Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, the one ex-boyfriend who wasn’t an asshole

10Sep09

WARNING: There will be spoilers for the latest arc of the manga in question, and gratuitous references to the text itself. I’d highly suggest being familiar with the series before reading this.

About a year ago, I was holed up in the library over on campus, leafing through copies of the International Journal of Comic Art and articles from the Japanese Studies and Pop Culture end of the scholarly scene, shoring up resources to use in my paper about Katekyo Hitman Reborn! (shortened to Reborn! for the remainder of this article). All of my friends thought I was crazy, going out on a limb and attempting to do a formal – critical – study on one of the gayest, lulziest shonen manga around at the time, but what can I say? I was a fangirl, head-over-heels, truly-madly-deeply in love with the latest shiny thing blipping on her radar. I had already written a crapload of fanfics by then (and wrote a whole lot more afterward, if I’m to believe the dates on my archive), and it was time to take the passion a whole new step forward, not just by “going meta”, but by formalizing a critical viewpoint through which to regard the series itself.

At this point, interested parties can read the paper itself over here. To summarize, though, the paper seeks to explain why Reborn! is more susceptible to a homoerotic interpretation than other shonen manga serialized in Shonen Jump. Basically, it was a scholarly attempt at figuring out why the hell people think it’s so fucking gloriously gay.

(It was also a good excuse to bring my dojinshi to school and explain its critical value to literary scholars with a perfectly straight face.)

That’s not actually the point that I want to talk about in this blog entry, though. Instead, I want to explain why I’ve fallen out of love for the series, and for what I believe to be very critical reasons.

Let’s make a qualification here: I am grounding my argument based on a closed reading of the text and a reader-oriented framework with considerations towards what I, as a published writer and a fairly informed reader, believe to be matters of good craft and style. This basically means that I’m attempting to review Reborn! on the level of craft and good storytelling, most especially in the light of it being a Shonen Jump series, which carries with it its own set of expectations and conventions. It’s also an entirely personal view of the manga, grounded in my opinion, and therefore ultimately subjective.

That said, let’s proceed.

For readers who are familiar with the series, correct me if I’m wrong, but: didn’t you guys completely freak out in Chapter 136, when Tsuna ends up in the future, in a coffin with his name on it? If that wasn’t enough, there’s the next chapter to consider, with Gokudera Hayato’s future self popping up, latching on to Tsuna like he’s some sort of ghost, and explaining how the future’s been completely fucked up because the Millefiore have killed Tsuna’s future self.

Who can resist that faaaaaaace?

Let’s stop our fangirl hearts here and take a more critical look at the situation. What’s the dramatic situation here? While things have only started kicking off in this arc – henceforth referred to as the Ten Years Later, or TYL, Arc – I think that it’s safe to say that Tsuna has arrived in a future where he and his friends played the mafia game and lost. His future self, and the future selves of his friends, have, to put it bluntly, failed. Failed to succeed, failed to stay on top of things, failed to keep from losing that which is most precious to them.

Heartbreaking, right? Yet ultimately amazing. With this sort of set up, Reborn! pretty much stopped being your usual Shonen Jump manga. It stepped up, taking a darker, potentially more “mature” outlook on things while sticking to the purity of the tri-fold theme that Shonen Jump readers around the world are familiar with: that of Friendship, Perseverance and Victory. With this sort of premise, Tsuna and the other heroes of the story could go on to fight the biggest, most desperate fight of their lives, and win. They could be better than their future selves, and go back home smarter and stronger and ready to make a new tomorrow. That appeared to be the sort of premise that we were all working with, and there’s fanfiction, fanart, fan videos and meta all over the internet to prove it.

And then the Lulz happened.

Let’s start with Chapter 218, where we begin to learn that apparently, our heroes have been defeated and captured by Irie Shouichi, someone whom the Gokudera of the future originally viewed as an enemy. The end of that chapter and the next one reveal a “shocking truth”: that he’s actually NOT a villain, and has been working behind the scenes in order to take Byakuran down. He and the Hibari Kyouya of the future were apparently part of a Grand Master Plan, orchestrated by the Tsuna of the future, to put an end to the Millefiore by bringing in their younger selves to continue the fight.

Wait for it... wait for it...!

If that isn't deux ex machina, I do not know WHAT is anymore.

There was a general outcry with regard to this particular plot twist. Prior to that point, Shouichi was built up as some sort of embittered figure who had, for whatever reason, a grudge against the Vongola, one bad enough to have him ally with Byakuran and aid the latter in destroying them. We only really remember him for his chapter-long stint in the Daily Life Arc as the kid who walked away completely traumatized by his one encounter with Tsuna and his crazy mafia friends. Either way, it came off as poetic somehow, and showed, in a way, that Byakuran really did wield a frightening amount and power and influence, enough to turn potential allies or previously “weak” figures in Tsuna’s life into weapons to wield against the Vongola.

Beautiful possibility gone wrong? Maybe. Feelings in that department are mixed.

Attentions were diverted in the succeeding chapters by the reappearance of the Varia, which, beyond providing gratuitous fanservice, was highly refreshing, most especially for fans of that group. Lets look to Chapter 227 and 228 instead, where we have our standard Shonen Jump-level what-the-actual-fuck-it-ain’t-over reveal, as Byakuran makes an appearance. introducing the “real” Six Funeral Wreaths of the Millefiore.

Oh look: more faces & names to remember.

What should have been a very dramatic, action-packed build-up towards final battle is now a “oh, sorry, we’re not quite done yet” section of an already aggravatingly long arc, and possibly an excuse to extend the chapter life of the series, and throw in more pretty characters from everyone to oggle while the author’s at it. On the level of craft, I feel that this sort of twist ruins the immediacy present in the previous chapters, and derails whatever build-up that the author was going for.

Let’s skip over the whole new training section, and hit Chapter 240, which is the start of the next section of the TYL Arc. Tsuna and company – newly trained, and decked out in shiny mafia couture – gather at Namimori Shrine for the “Final Showdown” with Byakuran.

BUT WHERE IS THE MILLEFIORE oh wait

The mandatory spinny spinny black clouds of doom~~~

Suffice to say, Byakuran really knows how to make an entrance.

BYAKIPS IN THE SKY, WITH DIAMONDS!

Take a moment to process the sort of thoughts that come to mind at that image. My personal favorites are “JEEBUS” and “Mufasa”.

This, in my opinion, was the real beginning of the breakdown. Prior to this moment, Byakuran was, potentially, the most frightening villain that Tsuna has ever faced in the manga, and quite possibly one of the scariest villains in Shonen Jump history. We recall, with fondness, his encounter with Rokudo Mukuro in Chapter 169, and how he apparently defeated one of Tsuna’s strongest Guardians a frightening lack of effort. He was a smooth, smiley, scary motherfucker – or at least, he appeared to be. What appears to have happened on a fandom level is that Amano has provided fangirls a canonical excuse to ridicule the main villain of the current arc, in a crude attempt to level him against her main character.

On my end, I don’t see how this could function as leveling. In fact, I see it more as a direct insult to Tsuna’s character. Does he deserve to have a villain as lame as this? Where did all of the urgency and fear go? Where is the very real possibility of defeat, one that Tsuna will inevitably triumph over, with the help of his friends?

On a quick note, this is not the first time where Amano has “leveled” her own characters in this fashion throughout the TYL Arc. Yamamoto’s humiliating defeat via walling against Genkishi in Chapter 199 just to have Hibari’s future self step in and save the day is one. Gokudera’s less-than-stellar performance in the second Milliefiore showdown in Chapter 243 to serve as a comparison to the competence of Yamamoto and Tsuna or to highlight Kikyou’s formidability is another.

Genkishi’s backstory, as provided in Chapter 248, and the truth behind Shouichi’s motivation and Byakuran’s true nature, provided in Chapter 252 and Chapter 253, seem to be aimed at recovering a bit of the mystery and frightening potentiality of Byakuran’s power, but it does not appear to be enough.

The LAZER BEAMS!!!!111oneoneone really don't help either.

Furthermore, Chapter 253 reveals the now not-so-shocking truth behind Tsuna’s future self: that he is not, in fact, dead. He orchestrated everything in order to defeat Byakuran in the one parallel universe where they stood a chance, and his death was faked in order to divert the attentions of his enemies.

I'M NOT DEAD, JUST SLEEPING!

This plot twist, I feel, is beyond deus ex machina, and completely ruins the original premise that made the TYL Arc such an amazing read. While it does wonders for the fandom side of things and the majority of the series’ fans very happy, it’s pretty much the nail in the coffin when it comes to neatly tying up the series.

Let’s recall the premise that I was working with from the very beginning of the essay. The TYL Arc had great potential, in the sense that it appeared to be a fight of epic proportions, one in which Tsuna was not only going to protect his friends or the mafia game, but the whole world in the process. He was coming in from the past, arriving in a future where his older self failed, faced with impossible odds and the very real possibility of defeat. He was in the perfect position to rise to the challenge, to learn from the mistakes of the future and make a different, better tomorrow with the love and support of his friends.

By showing that Tsuna’s future self actually NEVER died and revealing that he had, in a way, planned everything seems to repaint the present selves of the heroes as people trapped into a situation that they cannot get out of. They’re merely spectators in a grand plan of which they can do very little about, and have no choice participating in if they plan on saving the world and coming home in time for dinner. Basically: they’re just around to make sure that someone ELSE’S plan works. It’s no longer about them fighting, persevering and winning – it’s about them just going along with the flow, since someone else has already sorted everything out for them. They just have to see it through. It feels, in my opinion, like a terrible reduction of Tsuna’s potential to grow as a character, and, beyond that, more pointless fanservice.

If we’re to take the average live span of Shonen Jump series into mind, Reborn! still has a good amount of time to pick things up. Given the pacing of the manga and the series of reveals that I’ve discussed in this blog entry, however, I am hard pressed to believe that this will happen.

I once believed that Amano’s real strength used to lie in her ability to balance out the need to please the fans to keep her ratings up alongside the personal vision that she has for her story… she proved it to me continuously, with the most stellar example being her reveal regarding Mukuro and Chrome’s connection with each other, which both catered to the male demographic of her audience and gave Chrome value as a character beyond simply being another Token Shonen Female. Her writing is not flawless (no writer’s writing is), but her plots seemed decently thought out, and geared towards paying tribute to her fans while keeping the integrity of her plot in mind. She appears to have lost that direction entirely in the TYL Arc, and I’m not entirely sure if she’ll be able to recover it.

Only time will tell in that department, though. As I said, we could still be in for a very, VERY long ride.

Filed under: academic faggotry, fangirl things, literature, non-fiction   |  7 Comments
Tags: criticism, katekyo hitman reborn!, manga