Thoughts and discussion on this month's chapter?
The chapter is legally available to read at viz and mangaplus.
Annnd more retcons. I just don't like how the Ten-Tails went from a merger of an Otsutsuki and a Shinju to a mere seed of the Shinju. Also, if a chakra fruit results in the absorption of all life/chakra of a planet, then how was humanity still alive when Kaguya arrived? Talk about a plot-hole or ignoring the previous series. Man, I'm starting to dislike the new era again.
I'll post more thoughts later
This whole Shinju/Chakra Fruit/Ten-Tails business just keeps getting more and more convoluted. So now we have:
Original manga: The God Tree grew on Earth thousands of years ago and bore its fruit every thousand years. It is the source of all chakra, which nobody else had until Hagoromo’s time. Kaguya ate the fruit, physically merged with the tree, and became Ten-Tails in order to fight her sons.
Anime: The God Tree arrived on Earth as a seed a little over a thousand years ago (during Gamamaru’s lifetime). Kaguya arrived later and ate the fruit, becoming the first on Earth to have chakra (even though senjutsu already existed somehow). Later on she battled her sons herself, causing the God Tree to transform into the Ten-Tails to assist her. When Kaguya was defeated, the Ten-Tails/God Tree rotted away.
Boruto manga: The Ōtsutsuki create Ten-Tails (plural) through unknown means. They send one to a planet, where it becomes a God Tree and sucks out all of the chakra that the planet already has to create a fruit. Then the Ōtsutsuki show up in pairs on the planet sometime later to harvest it before moving on to the next planet.
I don’t even know how the wiki is supposed to document this stuff at this point. It’s literally three different narratives, and that’s not even getting into the whole moon retcon.
I have an idea on how these versions can be combined with each other. The legend of fruit in every thousand year is a part of a human legend about Kaguya, it doesn't necessarily have to be true, especially since Kaguya was called just some princess of a distant land there instead an alien species.
Since the Earth did not die out because of the God Tree, it seems that Kaguya harvested and consumed the fruit too early to stay and rule over humans, which is why their clansmen deem her a traitor.
If the Ten-Tails is the initial seed of the Tree, it makes sense that the Tree can be turned into Ten-Tails once again, especially by a clan member like Kaguya, or even merge with them. So, the battle of Kaguya's sons against Kaguya-Ten-Tails still stays intact in the storyline as it was before.
Don't be hasty on the assumptions guys. The explanation was cut by Jigen and Kashin's fight - which I now think is a younger clone of Jiraya - so we will definitely know more next chapter. I'm sure Naruto, Sasuke or Shikamaru are going to comment on all this info. And remember that it is still possible that Amado is keeping some details fuzzy.
Also, it's not uncommun for info to be changed 157035 chapters later to fix some glaring problem by hiding it in some convinient plot change. Relax, I'm sure everything will make sense later on.
The biggest red flag is the idea that the God Trees now grow by consuming chakra. The anime version told us pretty much the same thing, but said the tree was sucking out the Earth’s natural energy (hence everything nearby wilting) in order to create chakra.
This chapter is either setting up for a reveal that humans actually had chakra all along (and thus Madara, Hagoromo, and the databook were all wrong) or it’s a sign that the people in charge of writing Boruto don’t understand the original story all that well. My concern is with the latter interpretation.
I agree that the “every thousand years” bit was likely just a legend though, much like Kaguya being a princess, which has never been mentioned again since Madara’s original telling of the story.
Also the God Tree being the final form of the Ten-Tails actually supports the Bijus' account from 4th war and explains the Juubito stuff. For Kaguya, it still holds true. We should just merge the 'original' Ten-Tails, Demonic Statue and Kaguya articles into 1, as I suggested eons ago.