Momoshiki et Kinshiki : les Ôtsutsuki du film Boruto

Momoshiki and Kinshiki: The Otsutsuki of the Boruto Movie

4199 words | Reading time: 21 min

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Two Otsutsuki arrive from another world to harvest the Earth's chakra. The 2015 Boruto movie casts them as antagonists, a role the manga and the anime would later take up. Here is a close look at the master-and-guardian duo: Momoshiki, short, white-haired and with a god complex, endowed with the Byakugan and a Rinnegan in his palms; Kinshiki, a horned giant who wields red chakra blades before offering himself up as a pill to his master. Kurama targeted, the Chunin Exams attacked, and that Karma mark left on Boruto.

The chakra harvesters from another world, one of whom will mark Boruto forever: meet Momoshiki and Kinshiki Otsutsuki.

Contents

The Chakra Harvesters

Momoshiki and Kinshiki Otsutsuki are the two antagonists of Boruto: Naruto the Movie, the eleventh feature film in the series, written by Masashi Kishimoto with the help of Ukyo Kodachi and released in Japanese theaters on August 7, 2015. Both belong to the main family of the Otsutsuki clan, and not to a side branch. Momoshiki was sent to investigate what had become of Kaguya and her God Tree; Kinshiki accompanies him as his guardian, since Momoshiki is his adoptive son.

Momoshiki states their goal himself in the Konoha arena: gather Kaguya's scattered chakra to form a new Chakra Fruit, then cultivate it into a new "cinnabar panacea" meant to grant eternal youth and supernatural powers. The term refers to the elixir of immortality of Chinese tradition. For them it means completing what Kaguya never carried through: she had taken the fruit for herself alone and had grown attached to the planet she was supposed to drain.

The clan works by depletion. The Otsutsuki travel across dimensions in search of worlds where they can plant a Ten-Tails seedling: the seed becomes a God Tree whose roots siphon the chakra and the genetic material of everything around it, until the entire planet dies and the tree bears a fruit. Once eaten, that fruit gives them power and longevity; with the drained planet no longer of any use, they move on to the next one and start over (Boruto, chapter 45).

Immense black trunks rising from a desolate plateau, under a starry sky where a planet ringed with red floats, two white figures at the foot of the trees
God Trees planted on another world: the clan grows them to draw a Chakra Fruit from them, at the planet's expense.

What Kinshiki Had Seen of Kaguya's World

What comes before the movie exists only in the anime and in the third novel of the Boruto collection, Those Who Illuminate the Night of Shinobi!, where Kinshiki returns from an inspection of the world of Kaguya to report back to Momoshiki, who is busy eating a chakra fruit on a planet he has just destroyed and whose civilization he judges to be low-level. He has noted significant tears and a spatial curvature above 16, an anomaly Kaguya should have reported to the clan.

Momoshiki draws two hypotheses from this: either she betrayed the clan, or she was overthrown and destroyed by the "inferior life forms" that populate her world. The second interests him enough that he orders their departure, hoping that this world is brimming with chakra worth consuming. None of this scene belongs to the manga: it comes from the layer the anime adaptation added to the movie.

On the Earth side, the threat is set up even before the movie. Sasuke has been investigating from Kaguya's castle, where everything is in advanced decay except a scroll clearly shielded from time, one his Rinnegan cannot decipher — the novelization dwells on that detail. It is the scale of Kaguya's preparations against them, going as far as raising a new army of White Zetsu, that leads him to judge them more dangerous than she was, a conclusion confirmed by scrolls found in one of her dimensions (Naruto, chapter 700+5, page 9).

A gigantic, very pale female face, with long dark locks falling on either side and a ringed red eye in the middle of the forehead, towers over tight rows of hundreds of identical small humanoid figures lined up to the horizon, in midnight blue light.
Kaguya and her army of White Zetsu: it is the scale of her preparations against the clan that leads Sasuke to judge the Otsutsuki more dangerous than she is.

Killer Bee, the First Target on Earth

Before Konoha, the duo goes after Killer Bee, the perfect jinchuriki of Gyuki. The movie shows them in Kumogakure: they extract the beast's chakra, hit Bee with his own Tailed Beast Bomb, then throw him into a ravine to leave him there to die — he makes it back to the surface with the help of the Eight-Tails (Hachibi). The manga and the anime detail the exchange: attacked, Bee transforms, Kinshiki pins him down, Momoshiki absorbs the Tailed Beast Bomb and sends it back at him amplified, then converts the Tailed Beast's chakra into pills.

Bee survives; the anime's epilogue reports him back in Kumogakure, through Shikamaru. The stolen chakra, for its part, does not disappear: the God Tree of the dimension where Naruto will be held was grown from that of the Eight-Tails, episode 64 specifies. During the extraction, Kinshiki explains as much, saying that this tree was born from a man who also carried a Tailed Beast, and Naruto understands who is meant.

The stolen Bomb will serve again. The novelization specifies that the one thrown at Naruto in the arena had been stolen from the Eight-Tails and that it was the last offensive jutsu Momoshiki was holding in reserve: an absorbed technique can therefore be fired more than once, but the stock runs out. The planet where he then takes his prisoner seems to hold no native life, only the remains of dead forests under thick red clouds.

A massive figure in a loose white tunic crossed by gray straps, his head topped by a large curved pale horn, grips in one enormous white-gloved hand the skull of a dark-skinned man with a white beard and white hair, a dark band across his face, bare-chested under a dark vest, in front of a dark rock face.
Kinshiki pins down Killer Bee: before Konoha, the perfect jinchuriki of Gyuki is the duo's first target on Earth.

Why Kidnap Naruto

After Killer Bee, it is Kinshiki who points out a larger chakra source to the east. The duo is not satisfied with what it has harvested: what it is after now is Kurama, the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside Naruto. Momoshiki does not have to rely on his guardian's report alone: his Byakugan shows him the Tailed Beast's chakra inside the body of the Seventh Hokage.

They burst in during the final round of the Chunin Exams and cause chaos: Kinshiki destroys most of the arena and tries to go after Sasuke and his daughter, while Momoshiki sends Naruto flying out of the arena with a single kick. After blocking an amplified Tailed Beast Bomb at full power while Sasuke shields the children, Naruto lets himself be captured and gives his son a smile before vanishing.

One detail of the chronology is often reversed: Hinata is not wounded during the attack on the stadium, which she evacuates along with the spectators. It is after the kidnapping, when she sets off in pursuit of the two Otsutsuki to bring her husband back, that she is seriously hurt; Boruto finds her in the hospital, treated by Sakura. She will get back up to stop her son from leaving with Sasuke, then change her mind: at the sight of Sasuke's scratched forehead protector in the movie, and of Naruto's old clothes in the manga and the anime.

Naruto, arms spread, held by enormous wooden roots while a figure in light clothing reaches a hand toward his chest, from which a red glow escapes
Once Naruto is captured, it is Kurama's chakra that the two Otsutsuki have come for.

The Rinnegan in the Palms

Momoshiki calls humans "inferior beings," and his appearance belongs to court nobility: pale skin, pale blue hair tied in a long ponytail, flat curved horns evoking those of a bull, eyebrows cut very short as a mark of nobility. He has the Byakugan in both eyes and, uniquely, a Rinnegan in each palm — red in the manga, purple in certain depictions such as the cover of Zai no Sho or that of the second collected volume. A black glove covers his left hand, pierced with a hole in the palm to let the eye through.

The exchange has a name: Takamimusubinokami. The right Rinnegan absorbs the opponent's technique, the left one gives it back, amplified as many times over as Momoshiki decides, thanks to the chakra his pills supply; the technique first appears in chapter 2 of the manga and in episode 55 of the anime. That same right eye also serves to turn a target into pills which, once swallowed, grant that target's chakra, extended youth and access to their arsenal of techniques.

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Momoshiki, pale, with long white hair and pupil-less eyes, holds out his open palm, in which a red eye with concentric rings is set
The Rinnegan set in the palm: it is through it that Momoshiki swallows a ninjutsu before firing it back amplified.

Kinshiki, Guardian and Adoptive Father

Kinshiki is Momoshiki's guardian as much as his adoptive father, whom he serves and addresses as "-sama." A member of the main family as well, he stands over two meters tall: massive build, very large hands, thick beard, a long horn above his left eye. His loyalty comes with an adherence to the clan's tradition, since he had himself consumed the chakra of his own guardian after the latter entrusted him with his power.

His abilities partly mirror those of his adoptive son: he absorbs any ninjutsu and converts chakra into glowing red weapons that he wields with ease, he flies, he detects Kaguya's fragments on a country-wide scale (Boruto, chapter 2, page 42), and he too possesses the Byakugan (chapter 7, pages 26 to 30). In the novelization, Sasuke judges him abnormally strong even for his size and suspects him of reinforcing his muscles with a technique.

His grudge, for its part, is explicit: he wants to kill Sasuke over the horn Sasuke cut off during their first clash, in the blizzard of one of Kaguya's dimensions. Pinned down later by Chojuro and Kurotsuchi, he breaks free of their combined holds and unleashes a destructive blast around him that leaves him badly wounded. The novelization adds that he knows at that point that he cannot survive his wounds.

Sasuke, sword held one-handed above his shoulder, blocks in a shower of sparks the curved red blade of a massive horned opponent
Kinshiki meets Sasuke's sword with his red chakra blades, before offering himself up as a pill to his master.

Three Versions of the Same Absorption

The trigger is the same everywhere — Kinshiki has just been taken out of the fight — but not the stated reason. In the movie, Momoshiki wants to finish off everyone at once. In the manga and the anime, he inspects Boruto with the Byakugan, notes that Naruto is unable to pass his chakra on to his son and offers to show how his clan goes about it. What Kinshiki becomes changes too: a chakra fruit in the manga and the anime, a chakra pill in the movie.

The resulting appearance diverges just as much. The movie makes him a colossus with dark red skin, black sclerae, white irises, fangs, claws, white hair and enlarged bull horns, with a third purple Rinnegan on his forehead — the movie's character sheet puts him at 200 centimeters. The manga and the anime keep him a slender body, covered in black markings radiating like a sun, horns lengthened and curved backward, all of his dojutsu turned gold, the third forehead Rinnegan included (Boruto, chapter 8, page 1); the anime then has his golden Rinnegan turn red when he uses Takamimusubinokami (episode 65).

The novelization, for its part, rejects the third eye. In it Kinshiki becomes several pills consumed over the course of the fight, and it is after the last one that Momoshiki's skin turns from red to black, giving him the look of a black demon. It also states the rule: among the Otsutsuki, absorbing one's "parental role" is a tradition, applied whenever it is the most efficient way to keep chakra within the clan. Kinshiki had done it before him and orders him to do the same; Momoshiki does not explain this to the shinobi, so as not to insult his resolve.

Full-length cutout figure seen from the front: an immense lavender-white head of hair spread in a fan of long tapered strands, the skin of the face and torso dark and streaked with radiating black markings, golden eyes including a third with concentric circles in the middle of the forehead, a long open white robe, bare feet, and a golden eye open in the hollow of each palm.
Momoshiki after absorbing Kinshiki in the anime: slender body, radiating black markings and dojutsu turned gold, the third forehead Rinnegan included — the movie, for its part, makes him a colossus with dark red skin.

Why Everyone Ends Up Fighting with Taijutsu

The rule of the fight holds from the arena on: everything thrown at Momoshiki feeds him. The techniques Boruto fires with his Kote are absorbed in full, Shikamaru's Shadow Stitching is too, and it is at that moment that Sasuke warns Naruto that they cannot use their jutsu against those two. In the other dimension, the group draws the explicit conclusion and decides to face him with taijutsu.

The novelization details the effect of that choice: Gaara regrets not having brought Rock Lee, resolves to fight himself, and Momoshiki judges his taijutsu first-rate, on the level of Naruto, Sasuke and Darui. The proof by absurdity comes from Katasuke, who despite the warnings fires a full volley from the Kote — Wood Release (Mokuton) and various Hiden jutsu taken from the clans of Konoha. Momoshiki absorbs everything and regains his full power.

He immediately turns that volley back as "crimson flames, lightning splitting sky and earth, an absolute-zero blizzard and a rain of meteors," paralyzes the Kage with a shadow jutsu absorbed from the Nara, then pins Naruto to the ground with black receivers that the novel says would have killed him without the Nine-Tailed Fox. The choice was owned up front: Kishimoto had asked that the movie rest on taijutsu rather than on ninjutsu, breaking with the previous feature films.

Two characters in close-up against a blurred red-brown background: on the left, a man with short red hair, a dark ideogram tattooed on his temple, a burgundy high-collared jacket and a white scarf, fists clenched and teeth bared; on the right, a character with very long flowing white hair, his face crossed by wide black markings, one fist raised; long white bands wind around both bodies.
Momoshiki binds Gaara at close range: in the other dimension, the group has given up on jutsu and faces him with taijutsu, and Momoshiki judges Gaara's to be first-rate.

The Karma Mark

The kill goes through the weak point of the absorption. In the movie, Sasuke holds Momoshiki back while Naruto lends his chakra to his son; Boruto comes at him with a shadow clone to neutralize his Rinnegan, then strikes with the giant Rasengan , and comes out of it with his right arm badly burned. The manga and the anime redistribute the roles: it is Sasuke who drives a kunai into the palm Rinnegan to stop it from absorbing, the clones now serving only as a diversion.

The mark, for its part, does not belong to the movie. The movie ends on Momoshiki's destruction and Boruto's burned arm, whereas the Karma appears as early as chapter 1 of the manga and the first episode of the anime. In those two versions, Momoshiki's spirit lingers, acknowledges that Boruto senses his presence, tells him that his blue eyes will end up taking everything from him and that he is no longer an ordinary human since he defeated a god, then grabs his arm (Boruto, chapter 10, pages 8 to 17).

The word deserves a note. 楔 reads Kama and the literal translation used is "Linchpin," the pin that locks an axle; it was the Viz edition of the manga that rendered it as "Karma," the spelling that has remained in use. The seal is a compressed backup of an Otsutsuki's biological data implanted in a compatible vessel; in the anime's epilogue, Boruto undoes his bandage and looks at the diamond-shaped mark on his right hand.

Boruto, his face and arm run through with blue markings, holds his open palm out toward the camera, a dark spiral turning in its hollow
The Karma spiral in Boruto's palm: the mark left by the dying Momoshiki opens everything that follows in the story.

Urashiki, the Third Otsutsuki Cut from the Movie

The Versus Momoshiki arc covers chapters 1 to 10 of the manga and episodes 51 to 66 of the anime. The anime adaptation takes up the changes already made by the manga, reuses part of the movie's animation and brings back elements cut from Kishimoto's original screenplay. It opens the arc on an investigation by Team 7 in an abandoned mine, facing a White Zetsu, when Konohamaru believed they had all been destroyed since the Fourth Great Ninja War.

Among those returns is a third Otsutsuki, Urashiki, whom Kishimoto had designed for the movie before he was cut from it, along with Toneri, for scheduling reasons. He joins the latter on the moon, blames him for betraying the clan to serve the Earth and petrifies him, lacking the authority to kill a member of the clan. He then meets up with Momoshiki and Kinshiki in one of Kaguya's dimensions and briefs them on the Earth, on the God Tree's chakra spread throughout humanity and on the Tailed Beasts.

During the invasion of Konoha, he steals the senjutsu chakra of Mitsuki, who is left in critical condition, before being thwarted by the coordinated attacks of Gaara and Chojuro and escaping thanks to his Rinnegan. He reappears in the epilogue, still in the dimension where Momoshiki has just died: he identifies Boruto as the child Toneri was watching and wonders whether preventive measures should be taken.

Under a blue sky, in front of a curtain of green trees, a pale character in a light robe with a dark sash, spiky gray hair and wide dark markings around the eyes, holds against his shoulder a very thin long red pole that crosses the frame; in the foreground, seen from behind and blurred, a red-haired man in a burgundy coat on the left and, on the right, a figure in a dark jacket with striped sleeves holding a wide glowing blue blade.
Urashiki facing Gaara and Chojuro: their coordinated attacks thwart the third Otsutsuki, the one Kishimoto had designed for the movie before he was cut from it.

Momotaro, Kintaro: Where Their Names Come From

Momoshiki, Kinshiki and Urashiki bear names modeled on three heroes of Japanese folklore whose names contain "Taro": Momotaro, Kintaro and Urashima Taro. The connection is not only a matter of sound. Momotaro befriends a dog, a monkey and a pheasant along the way, and the giant elemental creatures Momoshiki summons are precisely a dog, a monkey-shaped stone golem and a fire pheasant. The tale also shares a motif with the one Kaguya is drawn from, the child who arrived on Earth in a giant peach and was raised by simple folk.

The second borrowing is visual. Zai no Sho, the 88-page guide released on the day the movie came out — page 39 for Kinshiki, page 40 for Momoshiki — states on page 48 that the design of Momoshiki is modeled on Minamoto no Yoshitsune, born Ushiwakamaru. Kinshiki, for his part, owes his giant stature and his stern look to Kintaro, and his gear to Benkei, the warrior monk in Yoshitsune's service, who according to legend died standing and riddled with wounds to protect his master.

The techniques follow the same logic. Takamimusubinokami takes up the name of Takamimusubi, one of the first three Kotoamatsukami of Japanese mythology. As for the pills, the novelization and the Road to Boruto expansion call them "cinnabar elixir" (仙丹, Sentan), in reference to the Chinese elixir of immortality that the moon rabbit pounds in its mortar: one more way of tying the Otsutsuki clan to the lunar rabbit.

A sheet of black-and-white pencil sketches showing the same character twice, from the front and from the back: a very massive silhouette with enormous shoulders and a small hooded head from which a curved horn emerges, a stern face with narrowed eyes, a crossed robe barred by wide straps, baggy trousers gathered at the calves and shoes with upturned toes.
Kinshiki sketched by Masashi Kishimoto: his giant stature and his stern look come from Kintaro, his gear from Benkei, the warrior monk in Yoshitsune's service.

Summary Table

Aspect Details
Work Boruto: Naruto the Movie (2015); characters carried over into the Boruto manga and anime
Momoshiki (the master) Short, white hair, god complex; Byakugan + Rinnegan in the palms (absorbs then sends back amplified)
Kinshiki (the guardian) Giant and horned; creates red chakra blades; offers himself to Momoshiki as a chakra pill
Goal Harvest the Earth's chakra; targets Kurama, hence the attack on the Chunin Exams and Naruto's kidnapping
Outcome Momoshiki defeated by a giant Rasengan (Boruto + Naruto); he marks Boruto's palm with the Karma

FAQ

  • Who are Momoshiki and Kinshiki Otsutsuki?
    The two antagonists of Boruto: Naruto the Movie (2015), members of the alien Otsutsuki clan related to Kaguya. Momoshiki is the master, short and white-haired; Kinshiki is his giant, devoted bodyguard. They travel from world to world to harvest chakra.
  • Why do they kidnap Naruto?
    Their goal is to harvest the Earth's chakra to feed a God Tree and its Chakra Fruit. Unsatisfied with the ambient chakra, they covet Kurama's above all: they attack Konoha's Chunin Exams, wound Hinata and capture the jinchuriki, Naruto.
  • How does Momoshiki's Rinnegan work?
    Unlike the classic Rinnegan, Momoshiki's is located in his palms. He absorbs any enemy ninjutsu with one palm, then sends it back amplified (doubled or tripled) with the other. Its limit: he cannot absorb natural energy in its pure state.
  • Why does Momoshiki swallow Kinshiki?
    Facing Sasuke and the Kage, Momoshiki turns Kinshiki into a chakra pill and swallows him to multiply his power tenfold. Kinshiki, absolutely loyal, offers himself willingly. Momoshiki then gains a third Rinnegan on his forehead.
  • What is the Karma mark on Boruto?
    As he dies, Momoshiki engraves the Karma mark on Boruto's palm: a "backup" of an Otsutsuki's data inside a vessel body, able to resurrect him by gradually rewriting the host. It is the trigger for the entire Boruto series.

In summary

The last great opponents of the Naruto era and the first of the Boruto era, Momoshiki and Kinshiki close one saga while marking, literally, the beginning of the next.

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