Katekyou Hitman Reborn!

In the last ten years, there has been a significant decline in the style of shonen action anime. I went from growing up with gritty titles like Bio-Booster Armour Guyver and Fist of the North Star, to over-marketed fan service like Bleach and Soul Eater. I'll put the "old anime guy" rant aside for sake of this review, which is a show that isn't too different from the aformentioned titles.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn is not a very good anime. It isn't, but it's also not the worst I've ever seen. This anime had potential to be moderately decent, but suffers from most of the same ... problems that hindered Bleach into a tailspin. I wanted to wait until I reached the future story arc before I wrote my review for this show, as this was apparently the money storyline. Admittedly, I wanted to see just what this was about. Now that I'm about halfway through KHR, I have just what I need to write a proper review for this. I'll break it into the good and bad of Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

[THE BAD]
THE ACTION: While it's not as bad as Bleach, the fighting is just as obnoxious and probably sillier. Battles used to mean something in action shows, now they have dissolved into the method of following in Dragonball Z's footsteps: forget about subtext and just make your fight as loud as possible. It's bad enough that the skills these characters use look completely ridiculous, even by shonen standards, but they could've been utilized on a level that wasn't brain-numblingly stupid. I'll fix some of the stupidest ones right now.
1. Bianchi's Poison Cooking: Would it have been that hard to just have her vex someone's coffee with arsnic instead of producing plates of food out of thin air and shoving it in someones' face? It's hard for me to take this even remotely serious when you model a fighting style I've seen in Looney Tunes.
2. Get Rid of the Boxes: Really? Amano was so out of ideas, he had to rip a bit from a 13 year-old kid's show that already spawned a generation of Pocket Monster knockoffs? This gimmick was incorporated to increase it's female fanbase, because it's cute when Hibari summons a spiky hedgehog. That's fair game in my book; you need to increase your demographic, fine. But what's infuriating is the fact that every cast member that fights already has an established fighting style. Adding this only makes the fights more overbooked and complicated than they already are. It's such a cheap plug for a card game, I was expecting a starter deck to pop out of my C drive.
3. XanXus' Jet Handguns: Ben 10 is calling, and Heatblast wants his powers back.

THE COMEDY: Comic relief doesn't work when every single character has a satirical shtick. By trying to make every character funny, the jokes don't bounce off anyone, and you just have method actors reading catchphrases.
"Gotta....stay...calm"
"ROMEOOOOO!!!"
"TO THE EXTREME!!"
"I'll bite you to death"
"I'm the Tenth's right hand man"
"Ku fufu"
"I have to deliver these noodles"
This is overkill. These jokes are repeated anytime one of these acts are on the screen, and they are long past being fresh. Actually, to call them jokes would be insinuating that they were at some point funny. Without a balanced set of personalities (a catalyst, the butt of the joke, an instigator, and a straight man), humor doesn't work. Since there's no set up or punchline, the characters just scream at each other all day, and it's grating. How many times does Gokudera need to double over in agony after seeing Bianchi? Dr. Shamal wasn't funny back when he was Master Roshi. And Ipin's forehaed bomb is about as amusing as a root canal. The only character that truly makes me laugh is Haru Miura. More on her later.

THE PLOT PACING: The story(s) are slighty better than I would expect, but nothing above moderate. In fact, the plot could be a lot better if everything wasn't so drawn out and uninteresting. I won't harp on the endless amounts of filler (it's become almost a necessary evil in anime today), but rather the parts where things are supposed to be happening, but it prolongs simple development to the point where it grinds to a halt. Not a spoiler, during the Millefiore raid, Gokudera actually wants to STOP THE ATTACK so Yamamoto can talk about the Arcabaleno. Top it off with the fact that everything seems like it's kept a secret from the audience when it's just another new character reveal. Byankuan (I think I butchered that name) is supposed to be the main antagonist, but they have not given me a reason to hate him. It's becoming a pet peeve of mine when bad guys now just sit in chairs and LOOK evil instead of doing villainous deeds. They told me he runs a very powerful Family that can crush the Vongolas in 23 seconds, but has failed to alluminate on that, instead telling me how animals kept in boxes can turn the tide in a battle. On a side note, I think the Black Spell and White Spell guys look too much like Soul Reapers and Arrancars for my taste. It's just another stark reminder as to how little thought gets put into these franchises when four sets of cast members in two different shows dress exactly alike. Pitiful.

[THE GOOD]
TSUNAYOSHI SAWADA: I never thought this would happen, and it took awhile, but Tsuna is actually a pretty acceptable main character. He's no Gon Freeces in Hunter X Hunter, but in today's age of shonen leads being just completely intolerable jackasses and ignorant A-holes, Tsuna is a significant upgrade from Ichigo Kurosaki and Ryoma Echizen in Prince of Tennis. Yes, he's whiny, whimpy, and seemingly "no-good", but the real lighting-in-a-bottle of a character like this is watching them grow up before your eyes. it's what I loved about Gohan, though the saiyan's road is far more memorable and cohesive, Tsuna's metamorphosis into an independent pillar of valor is a something I can take away as a mild success from this. He's incredibly down to earth as well. All he wants is to win the affections of Kyoko, yet his own fantasies about marrying her and impressing her are so low-barred, it's like his brain is actually telling him he can't do it. I find that a little refreshing. To grade him on a letter scale, I'd give him a C average.

THE GIRLS: I always get the impression that shonen authors don't like to write female characters, what with the way they all follow the familiar pattern of being completely bitchy, nagging, hostile shrews like Bulma, and good ladies in shonen like Rukia get shelved and taken out of the show for episodes on end. The female cast of Hitman Reborn has been one of the reasons I made it as far as I have. While this mainly pretains to Kyoko and Haru (Lal Mirch and Chrome aren't presented enough at the point I'm at. Especially poor Chrome, she's the worst treated character in the whole franchise), I really like Tsuna's mother and even Bianchi has moments when she plays the big sister to the others. But man, Haru Miura has become one of my favorite supporting characters ever. Her off-beat wackiness, unpredictable sense of style, and unbridled enthusiasum picks me up everytime I got the urge to drop this show and became the heart and soul of KHR for me. her cheery theme music is like a Phoenix Down being dropped on my head after one of those silly box battles. The only other character to breathe this much life into something that didn't seem that good at first was Hime in Princess Resurrection last year, and that's now one of the best titles I'm currently reading. The ladies in KHR are always a healthy break away from the stupidity of the fighting and hackneyed dialouge, and are the best girls going in shonen for me today.

NOSTALGIA: While the humor fails and a good chunk of potential character development gets lost in the mundane battles, KHR has a certain feel about it that hearkens back to the classic days of shonen action series. The characters, while paper thin for the most part, are seemingly vibrant and full of life, like Yu Yu Hakusho or Power Stone. The setting and envoirnment isn't always dark and gritty like in Naruto or Bleach, and stays lighthearted enough to be a tongue-in-cheek action show, even if it is a little bit long. The intensity of the plot kind of picks up when a villian shows up, even if they lose steam halfway through the arc. If this show had come out in 1998, heck, even 2002, I would've fallen in love with it because it retains a glimmer of the spirit that most shonen titles lack nowadays, and that all I ask from this genre. Not Shippuuden.

IN CLOSING: This was long winded review, and I apologize. I can only hope the readers understand my frustration with thinking out a meticulous review for a show that's almost down the middle, it's not a "bad" 5. This was a mixed bag for me. There's a lot I really hate about this show that I can relate to other shonen title mentioned in this review and probably rant about for another eight paragraphs, and while the bad outweighs the good, it comes down to quality of the good over quantity of the bad, and those elements have kept me watching KHR for over 100+ episodes, and is a testament to doing just enough right to keep me entertained. I can't say the same for Bleach and Naruto, which I'll never finish.

STORY: 4
ART: 7
SOUND: 6
CHARACTERS: 3
ENJOYMENT: 5
OVERALL SCORE: 5 out of 10

PROS: Solid voice acting, most Hibari scenes, music is catchy
CONS: Cast is way too big, terrible fights, lackluster gags, 5 minute recaps every episode

KHR is like any other long shounen series; For someone relatively new to anime, it can be very fun and addicting. If you are too familiar with the tropes used in this genre, it can become a real chore and way too predicable.

Story: The plot progresses in the usual shounen way: The weak and optimistic protagonist trains, and starts fighting enemies who seem much stronger than him, and once he defeats them they often become his allies. The first 20 episodes were fillers, but since I found them funny I didn’t really mind. The battles drag out a bit sometimes, but they are well ... done in general and there’s enough suspense to keep the viewer interested. The biggest problem however is the filler episodes; they were initially funny, but the same jokes keep getting repeated again and again and it becomes annoying fast. Even without talking about the recaps, some episodes were just completely unnecessary, like before each battle they have at least one episode where the characters just encourage each other and talk about the upcoming battle.

Characters: The cast seems pretty diverse, but all the characters can fit in an archetype in some way or other. They gain maturity and confidence during the battles, but it seems to revert once the battle is over, and they are back to repeating the same catchphrases again and again. Many of the jokes are based on character antics, but after 200 eps, it becomes really predicable and repetitive. Another thing that really bothers me is the female characters; even though some of them are strong, their strength is nothing compared to the male characters, they hardly participate in battles, often can’t do anything without help from the males (Chrome, cough* cough*). And while it is important to have a female character who can’t fight but serves as moral support, having two of them is way too much especially when one is portrayed as very annoying and immature. Many of the characters who don’t fight are very uninteresting; Despite tagging along for 200+ episodes and getting a lot of screentime, they don’t get character development at all. Hibari Kyouya was especially poorly written; he is some lone wolf who practically wins every battle in 1 min without effort or remarkable injuries, and he doesn’t have character growth at all. In other words, he can be easily qualified as a ‘Gary stu’.

Art: While the character designs are interesting, the art is very inconsistent. It improves through the series, but was never really detailed and every once in a while it is still possible to see poorly drawn frames without pausing the video.

Sound: The osts were decent, but they get kinda annoying after being repeated 98343981 times, especially when you can easily predict when they will be played. Most of the openings and endings however were pretty good and original. The seiyus’ voices fit the characters well, but some of them may annoy you, like Haru and Lambo’s.

Now this anime is one i don't think i will ever understand the fascination with. I have reached ep 65 so its not a complete review, but how many eps should it take for an anime to get good? Considering how popular this show is, i think its time to balance it out with a negative review.

Ok, its pretty well established in the anime community that the first 19 eps or so are garbage.

But they are not garbage because they have no story and a basically filler episodes. They are garbage because some of the characters are so annoying they want to make you ... pull your eyes out. The cow and egg baby are horrid and the main character, tsuna, his japanese voice acting is more annoying then shinjis dub voice from evangelion. These eps are so bad they make naruto filler eps 136-220 look good! :(

Ok, now thats out the way, to the real review.

Most people are like watch from ep 20 where the first story arc is. However that too is a let down with boring, short and badly constructed fights. Its also just bog standard shonen fare that you have seen a million times before in high school fighting shows. Then after this short arc...more horrible filler.

To be fair, the second arc is ALOT BETTER, and i would recommend just watching as much of the beginning as you can cope with, and then jumping to ep 34.

The fights are alot better, story picks up and becomes a more solid shonen fighting show.

However it still in no way matches the hype. In NO WAY, can this show even come close to Naruto, One Piece, Dragon ball or even Bleach.

The fights so far are no where near as good as the above shows. Storyline wise its ok, better then bleach and dragonball but no match for naruto and especially one piece.

However its lack of emotion, character development and drama seals its fate. Because the start is so bad i feel nothing for any of the characters and the main character kills the show dead. He has to be the worst main character ever.

Even Bleach has better character building and emotion then this and Bleach sucks in that area.

I know there are alot of people who hate the Naruto anime, and thats fine. But if any of those ppl like Reborn then i honestly think they are not using any logic. Naruto CRUSHES Reborn with ease. Narutos fights, story, characters and especially emotional scenes destroy the first 65 eps of Reborn.

And to compare Reborn to the king of the shonen fighting animes, One Piece, is like comparing The Empire Strikes Back with Attack of the Clones.

I know its possible that Reborn goes super after the Varia arc but how many eps can an anime stay mediocre?

Even Bleach got good from ep 15, Naruto was good from ep 1 and went thunderous after ep 19. Naruto Shippuuden is wasting some of the potential the show had but is still fabulous. Dragonball was great from the off, Dragonball z started with one awesome fight and One Pieces first season is still prob the 2nd or 3rd best one piece season with amazing character development.

For reborn to start off with filler is crazy and even the varia arc is not up to par.

Reborn might have been the 5th legendary long running shonen fighting anime, but alas it was not to be.

Worst piece of sh!t I've seen in a long time. First off, I've seen this up to the end of the Future arc and to be damned honest its probably one of the worst decision Jump's ever made about serializing a manga. It was decent and readable when the author thought of just making a simple comedy, it was actually pretty interesting when the author created some interesting fighting styles to counter the ongoing struggles with antagonists but what really pushed me over the edge was the fact that the characters was blatantly uninteresting.

The love interests of the main protagonists spend at least 20 ... episodes just spending time cooking in the kitchen and for that matter we don't need the director to cut back to the girls talking about stuff like doing their best or wishing them luck in the middle of a battle no less.

Furthermore, the author did not think very well ahead in his manga because it was simply one big shonen manga cliche after another. The simple fact that the supporting casts were better and far more fascinating PEOPLE than the main character shows concerns of how this should have been cancelled long ago. I don't want to spoil but a simple wiki search could explain how the manga even fails at giving good continuity because Ring technology was developed in the future so having it being used by new antagonists in the past shows how rotten the story has become.

However the actual art and sound of the anime was top notched but whatever enjoyment I had been flushed down the toilet due to bad characterization and very poor pacing similar to Dragon Ball Z the anime.

UPDATED 11/21/16: I rewrote some some areas that were, honestly, pretty poorly written, and made some new remarks.

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. 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, many of the adaptations of the plots in those chapters was, well, poor. Some jokes were stretched out and turned into something dumber (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.)

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 use, 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. 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. There were about five different "Rebocons"; concerts where the voice casts would act 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.

I've been dying to make a review for this show since like forever! Didn't want to write one in the middle of the series so I waited until I'm done and DAMN that took a lot of time!

I'll start with negatives since they are just too glaring for my eyes. Also this review will be spoiler full!

1) Who in the right mind starts series with filler? I wouldn't mind if it had some point but it didn't! It was a replay of same jokes and scenarios all over! The whole character introduction should take maximum 10 episodes and even that is too much! If I ... didn't hear that actual story starts at around episode 20, I would've dumped it long time ago!

2) Jokes are too repetitive what makes them boring! Some weren't funny to begin with... Come on Gokudera, get yourself together and stop getting sick every time you see Bianci! Besides glasses don't change her that much -_-

3) WTF with all those Pokemons?! Box weapons totally ruined action in the series. For the first 100 episodes it all was about skills and techniques and now it became "My Pokemon is better than yours!"
There are only few characters left that still rely on their physical strength, most of them rely on box powers what makes the users look pathetic especially when they start to run away after their box got crashed! I mean seriously, how are you supposed to take those villains seriously?! I really miss Gokudera's bombs, it feels like he has totally forgotten about them =/
What was the point of learning to use them till now?

4) The whole future arc was a disaster after disaster. For one, who in the right mind replaces future characters with old cast in an instant? What's the point? And why Lambo of all people had to be replaced right from the start?! Ok, we were given the reason to it but still! Hibari and Ryouhei got replaced only towards the end!

5) It's not really a minus but I'm still confused as to why they just couldn't kill Byakuran back in the past?

6) It always bothered me how everyone were so easily able to control their boxes and knew what powers they had without training. There was this conflict at the start of the arc but the more series progressed the more it got forgotten. I still don't get how Ryohei learned to make copies of himself...

7) For series about mafia there is a huge lack of deaths, especially on good side. I don't remember anyone dying at all! Actually no, lying. Two characters died towards the end but since everyone went back to the past and can change everything, it doesn't count.

8) Characters! I didn't meet anyone dumber and more 2 dimensional than them! Especially during first 70 episodes!

It took almost 50 episodes for Yamamoto to realize that it is not a game and actual war! Just how dumb do you have to be?! There are bombs and rockets flying your way and you think its a game?!

Ryohei is the biggest idiot out there! When he said that he can't destroy huge rock with bare fists my jaw dropped. I was sure that he would storm it without thinking... I guess that's the point of the series where he started to get some kind of personality and it is already 50 episodes into the series! It took another 100 to finally get some kind of 3 dimensional personality.

Hibari... I like quiet and cool characters like Saito from Hakuouki or Kanda from D.Gray Man but this guy takes it to new level! How on earth he became the most popular character of the series is beyond me! He has 0 personality what so ever! The only things on his mind are fighting and his school with which he seems to be in love. 203 episodes passed and I still have no idea why he loves it so much as well as why in the world he is as strong as some professional mafiosi especially at the start of the series.
Kanda and Saito at least had some ideals, they had some interests and emotions despite being cold, Hibari has none! What I mentioned above are literally the only things he ever mentions and shows any interest in. Mukuro is probably the only living being in whom Hibari has some kind of interest as well as in Reborn.

Lambo... JUST SHUT UP! The most annoying character ever! Why is he among main cast? I don't mind his future self, especially 20 years old one which is damn cool but his baby self should be shut somewhere! I understand that he will become super cool in the future but making him a guardian at this stage is just stupid! Besides where is his real family? Did they just abandon him?!

Tsuna why the hell can't you stay in your super form all the time? Whenever he has no flames he becomes a pathetic loser who is scared of a single fly when in the past he kicked some major asses. Whenever he turns into his battle self it feels like if it is a totally different character, their believes, actions, thoughts and speech don't match at all! Pills should change his power level, not his whole character! Beside why is he the only one taking pills?
Super intuition my ass! Most of the situations where logical! Let's take the moment when G swoped with Gokudera... He seems different? HE IS DIFFERENT! All of his actions were off and no one except Tsuna noticed that!

Gokudera... I have weird emotions bout the guy. Most of the time he is such an idiot despite being a genius. I still have no idea why he so blindly follows Tsuna when the guy didn't do anything worthy at the start of the series. No matter how pathetic Tsuna is he still admires him like an idiot and there was never a reason given for that. At first he got excited just to serve Vongola but you would expect a mafiosi to make a fuss about a weak boss at least once!

I also have no idea how Mukuro the enemy could become one of the guardians. At first Vongola kicks everyones' asses, gets angry with them and then 5 mins later welcome them with open arms. Just WTF?! Even Naruto didn't take it to such extremes!

9) I always believed that Naruto and Bleach were sexist but even two combined won't compare to THIS! And it doesn't help that the author is woman! Author, don't you have any self respect?!
Almost every female character in the series could be described in just this one sentence: "BACK TO THE KITCHEN WOMAN!"
That's literally where they spent most of their time...
Won't bother with Haru and Kyoko.

I-pin, the only real strong female character is completly unapriciated by the author... I-pin got only like 2 small fights! All the rest time she is playing or babysitting Lambo! Why was she introduced at all when she plays no real purpose?!
And why didn't she get a ring?! She is ranked as 3rd very potential hitman and she owns Lambo at every age!
25 year old Lambo is cool and all, but he appeared only ones. It also takes 20 years for Lambo to become cool while I-pin is a high class fighter in just 10!

Chrome... Mukuro's vessel, nothing more. She is totally useless and barely can do anything. Whenever she manages to make at least one useful illusion, she instantly faints!

Yuni, not a fighter again... at least she could heal though even then she didn't do much. Ryohei's kangaroo was of more help -_-
At least her sacrifice served a purpose.

Lal, was very excited to finally see a female that kicks asses but boy was it for long? After one major fight, she gets hospitalized and spends there the last 100 episodes -_-

Enemy side is the same.

FEW! I think that's all I wanted to say...
Positives? Truthfully there aren't any, standard shounen that is aimed for kids. However, since I finished series I guess it did have something good. Arcoboleno were interesting, first 100 episodes of action were entertaining...
All I can say for sure is that this show is OVER RATED! It doesn't deserve the rating and praise it gets. I can't see anyone older than 12 to enjoy it...

Sound and animation are good though.

Over all I can only give it 5. Despite so many negatives it still had something to keep my attention so average mark is right for it. Not higher, 6 is the maximum I could give it.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn was a very hard anime for me to get into for several reasons. First, when I saw how many episodes were in the show, I was already a little anxious of what was to come. I have a hard time watching series longer than 60-80 episodes. Not only that but since it is a subbed only show, and for the longest time I despised subs, and still prefer dubs, I found it very hard to watch at times. I will do my best to review this show unbiased though.

Tsunayoshi Sawada is pathetic in every sense of the word. ... He fails in everything he does, whether it be sports or school work, or anything else, he simply fails. He has no natural ability whatsoever. Or so he and everyone else thought until all of a sudden an unnatural baby called Reborn shows up in his life and becomes his tutor, completely flipping his life upside down, revealing that he is to be successor to a large mafia family known as the Vongola.

That is the premise of the show. And lets face it, how many times has this premise been used?

Katekyo Hitman Reborn is plagued with the downfall of most modern anime which is three things. An unspeakable amount of filler, going so far as the last season. Minuscule character development, as well as having an overabundant cast. And plotholes as far as the eye can see. To explain myself without getting into the later arcs of the show, lets just use Reborn's Deathperation shot to explain this. The theory behind the deathperation shot is that if you are shot with it you will be killed, but will come back to life with the desperation to commit yourself to the thing you regretted when you died as if your life is on the line. But on several occassions throughout the show, they have moments where Tsuna obviously does not want to and has no reason to regret not doing something that he comes back to do..if this is not a plothole I don't know what is. And for those who HAVE seen the entire show....that is NOT in any way how time travel works!!! It would have taken one episode, ONE episode to fix things and no one would have been in danger, But this show has its head so far up its own anus at times....*sigh* And I'm not even a scifi junkie or anything like that. I just hate it when they try to use something scientific or unoriginal in an anime and don't even think it out properly.

With over half the episodes being filler, I could definitely forgive this show if it had some good humor. And i can see how some people could find...a rare gem of humor here and there throughout. I personally though found myself not laughing at any of the overused jokes in this series. The entire series is comprised of one trick ponies and has no qualms with beating a dead horse.

The story as I said is so full of plotholes its not even funny, but not only that, they feel it necessary to have a fourth of every episode dedicated to telling you what happened before. And not in a classy manner, but in a way that entire clips from up to ten previous episodes are incorperated into the intro, also having entire episode dedicated to showing you the most boring parts of previous fights or 'important' scenes to tell you what's going on. The anime is NOT that hard to follow!! Not only that but the pacing is so eratic that its rediculous!! It doesn't have pacing is all i can say. Having up to 12 episodes for 4 hours, and then having a single episode tak up 12 days. Having episodes where you feel like its days on end then telling you this all happened in one day. Having the people relax for 6 days when they should be training then training for like 8 when their time limit was 10 days, but hey! What ultra villain would keep track of time?! In a nutshell here is the entire story. Tsuna and friends train with a tutor or two for dozens of episodes and this is only after all the filler, then a bunch of fights with overpowered enimies that make their training seem futile, but in the end the power of freindship saves the day, making all of the previous episodes completely null. Rinse. Repeat. In all honesty this series could have been formatted down to 64-72 episodes and it really would have been a show worth watching!!

I find it hard to believe it myself that i was able to sit through the 203 episods of this show. But I know why I was able to. I have a weakness for friendship related stories. And some of the combat, though predictable was a lot fo fun to watch. The art itself isn't very glamourous, but it does what it sets out to do.As such the music is only slightly above average on rare occassions. But when those occassions come it usually got me pretty pumped up.

So the final verdict is...watch it if you are curious and have time but I would never suggest this show to anyone who had a mentality over that of a 12 year old.`Unless they were obsessed with other overhyped shows like Bleach and Naruto (I did enjoy some of Bleach and am still reading the manga and enjoyed the Naruto manga so don't get me wrong). Enjoy the show if you decide to give it a chance, and just ignore most of the filler is the only advice I can give you. Btw...there is no straight man.

After watching reborn, i can now say that I'm never watching it in full again. The storyline is, in my opinion...horrible. I gave it a 6. Now i know that giving it a six means it couldn't have been that bad, and it wasn't. It's not the greatest plot, but the characters make it so much better. I have, and will keep recommending this anime to people because it's a stupid but easy plot. One of the main things that keep people from watching it is that it's SO SLOW PACED. I watched the first episode....then i went to episode 23. Sure, i was in ... the middle of a battle, but it barely felt like i was missing anything.
The art sucked at the beginning.....and it didn't get much better. Compared to the manga, the art was like a kindergarten drawing. I give it a four, and I'm being nice.
I don't like being mean so I'm glad I'm done with the bad parts now. The sound was actually pretty good! Looking at the art, you would never expect the sound to be as good as it was. It's a 7 for me. Well done. :)
The characters. Heh, this will be fun. Tsuna (the main character)was/ is an annoying character. I've never hated a main character as much as I hate him. Every time he talked, I wanted to stop watching. And as if to make matters worse, They put the most annoying, frustrating, infuriating character to ever step foot into a series: LAMBO. If i could, i would've killed him. I WISH I could kill him. And then you have other annoying characters like: Reborn, Haru, Kyoko, Tsuna's Mom, Skull, the Cervello, Ipin, Dr. Shamal, Bianchi, Levi, M.M....THE LIST GOES ON FOREVER. Although i hate a good portion of the characters, I still gave it a 7. It takes skill to make a charcter completely different from another. To have so many characters and still be able to give them distinguishing personalities earns my respect. Also, not all the characters are retarded! Most of the guardians of the rings, Varia, and Arcobalenos aren't annoying!?
Enjoyment is the highest rated out of all of them. It got an 8. Why? After the incredibly slow pace, dumb plot, annoying characters,lame repeating catchphrases,and random bootleg Pokemon battles, you end up realizing that your actually liking this show in all it's stupidity. I sometimes find myself going back to an episode or a certain fight in that episode. This show never disappoints in the area of enjoyment.
Overall, im glad that i have seen this anime. I feel like it was a very important part in my life. It's rated as a 6 for me, but at the same time, that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it.

To be honest, I could never get into this anime even as hard as I tried to get into it. The drawing style is beautiful and for that reason alone I found myself captivated. A couple episodes in, I found out it was dreadful: some of the characters were beyond annoying and I honestly had to stop myself from punching anything as I watched it.

The plotline was another thing that was a turn-off, but the biggest thing that made me aggravated was how they were all prepared to be mafiosos: no one actually had to train big time! It was as if the skill ... and everything came easily to them. This bothered me the most when they fought against the Varia, who all strived and fought for their talents - unlike these teenagers who merely show up and magically earn everything without even noticing it.

I really cannot understand the huge fuss that occurred over this anime, nor why it is still an 8, almost a 9 - but, hey, everyone has different opinions and this was just mine.

Now I'm just saying now it was a while ago that i watched this anime so i might be confused with somethings, ok lets begin.

This anime is a whole mix of emotions for me, there were so many ups and downs that writing a proper review would be too long and hard so I'll try to keep this short.

Story
Though there were some parts to the story that didn't live up to the rest I still found it very entertaining and well thought out, the way they included the members from the past made a large input and when I look back on it i realize ... it was quite thrilling. 8/10

Characters, honestly I did really enjoy the use of characters throughout this anime. With your enemies that you learn to be against revealing that they are trying to help and their past ties with other characters (sorry for being so vague but it is hard not to spoil anything here) being surprising and keeping me happy. 7/10

Overall i think this anime had great potential but was completely ruined by one thing, repetition. It is as if the producers just couldn't think of anything so they would repeat the same kind of scenes 10 times over! (this part may contain mild spoilers) I mean really, they are not strong enough to do something so then boom! There are these half rings they get, yay they are stronger now, but oh no! Even more powerful enemies and boom! They need to fight to get the other half of the rings and wallah they are powerful enough now, but wait look even stronger enemies! Now they can use the rings to summon animals, good they can defeat them now.



OHWAIT even STRONGER enemies, its ok because now the ring evolved and is even BETTER, they can beat the enemies now!!!

Overall the incredible repetition of this anime destroyed it for me, it had so much potential to be a great watch but it just couldn't keep up.
6/10

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! has one of the most interesting plots on paper, the story about a boy who sucks at literally everything (Sawada Tsunayoshi) and turns out to be the next boss in line on a prestigious mafia family.

At first i thought it would be a solid experience, thinking the characters would have significant character development and grow to accept their roles, but I'll tell you right now that this is for the most part, not the case.

The first 20 or so episodes of the anime are exclusively used to introduce characters and their powers (or weapons actually), they set up the premice that Tsuna ... is eventually gonna have to grow up and accept his role as the tenth boss, but he never does.

Below I'll explain on a precise note what makes this anime so terrible.


Story score: 7

Despite everything that Reborn! does wrong, the story is one of the few things it manages to get right, the arcs are actually pretty interesting story wise, they introduce the Arcobaleno (which in my opinion are the best part of the anime), have a war with rival mafia, a fight to decide who is the worthy successor of the Vongola, and some other things i'll not ention for the sake of keeping this as spoiler free as I can. After a while Tsuna stops getting naked as often as he does during the first 20~ episodes, but it still happens every now and then.

Art score: 7

Not much to say here, the anime is pretty old but it manages to look okay, it would be up to 2008 standards.

Sound score: 6

Same as the above but it does lack a bit more sometimes.


Character score: 2

Now here is my biggest issue with the anime, 90% of the main cast is absolutely terrible, specially Tsuna.

Tsuna:

Right off the bat I'll mention this, 194 episodes into the anime he still gets scared of everything, still refuses to act as the boss saying he never agreed to it, and absolutely ignores his gut feelings when he is not in combat.

The only times where Tsuna actually shines, is when he enters serious mode, which imo, he should use a lot more often. If you've watched Bleach,, get ready for an experience similar to Orihime's "Kurosaki-kun", because the amount of times he says "Kyoko-chan" is unreal.

He knows right away when one of his friends feels troubled, but only like 3 times has he actually done something about it; he says he fights to protect his friends, but during the last arc his friends are in danger almost the entire time, and he just stands there scared instead of reacting to the danger; he's trained an insane amount of times, and still whines when Reborn or anyone else tells him to train (credits to him for training by himself sometimes).

Overall he is a horrible MC, and an annoying character, i honestly rooted for the other boss candidate because he is actually a cool character who acts like a boss (he's an asshole tho).

Gokudera:

At first he is not so bad, but as the show goes on he gets worse and worse. He fights with literally everyone else, is rude for no reason, screams and rages whenever someone calls out Tsuna for sucking, calls himself "The boss' right hand man" but is never actually reliable, refuses to get help even when he knows he doesn't stand a chance, has the annoying trope of having a stomachache whenever he sees his sister. During a filler episode, they show how a right hand man should actually act, and it is miles better, but, as it happens with this show, whatever development he had during that episode, is thrown out the window on the next one.

Yamamoto:

He is actually one of the few characters I liked. He has an easygoing personality, but gets serious when he has to, is reliable, the only time he argued with someone from the team, was when Gokudera was being an asshole.

Lambo:

The most annoying little shit in the entire anime. The amount of trouble he gets the team into is enormous, he's pretty much useless, in fact, he's a liability for the rest. The irony is, he's the only kid i've seen in an anime who actually acts like a kid. I wanted to strangle him several times. So if the writers' intention was to represent real kids, they nailed that with Lambo. He has a few cool scenes (like a total 5 minutes) but pointing them out would be a spoiler.

I-Pin:

She gets introduced as a walking timebomb, and stays like that for the first quarter of the anime, after that she just becomes someone who tries to keep Lambo under control only to get herself in trouble along the way.

Hibari:

He single handedly has the most said line in the anime. "I'll bite you to death" and its pretty annoying. He's a quiet type and really doesnt give a damn about the others unless it is absolutely necessary, which puts him in a positive light for me because I hate everyone else too.

Chrome:

She would be a great character, if the anime actually developed her at all or gave her screentime. She's shy and doesn't know how to react towars kindness, but that just leaves her with no place to be during 3/4 of the anime. When she oes appear, her lines consist of "Mukuro-sama" and thats pretty much it. She is very weak, so whenever she does something it usually leaves her bedridden.

Haru and Kyoko:

They are mostly there to give Tsuna a reason to fight and to keep the team stable. Haru has a lot of personality and is a breath of fresh air because how grounded she is, while being absolutely ridiculous at the same time. Kyoko is just serving the role of Tsuna's love interest and nothing else, she;s a pretty bland character.

Bianchi:

She has the most stupid skill out of the team, using poison cakes. The funny thing is she often acts as if she's tough, only to get bodied in seconds. After a while, her purpose shifts to serving as the "wise older sister" for the team, specially the girls.

Reborn:

The single best character in the anime. Hes not afraid to be ridiculous when he can afford to be, but at the same time is always pushing Tsuna to act as the Boss, even if Tsuna never does. He teaches him from early on what it means to be part of the mafia, how a boss should care for his subordinates, and is always calling out how weak and how much of a wuss Tsuna is. He knows which characters are acting out of line ore simply being a hindrance or a nuisance. And most importantly he shows Tsuna the hard truth, that no one is gonna hold back just because he is scared, and that people could die if he doesn't take things seriously.


Enjoyment score: 4

What few truly enjoyable scenes there are, are quickly ruined by the characters' dumb clichés, bad jokes, annoying personality, and overused lines. After a certain point Tsuna manages to single handedly make me go insane because he never got the character development he needed, he just kept whining all the way. Many times the anime had a perfect moment to have him go serious and act like the Boss, but he never took advantage of it. In my eyes, Tsuna remained the same good for nothing he was at the start of the show, and Serious Tsuna isjust a completely different character.


Overall score: 5

There are way better shonens out there, even from the same era. Whatever lead people to rate this anime an 8, is just not there for me because even a 5 feels like im being generous.

TL:DR review. The plot and setting have great potential, average sound and art design, and is fairly enjoyable, but the characters make this anime fall so flat it may as well be 2D. There is no character growth, and behave inconsistently for no reason.

I end up skipping large portions main arc episodes, as it is stuffed with filler, despite also having filler episodes! I don't mind filler in general, but these characters are so transparent that it becomes incredibly dull.

Apparently this review is not yet long enough because of some arbitrary character requirement. I know most people on the internet tend to not ... spend a huge amount of time reading something after the few opening portions of a review. Usually they get the jist of what that review's overall attitude is, then off to the next to see what people overall think... so I feel this limit, and making me type this useless paragraph is a bit counter intuitive.

Hitman Reborn’s story revolves around a teenage boy attending Junior High whom everyone calls “Tsuna”. He is known to be bad physically and academically and top of that, he is unpopular, an absolute "loser" and had no friends. His life however, takes a sudden and extraordinary change when ‘Reborn’, an infamous hitman from the Vongola mafia family, takes a flight to Japan and trains Tsuna into becoming the 10th boss of Vongola.


One of the largest flaws in Hitman Reborn’s storytelling is the plot inconsistencies, not much planning can be seen in the plots department. That’s the sole reason why Hitman Reborn’s story changed so much ... drastically over the years as the author published it. First, we have normal everyday school life with humors and styles that could easily been seen as a gag comedy. Many people may not know this but originally the author Amino Akira intentionally thought that the manga was going to be a gag comedy or a parody of sorts.

The action comes in and the anime finally became what it is more intended for.. shounen. It is at this time where arcs like the Kokuyo Arc and Varia Arc emerged. And for the final arc which is the largest arcs in the series the "future arc", now turns into a bizarre arc which even involved time traveling on a large scale. Ironically, it seems this franchise gotten more known just when the actions started kicking in. I myself, also prefer the more technical and bizarre plot too, with all those time traveling, guardians, rings, boxes and deathperation flames, in contrast to the formerly gag tropes and comedy that was supposed to be hilarious, but i personally didn't find it the parodies or the comedy that funny at all.


Hitman Reborn is pretty poor at character developments. Out of all the characters, Tsuna is probably developed the most. But even then the way the MC is developed in this show is spread out so thin, that you have to be well into 100+ episodes just to see slight change in his personality and character. By the end of the show, he finally shows some qualities, but STILL does not accept the fact that he wants to join the mafia, i really found this very agitating after going through so much growth and change, he still denies that he is a boss which is something that happened at the very start of the series. For the other characters, I found them a bit annoying at first but after learning more about them, I grew to love some of them and each of their special traits the characters possesses. Yamamato is probably my most favorite of the vongolo guardians, reborn is definitely the most intriguing and interesting character in the series.

Hitman Reborn has a big character cast and I can’t help but find that some of them are nothing more then just plot devices. Besides, some of the characters could even be removed and the show would have been perfectly fine too. Especially when it’s nearing the end, there’s the main character and his guardians, the Varia, the Acrobelona, Mukuro/Chrome and the rest of the gang.

After some epic fights, the Antagonists guys are defeated but they usually don’t die. Then after a while, they return and help the protagonist. Rinse and repeat and that explains the huge character cast and over all structure of how the story is told. Having so many characters made viewers lose focus on the main characters, namely Tsuna and his guardians. Nevertheless, Hitman Reborn still has some good traits for certain characters.

The acrebelno characters were my in my opinion my most favorite and the background history behind these charactersz in the show during some of the acs were the most compelling i though and definitely gave the linear and inconsistent story structure some redeeming qualities. This is not the largest focus in the anime though, i imagine in the manga their will be much more focus on the acrebelono.

For an anime that started in 2006, it has quite a decent level of art and animations. Though I found their battle animations looking a bit stiff at some points but that is nothing to fret about as most of the elements are illustrated thoroughly. The art styles is well designed and the characters and settings did not lack too many details from the original artwork.

Hitman Reborn has a lot of great openings and endings, one of the redeeming things i loved bout the music in the show. One of my favorite is LM.C’s BOYS & GIRLS. I also like LM.C’s 88, CHERRYBLOSSOM’s DIVE TO WORLD and Ame Ato by w-inds. The voice acting is good too. I think the only voice acting I don’t like in this show is Gokudera. He sounds too forced, especially when he had to shout during battles, doing tsukkomi or when he had to show sincerity in his voice. I do like Mukuro’s distinctive “fufufu” and Hibari’s “kamikorosu” and Squalo’s “VOOOI!!!” Kind of reminds me of one piece's unique laughs.

Both the sound effects and background music are good but seems reused a lot as you watched the more later episodes. I really wished they mixed it up a bit and didn't rehash the same over used music from the start of the show in later arcs. How ever it definitely makes up for it when you get towards the end with some ground breaking epic music used to close off the show, but that really doesn't redeem its quality as far as music, to much rinse and repeat tunes and the limited amount of sound tracks really didn't keep me that interested during some of the more dramatic events, or the comedy moments.



In conclusion i would have to say that their is quite the fan following in this series, alot of people enjoyed it, i just happen to not be one of them. Like i said the inconsistencies of the pacing of the story and the underdeveloped characters, personalities types, such as the infamous "hibari" which lots of fans loved, i really didn't care for him because of his over used lines such "i will bite you to death" or "you must not lay a hand om nanimori" and almost dense like personality. It really turned me off as a viewer. Many of the characters i guess you can say have these types of traits to them then uniquely identify them as who they are but the dialogues they used are just over used to the point, that it kind of takes away the enjoyment in watching them go through growth and change through out the show.

If your an action fan, some of the fights are choreographed pretty well like bleach. Some of the action moments i really enjoyed and watching is a definite improvement over the manga in that regards. How ever if you are looking for a series that has a deep compelling plot, look else where, because this is really catered to more of that action shonen demographic rather then some one who really wants to see a deep interesting story unfold and characters with lots of depth to it.

On a final note, it has taken me literally almost 8 months to finish this show and thats a long time. I still have yet to read the remainder of the manga, some mysteries and some plot threads are introduced towards the end that i found very intriguing, so i may continue the manga, but the story that amino akira wrote could of had much more development, much more interesting characters and over all a more consistent and deep plot rather then using the same old competition like scenario's in the show.

If this review had been written back in 2006, I probably would have graded Reborn! with 8 or even 9. Unfortunately, this review was written in 2019. I decided to grade it a cold 5. Conclusion? Reborn! had failed to pass the test of time.

Back in mid-to-late Noughties, Reborn! became a staple for otaku and cosplayers everywhere. It was rare to see an anime series that blended a mafia element in its narrative and back then, zero-to-hero main characters were all the rage. Simplicity was celebrated, slapstick comedy was basically demanded, and the more straightforward the character development was, the better for the audience to ... follow. For instance, one could notice a subtle-yet-significant difference between the Noughties-era Tsuna and the 2010s-era Deku. While the latter seemed to have one giant crisis only as his sole challenge, Deku has so many barriers to climb, he just can't catch a break. Ultimately, though, that is what makes the latter more interesting than the former. Interesting and memorable. Boku no Hero Academia had learned the history and sadly, Reborn! is only a history.

It is not impossible for Noughties-era anime to stay relevant up to next decade and so. BLEACH, Naruto, and D.Gray-man had proven so without any necessity to re-master themselves for the current youngsters. What makes it impossible for Reborn! to join such league is simply the inability to stay relevant. The simplicity has become shallow in the eyes, the slapstick comedy has stopped drawing laughter and instead only drawing irritation and Tsuna has become the rare hero who just stops being either relatable or admirable. This has yet to mention the depiction of the female characters that is simply off-putting (it could draw the rage from the PTA of the present, I argue). Dare I say that the damage that Kyoko, Haru, and Bianchi had done to female empowerment movements has become far worse than what Misa of Death Note did? Well... yes.

Regardless of such, it is still understandable that Reborn! does --and will always-- have a loyal fan base. This is still one of those anime series with which one whole generation grew up and made their childhood the way it was. Just don't count this series to generate new fan base. Sometimes, re-watching is not always a good idea. Sometimes, having a nostalgic memory is better.

#felixlovesanime

Be warned, this review contains /spoilers/. Also, this review has some references to the manga version.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is one of those anime that you either love to pieces or hate with your entire soul. There is no “in between” or “neutral” ground with this one.

The main character of Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is Sawada Tsunayoshi “Tsuna”, who is the unwilling candidate for the Vongola Decimo, the Tenth Vongola Boss. He was chosen due to the fact that his great-great-great-great grandfather, the first Vongola Boss, moved to Japan and set off the long chain of reactions that would eventually lead to Tsuna being born. Tsuna isn’t ... exactly your ideal boss candidate – basically, he’s a useless wimp, putting it bluntly. He also has no intention of being involved with the mafia, or any sort of underground organization. One day, his mother applies for a tutor to teach him, as he is failing at school. This home tutor happens to be Reborn – a gun-wielding infant who is apparently the best hitman of the Vongola family. He immediately starts off training Tsuna; most of these episodes are gags, as it was originally supposed to be a comedy manga. Eventually it kicks off as a slightly formulaic beat bad guy, get a power up, beat the next bad guy series.

Of course, as a mafia man, Tsuna needs “Guardians”, who embody or control the six Flames of the Vongola Family. Gokudera Hayato has a love of dynamite and is Tsuna’s self-proclaimed right-hand-man; he is the Guardian of Storm. Yamamoto Takeshi sees mafia as a game, loves baseball, and is the Guardian of Rain. Lambo, an infant from the Bovino Family who has an ongoing rivalry with Reborn, is the Guardian of Lightning. Sasagawa Ryohei, a boxer, is the Guardian of the Sun. Hibari Kyouya, a young man who is obsessed with rules and regulations, is the Guardian of Cloud. Rokudo Mukuro and Chrome Dokuro are the Mist Guardians. (No, they are not the same person. Their situation is quite an interesting one.) The plot doesn’t really get exciting until the second or third arc, when the Varia comes into play. And it gets even better during the Future and Choice arcs.

Interestingly enough, for a formulaic animanga, the characters do grow and change as the story develops from one antagonist to the next. The art also changes drastically – it improves greatly over the course of the series, from slightly sloppy drawings to art that can almost be called beautiful. (Although it will, of course, never be as beautiful as Nabari no Ou.) The plot is obviously somewhat lacklustre and simple, although it does become more complicated as the characters become more and more entangled in the affairs of the Vongola family. All the characters have some sort of back story and a reason, as it were, to behave as they do. More or less. There are some characters that we know next to nothing about, but these are generally characters that have little importance to the plot.

If you don’t mind some mindless fun, KHR! is a good animanga to watch or read. Both the anime and manga are long, with the anime being over two hundred episodes and the manga still ongoing. On this note, I’ll inform you that, in my humble opinion, the manga is better. It is more mature than the anime – its counterpart had many things either censored or cut out completely. For example, in the manga, Gokudera is a chain smoker, while in the anime, he doesn’t smoke at all. Also, some events in the manga are either scrapped or twisted around in the anime. Therefore, the manga would be the slightly better choice, as it was made first and the original media is usually best, as in the case of Nabari no Ou and Pandora Hearts. (Yes, I’m just making up reasons to say “Nabari no Ou”. You caught me.)

If formulaic action isn’t your thing, I advise you to stay away from this series. If, however, you don’t mind it and can use a bit of mindless animanga, you’re good to go. I for one enjoy KHR! quite a bit, although not enough to call it the best series in the world.

Great another anime where the main character is a complete wimp and the mafias involved in it lets see how it is.

*After watching the anime* Wow, really.

Okay this anime isn't the worst anime I've ever seen in my entire life, probably because it isn't the anime for me, but I'm going to do the best I can and this is my first review.

Story - 5
The story of a wimpy main character being the new boss for the Vongola family. Yeaah making a 14 year old a boss of a mafia family, yeah like nothing bad's ever going to him except dying and also being a ... target and can easily be killed with a bullet in his head. But you know what this is an anime,oh yeah and another thing you know how this is an anime about the mafia only TWO characters have guns the rest of the cast has like close combat weapons, which is stupid how they can't kill them when they can just stand on a roof top across the school and you can just shoot them with a sniper rifle. But yeah the stories okay, because the first 20 episodes are going to be the most stupidest way to introduce characters and it will forever just to get good make sure you have alot of time to kill or if you do watch it just make sure you have something soft and fluffy to hit your head against.

Art - 5
I can't really say anything for the art it's okay nothing particularly special about it, since it's like any other long running anime, There maybe some weird moments where the characters look weird, but yeah that's the only bad thing I could say. The fight scenes are the only good part about probably where all the money went. But other than that it's okay.

Sound - 8
The sounds are the only things that I would consider giving it something over an eight, because the voices actually fit the characters, but I don't really remember the back round that's probably just me, it may be different for other people. The OPs and EDs are actually the best things about the sound section they got right music for the arc and the OPs and EDs.

Characters - 3
Ugh, the characters I hated the characters, they were so annoying, this is what almost made me quit the series the characters. There's so much things I hate about them, first of all you know nothing about the characters or just barely any thing about them just little things, another thing their not funny I don't get why? Tsuna is a wimp it's annoying, well to me. Gokudera is another annoying character, He basically warships Tsuna like a god and completely f*cks off everybody else. Yamamoto..... there's nothing to say about him except that he's a nice kid. Ryohei he's like the annoying screaming neighbor kid. Lambo annoying crying spoiled brat that makes you want to throw him off a cliff. Hibari I seriously think that he's just here for the famale fanbase and for the fujoshi's. Chrome, ugh Chrome she is completely useless in fighting. Mukuro, seriously dude you could've gotten a better person than Chrome. The girls they do nothing it would've been better if they weren't involved with the mafia because, ugh, this is so misogynist all the girls get defeated easily, get saved by them, do nothing but housework and cook..... May be it would've been better if they die that'll be real twist a dark one. Oh yeah, the villans are a joke by the way don't even think of them as villans.

Enjoyment - 3
killed me with the characters but thats about it I can't really say anything about it.

Oh and another thing why there only two characters that have guns in this entire anime about the mafia. Okaythings that make it a awesome mafia show awesome and likeable main characters, guns a very dark story from the beginning and good villans. this anime lacks those things there fore making it a bad mafia anime.

Quick Thoughts: (You can read the rest of my write-up if interested in a little more detail after this)

SLOW pacing but nice story with a good ending. It just takes forever to get to the end.



Fast review concerning the set up of the anime. Although the anime is great, the way it's set up is very frustrating. There are 203 episodes in total, but new content time is much less. The reason for this is that during the last 2/3rds of the series there are VERY long recaps at the beginning of each episode. Then to make each episode even shorter, there ... is a vignette or a type of skit after the ending credits which sometimes last close to 5 minutes. Because of the short time that NEW material is shown, the plot develops at a snail's pace.

Sometimes it's just about 5 or 6 minutes into the show when new content is finally presented and then for only about 10-15 minutes before the ending credits and vignette/skit. Don't forget, occasionally there are complete recap episodes and filler episodes as well. Overall, the anime series is a lot shorter than the episode count suggests.

Final note, if single fights that last like 10 episodes annoy you, then give Hitman a pass. There are quite a few fights that last many episodes due to flashbacks and the "Oh wait, they aren't defeated quite yet" moments. What content that is there is great, but sometimes you just feel like weeding through all the blah to get to it.

I watched the entirety of KHR several years ago and I loved it. It hurts me to leave such a low score on this anime but I've been doing a re-watch and parts of this show are just painfully bad. If you are willing to trudge through the bad to get to the good I would recommend it but it was honestly hard to watch at times and there are much better shows out there.

I would say the show gets better and better with time. I'm giving it a 6 overall but I would say the first season is a 4 and ... the later seasons are an 8. If you do decide to watch this series don't give up it takes a while to get good and an even longer time to get consistently good.

If you are up to the task of watching what amounts to roughly 30 episodes of filler with 5 or 6 good episodes in the middle you're in for a treat but I honestly can't give it a high grade because the first season is just awful.

I actually came across this anime by accident but i dont remember how
Anyways
This is one of my favorite shounen anime
It's starts off slow but gradually picks up pace .

What i really like about this anime is the action . There wasn't any action in the beginning of the anime so it made the anime dull and boring for me and i started thinking "Is this even a good anime ?". And i told myself no . Or so i thought . After a few episodes , i lost hope in this anime until the action started happening . The fight scenes were just plain amazing ... to me .
Anyways
Great fight scenes . Great story line as you get further into the anime . Great art style or coloring or however you say it .

I always wanted to comment on this series tho it may be a little late but I still wish to say some key points that cause this to never reach is key potential to me.

(there or some spoilers in here so read at your own risk)

1: No Character development
2: Not utilizing the elements that your story have
3: bad use of romance
4: Horrible ending

1 character development (mainly I'm going to speak about main character in this one since if i talk about all support and mc in this show it would be to long)
...
in shounen manga one of the biggest thing along with having action pack awesome scenes that draws the reader is watching the character develop step by step. Not all shounen manga have M.c character developing (ex: one piece luffy DBZ goku ) let me just say a quick show of what i mean by using luffy and why he didn't need character development. from the begin of one piece luffy was never a coward or a weak type of character he was always confident and strong willed and does what he wants to do and feel like doing similar to goku if i say so my self they or more in the category of Over power stupid/genius characters from the start. what i mean by that is from the begin of one piece we witness luffy doing goofy and stupid things like a 5 year old child but when he gets into battle he's like a fighting genius and some what over power from the start of the show. the same goes for goku he was stupid in many ways and seem to know only how to eat and fight also shown to be a fighting genius and throughout both of there stories they never change from the begin to end they tend to be the type that allow people to draw near them and change due to there straightforward nature.

tsuna is from the other bread similar to Kenchi from History's strongest disciple they or weak,cowardly, talent less, so so, uncool and with just about no friends at all type that we see in some shounen manga these or the types that the readers get to enjoy to things watching them get stronger physically if it's a fighting type of shounen manga and watching them slowly come from that pathetic self of theirs to a full fledged bad ass.

So for this character development topic about how tsuna haven't develop at all I will use kenchi as an example of good use of character development. So first like i said above those were the traits tsuna poses in the begin of the story but after meeting reborn and being cast into endless battles but realizing trough these battles he was able to find a place in the world and also gain friends and get closer to the girl he likes as well as becoming a better leader and calling shots well also being able to slowly become more confident in him self. oh you guy's may thing from hearing all of this that there seems to be ntn wrong with his character development well guess what your wrong yes with this it's actually good character development but hats only if the development actually sticks and continue to build up trough out the hold story. So let me explain mostly all what I mention above except for getting friends and getting closer to the girl he likes which can't really say has much to do with character development stays trough out the story but every thing else was reset after an arc was over and we go back to the every day type of arc. whats happen here is the the creator tends to remove all the development he gains trough these trials and turns him back to the character he starts of with in the begin he kept on saying he will never become the 10 boss I understand him saying that in the begin but after 3 4 5 6 arcs and he acts as the 10 boss and gives orders like a boss uses the property off his mafia family accept the heritage of his family and even claim to destroy it if he has to accept the legacy and continue down some of his predecessor path. but once those arcs or over the creator trows everything he gain from them or say during those arcs out the window like it never happen. which is extremely irritating when you feel like yes the mc is starting to become a bad ass and he might soon accept being the boss and then things will get even more awesome and then this happen. now from what I look at from this I think it has something to do with the fact that the creator is a gag manga artist and if you read enough of gag you would know that one of the biggest things in gag that's different from shounen is that what happen in the last chapter story stays in that chapter story.

For an example say in a gag manga story the mc cut off all his hair and turn bald for the hold chapter when the next chapter comes out it's like the previous one never appear there is no continuation of previous chapters. (tho there or still some gag manga that have continuation such as D-frag and so fort ) but most gag manga tend to let things that happen in previous chapters stay in that chapter so I believe the creator is doing something similar with letting every character development tsuna build up during those arcs reset and let him keep denying becoming the boss as a runing gag since she supposedly place it as a gag/shounen manga. this was a horrible mistake and a not funny joke if she had allow tsuna to grow as a character and kept the growth he gain and allow the experience that he gain trough out the battles stick to his character and showed even in his everyday life so that the readers can see him slowly progressing to what we hope he become it would of drawn and satisfy us more then just seeing every thing that was build up collapse in our face like a stupid unfunny joke. while im at it lets just try to cover the other few points but brief first the romance that was suppose to happen with the other 2 girls were horrible and never bear any fruit to the point I even wanted one of them to die to maybe at least serve a purpose to drive the mc to become what he should. also the mc never even once gain the balls to confess and always kept keeping his feelings inside like a wuss. and the ending was horrible I mean at first they had the future arc where they show every one of the characters future versions so we were super hype on hoping to see tsuna at least once but all we got was his lower half face and I think his back when this happen I thought of an idea for the creator to fully satisfy his readers to believe the hold book was worth the journey after seeing an ending where she atleats dedicated 4 pages of the last chapter to a future where tsuna is boss and his guradings discussing something and him giving orders like a bad ass and then they leaving to execute them whiles also showing him in a boss chair with ether one of the annoying chicks since none of them seem different to me coming in to give refreshment to them and they have a panel showing tsuna as well as her ring finger. and then maybe reborn busting trough the window and attempting to kick tsuna in the head like he always does but tsuna was able to doge by going hyper mode at will but reborn still finds a way to hit him calling him by the nick name he usually use then correcting him self saying something like I guess that nick name doesn't suit you anymore. with this it will show a lot of things such as tsuna growth physically and character development first we got him acting like a true boss and looking like one the same time and speaking and being more confident in his self we also seem him even strong enough to quickly sense reborn attack and able to enter hyper mode at will no longer needing to rely on the pills and even reborn praising him for his progress next we got to see him actually gain a lover and we get to see how his future self looks all of this will be enough for mostly all readers to satisfy there hunger for a good ending. but instead we got an ending that no different from there every day arcs

Kenchi on the other hand was done well un like his counterpart above he slowly grow trough each fight he had at first he was an extreme coward and barely can stand his ground for what he believe he was always afraid of sharp objects and didn't want to even come near them he never wanted anything to do with his weird friend organization shinnpaku alliance and was afraid to have the resolve to die in battle. but all of this slowly and obviously was shown to change trough out the show and even the people around him and that are in his school notice these obvious changes he become extremely strong step by step from being able to fight armatures in clubs to tugs outside school to semi pros in school to high class disciples known around the world and even hold off and come back alive against real masters and tell the end he him self finally reach grand master level. in the begin he was scared in fights and even when he did fight he was an extremely slow starter but later we see him slowly start to pick up in the amount of time he becomes serious in a fight to the point he starts from the begin we also saw how at first he could never face a girl but learn to cover this weakness by only using submission Technics on them instead of hitting. we watch him from having 0 friends to having a hold lot and even fully acting on his position as co commander of shinpaku alliance and relying on his friends to have his back we watch him half way trough the manga confess to the girl he likes and tell her that he won't fully confess tell he has the full strength to protect her. we also saw how he had many different fears and even up to some of the later chapters he still did but he laid a resolve that no matter what he faces he will never run and he stick to this to the end showing how he was able to face off with masters that can kill him in an instant and how he does what ever he believe is right never backing down no matter what he has to face. (this is showing that he has evolve slowly to the type like goku and luffy doing what they feel like doing and feel is right never listing to other people which is the road to the true strong) there or many things that showed how he develop as a character and the ending of this story was quite satisfying if there was anything i didn't like it was that I wish there was more chapters but I guess there wasn't anything left to build on. If you haven't read this yet then please do it's an awesome read 585 chapters (History's strongest disciple) there or other things that show character development but it will take to long and I've already write way to much so I can't even cover the 2 point but just to out it in a nut shell with the cards the creator had (mafia, linage, guardians that apart of your intermediate family, rings that represent different meaning and so on) each of these elements were enough for the creator to make the best shounen manga ever ether better then one piece and the others or on par as long as she used it properly but i guess since she wasn't a shounen manga artist it kinda bite her in the butt. they really didn't use much of the mafia elements and one of the main reason to is because of tsuna not accepting his heritage early in the story. anyway this what I would like to say quickly. thanks for reading my opinion and I hope you can read this properly my grammar sucks (but don't point that out please)