Reborn!, Volume 1 by Akira Amano, Akira Amano (Illustrator)

Product Details

Synopsis

Tsunayoshi Sawada (Tsuna for short) is a cowardly junior high student who doesn't excel at academics or sports. He only attends school so he can stare at his beautiful classmate Kyoko from afar.

But Tsuna's life takes a dramatic turn when Reborn, a suit-wearing, gun-toting baby who claims to be an Italian hit man, shows up at his house. Reborn was sent to Japan to groom Tsuna for his future life as a big Mafia boss.

Tsuna doesn't believe this absurd story, so Reborn shoots Tsuna in the head with his gun. As Tsuna faces his own death, he's filled with regret that he never confessed his feelings to Kyoko...and suddenly he's overcome with supernatural powers that allow him to run off screaming to tell Kyoko how much he loves her. After five minutes, Tsuna goes back to normal.

Reborn explains how his gun works: when he shoots a person in the head, if that person has regrets about her life, then she will die and be reborn, temporarily endowed with special powers that enable her to fix or solve whatever is the source of her regret. (If Reborn shoots someone who is free of regret, she would die.)

Tsuna becomes Reborn's disciple, and because Reborn shoots Tsuna in the head all the time, he is constantly being reborn and growing into a stronger and better person, gradually impressing those around him and making friends.

Publishers Weekly

This ludicrous comedy has the occasional flash of cleverness, buffered by reliance on an utterly silly plot device, and typical manga art. Tsuna is a nervous middle-schooler whose mother hires a tutor for him, Reborn, who looks like a doe-eyed baby in a suit and fedora. Reborn soon shoots Tsuna in the forehead with a magical bullet. Anyone hit with the bullet "faces his own death and is flooded with desperate regrets about what he's failed to accomplish." He is also given superhuman strength for a few moments in order to correct the regret, before reverting to a normal-hopefully better-person. The bullet turns out to be an age-old secret of the Italian Mafia-and Reborn is using it on Tsuna in order to raise him up to be the 10th boss of the Vongola family. In episodic fashion, Tsuna uses the powers of the "deathperation shot" to profess his love for a girl, prevent a fellow student from committing suicide and score a point in a kendo match. Adults will undoubtedly have a problem with a chapter about Russian roulette; most readers will find their nerves dulled by the constant gunshots, explosions and other action elements. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Biography

Akira Amano was born in Aichi Prefecture, located in central Japan. After early versions of the series were published in seinen (young men's) manga magazines, Reborn first appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump as a stand-alone short story in late 2003. The massive success of this one-shot story led Weekly Shonen Jump to begin serializing Reborn! in mid-2004. Amano's work, with its entertaining

mix of action, comedy and drama, remains extremely popular with readers.