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cypsiman2So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I've been reading two shonen series lately; Fairy Tail, which has been a lot of a lot of fun and one which I look forward to reading for however long it runs...and then there's the other one, Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Where to begin? I suppose with the main character, as he is supposed to be our vantage point into the crazy world of the manga. Tsuna Sawada, or as he is more commonly known, No-good Tsuna, is a loser and a failure of the highest caliber, but not for the reasons that the author seems to think, which would be his general ineptitude and inability to accomplish anything of note. No, Tsuna's real problem in life is that he is incredibly shallow and has no ambition in life; mere ineptitude is one thing, but personal flaws of his magnitude and a lack of redeeming qualities at all are a whole other matter.
Which is why its just as well that Reborn, a one year old hitman from the mafia, shows up and declares that he's going to turn Tsuna into the new boss of the Vongola family, the most powerful mafia family there is. Much of Reborn's tutoring method involves shooting Tsuna in the head to make him die. Now this is where it gets a nice creative conceit; see, Reborn uses what is called the "Dying Will Bullet", and when you are shot in the head with it while regretting something, you burst out of your clothes and declare that you are going to accomplish that one thing, and for five minutes you are super charged and nothing's going to stand in your way. And what is it that our failure of a main character regrets? Not asking this one girl, Kyoko Sasegawa, out on a date. Why? Because he thinks she's cute, and she talked to him once about twelve months ago. Yeah, he doesn't really know anything at all about her, and she's never really developed all that much either.
What there is to know is that she looks and acts pretty much EXACTLY like Tsuna's mother. Couple this with the fact that Tsuna resents his father for never being around, and we've got an angle on the matter that will not be explored, ever.
Anyway, the first sixty chapters are done in the style of a gag manga, with random hijinks and everything being played for laughs. We have Gokudera, who initially tries to kill Tsuna with dynamite but ends up developing a weird obsession with him after being saved by him, and then there's his older sister Bianchi the Poison Scorpion, who can cook up any poison she likes. There is Takeshi Yamato, an up and coming baseball star who thinks the whole Mafia thing is just some sort of roleplaying game, and Lambo, the five year old hit man armed with the Ten Year Bazooka; that lets him switch himself with his future self from ten years in the future, for about five minutes. There is Haru, the crazy girl with her head up in the clouds who falls in love with Tsuna after getting the mistaken impression that he is some manner of badass, and Ryohei Sasagawa, Kyoko's older brother who is captain of the boxing team who adds "TO THE EXTREME!!!" to the end of all his declarations. Then we have Hibari, the resident super asshole, ultra violent head of the disciplinary committee who regularly threatens to "bite you to death"; personally, I would die laughing if I heard someone say that to me, no amount of badass and psychotic can compensate for how intensely weak that line is. He could at least be named Kiba if he's going to be saying that so much.
In addition, we also have I-Pin, the chinese assassin who wields a unique method of shorting out your nervous system and make it look like she's controlling your movements; a shame that the Ten Year Bazooka reveals that she'll be giving all that up to sell ramen. Whoo. There is Dr. Shamal, an expert assassin with access to 666 fatal diseases, but he'll only treat girls. This is seriously the wrong manga for him. And then there's Futa, a young boy who is capable of perfectly ranking anyone in the mafia by communing with the ranking planet, during which time gravity reverses in his presence, and he keeps the records of these rankings in a book bigger than he is. When I first saw him, I wondered why he wasn't the main character. It definitely would have been much more fun than Tsuna's whining.
However, things take a sudden change around chapter 62, when Mukuro Rokudo shows up and makes serious efforts to maim and kill Tsuna, and so our series transmogrifys from a gag series to a standard shonen action series, with training arcs and everything. Thus far there have been three arcs to this side of the story; we have the Mukuro arc, The Xanxus arc, and the Future Arc. The Mukuro arc is pretty short and to the point, and begins to mark Tsuna's transformation into standard issue shonen protagonist Mark #27, complete with power ups and an almost condescending need to protect everyone, and of course he always forgives his enemies, no matter what is they do, have done, or are about to do. There are some creative concepts here and there, and some of the fights can be enjoyable, but there are twi very deeply rooted problems in this series; the future arc, and gender fail.
Simply put, the Future Arc has been going on for way to damn long, with lots of padding all over the place, and has just generally been a very tedious and even more boring version of the Hueco Mundo arc from Bleach, with an even more boring version of Aizen named Byakuran. Seriously, this dude is just tediously dull, and I should not be thinking this, considering he has access to all the knowledge of all his parallel selves from every parallel universe ever, but he is just so damn boring. And there's this reveal during the middle of the arc that just boggles the mind in its blatant attempts to stretch things out.
Oh, and at some point the fighting has turned into a very strange version of Pokemon. Yeah, the author really should lay off whatever drugs it is she's doing.
Anyway, onto the gender fail!
You'll recall how I mentioned in my previous post how Fairy Tail is excessive with its fanservice? Well you don't have to worry about that at all in Katekyo Hitman Reborn; the ladies are so thoroughly marginalized and shoved off to the sidelines to take care of cooking and cleaning while the boys go out to fight and train and do the important exciting things, that you don't generally have to worry about boobies at all. Also, Katekyo Hitman Reborn also has some of the highest concentrations of Ho Yay I've ever seen in a manga; I can't help but feel that these two points are related.
I mean, really, its an extra special shame because when the author sees fit to focus on the ladies and their interactions with each other, it's really good stuff; its not like with Kishimoto, who's just generally incapable of writing ladies. The author here can write the ladies, she just doesn't seem to feel like it for the most part. One of my favorite bits early on involves Kyoko and Haru meeting for the first time...and discovering that they both celebrate 'self appreciation day' the third Saturday of every month, when they can eat all the cake they feel like, or however else they feel like expressing their self appreciation. That's really nice stuff, so it hurts that they and all the other ladies aren't allowed to participate in all the big events going down. They just get to stand on the sidelines and hope.
That said, I've discovered something about myself; whenever I read a series that deeply disappoints me, I begin putting together in my mind an AU fic that doesn't suck so much. So, umm, that's project down the line, I suppose.
Well, that's the two series I've been reading lately, I hope this has been informative for you all out there.
Where to begin? I suppose with the main character, as he is supposed to be our vantage point into the crazy world of the manga. Tsuna Sawada, or as he is more commonly known, No-good Tsuna, is a loser and a failure of the highest caliber, but not for the reasons that the author seems to think, which would be his general ineptitude and inability to accomplish anything of note. No, Tsuna's real problem in life is that he is incredibly shallow and has no ambition in life; mere ineptitude is one thing, but personal flaws of his magnitude and a lack of redeeming qualities at all are a whole other matter.
Which is why its just as well that Reborn, a one year old hitman from the mafia, shows up and declares that he's going to turn Tsuna into the new boss of the Vongola family, the most powerful mafia family there is. Much of Reborn's tutoring method involves shooting Tsuna in the head to make him die. Now this is where it gets a nice creative conceit; see, Reborn uses what is called the "Dying Will Bullet", and when you are shot in the head with it while regretting something, you burst out of your clothes and declare that you are going to accomplish that one thing, and for five minutes you are super charged and nothing's going to stand in your way. And what is it that our failure of a main character regrets? Not asking this one girl, Kyoko Sasegawa, out on a date. Why? Because he thinks she's cute, and she talked to him once about twelve months ago. Yeah, he doesn't really know anything at all about her, and she's never really developed all that much either.
What there is to know is that she looks and acts pretty much EXACTLY like Tsuna's mother. Couple this with the fact that Tsuna resents his father for never being around, and we've got an angle on the matter that will not be explored, ever.
Anyway, the first sixty chapters are done in the style of a gag manga, with random hijinks and everything being played for laughs. We have Gokudera, who initially tries to kill Tsuna with dynamite but ends up developing a weird obsession with him after being saved by him, and then there's his older sister Bianchi the Poison Scorpion, who can cook up any poison she likes. There is Takeshi Yamato, an up and coming baseball star who thinks the whole Mafia thing is just some sort of roleplaying game, and Lambo, the five year old hit man armed with the Ten Year Bazooka; that lets him switch himself with his future self from ten years in the future, for about five minutes. There is Haru, the crazy girl with her head up in the clouds who falls in love with Tsuna after getting the mistaken impression that he is some manner of badass, and Ryohei Sasagawa, Kyoko's older brother who is captain of the boxing team who adds "TO THE EXTREME!!!" to the end of all his declarations. Then we have Hibari, the resident super asshole, ultra violent head of the disciplinary committee who regularly threatens to "bite you to death"; personally, I would die laughing if I heard someone say that to me, no amount of badass and psychotic can compensate for how intensely weak that line is. He could at least be named Kiba if he's going to be saying that so much.
In addition, we also have I-Pin, the chinese assassin who wields a unique method of shorting out your nervous system and make it look like she's controlling your movements; a shame that the Ten Year Bazooka reveals that she'll be giving all that up to sell ramen. Whoo. There is Dr. Shamal, an expert assassin with access to 666 fatal diseases, but he'll only treat girls. This is seriously the wrong manga for him. And then there's Futa, a young boy who is capable of perfectly ranking anyone in the mafia by communing with the ranking planet, during which time gravity reverses in his presence, and he keeps the records of these rankings in a book bigger than he is. When I first saw him, I wondered why he wasn't the main character. It definitely would have been much more fun than Tsuna's whining.
However, things take a sudden change around chapter 62, when Mukuro Rokudo shows up and makes serious efforts to maim and kill Tsuna, and so our series transmogrifys from a gag series to a standard shonen action series, with training arcs and everything. Thus far there have been three arcs to this side of the story; we have the Mukuro arc, The Xanxus arc, and the Future Arc. The Mukuro arc is pretty short and to the point, and begins to mark Tsuna's transformation into standard issue shonen protagonist Mark #27, complete with power ups and an almost condescending need to protect everyone, and of course he always forgives his enemies, no matter what is they do, have done, or are about to do. There are some creative concepts here and there, and some of the fights can be enjoyable, but there are twi very deeply rooted problems in this series; the future arc, and gender fail.
Simply put, the Future Arc has been going on for way to damn long, with lots of padding all over the place, and has just generally been a very tedious and even more boring version of the Hueco Mundo arc from Bleach, with an even more boring version of Aizen named Byakuran. Seriously, this dude is just tediously dull, and I should not be thinking this, considering he has access to all the knowledge of all his parallel selves from every parallel universe ever, but he is just so damn boring. And there's this reveal during the middle of the arc that just boggles the mind in its blatant attempts to stretch things out.
Oh, and at some point the fighting has turned into a very strange version of Pokemon. Yeah, the author really should lay off whatever drugs it is she's doing.
Anyway, onto the gender fail!
You'll recall how I mentioned in my previous post how Fairy Tail is excessive with its fanservice? Well you don't have to worry about that at all in Katekyo Hitman Reborn; the ladies are so thoroughly marginalized and shoved off to the sidelines to take care of cooking and cleaning while the boys go out to fight and train and do the important exciting things, that you don't generally have to worry about boobies at all. Also, Katekyo Hitman Reborn also has some of the highest concentrations of Ho Yay I've ever seen in a manga; I can't help but feel that these two points are related.
I mean, really, its an extra special shame because when the author sees fit to focus on the ladies and their interactions with each other, it's really good stuff; its not like with Kishimoto, who's just generally incapable of writing ladies. The author here can write the ladies, she just doesn't seem to feel like it for the most part. One of my favorite bits early on involves Kyoko and Haru meeting for the first time...and discovering that they both celebrate 'self appreciation day' the third Saturday of every month, when they can eat all the cake they feel like, or however else they feel like expressing their self appreciation. That's really nice stuff, so it hurts that they and all the other ladies aren't allowed to participate in all the big events going down. They just get to stand on the sidelines and hope.
That said, I've discovered something about myself; whenever I read a series that deeply disappoints me, I begin putting together in my mind an AU fic that doesn't suck so much. So, umm, that's project down the line, I suppose.
Well, that's the two series I've been reading lately, I hope this has been informative for you all out there.
