Something I’ve Read:
Katekyo Hitman Reborn
KHR (written by author Akira Amano) is one of those stories
that tried to go from light hearted goofiness to serious fighting, and failed.
Well, mostly.
It’s starts off fairly simply…well, at least compared to how
it ends up. Tsunayoshi (Tsuna) Sawada (a failure at pretty much anything) wakes
up one morning to discover that his mum has hired an infant home tutor to teach
him called Reborn. Reborn then reveals he has been hired by the ninth head of
the Vongola mafia family to groom Tsuna for the position of tenth head of the
family. He also encourages Tsuna to go past his boundaries by shooting him with
a special kind of bullet that makes a person determined to fulfil whatever regrets
they had when they were shot. From here, we introduce pint sized assassins, food
based assassins, rings and pacifiers with vaguely defined powers and lots and
lots of anti-climaxes.
KHR has a lot of problems. The author seems to love using
and reusing certain characters, even when it doesn’t make sense for them to be
in the arc, and to make matters worse new characters and powers are introduced
all the time, making it all feel progressively more messy and incoherent. The overall
backstory isn’t that well done, and really feels like it was made up as it went
along. But by far the biggest flaw here are the anti-climaxes. So many fights
end disappointingly, often just with a curbstomp battle from one side. Ultimate
moves are brushed off easily, and power levels are just weirdly inconsistent even
within battles.
That’s not to say that it is all bad. The characters are
interesting, and for the most part really likable, particularly Tsuna himself,
and most of the powers are actually pretty interesting, it’s just that there
are too many of them. What’s more, when the series is trying to be a comedy and
not an action show, it is actually really funny.
The art is also
pretty nice, with lots of pretty interesting character designs, particularly
the infant characters. It’s enjoyable if you can get past the pacing and other
issues, though I probably would advise it more to people who can read quickly
due to the series’ length.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn has been translated by Viz Media under
the name Reborn!. There’s also an anime version, which I’ve never seen so can’t
comment on, other than that the song “Tsuna Awakens” is awesome.
Next time (well,
today): K-On!
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