WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 179, "Victor's Scheme," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
The Boruto anime didn't deliver on Kara's debut as a group, but it compensated by slowly showing Outer members, Deepa and Victor, to be quite intimidating in the God Tree clone arc. Now, Jigen and his troops have finally come into focus after Deepa died and Victor's body was damaged, which meant the long-awaited reveal of their sanctum. In Episode 179, though, Kara disappoints once again as villains. Its main soldiers just aren't that impressive -- with the exception of Delta.
This episode has Victor coming to the lair and faking illness, all so he could get access to data in Kara's lab about the vessel, Kawaki. However, there's something uninspiring and simplified about the character designs in comparison to Mikio Ikemoto's intricate manga art. The palette is just way too bright -- there's nothing dark or haunting as per when the manga tried to paint Kara as the next Akatsuki. Pierrot, Boruto's primary animation studio, outsourced this episode, which probably contributes to why the terrorists look so run-of-the-mill.
There's nothing scary about Jigen's eyes, which should be demonic black, or Amado, who isn't even rocking his iconic cigarette. Both have such gloomy dispositions to them, but that's also worsened with the shoddy voice-work, dwindling the hype a bit of what should have been a more impactful episode. Rather than reacting with horror, fans online have described Jigen's look and attitude as that of a "dead fish." It's such a shame that the manga's big tyrants fail to register; they look like models rather than grimy terrorists and sinister scientists.
The big positive exception is Delta, the robotic assassin who's found smashing pillars in training, complaining she wants to be upgraded for more death and destruction. She sounds terrifying and her purple eyes have been augmented to be made larger, giving her a truly lethal look as if she had the Rinnegan. Delta's also designed to look more like a woman, and less like a girl from the manga, so that gives her a more badass feel.
What truly sets her apart is while Jigen and Amado are discussing politics, science and Kawaki's dourness, Delta's threatening everyone, hating on all the soldiers and foreshadowing the epic battle to come against Naruto. It just comes down to a mixture of look-and-feel, and luckily, Delta's done well, making up a bit for the others, but leaving fans concerned about what will happen when colleagues like Code, Boro and Koji Kashin debut.
