Kateikyoshi Hitman Reborn!: An anime our era needs

The anime Ichose to introduce you to today is a wonderfully “childish” anime. Some wouldcertainly object on the use of the word “childish”, thus some clarification isprobably called for here. Reborn is an anime that brings the audienceback to an earlier stage of childhood: fascination with a simple plot, some admirable characters that hide in their plainness a deep illustration of human kind and a light sense of tension and suspense that is enough to fuel one’s curiosity and love for the anime.

The story is mainly about Mafia; and what a picture of mafia it depicts! Tsuna, a low achiever, coward but loving and docile teenager, is compelled to become the tenth leader of the Mafia organization. The story starts as an episodic one: each episode of almost 25 minutes narrates a different adventure and where each time new characters are introduced. However, the story shifts to become more chained and the sense of suspense grows more intense. I won’t spoil the ending, but I can promise that it will be …. (no spoil, you see), not in the way of the mainstream endings (irrational, sad stupidly complicated ..no non none of that!!) but it will be a sweet, not 100% joyful ending.

If Reborn is childish it is for it restores in a way our sense of innocence: it is obvious that the majority of anime lovers would love an anime with a philosophical, mysterious, mind-stirring and even stressing plot, such as Psycho-Pass, the famous Death Note or Code Geass; an anime for adults, after all! When I watched the first episode of Reborn, it felt like more or less confused: it was funny but it looked so cliché-like: the dummy who is going to become a hero, themes of friendship and devotion … However with every new episode and every new unfolding sub-story I was more and more in love with the feeling it generated. It was the same old admiration we felt when we watched Pokemon, Yu Yu Hakusho, or Juliette je t’aime (my generation would recognize the causes of the use of French appellations). It is great in its simplicity. To be more “professional”: it is fabulous in the new – old aesthetic experience towards which it leads us. 

This experience wouldn’t be felt by a child watching the anime, for it is the usual way it reacts to anime in particular and to life in general. The charm of the anime will be activated only on “grownups” (it depends on how grownup one considers himself/herself to be), who in the midst of the new century anime industry, with its too deep and too dense plots and material and its over-commercial quality, forgot about how to be truly fond of an anime with a simple plot, sweet characters, no deaths, no murders, ethics of love and justice…