Boruto Episode 211: Internal Trouble

This week’s episode of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations continued the trend of new anime content. Boruto episode 211 follows Kakashi and the trio of Shikadai, Cho-Cho, and Inojin. Someone stole valuable data about Leaf ninja from a hidden archive. The genin team of Ino-Shika-Cho decides to investigate and discovers information about the spy. Just about any anime watcher will recognize this mysterious intruder as the Kara inner Kashin Koji. Koji first appeared when he killed a defeated Ao, effortlessly defeated Konohamaru, and monitored Kawaki from the shadows.

Without spoiling anything of the story, Koji’s appearance represents a segue from this original anime content back to the manga storyline. Not too much happened in Boruto Episode 211, but the information and context added for Kashin Koji was good. Like the other anime-content episodes, this storyline added additional info to Koji’s time in the hidden leaf and began to build the mystery of who exactly he is. Fans of the anime and manga alike should definitely be excited for the arc to come.

If it’s not obvious already, this article will review and discuss Boruto episode 211. This includes spoilers for the episode, so read with that in mind.

An Unlikely Investigative Team

Personally, I’m not usually a fan of the new generation Ino-Shika-Cho for one reason…and that’s Cho Cho. While brief moments with her can be interesting, her persistent presence in an episode tends to feel overbearing. As usual, she’s comic relief, using her “intuition” to somehow figure out the data thief’s hiding location. Despite Cho Cho, I was happy to see Shikadai take center stage for the investigative stage of the episode. Shikadai is a lot like his father in deductive episodes like this. Similar to Shikamaru in many Naruto episodes, Shikadai pieces together information to find hints about the thief. But, unlike Shikamaru, Shikadai has his mother’s blunt streak and less laziness.

Working alongside Kakashi, Shikadai breaks down the layers of Kashin Koji’s plan. With their cooperation, Kakashi manages to briefly corner Koji. Koji is a much different fighter from other Kara members like Delta or Boro. While Boro made use of a complicated plan and wasn’t as headstrong as Delta, Koji is calculated. He is on the only members of Kara to use a variety of tactics in his approach. This is even in comparison to Jigen, who simply teleported into the Leaf Village to snatch Kawaki.

Brief, Telling Action

Kakashi’s brief skirmish with Koji was unique. For one, it was incredibly brief. Boruto episode 211 had plenty of dialogue and still scenes. Rather than add scenes with movement, the episode tended to pair dialogue with static shots of characters. This is even more stark when one of the characters is Kakashi; his mask means even less animation goes into a conversation. Because of that, I watched the episode expecting a very detailed fight to compensate. Instead, I got seconds of detail and then an immediate escape for Koji.

Secondly, Kakashi saw Koji as a threat. Kakashi was careful to keep the genin away from Koji when he expected a fight. For any typical threat, Kakashi would be perfectly capable of fighting while defending the genin. His choice to keep them away meant he anticipated having them around could be dangerous. Moreover, Kakashi opened the fight by immediately using one of his strongest techniques, Purple Lightning. For those who don’t know, Purple Lightning is the technique Kakashi developed after losing his Sharingan and thus access to the Chidori technique.

In combination with his scuffle with Konohamaru, this fight means Koji is strong. Even more, the fact that he thinks he can take on Jigen means he likely has more tricks up his sleeve. Characters in Jigen’s league are hundreds if not thousands of times stronger than the average ninja. Even at 10% of his chakra restored, Jigen is still incredibly powerful. For Koji to think he has a shot at taking out even this weaker Jigen, he definitely is likely to have a host of incredible techniques for use next episode.

Check out last week’s review here!