I admit I read this for one reason only: there's tons of doujinshi for this series, and I kinda wanted to know the background before giving them a try. Now, after the first volume I seriously doubt this is for me - but since there has to be a reason why so many people like this, I'll probably try one more volume of this. Or a few more, depending.

This one was fuck up but in a good way (until it was not, the end was a mess). I guess my obsession with mafia stories starts with it.

okay that was a different read.

I do not remember much from when I initially read this series other than super vague details and that it gets more serious later on. That made this sort of re read a fun experience. This volume follows the early days of the main character finding out he is the next head of a particular branch of the mafia. During the course of the chapters he meets a primary love interest, a pseudo rival a right hand man and 2 hit babies. This though is only a small portion of the strange and wacky cast that finds a place in this series.

the reason for this volume being weird is primarily due to the tonal shift that occurs after about 10 volumes. It starts off as a fairly episodic light-hearted comedy and then morphs into something far stranger and in some ways more interesting. I am throwing this in to the first volume review since there is a high chance that i will forget to mention this explicitly later on.

This series has an amusing concept. The reason for this is primarily there are a couple of characters who appear as babies/ small children but have the speech patterns of a far older child or adult. This adds to the comedic effect since in both cases in this volume they are hit men. Also the main character makes the concept more interesting since even though he is meant to head a powerful family he is a slightly weak coward and doesn't want to be involved. This also adds to the comedy of the concept since it is hard to imagine where the story is heading.

The comedy the volume uses is interesting. This volume uses mainly absurd situations for its comedy these range from the characters occupations (e.g. the assassins in baby form) to how they resolve certain situations (e.g. finding a time capsule by blowing up a space). The comedy in this volume is pretty zany and at times pretty strange but for the most part it makes the volume on the whole more fun.

Lastly the characters. with an exception to the main characters love interest who I personally found irritating the other characters are quite fun. With an exception to those mentioned in earlier paragraphs the two other central characters are his friends/ future right hand men. They add to the comedy in thier own way. One of them is completely unaware of what’s going on and thinks it is all a game. The other one seems to think that dynamite is a solution to every problem he encounters. These two are the first recruits of the main character group.

Overall I really enjoyed this first volume. Would recommend it to people who enjoy comedy as well as manga. I would definitely recommend patience since the story doesn't pick up straight away but when it does the story is fun. Till that point you can enjoy some rather strange comedy which is usually due to ridiculous situations.

Pros:
Interesting concept
Mostly ok characters
Decent comedy elements

Cons
Weird tonal shift in later volumes
Assumed main love interest is kind of annoying.

4.8/5

This was fun, but I really hope Tsuna gets better and actually try instead of just relying on everything else.

I'm hoping that they will continue this series!!!! It's just so epic!!!!

This rating and review is for the whole published books.

Reborn! told about a middleschooler named Sawada Tsunayoshi (or Tsuna, for short) who was clumsy and had no potential ability, nicknamed "no-good Tsuna" by all of his friends. One day, a baby came to him and shockingly informed him that he was the one on the list to become the next Vongola's - a notorious mafia family - predecssor. And that Baby, known as Reborn, was came to prepared him as a suitable mafia boss.

To say it honestly, I kinda didn't like the idea of this story. Okay,this was one of the story in which centered around Nobita-wise person to prove that even a no-good person actually could be good, I got that. And the thing with dying will flames... well, ridiculous, but okay, it's a good laugh at the beginning - and a cool weapon from midstory and so forth. But mafia organization that firstly founded for doing good for society? I don't know, it's just didn't catch with my logic-demanding brain (but well, manga is all about non-logic, but duh!).

But I must admit that the characterization improvement was good - very good. You could see the transformation of that no-good Tsuna into someone powerful yet still reluctant to do a mafia-related stuff endearing. And the other characters got a good improvement also, like Gokudera who slowly socialize with other guardian, or Hibari who got a little more willing to be a part of Vongola Guardians as the story continued, etc. And the pace for their improvement was smooth, though I felt like they had more battle than characterization, but oh well, it's a battle manga, anyway.

So yeah, because I'm a charaterization-freak, this story got my well-deserves 3 stars. But I still love the fanfictions and the doujinshis more, though, where the story was modificated into something.... more realistic and more suitable for a dark Mafia world.