12 Years Later, Naruto Shippuden’s Worst Arc Of All Time Proves Fans Have Been Sleeping On Boruto

Naruto’s sprawling anime output from its original series through Naruto: Shippuden have always been known to have enormous portions of filler breaking up its stories. While this provided occasional welcome interludes between major arcs, Naruto: Shippuden’s particularly egregious moments came with filler arcs cropping up between pivotal moments of the Fourth Great Ninja War. While this was the inevitable byproduct of a weekly anime needing to break away from demanding canon content while continuing to entertain the masses, one such wasteful Naruto: Shippuden arc was that of Mecha-Naruto.

Mecha-Naruto’s filler arc spanned just two episodes, Naruto: Shippuden episodes #366-377, directly following the start of Kakashi and Obito’s clash in the Fourth Great Ninja War. It’s ostensibly not the worst-animated arc by any means, and in fact its redeeming fun factor and gut-busting humor are pretty memorable. But it also feels like a tonally inconsistent fever dream born out of fan-fiction, pandering to nostalgic viewers while oddly sprinkling in vaguely Astro Boy or even MCU vibes throughout. But despite its flaws and unfortunate placement, Mecha-Naruto’s premise-defying technology ages better in light of Naruto’s sequel.

Naruto: Shippuden’s Worst Filler Arc Works Surprisingly Well as Boruto’s Story Expands

Mecha-Naruto is, conceptually, a piece of technology capable of replicating ninja abilities, bypassing training and unleashing hell on their own. In Mecha-Naruto’s case, he is built specifically to mimic the Gedo Statue’s function of capturing the Nine-Tails for Orochimaru, while the second episode’s reveal of a Mecha-Nine-Tails (or Mecha-Kurama) is pretty much purely there to wreak havoc. It can consume chakra and use attacks and forms from the Tailed Beasts, making it bear amusing similarities to Boruto’s Scientific Ninja Tools, namely the Advanced Technology Type.

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations sees its world in a more optimistic place with technology and infrastructure improving vastly during an era of peace. While introduced with poor reception to its implications at first, with Boruto Uzumaki infamously using its jutsu-mimicking potential to cheat in the Chunin Exams, Scientific Ninja Tools have taken a welcome place. This is especially the case by Naruto Next Generations chapter #18.

Mecha-Naruto resembles the higher-tech elements of Boruto’s Scientific Ninja Tools, albeit obviously as an unintentional filler gag in the vein of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Despite existing far outside the norm of Naruto’s world, Boruto’s concepts indicate Mecha-Naruto could be regarded as a crude predecessor to future tech.

Scientific Ninja Tools may not have humanoid robots that oddly have Iron Man-style interiors for human wearers, but they do feature robotic prosthetics like for Ao, and synthetic toads for Koji Kashin as an obvious nod to his template, Jiraiya. They have proven highly useful as tools in the world of Boruto, and while Mecha-Naruto finished itself off alongside Mecha-Kurama, they would have hypothetically made far more sense in Boruto’s anime. However, it’s not merely the tech that was jarring or unusual about this particular Naruto: Shippuden filler.

Mecha-Naruto Was an Odd Time-Wasting Filler Arc Loaded with Fan-Service

The Mecha-Naruto Arc takes place just as Naruto is training to develop his Wind Release chakra to eventually create the Rasen Shuriken. It’s a distractingly simpler time in Konoha, where the village hadn’t yet been ravaged by Pain, Sasuke hadn’t rebelled yet against Orochimaru, and Neji was still alive and hadn’t died a mere twelve episodes prior. But as Orochimaru’s synthetic threat reaches Konoha to harvest the Nine-Tails from Naruto, chaos ensues.

Mecha-Naruto is exactly like it sounds: a robotic facsimile of Naruto Uzumaki, albeit with the ability to transform into what can only be referred to as Dr. Robotnik secondary forms as Naruto tries to lure it away from the village to prevent collateral damage. It’s loaded with fan-service, including a return of the Sasuke Retrieval Mission crew, the obligatory Shino snub, and even a welcome Jiraiya cameo. For those who dearly missed Neji and Jiraiya, their appearances in this episode are very eerie, especially with Neji so frequently brought to comical tears as his comrades are picked off in slapstick fashion, with him hilariously phoning it in instead of delivering the usual Neji seriousness.

It’s a distinctly unserious arc, and at times it feels almost cheap how many nostalgic moments there are, including Sakura calling out to Naruto amid Konoha’s flaming wreckage much like during Pain’s attack. But it’s also oddly self-aware, with Naruto handing Sakura a flower to protect, while offering a lobotomized heroic speech about protecting the girl who protects the flower. It’s nonsense and total popcorn filler, complete with a sick Yamato rocketing himself into space with his own vomit and Mecha-Naruto getting an Astro Boy-style sacrificial sendoff.

There’s a lot of nonsense and tonal whiplash, with dead characters being played up nonchalantly in a pair of episodes directly following a heated, fateful clash of former allies. However, the Mecha-Naruto Arc is a reminder of how good the Naruto: Shippuden anime’s team was even when working on totally absurd filler.

The animation is surprisingly decent, the slapstick humor is a worthwhile distraction if viewers open themselves up to it, and the visuals shockingly hold up well. Its placement in the anime’s run is godawful, but its nonsensical tech has aged considerably well entirely by accident. While Boruto: Two Blue Vortex will likely never bring Mecha-Naruto back, Naruto: Shippuden’s worst filler still has its place in some viewers’ hearts. It’s arguably still not good, but not without its entertainment value by any stretch.

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  First Film

  Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow

  Latest Film

  Boruto: Naruto the Movie

  First TV Show

  Naruto

  Latest TV Show

  Boruto: Naruto Next Generations

  First Episode Air Date

  
  October 3, 2002
  

  Cast

  Junko Takeuchi, Maile Flanagan, Noriaki Sugiyama, Chie Nakamura, Kazuhiko Inoue, Nana Mizuki, Hideo Ishikawa, Yûko Sanpei

  Naruto is a franchise spawned from the manga series penned by Masashi Kishimoto that began in 1999. Generating several tv series, games, movies, and more, Naruto follows the exploits of a young outcast ninja harboring the spirit of a demon fox who seeks to become the Hokage, the leader of his ninja village, to break the stigma against him. Upon the conclusion of the initial series, Naruto expanded into Boruto, following many series protagonists’ children and returning faces.

  
  

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  Created by

  Masashi Kishimoto, Ukyo Kodachi, Mikio Ikemoto

  First Film

  Boruto: Naruto the Movie

  Latest Film

  Boruto: Naruto the Movie

  First TV Show

  Boruto: Naruto Next Generations

  Latest TV Show

  Boruto: Naruto Next Generations

  First Episode Air Date

  
  April 5, 2017
  

  Boruto is the sequel to the Naruto franchise, created by Masashi Kishimoto and illustrated by Mikio Ikemoto. It follows Boruto Uzumaki, Naruto’s son, as he navigates the challenges of being the Hokage’s child while forging his path as a ninja. The series explores the evolving world of shinobi and introduces new generations of characters while maintaining the franchise’s core themes of friendship, perseverance, and legacy.