Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

 Well, this has been a while, but during 2022 I just wanted to watch one of those classic, immensely long (well, not as immense as some out there) anime series.

And that was Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, a series that ran from 2006 to 2010 and counts 203 episodes.

And because I have cosplay intentions for the little Reborn himself.  Tsunayoshi Sawada is a good for nothing clutz, dubbed "loser Tsuna" by his classmates.  But one day, he gets a visit from Reborn, a baby like master assassin telling him he is the 10th boss of the Vongola maffia family in Sicily, and he is here to tutor him.  When hit by special bullets from Reborn's shaeshifting lizard pistol, he gets incredible powers and confidence... for a while.

In the meantime, Tsuna is in a way starting to create his own family of confidantes, whom are put through all sorts of strange training sessions by Reborn to become worthy of the 10th.  Ordered by the 9th, he and his friends must capture some fugitives, earning their stripes as becoming his true confidantes as they go and rescue Fuuta the prediction making expert.  But it is all a trap by Mukuro, from another family that used people for experimentation and now hate the mafia.  As they defeat them, Tsuna learns the harsh laws of the mafia.

They are going on holiday to Mafia Land, but upon approach Reborn's pacifier glows in response to another baby hitman watching the ship sail in.  This is Colonello, the one in charge of the island.  And he will assist in Tsuna's training on the island while the others are on vacation.  But a rival mafia family, with another baby hitman Skull, assaults the island.

Later on, Basil with an Undying Will flame and the man that hunts him, appears before Tsuna.  But even with his friends and his own Undying Will, he proves to much to initially overcome.  Basil brings the 7 Vongola Rings, but Dino intervenes.  Learning the power of the rings, they are distributed along the people worthy of protecting the 10th Vongola boss.  In the meantime, a training regime is created to allow Tsuna to keep the Undying Will power longer going then 5 minutes.

The Varia assassination clan of the Vongola though tries to test all the members of Tsuna's family, and Tsuna himself, of being worthy of succeeding him, by seeing who is worthy of the rings.  This is done by organising a tournament, where the holders of the halves of the rings from both the Varia and the 10th face off against each other.  And it amongst others shows how powerful little Lambo can become... and causing Tsuna to ever more awakened in his powers.

One by one, his chosen ones need to prove their worth, and it turns out Mukuro even became one of his guardians.  He makes short work of his opponent, and tells Tsuna his motives of becoming his guardian.  But the final battle for the last ring between the huge weapon Mosca and Hibari... making Hibari challenge the boss of the opponents himself.  But Tsuna faces a restarted Mosca, and upon defeating it, the 9th Vongola boss falls out, meaning Tsuna was tricked into attacking the previous boss.

This means a match for avenging the 9th is held between Xanxus and Tsuna, the two candidates to become the new boss.    But with the lives of his Guardians on the line, Tsuna and his friends need to go beyond themselves to overcome Xanxus and his cronies one last time.

After this arc, we get some short adventures before moving on to the next big storyline.  And this was a fun one, as an accident with Lambo's 10 Year bazooka results in the gang being forwarded in time to look for the missing Reborn.  When they reunite, they learn the time of the shot was off and there has been a messing with the timeline, the Vongola being hunted.

As Tsuna gathers his companions to repair the events, they face the Millefiore, but to be honest I thought this arc rather meeh.  However, during this arc Tsuna's full ring power is extracted into him, due to meeting the Vongola of the past.  Now we know where Boku No Hero got his One For All idea from though.  The biggest "issue" perhaps as well with this arc is that the episodes, if you take off the opening and the ending theme's, and the lighthearted sequence at the end, are about 15 mins long only.

But as Tsuna and his companions defeat their opponents with great trouble compared to the previous arcs, they manage to restore the timeline in the end by capturing the scientist responsible and repairing a time travel device.  In trying to get to him, they also learn of the connection between the Arcobaleno and the Vongola Rings.  It turns out Irie, the scientist, was actually a double agent working for the Vongola side, but as they assault the italian HQ, ruled by Prince Siel, an unlikely person appears... Xanxus and his Varia squad.

With the enemy neutralised, Tsuna and his family must go temporarily back in time ten years, and overcome the Arcobaleno Trials to gather the Seven Seals.  In order to accomplish this, they must face each of the Arcobaleno in a trial and overcome them.  Culiminating in a battle between Tsuna and Reborn... Tsuna loses, but one of the Arcobaleno, Verde, breaks the pact for his own purposes.  This means the others need to step in to stop him.  The seals in his possession, Tsuna and his crew must return to the future and stop the leader of the Millefiore, Byakuran, and his six Funeral Wreaths.

 

As such, the final battle begins between the Wreaths and the Vongola Guardians,  in which both need to take out a target on the other side.  They take out the targets at the same time, resulting in a draw, but the Millefiore target bearer is a zombie like man, returning him to life to grab the victory for them.  But Shoichi fights back, and reveals the truth about the future.  But when Byakuran threatens Yuna, the princess and leader of the Arcobaleno that he kept under his control for years, even Reborn steps in himself.

It comes down to the Vongola now to protect Yuna and defeat Byakuran as such, but they took some heavy damage in the Choice battle with the Wreaths.  Knowing they have a moutain to climb, they never the less prepare themselves as best as they can.  They are each assigned one of the Arcobaleno to train their skills further, defeating ghosts of the past Vongola to inherit their powers.

Their training complete now, they return to the future, facing off Byakuran and his minions for the final time.  During the final battle, they get allies from their past encounters, all out against a common enemy, while the Vongola Boxes they inherited from the first generation Guardians are unknown to Byakuran.  They didn`t exist in the parallel universe, and as such he has no knowledge nor countermeasures developped against them.

Okay, so this wasn`t a bad series at all, but for me personally it got to long in the end.  I struggled to get through the last, say 30-ish, episodes.  Guess One Piece will never be on my menu hehehe...

But all in all, it is amusing and I can get where it obtained it's rather fine rating and opinions from on MAL, and if you have the time for it, you can definitly gives this one a go!