Boruto: Why Is Sasuke Fighting a Dinosaur? Menō’s Story Explained!
Sasuke Uchiha is one of the most important characters in the whole Naruto franchise. The antihero of the series, Sasuke, has been it all – the villain, the hero, and, finally, an antihero that beautifully complements Naruto’s heroic ideals. On top of that, Sasuke is also one of the strongest characters in the whole series. Now, seeing how amazing Sasuke Uchiha is and how great his story actually is, we have to discuss some of the elements that incorporate it. In this article, we will talk about the Sasuke Retsuden Arc as we will tell you how Sasuke Uchiha ended up fighting a living dinosaur in this arc, adapted from the light novel of the same name.
After Sasuke Uchiha infiltrated the Astronomy Research Institute as a prisoner to find a way to heal Naruto, he discovered that the Institute’s director, Zansūru, was actually using a living velociraptor called Menō as a guardian in prison. Menō was usually in charge of killing potential escapees, but he also clashed with Sasuke on several occasions before, ultimately becoming Sasuke’s friend in the end.
In this article, we are going to tell you what happened to Sasuke Uchiha and how he ended up imprisoned inside the Astronomy Research Institute, where he fought a living, sentient velociraptor. 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 Sasuke clashed with a dinosaur. 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 was Sasuke fighting a dinosaur in the Sasuke Retsuden Arc?
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 aging Institute provides little comfort to the prisoners housed there; the cells lack furniture, the clothing is inadequate for the bitter winter, and all prisoners—regardless of their level—must undertake arduous physical labor. Unhealthy condition of being. The convicts are fed food with minimal nutritional value, and their welfare is not given much consideration by the guards at the Institute.
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 believes they can scale the prison walls, escape, and forage for food until they reach civilized areas. The man is informed by Sasuke that his prospects of survival are limited, and he declines to accompany him. Sasuke responds that he chose to be here when the man wonders why he doesn’t at least try to flee.
The man is persuaded by Sasuke’s assertion that Sasuke is a fool, and he departs, leaving Sasuke to his fate. He moves toward the prison walls, convinced that the guards are too unconcerned with their duties to pursue the escaping inmates. Men are the only real hindrance, but the guy is hoping that the seasonal fog will hide his movements so that the dragon won’t see them. After starting to scale the wall, he eventually reaches the summit. The man is pleased with himself because he anticipated that this trip would exhaust him much more than it actually 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 we saw that dinosaur, a velociraptor called Menō. Menō was then revealed to be the Institute’s guardian, who was in charge of discipline within the prison. Zansūru, the director, was controlling Menō, as Menō seemed to be fiercely loyal to him. Now, while Zansūru initially did vouch for Sasuke after he beat up some inmates, claiming it was self-defense, Sasuke did meet with Menō while he was actually trying to figure out how it was even possible for Menō to be alive, as such Summonings usually don’t work that long.
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. But, to Sasuke’s surprise, the following day, Menō was alive and well, with Zansūru approaching him and warning him that he should not snoop around, or he might end up getting in trouble. Later during the day, after taking a beating by the human guards, he was once attacked by Menō, who managed to poison Sasuke with his fangs, which prompted Sasuke to run away; Sakura, who had infiltrated the Institute to help Sasuke, found him, healed him, and took a sample of the poison for further analysis.
Sasuke did not clash with Menō again until the very end of the story, as he continued his research while avoiding being caught by Menō. As Sasuke’s research continued, he also discovered Zansūru’s true plan. Namely, the prisoners inside the 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.
As he was about to face Zansūru, they discovered that he had managed to revive numerous larger and even some flying dinosaurs. As Sasuke was about to confront him, he was attacked by Menō, but Sasuke 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. And while Zansūru was sure that the larger dinosaurs would defeat the velociraptor, the latter took care of them with relative ease as he gained an additional power boost from Sasuke. Jiji volunteered to take care of Sasuke while giving 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. This is going to be a pivotal fact later on.
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.
Who is Menō in Boruto and how was he alive?
Now that you know Menō’s story and the reason behind his existence, we still owe you an explanation of how Menō was even alive in the story, along with all the other dinosaurs we’ve seen. We are going to do that in this final section of our article. And, as we have explained, it was all thanks to 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.
As Zansūru was not a shinobi, he required Jiji to revive the dead for him, or, more specifically, Jiji’s Impure World Reincarnation Technique. Jiji went to the Astronomy Research Institute, where Zansūru had discovered a means to bring the dead back to life. They named the dinosaur (or dragon) Menō, which Jiji restored and tasked with watching after the inmates held in the Institute. After a year of working with Zansūru, Menō was still the only dragon they had managed to resurrect. Jiji was getting ready to go back to Margo when he learned of her passing, at which point he completely lost all will to live.
Then Zansūru proposed that Margo may be revived using the same jutsu that had been utilized to bring back Menō. He would locate Margo’s corpse and resurrect her if Jiji continued to assist him in building an army of dragons that had been raised from the dead. 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.