came in its mid-series finale episode. While the sequel series will eventually come back, fans will have to wait for years before more Buroto arrives in their feeds, and with a time skip all but promised, the characters that await them will not be the same as they were left. Luckily, the epic intermission left fans satiated, with the show delivering another impressive clash, this time between a Momoshiki-possessed Boruto and Kawaki. Fans had long fantasized about what this encounter might look like, but never under those circumstances.
Boruto kicks off the bout devastatingly, using his last bit of agency to distance himself from his concerned father so that he can do battle with Kawaki. The two, once like brothers but now embattled thanks to Momoshiki's influence, go blow for pulse-pounding blow. Boruto is powerful, made even more savage now that Momoshiki corrupts him — but even with all that strength, he cannot overpower Kawaki, who himself is fueled by the promise to oblige Boruto's wish to be killed if it meant defeating Momoshiki once and for all. In that way, Kawaki and Boruto outlast Momoshiki together. As the events unfold, its animation ebbs and flows in perfect synchronicity with its emotional highs and lows, swinging between slow and steady motion, zooming in and out between opponents, and taking everyone on an emotional rollercoaster that ends with Boruto's death.
