Forum - View topicRetrospective: Does the Dying Will of Reborn! Still Burn?
|
Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
tintor2
 Posts: 2711 |
|
|||
|
Oh yeah. I recall reading this a lot when I was young. I really loved Mukuro and the Varia's arc but when the Future arc started I felt like thing became really slow and the coolest things that could happen were removed. The Future arc could show all the characters as adults but most of them are remove for their teenage forms before they still the spotlight resulting in the need to have training arcs. The designs really sell to the point the author once said that she somehow managed to appeal to the female audience. The future arc was also the darkest since the stakes were high for longest time which doesn't help much when Tsuna's characterization still hasn't shown any growth despite defeating the scary Xanxus.
The Future and final arcs got the chance to show that Akira Amano could write mature romances despite agegaps involving Yuni and Gamma and Mukuro and Chrome but sadly none of them got resolved. Was there some backlash against this maybe? The Arcobaleno getting married though was a bit weird. Gokudera's sister at least worked as a mentor but I can't say much about her since Gokudera's subplot about the mother was never explored. Kyoko also happens to be Ryohei's sister but it just makes it worse in the Future arc when Ryohei was completely against her knowing the truth Giving the entire cast flames is the best thing ever cos Amano is good at drawing them but it feels every arc followed the same cliche of getting new powerups. The anime helped a bit by making Primo's family test the 10th but at the cost changing the setting completely for the filler arc. Still, I didn't have too much fun with the anime since I could see how slowpaced were some fights. Tsuna vs Xanxus was the longest fight in the manga and the anime could show the problem to the point they made a entire opening dedicated to it "Dive to World"? Also it seems Amano scrapped the idea of the cast driving bikes. |
||||
|
||||
|
FilthyCasual
Posts: 2722 |
|
|||
|
The hard switch to action gave me such whiplash that it put me off of series like Sakamoto Days and Kiyoshi that immediately felt like they'd do the same from chapter 1. I finished Reborn though: the art was gorgeous and the powers were cool.
|
||||
|
||||
|
tintor2
Posts: 2711 |
|
|||
I'm pretty sure the staff of both Reborn and Sakamoto Days adaptations believed the action would sell more than the comedy so especially the former adapts Mukuro's arc earlier while some parts of Sakamoto's daily life were skipped in season 1. It's a shame though about the latter. I always found endearing the relationship Sakamoto had with his wife. |
||||
|
||||
kgw
 Posts: 1542 Location: Spain, EU |
|
|||
|
Maybe in the streaming era, Reborn! could have been a success.
Because I know is that in this side of the world, in the pre-streaming era, Reborn was licensed... and no TV wanted it. The licensing company released the chapters in their Youtube channel for a until the license run out. Ditto for the manga; without an anime to pull it the interest, nobody really remembers or long for it. As for Sakamoto, while the anime is not booming, the manga is well received one and sell a lot of copies since they stopped the silly action rutine. More or less by the 4th chapter. |
||||
|
||||
MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5732 |
|
|||
|
When it came to the west, the Anime came out at the worst possible time 06-10. A title such as this, back then, would have got picked up around 08 or 09. But because of the market decline around 08, by the time the industry had recovered around 2013, the show had missed its shot. And due to its length it would have to have been a bigger hit to have warranted a complete dub.
If it had come out before 05, it might have had a shot of a company like Viz Media, 4Kids or Funiamtion picking it up for a dub, and maybe even televising it. |
||||
|
||||
Wyvern
 Posts: 1792 |
|
|||
The way the anime toned down the series' central gimmick is so weird, too. In the manga, Reborn has a regular handgun loaded with special magic bullets. He shoots Tsuna in the head, killing him, and then after a second Tsuna resurrects with temporary superpowers. But in the anime, Reborn doesn't have a gun at all (despite being a mafia hitman?) Instead, his pet chameleon takes the shape of a gun, which fires a bullet at Tsuna, but before it hits him the bullet breaks apart in midair, and releases a laser which hits Tsuna and gives him temporary superpowers. It's so dumb and convoluted and was clearly just done so the studio could claim deniability if some kid watched the show and then shot his brother or something (even though guns are nearly impossible to get ahold of in Japan...but maybe they were thinking ahead to the show getting an American release.) Setting that aside, Reborn himself never looked like a baby to me. He just looked like a chibi adult. Every now and then someone in the manga would mention he was a baby and I'd always go "oh, that's right" because I kept forgetting he wasn't just a really short guy. Of course, it eventually turned out that Reborn really IS an adult cursed to look like a baby, but this was a retcon made when the series shifted to an action manga; he was originally just meant to be an actual baby who inexplicably talked and shot people. The genre shift really is the most fascinating thing about this series. Even the art style changes: from one chapter to the next, suddenly Amano is using way more shadows and more dynamic angles and movement. Characters' designs and clothes become more detailed, too. At a glance it looks like a different manga. Plot devices that used to be played for laughs become serious: the gag of Tsuna being reduced to his underwear when hit with the magic bullet is dropped, so now he gets to keep his clothes. Gokudera's habit of carrying actual dynamite around starts being treated like a serious combat technique, instead of the vehicle for Looney Tunes-style gags it had been before. Reborn himself gets largely sidelined; suddenly he's never around when Tsuna needs him. This is mostly because he's established in the comedy chapters as being completely unbeatable and able to beat almost any opponent with one shot, so he'd break the whole story if he was allowed to actually fight (the excuse for this is that he wants Tsuna to fight his own battles so he'll become stronger, but Reborn doesn't even intervene with his other allies are on the brink of death. We keep hearing about how he's the most feared hitman alive but in practice he comes off as largely useless due to his refusal to help anyone.) It feels like Amano had no idea what to do with the title character of her manga for most of its run, so she just had him do nothing (hell, at one point Reborn's boss makes him literally swear an oath to do nothing and not help anyone for the duration of a whole arc. It's as forced as it sounds.) I remember I dropped the series after the Inheritance Arc, mostly because there was no actual Inheritance in it. It starts with Tsuna finally being promoted to boss of the mafia family, only for the ceremony to be interrupted by some bad guys who the gang then spend several dozen chapters fighting. Afterward, the ceremony is simply cancelled due to all the ruckus, and Tsuna just never becomes boss. It felt like complete filler. I did return to the series years later, only to find that the final arc also resolves nothing. I think the real secret of the manga's success was that Amano is really good at drawing sexy male characters, and so the main cast is full of them (there's one token girl in the group, whose power is...to transform into a sexy male character) and each arc has them donning fashionable suits and powering up their magic rings which transform them into even more attractive outfits (which also come with magic weapons.) There's nothing wrong with that, clearly the author knew what the audience wanted and played to her own strengths. But it does feel a bit like Reborn! shortchanged its female cast in part because readers were showing up to look at the guys. |
||||
|
||||
|
BadNewsBlues
Posts: 7205 |
|
|||
I’m no betting man but had it came out earlier it would’ve been dropped after awhile.
And also had a relationship with Gokudera’s sister which I believe was before the whole curse thing was revealed. |
||||
|
||||
|
fromfaraway
Posts: 6 |
|
|||
|
I was OBSESSED with this manga. I remember taking an online quiz to figure out what my flame type would be (lightning) and buying the matching Vongola ring at an anime convention. But as much as I’ve got a soft spot for it, you’re right on the issues that cause it not to hold up well. The female characters got sidelined so badly, I remember being surprised when they got any focus because I kept forgetting about them. The series got pretty boring after the Future Arc- it really should’ve been used as the finale. I don’t really remember much about the arcs that came after it, they were pretty boring and a slog to the end.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Scarred_Hero15
Posts: 13 |
|
|||
|
Weekly Shonen Jump's recent Mission: Yozakura Family is often labeled a modern-day Reborn! for a few reasons and it's interesting to me because Yozakura never really caught on outside of Japan either. People blame its streaming service situation, but even prior to the anime it felt like Viz never really believed in it (digital exclusive volume release originally) and was overshadowed by Undead Unluck, Mashle, and then Sakamoto Days eventually. Post-anime, even though Yozakura reached a point of outperforming UU in Japan and both became Hulu Originals in the U.S., Viz continues to show Undead Unluck preference by licensing merch and home video releases.
I think Reborn! back then and Yozakura Family now are victims of Western companies being disinterested in series that walk the line of children's gag anime and battle anime. They don't know how to market these series towards children like Japan does, so when they end up not being as attractive to audiences seeking more mature works they end up in limbo until the small nostalgic audience of the past is old enough to bring it back to the conversation. I think the streaming era, market over-saturation, general audiences who are less interested in discovering the medium, and certain companies having an oligopoly on anime distribution and marketing make it even worse for Mission: Yozakura Family in today's climate even if it executes it's blend of genre elements better than something like Reborn! that lets it's gag origins hold it back some and Sakamoto Days that shifts so hard and quick into battle shonen it's anime didn't even bother to adapt much comedy at all. |
||||
|
||||
|
Silver Kirin
Posts: 1769 |
|
|||
Funny you mention the similarities between Reborn! and Misssion: Yozakura Family, because both shows share some voice actors in their Latin American Spanish dubs (side note, Reborn! got dubbed into LA Spanish between 2022-2024), most notably, both Tsuna and Taiyo are voiced by Diego Becerril, while Kyoko and Mutsumi are voiced by Nycolle González. In fact, when I first saw that Diego was voicing Taiyo I thought, "He kind of looks like Tsuna, that makes sense" As far as popularity goes, I believe Reborn! was quite popular here in Latin America, even years before it got an official release. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group