About

Boruto, or Boruto: Naruto Next Generations as it's known by its official title, is an anime series sequel to Naruto's sequel Naruto: Shippuden. The series is created by the same creator as Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto, and takes place 12 years after the conclusion of Naruto Shippuden. While originally mocked as a cheap, cash-grab of a series to take the place of Naruto, the longevity of the series has helped to create a culture of its own that is separate from the main series.

History

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations first came out on May 9th, 2016, in manga form inside Weekly Shonen Jump, where it stayed for three years. In 2019, the manga made the jump to V Jump, and the crossover to anime came on April 5th, 2017. The series has maintained the same consistent format that its predecessor did with over 214 episodes being released in a four-year period, making it roughly one episode a week while accounting for certain holidays and special events.

The trailer for the movie was uploaded to YouTube^[4] by the channel Madman Anime on June 26th, 2015, and received 11 million views in six years (shown below).

When the series started out, one of the earliest memes about it derived from the fact that Naruto and Boruto are so close in naming and how similar their character designs are. While other characters within the show have more striking differences between them and their parents, Boruto seems like a copypasta of his dad, something touched on by Roshawn Briscoe^[1] on March 27th, 2018 (shown below).

Another big topic of memes in the early days of Boruto came from how slow the progression was in the shows. This difference is most stark when looking at the meme submitted to Funvizeo^[2] by the user Flynn, which shows how episode 33 in Naruto was already near the end of the Chunin exams, and episode 33 in Boruto is still borderline filler episodes (shown below).

Online Presence

Online, Boruto has had a notable presence in various communities and platforms. According to Shueisha,^[3] over a million copies of the manga were shipped as of January 2017, only eight months after release. Due to the decades-long fan pages and groups devoted to Naruto, Boruto was able to easily have a large following from before it was even released, ensuring that it would become a cultural mainstay.

Related Memes

Boruto's Dad

Boruto's Dad is a comical way of referring to Naruto, who is Boruto's father. The meme came about after promotional work for Boruto had him front and center, overshadowing Naruto — both the series and the character. This overshadowing became so prominent in promotional work that the official Crunchyroll Twitter page tweeted out support for the series and telling people to check out Naruto by calling it "the early days of Boruto's dad" (shown below).

This then spawned the meme where screenshots of the show were caption changed to say "Boruto's Dad" instead of "Naruto" (examples seen below).

Various Meme Examples

Search Interest

External References