Manga It's good as long as you are patient to follow it. Shonen with unique Hero.
Patience definitely needed to follow this series, one of few reasons many bad reviews this series got because couldn't stand the gag until Kokuyo arc started. You have to admit this series take a big turn once the first Big Bad is introduced. When you think Tsuna is annoyingly coward and , the take on his character for Shonen surprisingly more realistic than other series. We are talking about middle school student who have been a Butt Monkey for most of his life and then suddenly forced to be a mafia boss. Realistically he will not start punching the light out of Big Bad or anything like that. For this troper this is the first appeal spotted from this series.
And even after this series goes on, Tsuna have NO big dream like most of Shonen series hero only want to be normal and live a decent and happy life. Some people have issues with him being too soft and unwilling to kill his enemies no matter how Complete Monster they are. This must have something to do with his resolve to not accept Vongola's sin and continue their bloody history. So far TYL Byakuran and Daemon Spade are the only one he killed though it revealed present Byakuran is still alive and seems to be a pretty good guy now and Daemon... well he is not alive in the first place.
I love this series,and when the training plot is repetitive each arc is memorable and packed with action, humor and angst. Current arc seems tame compared to TYL or Shimon arc because it only take destroying watch to win the battle but then again with many mystery not yet to be revealed the representative battle probably just a warm up.
Manga The first 26 episodes are pretty solid.
So you've got a boy who finds out that he's next in line to be a mafia boss, and a baby-sized hitman who's been sent to train him.
It's a funny premise, and Reborn! wastes no time in getting right to the laughs. Tsuna, the protagonist, struggles to cope with his newfound destiny as well as Reborn's questionable (and also hilarious) teaching methods. Reborn's antics constantly force Tsuna to man up and deal with the situations at hand.
Tsuna himself is kind of a loser—well okay, he's total loser—but we see him improve as time goes on. And as for the rest of the cast, we get a pretty sizeable amount of quirky characters here. Like the characters in One Piece, they each have clearly defined personalities and a unique ability in which they specialize. You probably won't have much trouble picking out your favorite character in this show.
There's also a lot of creativity with the powers and weapons that the characters use. Instead of just guns and knives, we get to see sticks of dynamite, flames coming from the forehead, the cooking of poisonous foods, a time-traveling bazooka, a lizard that transforms into a 9mm pistol, and plenty of other weird, fun stuff. It pretty much does to its mafioso characters what One Piece does to its pirate characters. That is, give them kick-ass superpowers and then pit them all against each other.
When the first real villain is introduced, it's actually quite an effective change in the show's mood. It starts with a scene of actual, non-comedic violence, and the level of danger begins to gradually rise after that point. Because you're pretty much familiar with the characters and their daily lives by now, you feel genuinely concerned for them when they start to go up against real danger. It's exciting, and it's a suitable payoff after 19 episodes of silly fluff.
All in all, these first 26 episodes are pretty solid.
The show has over 200 episodes overall, so it might not be your kind of thing. (And that's just where the anime stops. The manga is still going.)
Still, it's a lot better than your typical shonen action fare.
Manga KHR Overall
Yo, Shonen King here! I'm here to review Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Let's start with the story. KHR's plot seems to revolves Tsuna becoming the Vongola's Tenth boss. Tsuna starts as a coward who wants nothing to do with the mafia world, but as the story progresses, he learns he has to fight other mafia families in order to protect his loved ones. This also helps him become more courageous.
For characters, we have a broad selection of the cast from the serious Kyoya Hibiri to... Lambo and everything in between. Their abilities are widely varied despite there only being seven Dying Will Flames(Or so we thought) to be categorized in.
In presentation, I have to admit, the first 60 chapters of the Daily Life Arc seem to drag on, but once you get to the Kokuyo Gang Arc, it gets better, much better! It made me glad to bear though those first 60+ chapters and is what made me an official fan.
Finally, the world. For KHR, the world is pretty interesting and unlike most manga I've read, it doesn't take place in a Crapsack World like One Piece or Bleach. The Dying Will Flames are an interesting concept and it's nice to see mafia outside the criminal organization stereotype.
Keep it cool, keep it Shonen!
Manga The Shonen Equivalent of Tap Water
Chances are, in your life, you've drank room temperature tap water at least once. It's a free source of water, but I find that most people prefer to drink just about anything else compared to it. It's has a warm, bland taste that can be described only as "satisfactory", not utterly horrible, but not amazing either. This is the same rating I would give to Katekyo Hitman Reborn. You can love or hate Naruto, Hunter x Hunter, or Fairy Tail, but Katekyo Hitman Reborn does not inspire passion toward either feeling. It just sort of exists.
The characters are gag-manga archetypes, and are pretty much comfortable staying as such. You'd think that a manga where a hitman teaching a kid how to become a mob boss would be all about personal development, but you would be wrong. Tsuna, more or less, stays the same, which could be interesting if he actually rebelled against being different. However, Tsuna doesn't actually like being the same, he's a lonely, depressed, loser with family issues. Its just keeping Tsuna in the status quo keeps the manga in its comfort zone of mediocrity.
Maintaining a comfort zone on the kid friendly side of shonen is pretty much this manga's code and creed. Reborn is the world's greatest hitman, but we never see him kill anyone. This manga uses the mafia as a theme, but the main cast never gets involved in the criminal underworld. What they do get involved in is a fight over leadership (kind of relevant to the theme, but the fight is over Phlebotinum, not money or product), a time travel plot to stop the world from ending, a fight against parallel duplicates, and resolving a dispute with a precursor race responsible for the creation of humans. You may have thought I got the Sorting Algorithm of Evil wrong, but apparently there were other characters capable of stopping an end of the world scenario, they just couldn't be bothered.
The Dying Will Bullet, which is supposed to be the power up which is supposed to the gimmick that turns Tsuna from zero to hero, ends up being a cheat. While under its influence, Tsuna is more assertive, more determined, smarter, and more confident. Without it he crumbles back to being a hapless loser again. Reborn says the bullets he fires are a form of training for Tsuna, when in reality they are a crutch that end up impeding Tsuna's development. The training and pain he endures should have turned Tsuna into a demigod of human atheletics, but it only applies when he is under the bullet's influence.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn is a weird relic from back when long running shonen were the kings of the anime world. While it never stood above other long running shonen, it seemed to thrive alongside them. KHR has serviceable fight scenes with serviceable characters, fighting in generalized combat match-ups with understandable motivations. But it never exceeds beyond the general template. Its a decent series to read/watch if you want action, but, eventually, you'll find yourself craving for something better.