Katekyo Hitman Reborn

The cover of the first volume of the official English manga release.

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 of Katei Kyōshi and translated as Home Tutor), is 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, the Vongola 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 are serialized in Japan in Weekly Shōnen Jump. The individual chapters are collected and published in tankōbon volumes by Shueisha, with twenty-seven volumes released as of October 2, 2009. 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. Reviewers from the series praised its use of comedy as well as the designs used for the infants characters. They also mentioned that though it has become more violent since volume 8, it has turned into a better 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 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 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 "Dying Will Bullet", 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 and more confident, 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 start a competition to decide it. To defeat the Varia, Reborn recruits most of Tsuna's schoolmates to become the Vongola guardians: Hayato Gokudera, a dynamite expert who wishes to be his right-hand man, Takeshi Yamamoto, a baseball player who thinks the Mafia is a game, Ryohei Sasagawa, the energetic captain of the school boxing club, and Kyoya Hibari, the deadly head prefect. Lambo, a weak infant assassin who came to kill Reborn, and Chrome 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. 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 co return to the present where they learn that Tsuna is to undergo the inheritance ceremony to officially become the 10th boss of the Vongola Family. However, the ceremony is attacked by the Shimon Family, who have sworn revenge on Vongola Primo for supposedly betraying the first Shimon boss. Using the power of the Shimon rings, they have destroyed the Vongola Rings, left Yamamoto hospitalised and kidnapped Chrome. However, a man named Talbot reconstructs the Vongola Rings into the Vongola Gear, and Tsuna and the remaining guardians go to Shimon's hideout where they must face the Shimon family in battles with their pride on the line. In addition, whoever loses in either side will be taken away by Vindice into prison forever.

Production

The Early versions of the series were published in seinen manga magazines, Reborn! first appeared in Weekly Shōnen Jump as a one-shot chapter in late 2003. The success of this chapter led Weekly Shōnen Jump to begin serializing Reborn! in mid-2004. The author Akira Amano has referred to the series and its characters as weird and mentioned that they changed the style of the manga in volume eight, but it would keep showing its weird style. When the serialization became 2 years long, Amano was satisfied with the length of the series and commented she wanted to continue writing the manga.

Media

Manga

Written and drawn by Akira Amano, the Reborn! manga has been serialized in Japan's Weekly Shōnen Jump Volume 26 since May 31, 2004 and it is still ongoing. The individual chapters are also published in collected volumes by Shueisha, with the first volume having been released on October 4, 2004, and as of April 30, 2010, twenty-nine volumes have been released. The series has been licensed for an English language release in North America by Viz Media. Viz serializes the chapters in their monthly manga anthology Shōnen Jump Advanced and has also released them in volumes. The first volume was released on October 3, 2006 and as of July 6, 2010, sixteen volumes have been released. Reborn! is also licensed in German by Tokyopop, and in French by Glénat.
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. On April 2, 2010, it was released the series' first artbook titled Reborn Colore!

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 network TV Tokyo and ended on September 25, 2010. 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. On March 21, 2009, the anime-streaming website Crunchyroll.com began streaming subtitled episodes of the Japanese series in North America. New episodes are available within an hour after its airing in Japan.
As of May 29, 2009, a total of twenty-seven DVD volumes have been released in Japan by Marvelous Entertainment. 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. A DVD box containing the Bullet episodes was published in Japan on June 17, 2009.