Well well well, heheh, well well well.. It's finally come to this, huh? The manga series, that has left a tremendous impact on me and how I view the importance of friends, family, and living with no regrets. To attack ANYTHING you want in life like your life depends on it. To always believe in yourself and to stay in present, since the past is gone and tomorrow might never come. It all comes down to this moment? Are you really making me write about my thoughts regarding this story that has not only changed me, but also how I see babies and bazookas FOREVER!? NO, you're not making me do this you silly goose, stop being preposterous! I'm making myself do this, why? Because this manga has me oozing at the seems with so much power, optimism, and excitement for life from just thinking about it that I MUST explain why and perhaps convince someone else to try this story out as well for themselves. What is it about Katekyo! Hitman Reborn that makes me so geared up to live life to the fullest, as well as set its readers on their own journey to make their own redemption arc?

In short, we follow a young, PATHETIC, NO-GOOD TSU- I MEAN lad who is constantly getting struck down by society and spit on by just about anything that can produce saliva. Instead of telling kids to not come to school tomorrow, he's greeted by his mother with a reborn-I mean newborn baby tutor named Reborn! His mother oblivious to Reborn's real plan to morph Tsuna into the strongest leader of the most powerful family in the mafia underground. From here, Tsuna embarks on a journey of self-discovery, courage, and learning how to ignite the flame he always had within himself. Along the way he'll learn what true friends are, what it means to stand up for both of them and yourself, and to always believe in yourself.

INTERESTINGLY enough, this leads to one of my favorite parts about the story and that is, well the story. Many people do not like the first arc, aka 'The Daily Life'-arc but I LOVED IT! I'm sure it's just my personal taste for over the top shonen shenanigans, paired with introducing the main points of the story as well as characters that you'll grow and come to love. BUT NOT NAITO-LONGCHAMP, we do not speak of Naito Longchamp... Well actually I didn't mind him and was interested in learning about him more, but alas he was so unpopular he was even removed from the adaption, ouch! But back to the story...

This arc is chock full of fun to be had, and some cartoonishly hellish world building that makes stepping into this world all the more engrossing and wild to learn more about. Character dynamics, internal and external struggles, and personalities are seamlessly presented in a fun way that had me at a loss for what could possibly happen in the next chapter. And the good news is, this wasn't just the case for the first arc, but the entire manga itself!

With the exception of the Daily Life Arc to the next one, the Kokuyo arc, each arc is segues into the next one smoothly and with great pacing to boot, in my opinion. This seems to be a point where once again, I differ from the majority in their takes about the speed of the story. To me, nothing felt rushed and there was no or point in the story that I felt dragged on for too long. At any point there was, a new happening would occur that'd make the story move along, or engaging once again. I feel that a good example of this is in the Future arc, where an onslaught of new baddies are introduced and just when I thought we'd get a typical battle of characters fighting each other one on one, one of the baddies turns on the other, one of them defects, some of them group together and then JOB together (as true family should) and then we get a flashback that actually made me sympathize with one of the baddies. It's curveballs like this that keeps the story fresh and unpredictable. However it does come at a cost and one of the few issues I have with the story of the manga.

That issue in question being the very same storytelling technique I was just praising, how if at any point at the story, something out of left field would happen, and the tale would keep flowing. But this 'plot device' is more popularly known as a 'Deus Ex Machina'. Where the author randomly interjects an event or happenstance out of nowhere that ends up fixing or preventing the plot from ending right then and there. As much as I didn't find these occurrences distracting or out of field personally, I can see how others would have their reading experience impacted. But for me, I was too invested or in awe of the story beats, character developments/upgrades, and ludicrous nature of the story to really care if a relied on such a plot device or not.

I'm sure my taste in animanga up to this point plays a role in me looking forward and being excited for situations and explanations that are extraordinarily absurd or crazy (eg; Bobobo, Gintama, Saiki, Sket Dance, Beelzebub, etc.). So to me, it just made the story that much more fun, exciting and unpredictable. Especially if it gave lead into a new element into the story such as a power-up, lore, character, or epic event where author Amano Akira-san gets to showcase their creative and unique writing and illustrations to weave them into the world of Hitman Reborn entertainingly.

My final thoughts regarding the story of Hitman Reborn is that it's non-stop high octane insanity from the Kokuyo arc onwards. The transition from a predominately gag-action series to a battle-shonen (and a surprisingly bloody one at that) was honestly pretty jarring! I can almost recall the first moment I realized shit got dialed up to 11, no spoilers so no worry, but there's an instance of one of Tsuna's friends coming across a kid with his teeth gouged out, with BLOOD EVERYWHERE!? That being said, I know it wasn't Amano's idea to turn her story into a full fledged battle-shonen, but she makes it work! By still keeping the humor, personalities, and whimsy introduced during the Daily Life arc present throughout the rest of the story.

I'd say it's more like 'adding' more action elements to the story, rather than removing any of the unique character that makes KHR! what it is. Because whether the gang is fighting another mafia family with monsters, robots, and demons in their ranks, or traveling back and forth between the future and past to fight some inhuman entity, you can always tell that it's still reborn at the end of the day no matter how ludicrous the stakes may get.

Speaking of ludicrous, the art in this manga is so exaggerated, zanney, and cartoonishly extreme (Ryohei's words not mine) that it's able to handle the insanity of the story so perfectly that no elements, characters, situations, or events stylistically clash with each other that it'd feel jarring. The character designs are all pretty over the top, and I'm sure part of the reason seeing something like a skeleton viking demon clashing with a boy doused in flames and geared up in mech suit duking it out in the sky isn't jarring and works in KHR!'s favor is because of how early we're introduced to these fantastical elements.

Amano Akira's art is phenomenal to say the least, and the amount of progression she makes in her art of the trajectory of the manga's publication is wonderful to see. She's an artist that doesn't utilize a whole lot of detail on her characters, instead she uses these straight forward and simple designs to her advantage. With wacky character designs such as these, she's able to keep the characters and the reactions/actions they take EXTREMELY expressive adding to the over the top ridiculousness of an already insane situation.

Action during fight scenes, panel flow and page composition are handled so well that being sucked into the world of Reborn is an effortless effect when reading the manga. Detailed spreads are used sparingly, thus leaving a bigger impact on the reader when the do occur. And when they DO show up, boy oh boy it is usually some of the best explosive double-spread action to cremate the readers eyes when reading. I am warning you, nothing is held back in the action going on in these spreads. The wide array of character designs also lend themselves exceptionally well to the balls to wall action and scenarios they'll find themselves into.

Babies that are the strongest human beings on Earth, mafia, so many characters with some of the silliest hats and headgear you've ever witnessed, and mummy demons that took a break in Victorian era England. Nothing is spared with what characters you'll see in KHR! And it's this variety that makes the world of this manga seem gargantuan! ALL THAT BEING SAID, I have but ONE issue with the art. And I mean that because the art is incredible, surreal, expressionistic, and dream-like as it gets. But around the time it becomes a battle-shonen, I think Amano Akira was still getting her feet wet as to how to properly portray intense battles.

By that I mean there are certain panels during action sequences that I just had NO IDEA what the hell was going on because lines depicting movements and actions were everywhere, cluttered with symbols of impact and onomatopoeia along with the characters duking it out in question made it incredibly difficult at times to tell what was happening. But there's a silver lining to this, firstly this is something she fixes as the manga goes on so it's not like you have to bare long with it anyways. Secondly, even when it was happening, it wasn't with EVERY battle sequence, just the moments of impact on occasion and I saw this as a plus in all honesty. It's as if Akira-san was so excited and gunning to convey the sheer-magnitude of the fight going on that she herself got caught in the moment excitedly drawing these scenes that they sometimes came out as illustrations of pure unhinged chaos, and I thought that made it more epic, exciting, and raw to read.

But drawing raw ass fights isn't the only thing Amano-san has achieved with this manga. As I touched on before, her writing is so much fun to read. It's not the most complex stuff sure, and I'm very aware that some people are turned off by info-dumps and the like, but to me, I think it works in KHR's favor. For one, each time we would be given a moment where Reborn gives someone a spiel about why the current circumstances are the way they are, it was an exceptional demonstration of her ability to cultivate phenomenal world building for the story of KHR! But although I do like the straight to the point autism of most shonen stories, that's not necessarily the part of her writing I want to praise and shed light on.

The best part of her writing is how she creates these very organic character relationships, and natural developments in their growth as characters. This is not only a story about believing in yourself, dying with no regrets, growing from your mistakes, and making the most of the present, but it's about family and what it really means to love and care for them. While Tsuna time and time again expresses his disinterest in becoming a mafia boss with peanut gallery he's accumulated throughout, it's a much different story when he see's them in the light of his friends and family who love and support him and that he'd do the same. And it's with these character interactions and dynamics that we see the high standard that his friends hold him up to, as well as banter between characters that can be witty, charming, hilarious, to serious, sad, and touching. Not everyone is always buddy buddy with each other from the get go, but to see characters work their misunderstandings with one another is what really sells the genuineness of Tsuna's friends and foes he encounters throughout the story.

Minor spoiler here so maybe skip to the final paragraph if you don't want to be spoiled? But people are pretty vocal about Tsuna staying, in their eyes, stagnant throughout the story and I think this couldn't be further from the truth. By the end of the story, we witness Tsuna growing into a respectable young man who would put his life on the line for those he cares about and to seize any opportunity for growth that has an air of uncertain outcome with dying will, facing his fears head on, no regrets. Just because he's a little clumsy or doesn't want to be the head of a mafia has nothing to do with that. The man who takes himself too seriously, no one takes seriously. Like did readers really want Tsuna to turn into some stoic, badass, edgelord by the end of the story? I mean, just look at Dino-san, Reborn's previous pupil. A man who's still extremely clumsy unless duty calls and his men are around him. Except with Tsuna, by the end he doesn't need to be shot by the dying will bullet to stand up for his friends/family and to put his life on the line for them.

Well well well, HAHAHA, well well well! Ya see? It finally came down to this! You didn't ask for it but I gave it anyways! I wrote this with the objective of finding out what it is about Katekyo! Hitman Reborn that makes me so geared up to live life to the fullest, as well as set its readers on their own journey to make their own redemption arc? Through Tsuna's journey of becoming the head of the mafia, filled with hardships, anguish, self-doubt, and moments of stagnation, he pushed through, grew, and became someone that he himself could look up to. His tale has left a tremendous impact on me and how I view the importance of friends, family, and living with no regrets. To attack ANYTHING you want in life like your life depends on it. To always believe in yourself and to stay in present, since the past is gone and tomorrow might never come. Come now, it's time to pick up this manga and start your redemption arc.