122 - Boruto

– A lean, thoughtful filler episode that respects its lineage without being crushed by it.

This is mature writing for a 12-year-old character. Boruto doesn’t try to convert Kankitsu; he simply exposes the hypocrisy of revenge disguised as grief. And in the end, Kankitsu is arrested, not redeemed. The episode resists the saccharine conclusion that every villain deserves a hug. Some people, it argues, just choose the wrong path. Visually, Episode 122 is not going to appear on any sakuga reels. The character models are stiff, and the backgrounds are sparse. But director Yuki Kinoshita makes a virtue of necessity. The puppet battle is shot in wide, static frames that emphasize positioning and strategy over impact frames. When Boruto’s Shadow Clone feints and he slips behind Kankitsu’s puppet, you feel the tactical geometry of it. boruto 122

The best moment is the climactic counter: Boruto uses a wire string to redirect a puppet’s arm into disabling its own core. It’s a callback to Sasori vs. Sakura/Chiyo, but simplified, slowed down, and made readable for a younger audience. In an era of Demon Slayer levels of flash, Boruto 122’s quiet, mechanical fight is almost nostalgic—not for Naruto , but for the pre- Shippuden era when tactics mattered more than explosions. The episode is not flawless. The premise—a stolen scroll containing a “forbidden puppet technique”—is a MacGuffin so generic it hurts. Tanigakure’s worldbuilding consists of exactly one cliff and one house. And Konohamaru, the team’s jonin leader, does absolutely nothing except look worried, continuing the series’ unfortunate trend of sidelining interesting adult characters. – A lean, thoughtful filler episode that respects