Top 10 Best Boruto Moments So Far

Boruto spent its early run under a specific shadow: constant comparison to a predecessor as beloved as the original Naruto. It’s taken real, hard-earned moments for the sequel to prove it can stand on its own rather than simply live in that shadow.

This list ranks the ten moments that did the most to earn the series genuine respect, weighing emotional impact, how much they reshaped the wider story, and how well they’ve held up as the manga has continued.

The ten moments, in order, before the detail on why each one earns its place.

1. Sarada’s Rasengan and Chidori (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
2. Mitsuki’s True Origins (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
3. The Chunin Exams Arc (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
4. Kawaki’s Introduction and Backstory (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
5. Naruto and Sasuke vs. Momoshiki and Kinshiki (Boruto: Naruto the Movie)
6. Sasuke Loses His Rinnegan (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
7. Kurama’s Sacrifice and Farewell (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
8. Naruto Sealed Away by Kawaki (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)
9. The Two Blue Vortex Timeskip (Boruto: Two Blue Vortex)
10. Kurama’s Chakra Resurfacing in Himawari (Boruto: Two Blue Vortex)

10. Sarada’s Rasengan and Chidori (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

Sarada developing her own version of her father’s Chidori and Naruto’s Rasengan, blending both of her parents’ signature techniques into something distinctly her own, gives the next generation’s cast a genuinely satisfying visual and thematic payoff. It’s a small moment compared to some of the larger entries on this list, but it signals early that Boruto’s cast wouldn’t be smaller copies of their parents.

Sarada’s own arc around this moment matters too, since her journey toward this technique is tied directly to reconciling with her own complicated feelings about Sasuke’s near-constant absence and Sakura’s quiet strength holding their family together. Combining both parents’ signature moves into one technique reads as a statement about which parts of her family she chooses to carry forward.

9. Mitsuki’s True Origins (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

The reveal that Mitsuki is an artificial being created by Orochimaru, rather than a conventionally born child, adds an interesting layer to a character who initially reads as a simple quiet, mysterious classmate. His own journey to understand and accept his identity, separate from his creator’s intentions, gives the younger cast some real thematic depth beyond straightforward ninja training.

The reveal also connects Boruto’s cast directly back to one of the original series’ most significant villains, giving Orochimaru a different role in the sequel than the straightforward antagonist he was in earlier eras. Watching him take on something closer to a parental, if deeply unconventional, role toward Mitsuki adds an unexpected layer to a character whose redemption in the original series was left comparatively open-ended.

8. The Chunin Exams Arc (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

Boruto’s own Chunin Exams arc, complete with Boruto’s disqualification for cheating using Sasuke’s Sharingan mid-fight, gave the sequel series a moral complexity that its opening stretch had mostly avoided. The consequences of that cheating scandal ripple forward through Boruto’s relationship with his father for a long stretch afterward, giving the arc lasting narrative weight beyond its immediate tournament spectacle.

What makes this arc important to the series’ overall reputation is how directly it addresses the exact criticism Boruto faced in its earliest episodes, that its young cast might coast on natural talent the way their parents never got to. Boruto’s disqualification forces the story, and the character himself, to actually reckon with the difference between raw ability and earned achievement, a distinction the original Naruto spent its entire run building its own protagonist around.

7. Kawaki’s Introduction and Backstory (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

Kawaki’s arrival, and the slow reveal of the abuse and manipulation he suffered under Jigen before finding a new home with Naruto’s family, gives the series one of its most tragic supporting characters. His complicated, evolving relationship with Boruto, shifting from open hostility to something far more layered, becomes a central emotional engine for the rest of the series.

Naruto’s decision to take Kawaki in as a member of his own household, despite the very real danger that comes with harboring an Otsutsuki vessel, is itself a meaningful continuation of the empathy that defined Naruto’s own character throughout the original series. Extending that same instinct to reach broken, dangerous people toward the next generation of his own family gives Kawaki’s introduction thematic weight beyond just a new plot device.

6. Naruto and Sasuke vs. Momoshiki and Kinshiki (Boruto: Naruto the Movie)

The film that launched the entire sequel series delivers one of its most spectacular fights, forcing Naruto and Sasuke to struggle against a threat operating on a different scale than most Boruto-era antagonists up to that point. Its importance here is establishing early that the sequel could deliver real, high-stakes spectacle rather than just riding on nostalgia.

The fight also marks the first time Naruto and Sasuke fight seriously alongside each other, rather than against each other, since their war-arc alliance against Kaguya. Seeing the two of them coordinate as equals against a shared threat gave longtime fans a payoff to a friendship the original series spent hundreds of chapters building, now carried into an entirely new generation of threats.

5. Sasuke Loses His Rinnegan (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

During the fallout of the fight against Isshiki, Momoshiki, controlling Boruto’s body at the time, stabs out and destroys Sasuke’s Rinnegan eye. It’s a significant, permanent loss for one of the franchise’s most powerful characters, and it signals early in the series that Boruto isn’t afraid to meaningfully weaken its most established figures rather than keeping them at their Shippuden-era peak indefinitely.

This moment is covered in far more detail in a dedicated post tracking exactly where Naruto and Sasuke’s power stands relative to each other, but its significance here is structural: it establishes that no character, however powerful in the original series, gets to remain untouchable in the sequel, which raises the stakes for every fight that follows it.

4. Kurama’s Sacrifice and Farewell (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

Kurama choosing to let Naruto believe Baryon Mode would cost his own life, then quietly giving up his own existence instead, remains one of the most moving moments in the entire franchise. Their goodbye scene, a tailed beast Naruto once feared as a child now leaving as a true friend, closes out a relationship that had been building since the very first episode of the original series decades earlier.

Few moments anywhere in the franchise land with this much cumulative weight, precisely because the story had spent so many years earning it. Kurama goes from a weapon sealed inside a child against his will to a being capable of a final act of genuine, chosen sacrifice, and the scene never once needs to explain why that arc matters, since decades of prior story have already done that work.

3. Naruto Sealed Away by Kawaki (Boruto: Naruto Next Generations)

Kawaki’s decision to seal Naruto, and Hinata alongside him, into a separate dimension using his Daikokuten technique reshapes the entire shape of the ongoing story. It’s a bold structural choice, removing the franchise’s central protagonist from active participation in his own sequel series, and it’s covered in far more detail in a dedicated post examining exactly what it means and why it isn’t the death some fans assumed.

What makes this moment so significant beyond its shock value is what it forces the rest of the cast to become. With Naruto and Hinata both gone from the active story, Boruto, Sasuke, and the rest of Konoha have to carry the narrative forward without the franchise’s central figure to lean on, a structural gamble that’s paid off in the story’s willingness to let its next generation actually take center stage rather than remaining perpetually in their parents’ shadow.

2. The Two Blue Vortex Timeskip (Boruto: Two Blue Vortex)

The jump forward following Eida’s Omnipotence swapping Boruto and Kawaki’s identities gave the manga’s second act a fresh structural hook: a sixteen-year-old Boruto, trained by Sasuke, returning to a village that now sees him as the enemy. That reversal injected real, unpredictable stakes into a story that some fans had worried was settling into a predictable rhythm.

Sasuke’s role as Boruto’s mentor during this timeskip deserves specific mention too, giving the two characters a genuine, deepened relationship that the earlier story had only briefly touched on. Training under the same man who once nearly destroyed Konoha, and who carries his own complicated history with Naruto, gives Boruto’s growth during this stretch real thematic texture beyond simple physical training.

The timeskip also solved a problem the series had been carrying since its first episode. A story about the next generation is difficult to tell while the previous generation’s most powerful figures are still available to solve every crisis, and removing Naruto and reducing Sasuke forced the younger cast into positions the earlier chapters could always defer.

Himawari has spent most of the franchise as a background presence defined mainly by her relationship to her father and brother, which makes handing her this thread a signal about where the story intends to spend its attention next.

1. Kurama’s Chakra Resurfacing in Himawari (Boruto: Two Blue Vortex)

The reveal in chapter 9 that a fragment of Kurama’s chakra survived and has reformed, appearing to Himawari rather than Naruto, is the single moment that’s done the most to signal Boruto’s ongoing manga has long-term plans rather than moving past its biggest losses. It reopens a thread fans assumed was permanently closed, without cheaply undoing the original sacrifice, and it’s covered in complete detail in a dedicated post on Kurama’s return.

That balance, honoring the weight of what came before while still finding a way forward, is exactly the kind of storytelling choice that’s earned Two Blue Vortex its improved reputation among longtime fans who’d grown skeptical of the sequel series.

It also does something structurally clever that few sequels manage: rather than centering the recovery of a lost element entirely on the original protagonist, it hands that thread to Himawari, a character who’d previously had far less spotlight than her brother. That choice keeps Naruto’s original sacrifice meaningful while still finding a genuine, forward-looking place for the story to go next, rather than working to restore the status quo as quickly as possible.

The moments that divided the fanbase

A list of high points gives an incomplete picture of this series, since several of its most discussed moments are contentious rather than beloved.

Eida’s Omnipotence is the clearest case. The ability rewrites the world’s memories so that Kawaki is remembered as Naruto’s son and Boruto as the outsider who killed him, and it resolves in a single stroke a situation the story had built over many chapters. Some readers found it a bold structural swing. Others found it a reset button with no counterplay, and both readings have a real case.

The early anime’s pacing is the other. Long stretches of the adaptation ran on original episodes while the manga developed, and the resulting mix of school-life material against a plot about interdimensional threats gave the series a tonal inconsistency it took years to shake.

Where the series stands now

For anyone deciding whether to catch up, the practical position is worth stating plainly.

The anime paused in March 2023 after 293 episodes to avoid overtaking the manga, and a second part adapting Two Blue Vortex has been confirmed without a release date. The manga is the only place the current story exists.

That means the gap between anime-only and manga-reading fans is unusually wide right now. Most of the moments ranked highest on this list, including the timeskip and the Kurama fragment, exist only in the manga so far, which is worth knowing before joining any discussion about where the story currently is.

For readers coming to the series fresh, the practical advice is to treat Boruto: Naruto Next Generations and Two Blue Vortex as two distinct works with a shared cast. The first is uneven and takes patience. The second is where most of the moments on this list actually live, and it reads very differently from what came before it.

This list will keep changing

Two Blue Vortex is still running, so everything ranked above is provisional by definition. This ranking weighs emotional impact and how much a given moment reshapes the wider story over pure shock value, which is why some of the series’ more debated early missteps didn’t make the cut even though they generated plenty of discussion at the time. This page will be revisited as the manga progresses.

Common questions

What is the best moment in Boruto?

Kurama’s chakra resurfacing with Himawari in Two Blue Vortex chapter 9. It reopens a thread fans assumed was permanently closed without cheaply undoing the original sacrifice.

Is Boruto worth watching?

The early anime is uneven and takes patience. The current Two Blue Vortex manga is where most of the moments on this list actually live, and it reads very differently from what came before it.

What happened in the Two Blue Vortex timeskip?

Eida’s Omnipotence swapped Boruto and Kawaki’s identities in everyone’s memory, and the story jumps forward roughly three years. A sixteen-year-old Boruto, trained by Sasuke, returns to a village that now sees him as the enemy.

Where is the Boruto anime?

Paused. It ran 293 episodes before stopping in March 2023 to avoid overtaking the manga. A second part adapting Two Blue Vortex is confirmed, without a release date.