Boruto Episode 213: The Karma Explained!

Boruto is back again this week and “Boruto” episode 213 wasn’t playing around. This episode advanced two connected but distinct elements of the plot. On the one hand, the episode followed Amado’s arrival in the Hidden Leaf. Last week, Amado took Shikadai hostage with the goal of speaking with Naruto and officially petitioning for asylum as he defects from Kara. “Boruto” episode 213 advances that further, continuing their conversation as Amado reveals more about Kara. Secondly, Kashin Koji begins fighting Jigen. The episode alternates between the fight and Amado explaining more about Kara, Jigen, his role, and the Otsutsuki in general.

The most notable part of “Boruto” episode 213 was its incredible faithfulness to the manga. Dialogue, scene order, tone, and content all match Boruto chapters 45 and 46 with a precision that surprised me. Generally, the Boruto anime adds extra, sometimes superfluous dialogue. In this case, the episode went out of its way (seemingly) to not do that, instead opting to make use of verbal exchanges to add length. The episode covered about a chapter and a half of content while last week was half of one and half of another. I’m curious to see how this arc will handle pacing going forward.

In discussing the episode, I’ll be going over its plot; so this article will contain spoilers for “Boruto” episode 213.

Breaking Down the Otsutsuki

As Amado explained, the Otsutsuki are powerful alien parasites who descend onto planets to drain them of chakra. We saw some form of this mindset with Momoshiki; he lauded the power of the fruit and talked about humanity like it was a nuisance to overcome. Even genetically, we saw from Momoshiki’s consumption of Kinshiki that chakra fruits from a being transfer that being’s powers to the eater. The new knowledge from “Boruto” episode 213 was how exactly the Karma works.

With the revelation that those with Karma slowly become Otsutsuki, an obvious quandary is here. In the case that Boruto or Kawaki are nearing full Otsutsuki transformation, the logical, safe choice is to kill them. For Naruto, Sasuke, and Shikamaru, this situation likely feels like a twisted play on Orochimaru’s attempt to steal Sasuke’s body. Naruto was terrified at the idea of losing Sasuke in this way, Sasuke understands the bizarre horror of losing oneself to another, and Shikamaru still considers failing to retrieve Sasuke his biggest failure as a ninja.

Boruto episode 213 didn’t flag this as a component of anyone’s feelings. But, there’s no doubt that their terror and anxiety are familiar in unwelcome ways.

Koji Making his Move

Kashin Koji’s fight with Jigen almost seems minuscule in comparison. This isn’t to say it wasn’t important though, as some gears should be turning in a lot of fans’ minds. It’s quite obvious at this point that Kashin Koji has some sort of connection to Jiraiya. Naruto notices that the fighting style is quite familiar to him. Even more, Koji makes use of techniques that no one but Jiraiya has used in the series, such as the Earth Style: Dark Swamp technique. His appearance and ability to use the Rasengan was the first major clue to this, but it remains to be seen for anime-only fans what that connection is.

In any case, Koji’s performance against Jigen illustrates a combination of Koji’s power and Jigen’s weakness. Koji has speed similar to Kakashi, who is much slower than Naruto, who was consistently out-sped by Jigen at full power. But, Naruto should be thousands of times more powerful than people capable of swapping hands with Koji, such as Konohamaru. We can sort of get a rough estimate of Jigen’s power from this, placing him at the upper echelons of the Kage+ fighters of the series so far.

Now that we understand the depth of preparation Koji made for this fight, we can expect more tricks up his sleeve. In the meantime, fans will have to imagine for themselves how this excellent battle will continue!

Check out last week’s review here!