Honestly, when the concept aliens was brought into the Narutoverse, it really made me giddy and hopeful. Despite how successful Dragon Ball is and how much it influenced shonen, there's hardly, if any, shonen that truly captures the same or even a similar sci fi mixed with mysticism vibe the series had. Heck, even DBS fails to capture the essence of the DBZ, with it's crap power scaling and bland, uneventful, and no-stakes story lines (sans the Dark Goku Arc).
So now we have the potential of Naruto going down a similar route to DBZ, especially with the introduction of aliens (the Ootsutsuki), artificial humans (Kawaki, Shin, and Mitsuki), and technology (Scientific Chakra Tools). But no! The series instead focuses on the most MUNDANE plots in existence. Don't get me wrong, I am fine with practically every single episode that has come out so far, as, whether I enjoy the episode or not, I always welcome more world building and focus to other aspects of the series.
The problem is that this is all they are doing. Is it so hard for them to sprinkle an arc or two of the adults investigating the Ootsutsuki Ruins that haven't been brought up in like 30 episodes? Is it so hard to show Sasuke visiting alien worlds in search of the Ootsutsuki? Is it so hard to show small tidbits of the Ootsutsuki's travels across dimensions? And no, the excuse that any of these would contradict the manga is nonsense, considering all the other stuff in the anime that goes against the manga. Sprinkle one or two arcs like these in between the arcs that focus on Bolt and the other kids and you'd have a far more appealing series.
Bolt has one thing and one thing only going for it at the moment: Potential. You can have hope in the potential the series has laid out, but as things stand now, all we are getting is Ninja Arthur instead of Ninja DBZ.
