Hitman Reborn! Ep. 1-76 review
This is my review of Reborn as far as watching episodes 1-76.
Episodes 1-20
Heheh, alright.
Dammit? What the... heheh, alright I guess I kinda see...
What the hell?
Lame, wtf?
Hahahaha, what's happening? Oh well 8D
Episodes 20-26
Woah, crazy
Neat
Alright!
Haha! What happened in the shit, is made relovant and awesome, now!
Wow, that was pretty okay, wait what's that next episode preview?! What the?!
Episodes 27-33
I remember you... you're that filler stuff from the first 20 episodes... I respect you, but I hate you....
Episodes 34-65
This thing has a plot?!
Episodes 66-74
Your that filler, from before.... hahahahaha, lame. Funny, but lame.
Episodes 74-
Wow... this... actually looks pretty awesome.... no way, awesome, cool... dammit!
So to actually explain... Reborn is a series that starts out with filler. Absurb, badly written, yet sometimes decently funny. That's right, the series STARTS with filler. The filler is used to make the characters seem developed, creative, and awesome by the first, SIX EPISODE story arc. Then, there is more filler. This filler is largely just there to keep the comedic stuff of the first season going. It fills the niche NORMAL filler does, in the sense that it's kinda cool to see characters we just saw in a serious conflict, have fun with random hilarity.
Then the first REAL arc starts, one that actually is a huge chunk of episodes. The character development and portrayal is still bang-on. But the story is horribly weak and filled with holes. Giant, pot-holes that like on a highway almost DARE you to slow down at risk of falling into them. And that's where the series kinda fails. If you think, even for a minute about the plot, your brain will melt. It's not a bad plot, there are worse *cough*naruto*cough* but it's just.... cliche despite the mobster theme and just kinda meehhhh.
Then, we get MORE FILLER. But at this point, if you have made it this far, your brain will have melted, and you slog through it soaking up granules of entertainment with your mind wiped tendrills.
And then finally, we get to where I am now. Essentially, like taking the characters from filler, to a standard shounen fight arc; we have taken the characters, and thrown them into a standard "Shounen+" anime. For a quick definition, I consider shows like D.Gray man, FMA, and Soul Eater, "Shounen+" Basically, I mean it's still shouneny fights and all that, but the tone, storyline(kinda), and characters are those you see in what anime fans would call "Real Anime." And, so far, it seems really interesting. It's almost like 73 episodes were just leading up to the real series. It's a 10 year time skip, but over half the cast are from pre-time skip, which is actually a very unique dynamic.
I won't really discuss the characters, but they are all actually fairly well written and developed. It IS a shounen though, so don't expect FMA or Trigun level personal trauma or anything.
So overall, the series is about taking Shounen Characters who exist in a filler comedic world, and inserting standard fight-manga plot devices at them at random intervals, followed by shoving them into a show which seems like something out of Shakugan no Shana or a *good* My-hime or something.
So, would I recommend it?
ABSOLUTELY NOT
73 episodes to get to something awesome?! Go watch Soul Eater if you havn't it's like the greatest thing ever, and it doesn't have creepy babies which you are forced to love. Reborn is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE curse. You hate it, and hate it, but then you watch a bit more, and then you watch more in the hopes that something will happen. You don't know why, but you do. Stay away, keep your time and energy for better series, hobbies, raising your social links, hell, even h-games i don't care. Just don't make the same mistake I have unless you really don't mind all the issues I said, and you just LOVE super deformed super babies and shounen fight characters.