Story – 8/10
*If not for the two horrible filler arcs this section could have been rated higher*
KHR begins as we see the everyday life of a hopeless middle school boy named Sawada Tsunayoshi (Tsuna for short). Tsuna is called “No-Good Tsuna” by his classmates because he fails at everything: terrible grades, can’t play sports, no friends, and couldn’t even ride a bike without training wheels until the fourth grade. One day, a mysterious baby named Reborn shows up. Reborn claims to be the world’s greatest Hitman and has come to Tsuna in order to train him to become the next leader of the mafia group called the “Vongola.” Tsuna thinks the whole thing sounds extremely dangerous, but as much as he tries to escape his fate as mafia boss, Reborn forces him into it. Reborn has strange bullets called “Dying Will” bullets that cause Tsuna’s clothes to fly off (except his underwear conveniently) and give him incredible strength to accomplish whatever goal he needed to do when Reborn shot him.
With Reborn leading him along, Tsuna slowly begins to become more popular and even starts getting friends like the intelligent delinquent Gokudera Hayato, the baseball obsessed Yamamoto Takeshi, and the little annoying bovine broccoli Lambo. All Tsuna wants to do is not fail at life, get together with his crush Sasagawa Kyoko, and live a normal life, but that doesn’t happen.
Instead, Tsuna, along with the 6 Vongola guardians that Reborn and him eventually assemble, are forced into conflict after conflict. Their bonds grow (well most of them do) over the course of the anime and they gain incredible powers.
That’s enough of a summary without trying to spoil anything, so I’ll give my opinion on the plot now. As someone who’s not really a fan of slapstick comedy, I did have to push myself a bit to get through the Daily Life Arc early on. In a way that is bad and good, they split up the arc into three segments with real plot/action in between. It's nice that it's split up, but at the same time it does take away the from somewhat from the flow of the plots it separates. The Daily Life Arc is mainly just there to introduce characters, have a little development, and then it’s just filler comedy for the most part.
However once that’s over, the story really picks up and become much more interesting.
Art – 8/10
The art style undergoes a big change around 60-70 episodes in due to the fact that the manga did so as well. The main change is just how much better all of the characters look. Still, in the beginning, the art is pretty unimpressive. Like many long-running shows (like Naruto and One Piece), the first few episodes are very lazy when it comes to detail in backgrounds. A lot of fight scenes could have been done better, and even later in the anime, they sometimes choose to focus on side characters talking rather than showing the action. But the action scenes, when fully shown, are awesome with the final few episodes of the show having some of the best animated action scenes I've ever seen. The character designs are where the art really shines as they are not only interesting, but unique among the other characters in the show.
Sound – 9/10
The voice acting in this show is awesome. Tsuna’s VA, Kokubun Yukari, and Sasagawa Ryouhei’s VA, Kiuchi Hidenobu, especially have to go through such huge changes throughout the show and they pull them off perfectly. Tsuna has several different modes and has different voices for each one (and by that I also mean wimpy Tsuna and much less wimpy Tsuna as well). Still there are a few problems. Lambo is almost always annoying (he’s voiced by the same person as Naruto, Takeuchi Junko) and Tsuna starts out sounding very annoying.
The soundtrack is another area where I’m very conflicted. As much as I love the songs used during the serious scenes (especially “Tsuna Awakens” and “Trinisette”), the music used in the beginning and during comedic scenes later on is very basic and really does not add much to the at-times-ridiculous comedy.
Character – 9/10
This show managed to take characters who all seemed fairly boring and comedic and managed to create one of my favorite character casts ever (though I still find Lambo annoying). Sawada Tsunayoshi has one the best developments ever from a wimpy, pathetic, hopeless mess into a less wimpy Vongola Boss with many friends. And really, all Tsuna cares about are protecting his friends no matter what it takes in order to make sure that they are all still together at the end of the day.
As for his guardians (I won’t mention them all due to spoilers) they are also exceptional and development alongside Tsuna. His self-proclaimed right hand man and first friend, Gokudera Hayato uses dynamite to fight. Gokudera came all the way from Italy to meet Tsuna, and is quickly impressed by him. Yamamoto Takeshi takes the whole mafia thing as a joke and becomes friends with Tsuna. Still, when Yamamoto gets serious, he gets really serious (whether it’s about baseball or fighting for his friends). Sasagawa Ryouhei is the loud older brother of Tsuna’s crush (Kyoko). He took up boxing after he promised Kyoko to never get into fights with other guys again. Hibari Kyoya is a strong boy and the leader of the Disciplinary Committee who keeps to himself and loves nothing more than Namimori Middle School. He only respects Reborn and never considers himself part of the group with everyone else.
As for Reborn, there is a lot of mystery surrounding him. He’s a baby with incredible strength, knowledge, and fame as a mafia Hitman. He tutors Tsuna in everything from schoolwork to fighting to making friends. The rest of the supporting cast is excellent as well with Dino, I-Pin, Haru, Bianchi, and everyone else that is drawn to Tsuna and his family.
Enjoyment – 8/10
I was really wavering back and forth between 8 and 9 for this category until the very end. Despite it’s slow start and bad fillers arcs, Katekyo Hitman Reborn is a really interesting and enjoyable anime. It has plenty of great plot twists and there are several characters who seem unimportant at first but end up being necessary later on. If you like similar shounen/action/nakama shows like Fairy Tail, One Piece, and Naruto, then I recommend watching Katekyo Hitman Reborn! The show really got interesting for me around Episode 75 so if you can make it that far, then I think you’ll really enjoy it.
