I recently begun reading the BORUTO: ~NARUTO Next Generations~ comic series and while reading Chapters #26-27 (the latter half of Volume #7) it struck me how these chapters really illustrated just how little the series is like Dragon Ball. In fact, it more often than not feels like an anti-Dragon Ball series. Dragon Ball wishes to remain forever a child, NARUTO welcomes becoming the parent with open arms.
NARUTO has this strange reputation for being a generic shounen but I think both within the second half of the original series and now in BORUTO where Naruto his an adult and the Hokage it's very fascinating to see scenes framed like this were Uzumaki Naruto is very much an adult.
Spoiler:
There's a tendency to place Uzumaki Naruto within the same ranks as a character among Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece) or Son Gokuu (Dragon Ball) but the character just doesn't share any major traits with those characters in his development as a character. There are no scenes like this in One Piece or Dragon Ball and in fact the tone of the dialogue and paneling feels much more close to an episode of Star Trek where the captain of the ship must make a moral argument to prevent the abandonment of a child simply because he is wanted by a private organization wishing to reclaim him for their evil deeds.
Spoiler:
I suppose if any scene from Dragon Ball beckons back to this sort of moral quandry it is in Blooma wanting to use the Dragon Balls to find Doctor Gero and stop him now instead of waiting three years for him to create the Artificial Humans that will supposedly kill them all. A key difference, however, is that Dragon Ball doesn't play such a quandry seriously, it acts with irreverance for the sake of a gag. Such is generally the flow and vibe of Dragon Ball as a whole that has spanded 39 years now and one that its supposed supposed successors do not seek to continue.
The character dynamics in the below panels really fascinate me. This isn't the sort of scene you would get from Naruto in early Part I (let alone the Son Gokuu of Dragon Ball), which so many people seem to think of when they think of Naruto as a leading character (or your generic post-Dragon Ball battle shounen protagonist). It is in this that Uzumaki Naruto breaks free of the structure of the battle shounen.
Spoiler:
If anything, I feel like in what—in the grand scheme of things—few 'battle shounen' series I have read or watched Dragon Ball has served as a core, spiritual inspiration or successor very, very little. I would even propose that the idea that modern Dragon Ball has supposedly taken so much inspiration from the works that it inspired is false. Dragon Ball remains at its core unchanged and any Easter egg winks at the franchise's younger contemporaries are purely surface layer.
Earlier in this slap-dash essay I proposed that in contrast to Dragon Ball and Gokuu the character of Naruto had steadily grown out of the mold of your generic 'battle shounen' boy to become 'the parent'. I mean this both in-universe in that Naruto wanted a family but also within the out-of-universe context of Uzumaki Naruto now fulfilling the role of parent to both reader and the character archetype. Gokuu has mostly refrained from ever assuming that sort of dual-role, save for brief moments during the battle with Raditz. Once Gokuu's love of battle is justified in-universe as being a result of his Saiyan heritage and that Saiyans aren't very family-focused I find that the character began to lose a lot of nuiance, perhaps as Toriyama brought the character closer to himself.
We know from interviews with NARUTO writer and illustrator Kishimoto Masashi that when he made Naruto a parent he did so with the intention of imbuing him with flaws and a character arc based on his own regrets about allowing his mangaka career to keep him away from his family. This is readily apparent in BORUTO: NARUTO The Movie (2015), story by Kishimoto himself. It's the sort of self-autobiographical storytelling that the Dragon Ball franchise has always vehemetly kept away from.
Similarly, the Son Gokuu character from Dragon Ball is often away from his family but we have little insight into Toriyama's own decision to write Gokuu as such beyond simply not wanting Gokuu or the Dragon Ball series itself to carry any sort of thematic resonance. It's a boring role to cast Gokuu in so often and so thoroughly and one that grows less charming with age. In contrast to Dragon Ball, NARUTO is very intrigued by the subject of parenthood, exploring it both through Naruto's relationships with Iruka, Jiraiya, his own father Minato and then most recently exploring the subject through Naruto's relationships with his own sons, Boruto and adopted son Kawaki. It's a recipe for scenes and character building that definitely would not have been heavily inspired by anything Dragon Ball did:
Spoiler:
The longer that Dragon Ball has gone on the more I feel like Gokuu has become removed from any degree of relatability or 'realness' in terms of adding variety to his character and his everyday life. I can certainly see, say, Monkey D. Luffy having a similar approach but with a character like Naruto—the NARUTO franchise being arguably right behind One Piece as a supposed 'Dragon Ball successor'—the character remains fallibillty both in-and-out-of-universe. In what way, you ask? A mix of getting annoyed at things and a mix of actually using his life experience to nurture the next generation.
Spoiler:
A big weakness that has bothered me about Dragon Ball the older I've gotten is how often it runs from assuming responsibility for what it puts out into the world (the treatment of its female and queer characters). NARUTO absolutely has the same issues but one clear difference between it and Dragon Ball and one that I think absolutely disqualifies it from being a 'successor' to Dragon Ball is how it is at its core a series first-and-foremost about characters and growing up. Dragon Ball—despite marrying Gokuu off and giving him two children—has very much never really openly tackled the relationship between its lead character and their sons. Naruto—especially in most recent storylines—very much is about tackling the idea that its lead character changed and became a parent. As Dragon Ball is now I don't think anyone could imagine a dialogue like the one Naruto has with Kawaki or Boruto like the ones in BORUTO: ~NARUTO Next Generations~ Chapters #26-27.
I'll end this post here, since I have other things to do right now. I hope my position came through clearly, I'm quite tired right now lulz
