The Mystery of Boruto’s Awakened Rinnegan Power and Glove

Boruto Two Blue Vortex In His Final Form

Here, bringing you another Boruto: Two Blue Vortex discussion. Today, I want to explain to you about the glove that Boruto keeps on his hand and why we need to discuss Boruto finally joining Kawaki and getting the dominant eye of his Otsutsuki. That’s why, in today’s newest Boruto: Two Blue Vortex blog, I want to do something dangerous and explain to you exactly why I strongly believe we need to discuss why Boruto should be getting Momoshiki’s Rinnegan and why he does not have the Rinnegan is a bigger problem that needs to be addressed in the narrative. If it isn’t, this will lead to a rather large plot hole if the story doesn’t address it.

So, jumping right into it, the most obvious case, in my opinion, for why the Rinnegan is needed for Boruto is that while he doesn’t technically need the power, it’s just a consistency issue that I sincerely feel needs to be given a proper answer by the narrator. So far, based on what we’ve seen with the three compatible vessels for Otsutsuki clan members, they all have common threads that link them together. To varying degrees, they all gain the power boost that comes from the basic use of the Karma seal. When using the true essence of Karma, they all can tap into the combat knowledge and skill of the Otsutsuki. They all get the Dojutsu of the Otsutsuki to use in battle, but that last point sticks out like a sore thumb if you’ve been paying attention.

Boruto, Jigen, Kawaki—the three Otsutsuki vessels—yet we’ve only seen two of them use their dominant Dojutsu of their Otsutsuki. Each has gained Isshiki’s Kokugan Dojutsu, the stronger eye of the Otsutsuki. Yet, we’ve never seen Boruto use Momoshiki’s Rinnegan, which is the stronger eye than the Byakugan. Just speaking of the Byakugan, Boruto is the only vessel with a Byakugan, and even then, we’ve never seen him use the eye at any point. It has never been activated. The eye being manifested and the eye being activated are two different things. When Momoshiki, Isshiki, and Kaguya have each used the Byakugan, it’s all been the same thing that you see with the clan—they have the veins pop out the side of their eyes, and they look super creepy as the chakra floods to their eyes. Boruto has a Byakugan, but he’s never used it, and we have no explanation for why he hasn’t been able to use the Rinnegan either.

In the Boruto: Two Blue Vortex manga series, Boruto Uzumaki, being the genius that he is, should have more than the aptitude to pick up on how to use the Byakugan or especially the Rinnegan, given who his master is. Even then, he has the true essence of Momoshiki, so he should be able to use the skills of the Rinnegan quickly. A big part of why this needs to be addressed is the inconsistency we’re seeing here that has not been explained yet. Why can Kawaki use the Kokugan and all of his powers? And Jigen, someone who wasn’t even a perfect vessel, yet Boruto, someone who is a perfect vessel and someone who already had strong Otsutsuki genetics via the Hyuga blood in his veins that he got from his mother and being born of two parents who each gained access to chakra from both children of Kaguya—Naruto, who gained half of Hagoromo’s chakra, the seal in his hand before was taken back in Naruto chapter 691. This reminded me that he didn’t lose the seal when he fought Sasuke; it was already gone. You don’t need the seal for Six Paths Sage power. Three different powers. And then you had Hinata, who gained Hamura’s chakra to destroy the Tenseigan energy vessel that would be used to destroy Earth. Boruto has all of that going for him, but he can’t even use the basic powers of the Byakugan in a fight, something that he stood a chance of awakening on his own just because he inherited the Kekkei Genkai. Though it does need to be said, it remains to be seen if he ever would have awakened that power since having the Kekkei Genkai is no guarantee that you awaken the Kekkei Genkai power of your clan. Case in point, not every Uchiha awakens the Sharingan, and not every Hyuga awakens the Byakugan.

So Boruto can’t use either the Byakugan or the Rinnegan, but Kawaki, a kid who, until we learn otherwise, is the son of a washed-up shinobi who used to be talented but came from no famous clan. He had a mother whose, as of right now, identity has not been revealed, so for all we know, she could be Amado’s daughter, or she could be some random lady that Kawaki’s dad met one day when getting drunk in a bar, or she could be an only Konoha model. But somehow, Kawaki doesn’t just awaken the Kokugan and immediately start using the power; he is also evolving the powers of the eye by awakening more spokes in his eye. At the end of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, part one, as it finishes, by the events of Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, he has the full Kokugan eye manifested. The same thing goes for Jigen. He had nothing special about him. He was an imperfect vessel who couldn’t even contain using all of Isshiki’s chakra. When he used too much of it, his body was breaking apart. He was some random monk holding his prayer beads, looking around the temple, fighting those urges that a holy man isn’t supposed to have. Then, all of a sudden, this small white insect, barely bigger than a booger, is shown crawling towards him. It instantaneously resizes, grabs him by the throat, chokes him out, turns itself sideways, enters deep into Jigen’s body, and survives by eating Jigen’s brain, merging itself with his body and implanting his Karma seal onto Jigen as a safety measure. Despite all of that, Jigen could manifest two spokes of the Kokugan eye in each of his eyes and use the powers of Isshiki to the point he was flexing on Naruto and Sasuke. He’s beating down Naruto’s 1,000 clones, knocking Sasuke near death with two full-powered hits, and beating Naruto so badly, someone with insane stamina levels, that he needed two full days to recover as a result of the beatdown he got. He was still unconscious when he got unsealed a few hours later. These two relative no-name losers can use their Otsutsuki’s most powerful ability, but Boruto can’t use either the Byakugan in a fight or even manifest the Rinnegan. It feels like Boruto’s been cheated.

I am a proponent of the idea that with ongoing series, particularly monthly and quarterly manga, you have to sit back and let the story cook for a while because this isn’t like binge-watching a completed series. You have to sit back and let the story cook, and in some cases, you aren’t going to get the answers for several years. Case in point, we’ve been waiting over 10 years since Zoro showed up in One Piece with the scar on his eye, and we still don’t have an answer in the manga if he’s got some special eye or not, at least as of where I am as of my last review on One Piece. It’s tedious storytelling, but eventually, you get there. While I am content with this being the case with Boruto—content in the sense that I know there’s a possibility we aren’t going to get the answers until later on—I do feel like I owe it to you as the reader to call it down the middle as it is and say this has the potential to be a plot inconsistency, a legit one.

Half the people who say that this is an inconsistency and this is an inconsistency with the writing, like, say, Sasuke being out of chakra, which is explained in-universe and things introduced in Naruto volumes 71, 72, and 73, with 73 being better known as Naruto Gaiden: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring. This is something that the narrative has never addressed, and it will be a mistake if the story never creates a scenario where the narrative addresses it. Let’s take it a step further here. Let’s play Devil’s Advocate. Since Boruto showed back up in Boruto: Two Blue Vortex with a brand-new design, one of the very first things I said about both Boruto and Sarada’s designs is I could see what Ikemoto was going for with Sarada’s design having a lot of symbolism to it. This is very similar to how Ikemoto set back in 2017 when he first designed Kawaki for Kishimoto to approve. The idea behind Kawaki’s design was to blend aspects of the aesthetics of Naruto and Sasuke’s designs and their colour schemes for the final design. Hence, Kawaki has blonde and black hair. Sarada had similarities to her design as well. However, Boruto’s new design stuck out for multiple reasons. It stuck out because it wasn’t just symbolic in design. Still, when you look at it, he’s got his headband on one part to remind people he’s a Konoha shinobi, he’s got the leaf symbols on his jacket, he’s got the sunflower on the other part of his jacket, a nod to Himawari. But we also know the design itself was intentionally functional. Boruto’s outfit is littered with objects he likely has placed flying ring markers on; none of those accessories are random.

That brings me to the glove itself. Boruto only has one hand glove, and there isn’t an answer as to why he suddenly started wearing a glove on his hand, which is very much something intentional. I’m not saying he’s got the Rinnegan, but allow me to explain. Please think about it for a second. Boruto, he’s on the run right now. Wouldn’t it make sense for him to cover up the hand with the Karma seal to make it harder to identify him? One thing is that the glove is not on the hand with the Karma seal. So, he was running away with Sasuke for a whole year. Sasuke is smart enough to know that growing your hair in a way that covers up that scar on your eye might not be enough, so let’s cover up that Karma seals, too, so you don’t stick out. Yet, Boruto wasn’t wearing a glove in the flashback for chapter 5. That’s a detail I haven’t seen people bring up enough. That is why it’s intentional. The whole outfit he got afterwards changed, and everything about his outfit afterwards became highly functional when he was training with Sasuke. This one, all the accessories, serves a purpose. The only thing solely based on the narrative and nothing else that makes the most sense is that it’s because he’s got a Rinnegan on his palm. It would line up with the other Otsutsuki vessels, which have Otsutsuki’s dominant power in one eye. At a bare minimum, Boruto having it, on the other hand, that doesn’t have the Karma seal, makes the most sense, especially given that Boruto and Momoshiki are in uncharted territory. Boruto, on top of being 100% Otsutsuki, there’s precedent for that to be the case—people being 100% Otsutsuki—multiple Otsutsuki have had vessels in the past that had 100% data. But it should be worth noting that we have never seen an Otsutsuki whose soul is directly attached to their vessel’s soul to the point that their consciousness bleeds over where they switch back and forth like tag team partners in pro wrestling. Isshiki did not do that with Jigen. Isshiki is physically inside Jigen’s body, whereas Momoshiki is a soul attached to Boruto’s soul. If that ends up being a byproduct, it makes more sense for the narrative that he has something special with his hand.

However, as we are now, with this not being addressed, even with a throwaway line, I think the story is making a huge mistake. I hope that someone on the editing team for Shueisha, who is assigned to the titles of V Jump magazine, has noted this, but that remains to be seen. For now, all we can do is wait with bated breath while you’re waiting for the answer. To read more in-depth analyses and stay updated with the latest discussions on Boruto: Two Blue Vortex, visit our home page.