Japan’s Forced Opening to the West

Introduction

In a previously released post that I published on r/BorutoMangaEFC, “Art Never Emerges in a Vacuum,” I talked about the relationship between art and its environment. I discussed whether art is influenced by the artist’s surroundings and argued that jutsu (art) in the Naruto/Boruto world behaves the same way as art in the real world. An introductory example would be Japanese kaiju films, which emerged in and through a historical context: the atomic bomb attacks by the United States during World War II on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and their destructive power. The kaiju films created afterward show giant monsters with the ability to destroy entire cities — the most famous of them being Godzilla. In other words, art does not emerge in a vacuum; rather, it is born from the rib of its environment.

Technological Progress in the Boruto Manga and Other Media

Since the 17th century, Japan’s contact with the outside world was heavily restricted. In 1853, the forced opening to the West began with the arrival of the “Black Ships” under U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry. Through this opening, many things changed in Japan, including rapid technological development, and the country quickly reached the same technological level as the West. In a short time, Japan developed from an isolated state into a modern industrial nation and major power in order to compete with Western countries. The rapid technological progress in the Boruto manga is not exclusive. The Legend of Korra experienced something similar: there too, technology advanced extremely quickly in a short amount of time. Another example that comes to mind is Paradis Island in the Attack on Titan manga, which undergoes rapid technological development thanks to knowledge from more advanced nations. There are certainly many more examples in manga or films that follow a similar pattern. It seems reasonable to assume that this rapid technological progress in Japanese media (or Japanese-inspired media) is also based on the environment surrounding these works, and can be traced back to Japan’s forced opening to the West.

The Arrogant Westerners (Ōtsutsuki)

One thing the Boruto manga demonstrates is that the Ōtsutsuki are, in every respect, more advanced than the humans of Earth. The Ōtsutsuki could represent the Western immigrants who were naturally more advanced than the Japanese at that time. Their sense of superiority and their arrogance could have been inspired by these Western newcomers, as well as by Western nobility who visited Japan. A good example of their technological superiority is the Vanishing Rasengan, which must be thrown and appears extremely primitive next to Momoshiki’s developed Rasendan, which resembles a pistol and is therefore far more advanced than something that needs to be physically thrown. Jūra’s jūbidama continue this idea of technological superiority — on one hand he represents an AI, and on the other hand his jūbidama variations resemble a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and a rocket launcher, all of which are weapons. It may be that this technological difference is also inspired by Japan’s forced opening to the West.

The Last Shinobi

For those who know me: I am a huge fan of the Flashforward, so here are a few words about it. In the Flashforward, we see people talking about the end of the shinobi era and a Boruto who emphasizes that he is still one. Because of the rapid technological progress that resulted from Japan’s forced opening to the West, samurai became obsolete, and their era ended shortly after. The end of the samurai period is a popular era for samurai films. Those familiar with cowboy movies or the Red Dead Redemption series know that the same happened to cowboys. What I am trying to say is that the Boruto manga is heading toward exactly this kind of transitional period: the end of the shinobi. And in that sense, Boruto is “the last shinobi,” similar to samurai or cowboys who lived in this transitional phase.

Conclusion

Just like in my previously mentioned post “Art Never Emerges in a Vacuum,” I wanted to point out with this post how strongly the environment influences art. In the same way that the atomic bomb shaped kaiju films, this principle also applies to the art within the Naruto/Boruto manga. I can highly recommend reading this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/BorutoMangaEFC/comments/1osrama/supporting_shadow_kaukage_from_jiraiya_to_sasuke/ I hope you enjoyed this historical context on the rapid technological progress in Japanese media. If you know other works that show something similar, feel free to share them in the comments, because I am very interested in them.

Try This Mini Experiment:

I wrote this post myself, but I used ChatGPT to translate it from German to English. Now it’s your turn to test ChatGPT directly! I’ve prepared a question you can copy, paste, and experiment with yourself. (The “…” is where you can insert any media you want.) Question for ChatGPT:

Is there a connection between Japan’s forced opening to the West and the rapid technological progress shown in Japanese or Japan-inspired media, such as The Legend of Korra, the Boruto manga, Attack on Titan and the technological developments on Paradis, …?