Once Mitsuki's past was explored in Masashi Kishimoto's one-shot manga, McNulty felt his origins were engaging, but at the same time not completely explained, and believed this was due to the ambiguous nature of the one-shot.[29] Similarly, Melina Dargis, another The Fandom Post writer, considered Mitsuki's chapter the best in the first volume of the Boruto manga due to his connections with Orochimaru, and she felt it could have been used in the film.[30] Nik Freeman of Anime News Network found Mitsuki's backstory one of the best in the franchise's history because it was not a rehash of prior story arcs.