KATEKYOU HITMAN REBORN!

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionKatekyo Hitman REBORN!
ONA ComedyKateikyoushi Hitman REBORN! Vongole Family Sou Toujou! Vongole Shiki Shuugakuryokou, Kuru!!
SPECIAL ComedyKateikyoushi Hitman REBORN!: Mr. Rebokku no Ciao Ciao Interview
SPECIAL ActionKatekyo Hitman REBORN! x ēlDLIVE SP Collaboration Mini Anime (24H)

REVIEWS

• 

  SidewalkSteve

  50/100
  An adaptation that starts out strong before watering down what made the manga great.

  NOTE: This is a reposting of a review I did over at myanimelist. If this seems a bit familiar, that's why. Additionally, I realized that my review isn't exactly friendly to newcomers to the series, so I've attempted to amend that.

  I consider myself a pretty big fan of Katekyo Hitman Reborn. I love the manga; even though it took a sharp dive in quality partway through, I can still say it's worth reading. Another JUMP classic, Fist of the North Star, had the same issue and I think it's one of the greatest manga ever. So why am I giving the anime of Reborn such a low score? Simply put, it's a bad adaptation. While I haven't watched the entire series, I'm sure most folks will agree with me that 104 episodes of a show is more than enough for one to form an accurate judgement.

  First off, I felt like the plot of Reborn was, for the most part, poorly adapted. The manga starts as a simple, goofy comedy series (a portion known as the Daily Life arc) that takes a hard turn towards action eight books in with the Kokuyo and Varia arcs. Anyhow, while I feel like the decision to move some of the Daily Life arc's more inconsequential portions around to act as fillers later on in between the Kokuyo and Varia arcs (as well as during the Varia arc) was an excellent idea, some of the adaptations of the plots in those chapters was, well, poor. Some jokes were stretched out and turned into something asinine (like the whole Stickypaper Theory thing), or removed entirely because the folks handling the adaptation felt they would be too risque for the audience they were targeting. One of my favorite chapters from the DL arc was one where Kyoko and Tsuna play Russian Roulette. Due to its content, it was left out entirely. (Truly unfortunate, since part of the DL arc's strengths lie in its occasionally morbid humor sensibilities.) That being said, several of these earlier episodes are still quite fun to watch. While some of the more humorous moments aren't present, these episodes have a "cozy" feeling to them.

  When the anime got to the serious bits, it watered them down heavily to stretch them out. I know this is a standard practice for long-running mega-hit shounen manga adaptations, but there's no way those latter bits of the Varia arc should feel so slow, especially when the adaptation of the Kokuyo arc is, for the most part, fantastic. The pacing is magnificent; I never felt like it was dragging it's feet like the later arcs do.

  Additionally, the staff eventually begins engaging in one of the most awful shounen manga adaptation tropes: the beginning-of-episode recap. I understand that these shows live and die on being able to maintain a fanbase, and part of that comes from being able to pull in new viewers. That makes these recaps in longer-running shows something of a necessary evil. However, these recaps can easily be much more concise; the only reason for their length is to help pad out each episode to help ensure the series doesn't catch up too far to the manga.

  The worst practice used, however, is putting the tail-end of the episode AFTER the ED in some episodes, which I think is just plain dickish. The only reason for that is to ensure viewers watch the ED (which is advertising some song that the studio and producers earn money for advertising) and the commercials. While adaptations like this are, essentially, commercials themselves for merchandise related to the series brand (such as the manga), part of that merchandise are the DVD sales of the series itself, and that's doubly true for fujoshi-focused series like this. As such, placing the conclusion of the episode after the ED only serves to frustrate its core audience, as they may skip that last little sliver by accident.

  The only thing I felt the anime improved upon is placing the chapter where a particularly plot-important character first appears much later than it occurs in the manga. I actually had no idea he had appeared about 124 chapters earlier when Amano reintroduced him.

  Moving on to toning down the darker bits, that move was fairly irritating. The fights lacked a lot of the intensity they had in the manga due to the decision to stop having characters bleed after the Kokuyo arc. In addition, Artland's decision to make all the weapons look unrealistic was fairly stupid, but I can tolerate it for the most part. I can buy having Leone turning into a pistol or a rifle for Reborn to shoot, but the whole "Dying Will energy leaving the bullets and flying into Tsuna" thing was idiotic. Why didn't they just remove bullets leaving the guns and replace it with the energy beams? And while I can tolerate replacing missing teeth with pocketwatches (it makes sense in context; I'd rather not spoil anything), it removes a lot of tension from those scenes.

  Most importantly, they removed Yamamoto's introduction. While I won't spoil anything, it's probably the most moving character introduction in the DL arc, and Artland cut it out entirely because they felt it was too dark. Now, Yamamoto just looks like a moron that suddenly begins tagging along with Tsuna and Gokudera because he's intrigued by what he believes to be their mafia role-play game.

  Moving on to other character alterations, Tsuna's quite a bit less of a jerk early on than he was in the anime, and is mother is much less mean to Tsuna. Considering Tsuna's behavior ealry on, her attitude makes since, and it later softens as Tsuna (despite what Akira Amano may say in the manga's God-forsaken non-ending) grows as a person. In the anime, this is removed entirely, as well.

  The art actually looks pretty damn good; and, in the DL arc, it's a great improvement. The animation, however, is not. It's very jerky and still. Amano's artwork in the manga is far, far more animated than the anime itself is thanks to some of her wonderful panel layouts. Many of the actions scenes look absolutely sluggish in comparison to the manga. Artland could've attempted to fake movement by making the artwork more dynamic (which is arguably the backbone of Japanese animation) but they couldn't even be bothered to do that. Instead, every fight looks terribly bland and overly clean, with the characters being drawn exactly on-model, virtually without injury, and rarely moving.

  I'm a bit baffled on what to say for the soundtrack for the show. I should note that I'm not referring to the OPs or EDs, as I generally skip those; while okay, they weren't worth hearing repeatedly in a marathon of the show. There were about two fantastic tracks in the shows catalog: Standing Friends and Tsuna Awakens. However, the anime greatly overuses them to the point where they lose almost all meaning. The other tracks are fairly mediocre, and, as such, don't deserve much criticism at all, positive or negative.

  In the end, I can't recommend this anime. I hate that I wasted so much of my time waiting for the anime to start adapting the manga right, and it never did. To this day, there are fans in Japan (http://otakuusamagazine.com/LatestNews/News1/Japanese-Fans-Want-These-Anime-to-Get-Sequels-8399.aspx) hoping to eventually see the remaining two arcs (one a step-down in quality from the one before; the other a nose-dive) adapted. I can only assume the reason for wanting more of Artland's adaptation is simply so that its obsessive fanbase can hear the characters speak even more, which, honestly speaking, is probably why any of them followed the anime in the first place. It does have fairly solid voice casting, and that is probably the cornerstone of the anime's success. Several image albums featuring the cast members singing several songs related to the series (tangentially or otherwise) in the voices of the characters were released, with one of them even becoming an ending song on the show. Most notably, there were about five different "Rebocons"; concerts where the voice cast would act out skits on-stage like the characters from the show that they portray and sing songs. I can't say I've heard of other VA-centric series like DiaLovers, for example, courting followings like that.

  Anyway, read the manga instead. It's far superior in nearly every way. The only conceivable way the anime is better is if one is a massive seiyuu fanatic.

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• 

  Kimstar

  100/100
  A Show That is Old but Gold.

  Note: It has been a year since I've last seen Reborn but I'll do my best bare with me. It's also my first review so I'll try my best. I will also try to make this review to be without spoilers or little to none.

  I'll start off with this I'm a big Reborn fan I truly love this anime with all my heart. It's one of the first anime to start off with and yet I still love it. You can say this review is a bit more biased because of that but to me Reborn is an anime that will be on my top and will always be. I am currently writing this review in 2020, almost a whole decade since Reborn has ended, I truly hope you find this review helpful.

  Now let's talk about the soundtrack I believe Reborn has some of the best openings and osts. I'm also writing this review as I'm listening to the op's on a loop. Even after rewatching it last year, I still think Reborn has some of the greatest ost's out there, I thought it brought so much more emphasis into the fights. Also another thing to include is the visuals for the op, we cannot forget about that, my all time favorite is Op 1 Version 2 but I do have to say Op 4 is quite a close contender. The endings are great too although I used to skip ed's I now listen to them and I do have to say that the ed's aren't as good as the op's. However, some are still great in my opinion and not to mention that I can listen to the soundtrack's for hours and hours without getting bored of it.

  Reborn has such unique characters to the show and how they develop is great. Tsuna before meeting Reborn, was called No Good Tsuna, for being bad at almost everything, but as we go on to the series Tsuna still has his lighthearted personality. However, we see in the anime he has a sort of seriousness to him, he know's when the situation is dire and will focus on protecting the people he cares about. Gokudera at first, he was a character that hated Tsuna, I believe it was because of him being the future boss of the Vongola and how spineless he was. Gokudera at first tries to kill him, but he sees his wrongdoing and instead decides to follow Tsuna. Calling himself his Right Hand Man. I introduce Yamamoto, in the anime he is introduced as a light hearted person with a fun personality that follows along Tsuna to have fun. Later we get to see Yamamoto more serious in later arcs, he tries his best to train his capabilities perfecting his style of fighting. Ryohei Sasegawa, the older brother of Tsuna's love interest Kyoko Sasegawa. His signature line TO THE EXTRME! is a favorite of mine in this series. He's introduced as a guy that tries to recruit Tsuna to the Boxing Club after he goes Dying Will Mode. but Tsuna rejects him. We later see that Ryohei is a caring person that loves his sister and wishes to protect her from danger. We also see in him that he is much more serious and more cautious in another arc. Hibari, The Strongest Vongola Guardian, we're introduced to him in the Daily Life arc where he has a disciplinary committee that he runs. Hibari's character is someone that cares about the people around him but he doesn't show it as much. We see that he really enjoys fighting strong opponents and likes to use his signature line to threaten people I'lll bite you to death. Lambo as a character is just there for comedic relief most of the time, his resolve changes over time, but at first most see Lambo has an annoying character.

  The story is also very unique considering a professional hitman comes to suddenly tutor a useless middle schooler that goes by the name Tsunayoshi Sawada. We get to see Reborn, tutor Tsuna whether it be over school or in fighting. We get to see the dynamic between Tsuna and Reborn over the series even the ending of the manga shows how they've grown. Tsuna's dynamic with his family (aka friends) shows a light mood, but as we go on to the series it's changed into a serious mood where they fight with their life on the line or something important to them. All the arcs from Reborn bring enjoyment to you whether it be the Daily Life arc, Kokuyo arc, Varia arc, and the Future arc they're all unique in their own ways. It brings such that Reborn doesn't get tiring with how unique the story is and bringing in a fresh concept for each arc instead of reusing things.

  The art for Reborn isn't the greatest, but it isn't bad. However, once you bring animation to the story, Reborn for it's time has some great animation for it's fights. To me the animation doesn't feel stale or jagged it just improves or stay the same. How they animate the X-burner and the Dying Will Zero Point Breakthrough is quite amazing.

  The enjoyment I felt from Reborn was just a 10/10 some scenes are breathtaking. To me it was a show that was perfect with little to no flaws. From how characters develop to the conflict of the story is just amazing in my opinion. Writing this review in August of 2020 I may rewatch Reborn for my second time when I have summer vacation, but just go watch it. It's such a great show.

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• 

  Sakata

  95/100
  An Underrated Shounen Classic

  __ Katekyo Hitman Reborn! : A Review __ __Introduction__

  If I’m being completely honest when I first watched Hitman Reborn I didn’t like it that much which is terrible because as I started rewatching this anime a month or two ago I fell in love with it. I’m currently on episode 79 on the rewatch as I am writing this review and gonna try to finish the rewatch off in a few months time because of exams coming up soon. So back on track, I knew about Tsuna’s existence because of how freaking sick he looked with his gloves way back but didn’t actually know who that was. 2 or 3 years later when I knew about this series, I gave it a shot and as I said in the beginning, somehow I didn’t like it but on this current rewatch I was so wrong. Hitman Reborn for me at least is a near masterpiece with an amazing plot, characters, development, arcs and much much more.

  ---

  __Plot__

  The plot in Reborn starts off basic with the protagonist of the show Tsunayoshi Sawada portrayed as a loser and always does things wrong, he’s just no good. Everything changes when he meets the Hitman Tutor Reborn who comes to Tsuna’s house and wants to make him the 10th Generation Vongola boss. An anime about mafia, how can you not like this? In the first 20 episodes it’s about meeting other characters such as; Gokudera, Yamamoto, Hibari, Kyouko, Sasagawa, Kyoko, Lambo, Dino and other characters. These first 20 episodes are pure comedy into getting to know the characters and what they are like. In my opinion I didn’t like the first 20 episodes that much even on rewatch because the comedy in reborn is a hit or a miss. It’s perfectly fine if you find it funny but it just didn’t click to me. After these 20 episodes the anime pops off, we start off a serious arc which I’m not gonna say anything on but it’s freaking amazing and the main reason I got addicted and fell in love with reborn even on the first watch. However after the arcs there is more hit or miss comedy but it gets better in my opinion.

  The anime covers 4 arcs:

  Daily Life Arc: episode 1-19, 27-33, 66-73
  Kokuyo Arc: episode 20-26
  Varia Arc: episode 34-65
  Future Arc: episode 74-203

  ---

  __Art__

  I absolutely adore the art style in reborn because of how clean it looks, sometimes in the anime in doesn’t look the best sometimes but I love how Akira Amano draws. She has also drawn character designs for a popular anime like Psycho Pass (which is great btw go check it out). Her art style is very unique compared to other anime and manga which for me stands out a lot.

  This image is a bit blurry but you can tell this is some banger ass art

  

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  __Characters__

  I absolutely love the cast of reborn as it’s so “everything”. There isn’t anyone that I really dislike apart from Lambo because he can be annoying but that would probably just be it. Everyone in the cast is just so much fun to watch, them fighting, them laughing it’s freaking amazing. My personal favourite characters would definitely be Tsuna, Gokudera, Hibari, Yamamoto and Mukuro. The character development in this anime is constant and you can tell how they’ve matured, Tsuna especially. From a no good to one of the best characters ever makes me tear up man. I really can’t wait until I finish my Reborn rewatch to see how much my goat has grown.

  

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  __Sound/OST/OP AND ED__

  The sound in reborn is actually pretty good, the fight sounds like clashing are amazing too. The OST’s are great especially the Tsuna’s Awakens” theme, it’s iconic. My favourite opening would be OP 4 , dude this gives me goosebumps everytime I listen to it. Most of the openings in Reborn are really freaking good. If I’m being fr I don’t like most of the Reborn endings but my favourite one is ED 7 and my second favourite is ED 5

  ---

  Well there we have it, who knew that making reviews was kinda fun. I’m gonna be starting the manga of Reborn when I finish the anime of where it left off and I’ll probably write a review on it too, anyways I hope this helped you wanting to pick up this series, it’s great. You won’t have any regrets watching it.

  
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