When Will The Rest of Boruto's Episodes Be Dubbed?? (2024)

With Season 1 of the Boruto anime finished, Western fans of the Boruto English dub have been left scratching their heads -- again. There's little communication between Japanese producers and Western distributors, and even less between those distributors and audiences. This leaves the future of the Boruto dubbed release for streaming audiences up in the air.

The history of Boruto's English dub is controversial, as English dubs can sometimes be. This is mainly due to fans being subjected to restarts, contract changes and even streaming complications. Due to a combination of surprisingly low Western ratings, a tenuous global distribution relationship and a whopping COVID-19 delay, the Boruto English dub has struggled to reach viewers for some time.

Updated by Timothy Blake Donohoo on February 5, 2024: Boruto is one of the most popular current manga series running, but its anime has had several issues. This is especially the case with Western fans, as the Boruto English dub does not cover the entire series so far. Streaming doesn't make the Boruto dub any more accessible, unfortunately. Likewise, the biggest home for the franchise beyond streaming hasn't brought the series back for broadcast, making it far harder to watch than its predecessor.

How Many Episodes of Boruto Have Been Dubbed?

The controversy surrounding the Boruto English dub began with its initial distribution by Adult Swim, which released the first 52 episodes on Toonami before dropping the series from the programming block. Although the Boruto dub began with a reasonable ~50 episode gap between its subbed counterpart, after being forced to restart the release via VIZ Media's home-release schedule and a COVID-19 delay, the dub was sluggish.

VIZ was finally able to get things back to normal, as the company managed to release two box-sets in 2023, each of them containing 21 dubbed episodes. As of now, the Boruto English dub has released up through episode 231 via the aforementioned VIZ system's box set collections. Dubbed Boruto box sets usually contain thirteen episodes per collection and cost around $45-$50 per box set, but the most recent two each had 21 episodes.

Likewise, online streaming platforms seemed as though they were finally starting to pick up the pace and catch up on releasing English dubbed episodes, but even that ground to a halt. At this time it is difficult to assess when more Boruto will be dubbed, as the most recent box set from VIZ Media was released in June 2023.

Where to Stream the Boruto English Dub

Despite the steady release of dubbed Boruto dubbed episodes from VIZ -- currently up to "Otsusuki Awakening" arc of the story -- many fans are finding it difficult to stream the dubbed episodes. This includes doing so with paid streaming services. Often, legitimate platforms offer only so many episodes of the dub, causing some to mistakenly believe production has ceased entirely. However, the culprit is often licensing issues.

One legitimate platform that seems to have disappointed fans of the Boruto dub in the past is the Disney-controlled streaming service, Hulu. Hulu originally garnered a slew of complaints regarding its lackluster release of the English dub. Since its announcement in January 2021, Hulu has finally begun catching up to the demand, but it seems to have slowed again in 2023. To date Hulu has only released dubbed episodes up through 155, "Mitsuki's Rainy Day."

Many subscribers to the Funimation and Crunchyroll streaming services across international markets have fared worse, as there have been unilateral reports of the addition, and subsequent removal, of some licensed Boruto episodes. Following the acquisition of Madman, Funimation eliminated the previous platform, AnimeLab. It's now offering only sporadic dub episodes from the full catalog or, in some regions, none at all. Conversely, Crunchyroll does not have any of the Boruto dub available.

At present, there are 231 of the 294 dubbed episodes of Boruto Season 1. Only 155 dubbed episodes are presently available on Hulu. This means that English-preferring audiences who want to stream will have to wait to catch up on the 139 un-dubbed episodes that finish out the rest of Season 1. Boruto has been on hiatus since March 2023, and there's no word on when it will come back. Regardless of whether its dubbed or subbed, the Boruto anime has long since been contentious among fans, especially when compared to its predecessor, Naruto.

Fans Have Had Several Issues With the Boruto Anime

Even before the issues with the Boruto dub, the anime as a whole was controversial among fans. The biggest reason for this is the use of filler and the series' overall pacing, which is something even Naruto and Shippuden struggled with. The Boruto anime initially adapts the story of the movie, diverging quite a bit from the original manga. Far more lighthearted, it has a plethora of "anime-original" characters and storylines, many of which are involved in less serious storytelling. This includes Boruto himself, who acts a lot sillier in the anime than he did in the manga, adopting a personality that made it difficult for fans of his father to get behind. This also affects character development, with Boruto seeing character growth far more slowly than in the manga. Again, this is due to so much of the anime consisting of filler, meaning that story beats from the manga are essentially postponed.

New characters don't receive the necessary development or screentime, making those who initially seem important instead fall by the wayside. Even the series' power levels are fairly inconsistent, which has an impact on the fights. This is all the case regardless of whether fans are watching the Boruto dub or the original Japanese version, and it's made some prefer the manga as a way of continuining the Naruto storyline. That's without even getting into the animation issues with the series, many of which were so hard to accept that longtime fans of the Naruto franchise couldn't understand how such a major series could be treated so poorly. Add in the fact that the Boruto English dub is incomplete, and it's perhaps the most inefficient way of enjoying the series.

Loyal fans continue to hold out hope for things like improvements in the production and animation, and even dubs for the rest of the undubbed episodes on streaming. For many, however, it sometimes feels as though the Boruto anime itself is simply a means to continue cashing in on the success of its predecessors. The manga, which many believe got off to a slow start, has a loyal following and a compelling enough story that fans deserve to see it come to life in Big Three fashion, and that includes dubs for every episode.

Boruto

TV-14

Action

Adventure

Son of Naruto Uzumaki, Boruto, follows his father's footsteps along with his friends to become great ninja. Throughout all their adventures, Boruto is determined to make his mark in the ninja world and live outside of his father's shadow.

Release Date

April 5, 2017

Creator

Masashi Kishimoto

Cast

Amanda Céline Miller , Robbie Daymond , Maile Flanagan , Todd Haberkorn , Colleen O'Shaughnessey , Cherami Leigh , Max Mittelman , Melissa Fahn , Stephanie Sheh , Billy Kametz

Main Genre

Anime

Seasons

26

Studio

Pierrot

Franchise

Naruto

Writers

Masashi Kishimoto

Number of Episodes

297

Streaming Service(s)

Hulu , Crunchyroll , Amazon Prime Video