Reborn!

Reborn!, known in Japan as Katekyō Hitman Reborn! (家庭教師ヒットマンREBORN! Katekyō Hittoman Ribōn!^?, "Katekyō" being a portmanteau ofKatei Kyōshi and translated as Home Tutor), is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Akira Amano. The plot revolves around the life of a young boy named Tsunayoshi Sawada, who finds out that he is next in line to become the boss of the most powerful Mafia organization called Vongola, theVongola Family. As such, the Vongola's most powerful hitman, a gun-toting infant named Reborn, is sent to tutor "Tsuna" on how to become a respectable boss.

The individual manga chapters were serialized in Japan in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from April 4, 2004 and ended in November 12, 2012 and have been published into forty-two tankōbon volumes as of March 4, 2013. Viz Media licensed the series for an English language release in North America, shortening the series name to Reborn!. An anime adaptation of the series by Artland aired on TV Tokyo between October 7, 2006 and September 25, 2010. There have also been various video games based on the series, as well as two light novels by Hideaki Koyasu.

Reborn! has become one of the best-selling Weekly Shōnen Jump manga with several of its volumes becoming top-sellers in Japan.^[3][4] Reviewers from the series praised its use of comedy as well as the designs used for the infant characters.^[5][6] They also mentioned that though it has become more violent since volume 8, it has turned into a more typical shōnen series, praising the storylines and the fights.

Plot

The Reborn! story revolves around a boy named Tsunayoshi "Tsuna" Sawada, who is chosen to become the Vongola (Italian clam) Family's boss due to him being the great-great-great-great grandson of the first Vongola boss, who had moved to Japan from Italy during his own time. He is told by Reborn that he will become the tenth (Italian decimo) Vongola boss. Also, the other candidates for the position of the head of the Vongola Family have died. For these reasons, Tsuna is the only remaining heir. As such, Timoteo a.k.a. "Vongola IX", the current head of the family, sends Reborn, an infant hitman from Italy, to train Tsuna. Tsuna then unwillingly undergoes training from Reborn. Reborn's main method of teaching Tsuna is the "Deathperate Bullet" (死ぬ気弾 Shinukidan^?), which will make the person be "reborn" with a stronger self intent on fulfilling his dying will. Through his experiences, the initially clumsy and underachieving Tsuna unconsciously becomes stronger, more confident, and willing, which ultimately makes him better suited as the Vongola Family's boss despite continuing to reject his Mafia inheritance. He also starts making several friendships such as his crush Kyoko Sasagawa.

Tsuna goes through many predicaments in his progress of becoming the Vongola boss including fighting against escaped Mafia convicts posing as Kokuyo Junior High students. Later, The Varia, Vongola assassin squad, claim the right for their boss, Xanxus to be the true Vongola boss, and starts a competition with Tsuna to decide who would be the Vongola boss. To defeat the Varia, Reborn recruits most of Tsuna's schoolmates to become the Vongola guardians: Hayato Gokudera, an expert on dynamite who wishes to be his right-hand man, Takeshi Yamamoto, an athlete who likes baseball and thinks that the Mafia is a game, Ryohei Sasagawa, the energetic captain of the school boxing club and always goes to the most extreme, andKyoya Hibari, the deadly head prefect. Lambo, a weak infant hitman who wants to kill Reborn, and also is very annoying, lazy, and spoiled, andChrome Dokuro, a girl who has a mental and physical link with the criminal Mukuro Rokudo, joins them as well. Later, after defeating the Varia, Tsuna and his friends are transported to the future where they must face the Millefiore Family, who are annihilating the Vongola. They also find that all the Arcobaleno are dead except for Lal Mirch, who was the holder of the corrupted Pacifier. As Tsuna and the Vongola Guardians from his time fight the Millefiore they learn that Shoichi Irie, a comrade of Tsuna's future self, was the one who sent them to the future as the future Tsuna said they were the only ones who can defeat the Millefiore leader Byakuran. It is later revealed that Byakuran has gained knowledge from parallel worlds and that he wants to obtain all the Mafia rings in order to obtain a power similar to omniscience.

After defeating Byakuran, Tsuna and company return to the present where they learn that Tsuna is to undergo the inheritance ceremony to officially become Vongola X. However, the ceremony is attacked by the Shimon Family, who have sworn revenge on Vongola Primo for supposedly betraying the first Shimon boss. Armed with their new Vongola Gear, Tsuna confronts the Shimon family on a secluded island. The Mafia family, Vindice, are involved in the battle and imprison the losers of the feud. After several battles, it is revealed, Daemon Spade, an illusionist and guardian of the first generation of Vongola, was manipulating Shimon. He uses the conflict to take control of Mukuro's body and intends to conquer Vongola to remodel it to his image, but the combined strength of Tsuna and Simon's leader, Enma Kozato, manages to defeat Daemon once and for all.

Afterwards, Reborn and the other Arcobaleno are offered a chance to compete against one another in order to undo the curse inflicted upon them. Each Arcobaleno chooses a representative to fight for them, and the winner will have a chance to undo the curse. However, the Vindice enter the fight and reveal to Reborn and Tsuna that the tournament is actually a front for the selection of a new Arcobaleno, while the previous Arcobaleno are discarded to either die, or become Vindice themselves. Unable to accept the method, Tsuna formed alliance with the entire remaining teams to defeat Bermuda and the Vindice. During the last day of the Representative Battle of the Rainbow, Tsuna defeats Bermuda and his team, making his team won the Representative Battle. Checker Face, the ringleader behind the Curse of the Rainbow that inflicted upon the Arcobaleno, reveals himself and disclosed his true identity as Kawahira as he tells them the truth behind the Tri-ni-set. Finally finding another solution to keep the Tri-ni-set safe and Yuni's concision, Kawahira agreed to remove the curse inflict upon the Arcobaleno and entrust the safety of the Tri-ni-set to the future generations. After the events in the Arcobaleno Battle Reborn asks Tsuna to make a decision and become the tenth head of the Vongola Family, which Tsuna refuses. Reborn leaves since he has no business again with Tsuna. A week after Reborn's departure, Tsuna realises that he is still No-Good Tsuna and states that nothing has changed. However, Reborn then comes back, declaring that he will train Tsuna into Neo-Vongola Primo, which is similar to becoming Vongola Decimo. Remembering that now he has friends that he could rely on and finally understood that he did change from everything that he has experienced, he realised that everything was all thanks to his tutor and partner, The Home Tutor Hitman Reborn.

Media

Manga

Written and drawn by Akira Amano, the Reborn! manga began serialization in the 26th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on April 4, 2004, ending its run on November 4, 2012.^[9][10] The individual chapters are also published in collected volumes by Shueisha, with the first volume having been released on October 4, 2004,^[11] and as of September 4, forty volumes have been released, with the final 42nd volume to be released in March 2013.^[10][12] The series is licensed in North America by Viz Media, who serialize the chapters in their monthly manga anthology Shōnen Jump Advanced and have also released them in volumes. The first volume was released on October 3, 2006;^[13] the sixteenth volume was released on July 6, 2010.^[14] Viz has currently placed the series on hiatus. Reborn! is also licensed in German by Tokyopop,^[15] and in French by Glénat.^[16]

An official character book titled Katekyō Hitman Reborn! Official Character Book Vongola 77 was released on October 4, 2007 in Japan. It is based on the manga and covers the 77 incidents that happened since Reborn arrived at the Sawada household. The book also reveals profiles of major characters including birthdays and favorites. Short side stories not shown in the manga are also included, along with free color posters drawn by Amano.^[17] On April 2, 2010, the series' first artbook, titled Reborn Colore!, was released.

Anime

The series has been adapted into an anime series that lasts 203 episodes, and is produced by Artland and directed by Kenichi Imaizumi. It first aired on October 7, 2006 on the Japanese networkTV Tokyo and ended on September 25, 2010.^[19][20] Though the anime series has not been licensed for distribution outside of Japan, Funimation, on behalf of Japan's d-rights production company, exercised a power of attorney to remove fansubbed episodes of the Reborn! anime from the internet. Thus, to prevent copyright infringement, cease and desist notices were sent to fansub groups who were subtitling the series.^[21] On March 21, 2009, the anime-streaming website Crunchyroll began streaming subtitled episodes of the Japanese series in North America. New episodes were available within an hour after the airing in Japan.^[22]

As of May 29, 2009, a total of twenty-seven DVD volumes have been released in Japan by Marvelous Entertainment.^[23][24] The DVDs have secondary volume titles: the first eight volumes are "Bullets" which contains the first thirty-three episodes; the next eight are "Battles", and contains episodes 34 to 65; volumes seventeen and eighteen are "Daily Chapters", containing episodes 66 to 73; the next seven are the "Burn" volumes and contains episodes 74 to 101; and starting from volume 26, they are referred to as the "X.Burn" volumes.^[23][25] A DVD box containing the Bullet episodes was published in Japan on June 17, 2009.