Naruto‘s fandom has witnessed a baby with whisker-like birthmarks, a telltale sign of his destiny as the vessel for the Nine-Tailed Fox demon to achieve his dream of becoming the Hokage. It is almost tear-jerking to see a character develop right in front of your eyes and develop yourself along with it, and the anime does just that.
So it is quite understandable why the fans were utterly grim over the departure of Naruto in the recent development of its sequel ‘Boruto’. The decades of writing, refining, and fine-tuning the character go all in trash wasting an already honed blade as refined as Uzumaki Naruto.
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Who Killed Naruto?
Naruto’s death has been foreshadowed and essentially hinted to Boruto’s fans since the very initial stage of the anime in which Kawaki says that he would send Boruto to the same place he would send Naruto. The indication of impending doom but unknown in what form has kept the watchers on their toes for a while now.
As the anime progresses we see Kawaki who is the adopted son of Uzumaki Naruto gain genuine respect, love, and admiration for his father. The setting has made viewers question just what cards fate played to make Kawasaki responsible for the fall of his brother (Boruto) and father.
We see Naruto play out the role of the seventh Hokage to the best of his abilities maintaining peace in the Hidden Leaf Village. But the gears of events turn and he is faced to battle with the new danger to this harmony, the Otsutsuki clan. Being the strongest shinobi he is able to defeat the likes of Momoshiki and Kinshiki Otsutsuki with the few hitches in between.
The real warfare however is when Isshiki Otsutsuki enters the arena. He proves to be a formidable enemy, stronger than anyone Naruto had faced. Isshiki was defeated only when Naruto sacrificed his Tailed Beast and Six Paths in the process after tapping into his Baryon mode. This creates a major tip in the already skewed scale of balance. The Hidden Leaf Village’s sole protector has gained a major disadvantage.
Kawaki enters into scene here, wanting nothing more than to see his father live in peace, so he takes matters into his own hands. He resolves to obliterate the whole Otsutsuki clan. And so Boruto who had become a vessel for Momoshiki had also to be killed. Knowing Naruto wouldn’t allow Kawaki to do so he seals Naruto and Hinata in the Daikokuten realm, where no amount of time passes.
In these circumstances, there is no one person who is responsible for Naruto’s supposed death, Kawaki, and the possessed Boruto both bear the weight of Naruto’s doom in some way or other. And we have no way of knowing if in the future some other factor or person is revealed to have been at play too in the death of the greatest Shinobi.
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What Does This Mean For The Anime? Will Naruto Return?
After sealing Naruto, Kawaki with the aid of Eida’s shinjutsu is able to alter the shinobi history. In the newly constructed present Kawaki is known as the real blood son of Uzumaki Naruto while Boruto is regarded as the killer of the Seventh Hokage. To the whole shinobi world, Naruto is dead (hence the initial foreshadowing) however as we know he is just sealed in another world.
This might mean we will see Naruto’s return at a crucial moment in between Boruto’s and Kawaki’s feud. Many fans are speculating the second part of Baoruto to return with the big 4-year time skip while few say the anime has to cover more of the manga before the time skip.
While fans are partially relieved to know Naruto is in fact alive in a sense, this act of almost writing off a character as huge as him is simply lazy development. Even if his death is needed for the character development of Boruto, to not fully provide Naruto with a death is simply unreasonable, his death could have been way more meaningful considering how he carried one of the most beloved animes of all times.
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