Why Are There Dinosaurs in Boruto? Explained!
The Sasuke Retsuden: The Uchiha Descendants and the Heavenly Stardust light novel was one of the best “retsuden” works in the series. It was, in fact, so good that it ended up being adapted as a standalone anime arc in Boruto. And while the story of the light novel has provided us with some major thrills and discoveries, one of the biggest question marks appeared when suddenly, a bunch of dinosaurs started appearing in the story. Now, in this article, we are going to reveal why there are dinosaurs in Boruto.
The Prime Minister of the Land of Redaku and his loyal archaeologist, Zansūru, found a way to create a powerful army by reviving dinosaur fossils excavated in the land. They hired the shinobi Jiji, who used the Impure World Reincarnation Technique to revive the fossils into living dinosaurs that Zansūru later used as his loyal army, after the Prime Minister’s death.
In this article, we are going to tell you what happened inside the Astronomy Research Institute, where Sasuke fought a living, sentient velociraptor and met other living dinosaurs as well. We are going to go over the whole story involving the Astronomy Research Institute and tell you, in more detail, what happened and how it was possible that dinosaurs appeared in this story. If you’re not fully up-to-date with the story of Boruto, we have to warn you that there will be spoilers in this article.
Why are there dinosaurs in Boruto?
In order to properly answer this question, we have to tell you a bit about Sasuke Retsuden: The Uchiha Descendants and the Heavenly Stardust light novel and the story depicted in it. The story starts with the Astronomy Research Institute, located very close to Redaku Country’s boundaries, on the top of a very high mountain. The Institute was established as a haven for study by Janmâru-Tataru, who was an ally of the Sage of the Six Paths. The Institute now houses Redaku criminals after being a prison for centuries. The outdated Institute offers little solace to the inmates held there; the quarters are unfurnished, the clothing is insufficient for the chilly winter, and all inmates—regardless of their level—must perform demanding physical labor. An unhealthy state of being. The guards at the Institute do not give much thought to the welfare of the prisoners, who are served food with little nutritious value.
A man who just arrived at the Institute and is currently serving a three-year term for the murder of a family has had enough and has made arrangements to leave. He approaches Sasuke Uchiha, prisoner #487, and requests assistance over breakfast. The man inquires about Sasuke’s status as a shinobi, stating that he had attended a ninja academy when he was younger and still possesses some degree of chakra mastery. The man thinks they can scale the walls of the prison, getaway, and hunt for food until they get to a civilized place. Sasuke informs the man that his chances of survival are slim, and he refuses to go with him. When the man asks why he doesn’t at least try to flee, Sasuke replies that he decided to stay here.
Sasuke’s claim that the man is a fool convinces the man, and he decides to leave Sasuke to face his fate. He travels toward the direction of the prison walls since he believes the guards are too carefree to pursue the escaped inmates. The only real obstacle is mankind, but the person is counting on the seasonal fog to obscure his movements so the dragon won’t see them. He begins to climb the wall and ultimately reaches the top. The man feels good about himself because he thought this excursion would wear him out much more than it did. Men are waiting for him when he descends on the opposite side of the wall. Suddenly, a dinosaur tackles the man as he desperately tries to climb back up the wall and kills him.
This was the first time that a living dinosaur was seen in the Boruto series, and it was sort of a shock and a very big surprise if you ask us. The dinosaur in question was a velociraptor, whose name was revealed to be Menō; at that point, he seemed to be the only representative of his species. Menō was soon revealed to be the Institute’s guardian, who was in charge of discipline within the prison, which was strange enough in itself, but the story became weirder with every passing moment.
Namely, we soon found out that Zansūru, the Institute’s director, was actually controlling Menō, as Menō seemed to be fiercely loyal to him; no reason was provided at the time. And while Zansūru initially did vouch for Sasuke after he beat up some inmates, affirming that it was all done in self-defense, Sasuke clashed with Menō once more while he was actually trying to figure out how it was even possible for Menō to be alive because he knows that such Summonings usually don’t work for a long(er) period of time.
The battle began. Sasuke was a better fighter, of course, but after seeing that the dinosaur was immune to his genjutsu, he had to slice off its talons and cut open its chest, effectively killing it. And while everyone thought Meno was gone, to Sasuke’s surprise, the shinobi saw – the next day – that Menō was alive and well. Director Zansūru then approached Sasuke and warned him that he should not snoop around, warning him that he might get into trouble if he didn’t listen to his advice. Later in the day, Sasuke was once attacked by Menō, but this time, the latter succeeded in poisoning the shinobi with his fangs, which prompted Sasuke to run away; Sakura, who had also infiltrated the Institute to help Sasuke, found him, healed him, and took a sample of the poison for further analysis.
And while Sasuke successfully avoided Menō again until the end of the story, he continued his research into Naruto’s illness and the real operation that Zansūru was running behind the facade of the Institute/prison. As it usually is with thorough research, Sasuke managed to find out Zansūru’s true plan. Namely, the prisoners inside the prison/Institute were digging up ancient dinosaur (or dragon, as they are called in the story) fossils for Zansūru, who discovered how to revive them thanks to Jiji, and wanted to create a powerful dinosaur army for himself. The details will be provided in the next section. So, what happened next?
Well, as Sasuke was about to face Zansūru, they discovered that he had managed to revive numerous larger and even some flying dinosaurs, meaning that Menō was not the only one, as was previously thought. As Sasuke was about to attack Zansūru, Menō approached him from the back and attacked him, but the shinobi managed to calm Menō and make him his friend. This is how Zansūru and Jiji lost control over the velociraptor, who now joined the prisoners in their rebellion.
But, Zansūru and Jiji still had the other dinosaurs under their control. This resulted in Zansūru being certain that the larger dinosaurs would be able to defeat the velociraptor Menō with ease, but this did not go as Zansūru expected them to. Namely, to Zansūru’s surprise, Menō was able to take care of the larger dinosaurs with relative ease thanks to an additional power boost he had gained from Sasuke when the latter befriended him. Jiji then volunteered to take care of Sasuke, but with no success. At the same time, Jiji gave Zansūru control of the other dinosaurs, but there was a catch – since Zansūru was not the original summoner, these dinosaurs could take only one command at a time from him and if he issued another one, the former would be annulled, which meant that Zansūru had to be very careful.
As Jiji lost his fight, Sasuke and Menō went after Zansūru, who was planning to escape on a flying dinosaur named Titan; it was actually a long-necked dinosaur that resembled the Titanosaurus. They caught up to him, but Zansūru then used Titan’s height to jump onto pterosaur and ordered it to let it ride him. But, things soon became chaotic as Zansūru gave the flying dinosaur a second command. Namely, in order to shake his pursuers off, Zansūru ordered the flying dinosaur to soar higher. The dinosaur, of course, listened, but this annulled Zansūru’s earlier command so while obeying the first, the pterosaur refused to allow Zansūru to ride him anymore, shaking him off of him, which effectively killed him upon impact with the ground.
With Zansūru gone, Jiji finally gave up and cleared the whole situation. Sadly, this also resulted in Menō reverting back to his original fossil form, i.e., dying. He said goodbye to Sasuke as his soul drifted back into history, where it belonged in the first place.
How are the dinosaurs from Boruto alive?
Well, now that we have established the fact that the dinosaurs were actually extinct in Boruto, i.e., that the ones we saw were simply revived fossils, we should explain to you how it all actually happened and how the dinosaurs came back to life in the first place. The plan actually involved the then-Prime Minister of the Land of Redaku, his loyal archaeologist, Zansūru, and a Shinobi called Jiji.
Jiji was initially a Suna-based shinobi. Because Redaku had always been a peaceful nation without a history of warfare, the Prime Minister of the Land of Redaku engaged Jiji to train a ninja army a few years prior to the events of Sasuke Retsuden. Jiji visited Redaku’s capital when he fell in love with Margo, a maid. The Prime Minister learned of their relationship despite Jiji and Margo’s best efforts. He proposed allowing them to stay together in exchange for Jiji helping the Prime Minister’s devoted archaeologist Zansūru for a year. Jiji concurred and assured Margo he would return in a year.
Since Zansūru was not a shinobi, he required Jiji to revive the dead for him or, more specifically, to use his Impure World Reincarnation Technique. Jiji went to the Astronomy Research Institute, where Zansūru had discovered a way to bring the dead dinosaurs back to life. They conducted the first experiment, and the first successfully revived dinosaur was given the name (or dragon) Menō. Jiji managed to revive Menō and relinquished control over to Zansūru, who – in turn – tasked Menō with overseeing the inmates held in the Institute and maintaining order. After a year of working with Zansūru, Menō was still the only dragon they had managed to resurrect successfully, as the others died.
After a year, Jiji was prepared to go back to Margo, but he learned of her passing from an unknown illness, which made him completely lose the will to live. Then Zansūru proposed that Margo could be revived using the same jutsu that had been utilized to bring back Menō, but there was a catch. The scientist said he would locate Margo’s corpse and resurrect her, but Jiji would have to continue assisting him in building his army of dinosaurs (dragons) that the two of them would revive using the fossils. Jiji had never heard of Zansūru’s plans for a dragon army, but he didn’t care and welcomed them as long as he had another opportunity to see Margo. And it is how the dinosaurs, including Menō, were brought back to life in Boruto.