Boruto Manga Chapter 54
Summary
Titled 'Bro', Chapter 54 of the Boruto manga showed Sasuke and Kawaki trying their best to face Boruto's possessed Momoshiki.
The battles are finally over this month. Boruto manga lacked proper narrative. So, hopefully now that we've dealt with a possessed Boruto, the narrative can be expanded to offer answers to a list of questions.
"Bro" opened with Momoshiki happy to take over Boruto's body. He pulled Sasuke's Rinnegan in the previous chapter. So our heroes are stuck and Sasuke can't use a range of attacks.
In the last issue of the manga, Momoshiki mentioned how Kawaki should be happy since Isshiki is dead.
Now there were some fans who believed that Isshiki was still around. I don't blame them for having that opinion. As far as these fans were concerned, the way Isshiki died didn't make much sense. There was no way Kawaki would stomp such a powerful villain to death, right?
Well, it turns out that Isshiki really isn't anymore. His soul is gone and therefore cannot be revived. Meh!
I've said many times that the current villains in the Boruto manga are incredibly boring. We're keeping our fingers crossed for trend changes. But having said that, I won't hold my breath. The entire Otsutsuki clan is just bland, and seeing them continue to be used in the current narrative doesn't do the story any favors.
Anyway, even though Ishiki is dead, his data still existed in Kawaki for some strange reason. That's why Momoshiki wanted to feed Kawaki to the Ten-Tails. Kawaki's death wouldn't grow a perfect chakra fruit, but it would be enough for Momoshiki.
One of the things I liked about 'Bro' was that it focused on the strategic moves of Sasuke and Kawaki. It was refreshing to see a battle that didn't follow the "my punch is stronger than yours" cliché. Sasuke and Kawaki knew they couldn't beat Momoshiki in a brute force fight. They had to come up with a plan to take him down.
Sasuke's analytical skills were able to figure out the reason behind Boruto's possession. It was revealed that Momoshiki's data took over Boruto's body whenever our titular young ninja ran out of chakra. It was fun to see Sasuke and Kawaki trying their best to force Momoshiki to absorb chakra.
The move Kawaki did to hurt himself to make Momoshiki absorb the Fire-Jutsu (because he needed Kawaki to stay alive) was genius! He tried to address Boruto, calling him brother (hence the title of the chapter), but it didn't work. So he had to take such a step out of desperation.
Another interesting thing that happened during their confrontation involved Sasuke's willingness to kill Boruto. It made me laugh.
Fans of the franchise know that Naruto went to extreme lengths to save Sasuke from the path of darkness. Naruto faced a lot of hardships to bond with Sasuke and not once did Naruto even think of ending his best friend's life (friend, soulmate, basically husband, etc.).
Damn! Even though Sakura wanted to save Sasuke as well and they ended up marrying each other, the thought of killing Sasuke crossed Sakura's mind (even though she couldn't go through with it).
So while killing Sasuke was never an option for Naruto, seeing Sasuke ready to end Boruto's life to save the world was funny. Sasuke didn't play games.
Anyway, with Boruto finally able to regain control of his body, I'm excited to see what happens next. I hope the manga series gives us an explanation as to why it was important for Boruto to break Momoshiki's horn. Boruto manga lacks context and proper lore building.
Now before I end my review of 'Bra' I have something to talk about. As of now, Boruto and Kawaki are at higher power levels compared to the other two members of Team 7. At least Mitsuki has Sage Mode. However, the salad has nothing.
I'm disappointed that like Sakura being the weakest link in the previous Team 7, Salad doesn't stand a chance against Mitsuki, Boruto and Kawaki. It's the ninja team girl who gets pushed away again.
It seems that even being Sakura and Sasuke's daughter doesn't matter how the story decides to make a random character (Kawaki) on the Salad bench.