Naruto: Why doesn't Boruto have Byakugan?

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations is a sequel to the original Naruto series. The show is quite popular since it revolves around Naruto’s son, and the path he chooses as a shinobi. The fanbase is quite active and constantly engages in various discussions that take place on various social media platforms and forums such as Twitter and Reddit.

Boruto also has a younger sister named Himawari, who has the Byakugan. Fans made an interesting observation and tried to decipher why the series' protagonist doesn’t have the Byakugan just like his sister does. This certainly confused the entire fanbase since the protagonist didn’t have the Byakugan and had the Jougan. While the reason behind this wasn’t explored in the series, certain speculations pave the way for a decent explanation to this phenomenon. Here’s what we know about the protagonist’s ocular jutsu in the series.

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Naruto: Possible reason why Boruto doesn’t have the Byakugan

The real reason why Naruto's son doesn’t have the Byakugan is a lot more anticlimactic than fans initially anticipated. When this was a topic of discussion during the earlier episodes of the series, fans tried to theorize by attempting to connect the most complex possibilities. However, the real reason is far simpler, and some fans even found it quite hilarious. The main reason why Boruto does not have a Byakugan is simply because Kishimoto, author of the titular manga, forgot to give it to him.

In an interview, he admitted that he forgot to give the protagonist a Byakugan and that he intended on both the siblings having that eye. A good chunk of the fanbase tried theorizing by saying that the Byakugan needed to be activated or developed before it could be visible. However, that isn’t the case because anyone that has the Hyuga genes and inherited the eyes will have the Byakugan from the time of their birth. Therefore, that entire theory could not be used for this scenario.

A few fans might argue that Kishimoto could have fixed that mistake and could have given the protagonist Byakugan. What people didn’t realize was that this mistake was made in chapter 700 of the series. At that point in time, the movie was far ahead in terms of development and it was impossible to redo all of the animation that was produced already. The Last: Naruto The Movie was already in the production stages which forced Kishimoto to adopt another strategy instead of fixing Boruto in that series. When fans first heard about this, they felt disappointed and thought that Kishimoto had something in mind with regards to the plot.

That being said, fans weren’t really able to believe Kishimoto and didn’t know if he was joking. This is understandable because something like Boruto’s eyes being different due to a mistake seemed a little far-fetched. While the entire Boruto: Naruto Next Generations fanbase could come up with possible reasons why this could be a calculated change, the fact remains that the original mangaka of the series admitted the truth in an interview. Many characters have mentioned that the protagoinst has a “troublesome eye” and it will be interesting to see how the plot explores that aspect of the story.