YMMV / Reborn! (2004)

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Does Yamamoto secretly know the mafia's real? Some have theorized this based on him taking the "mafia game" as seriously as he does baseball, and his future self certainly knows it's real even though that future ends up being erased. Some also theorized that he knows that the mafia is real, but is acting on Selective Obliviousness whenever anyone brings it up because he doesn't want to end his friendship with Tsuna and the Vongola.
  • Does Mukuro genuinely care about Chrome? Or is he simply using her because he needs a body to possess while trapped in Vindice Prison? The fact that Mukuro immediately disowns Chrome after getting his body back has some eyebrows raised, but there is also the fact that he states his desire for her to be a normal girl and strong at the same time.
• Alternate Self Shipping:
  • There are fanworks that pair up the boys with their "ten years later" versions of themselves... there's even official art of the characters together with their older selves.
  • Pairing the hero Tsuna in Hyper Dying Will Mode with Tsuna in his normal state is far from uncommon.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Gola Mosca was hyped up as being a powerful and unstoppable military robot that was feared throughout the mafia world, he's also easily defeated by Hibari during their battle with a single hit.
  • Byakuran, despite all the build-up, especially being a Multiversal Conqueror of almost every universe in existence except the one Tsuna lives in and having all the knowledge and strength of those worlds, gets defeated swiftly in six chapters that reeks heavily of Deus ex Machina.
  • The Real Six Funeral Wreaths don't fare any better, considering they were either disposed of unceremoniously or had a Deus ex Machina defeat them.
  • Nearly all fights from the Curse of the Rainbow feel anti-climatic. Whenever somebody is taking the upper hand, the fight is briefly stopped or simply cancelled.
  • Bermuda, despite being a Cursed Arcobaleno and one of the strongest villains in the entire series, goes down by Tsuna's new Super Mode in one chapter. Immediately after this, Checker Face reveals himself to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist and gives in to Tsuna's peace negotiations.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • Most people watching or reading the series for the first time get tired of the Daily Life arc very quickly, since its mostly wacky, repetitive hijinks meant to introduce the main cast. This can be chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness; the series started out as a gag manga and didn't become action-oriented until later. The Anime at least tries to avert this by having the 20th episode be the start of the Kokuyo arc followed by a few more adaptations of the Daily life arc before the Varia arc starts to serve as a breather from the serious plot.
  • The Future arc which, at the time of its completion, made up over half of the manga and becomes the entire premise of the anime after episode 73. The arc lasts 146 chapters in the manga, and was even longer in the anime due to two additional filler arcs in the middle. In fact, the Future Arc was so long that the following arc, the Inheritance Ceremony Arc, is referred to as the "long-awaited new arc" in its first chapter.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The reliance of the Daily Life arc in Cringe Comedy and nonsense plots fail to attract many potential western viewers at the start before its Genre Shift to action. While the show is still one of the biggest manga series in Japan even after many years, it failed to launch on western shores as the anime was never dubbed and never aired on TV in America and Viz Media only translated 16 of 42 volumes before canceled due to low sales.
• Awesome Music: Toshihiko Sahashi may not be a known music composer, but he has made a lot of memorable music for the series:
  • Tsuna Awakens is one of the most memorable OST in the anime, where it hypes up Tsuna whenever he uses his Hyper Dying Will mode.
  • The Guardians, Ten Years Later, used whenever a TYL!Guardian appears or fights and is mostly associated with Future!Hibari.
  • Standing Friends, a uplifting piece that is played after a brutal fight and when Tsuna and his guardians are having a friendship moment.
  • Holy War. Used in the 20YL!Lambo's fight and Tsuna's Zero Point Breakhthrough.
  • Hibari's theme is an awesome piano piece that turns orchestral the moment Hibari decides to bring out his tonfas.
  • Ryohei's theme wouldn't be out of place in a Rocky movie and has motifs of Tsuna Awakens playing on the chorus.
  • At The End of A Struggle is a piece that shows up when the chips are down for real. Mainly attributed to 20YL!Lambo due to it playing it during his debut. Some fans even go as far as to call it his theme.
  • To the future briefly plays during the debut of the Original Vongola Rings and the turn of the tide against Future!Byakuran.
  • Flame of Resolution usually plays in the moments which heralds the newest power-up for the protagonist in the spotlight.
• Badass Decay:
  • Tsuna goes through this in every single arc. He manages to defeat the Big Bad from each arc, but in the next one is curbstomped by the first enemy he faces and ends up feeling completely insecure about it. Even worse, the final chapter blatantly says that Tsuna hasn't changed since the beginning of the series and that he's still a loser without Reborn.
  • Ryohei Sasagawa is introduced as The Big Guy of the Vongola Family and was shown to be fully capable of dealing blows with the likes of Lussuria and Baishana. Then in the Inheritance Ceremony Arc, Ryohei is the only Vongola guardian to not win via a tie in his fight, and become imprisoned by the Vindice, and in The Curse of the Rainbow Arc he is immediately eliminated during the representatives battle very early on and sits on the sidelines for the majority of the arc.
  • Bianchi and I-Pin never characters known for their fighting skills and was mostly used for comedic relief in the early parts, though they were still shown to be pretty capable such as during Bianchi's fight against M.M. and I-Pin's fight with the Bloody Twins, after the Kokuyo Arc, they are both Demoted to Extra and mostly sits on the sidelines with the other females.
  • The only way to explain what happened to Adelheid Suzuki: she went from fighting evenly with Hibari to not being able to land a single blow on him within slightly more than a week. This is especially egregious when you consider that not only did she get a massive power boost from the "Vongola Sin", it was expressly stated that this power would continue to grow over the course of the next seven days.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Tsuna: Many see his reluctance to fight as a nice change from the cliche action hero. However, many other fans are annoyed that he's still a whiny idiot who keeps losing at the beginning of each arc.
  • Hibari: Half of the fandom loves him because of his Memetic Badass anti-hero status; the other half hates him, seeing him as a Creator's Pet Jerkass. It doesn't help that we see the other characters have to endure Training from Hell multiple times, something that Hibari himself never has to do, and every fight he participates in is anti-climactic.
  • Mukuro suffers from a lot of the same problems as Hibari. Part of the fanbase views him as badass Magnificent Bastard who possesses unique abilities, while the other half of the fanbase sees him as a Complete Monster who has committed deplorable actions without much punishment.
  • Chrome, by the fans she's either considered to be a likable character due to her Undying Loyalty with Mukuro and tragic backstory that makes fans feel sorry for her, or she's considered to be a useless Faux Action Girl that serves no purpose in the series and constantly needs Mukuro to fight her battles for her.
  • Iemitsu, Tsuna's father, often comes under criticism for his negligence towards Tsuna and Nana especially so in the final arc, where he nearly kills Tsuna during a poorly-communicated Stealth Mentor moment. Others feel that the fact he's often protecting his family while working for CEDEF justifies the neglect.
  • Levi trying to kill Lambo was pretty baffling and a significant part of the fandom deems it as the major reason why they dislike the character. However, those, who are more chill with him, consider that he was just doing his job and his actions in Ring Battle Arc were on par with the rest of Varia, who were all basically lashing out on kids, and fandom just won't cut Levi some slack because he lacks some pretty face.
  • Kyoko is really divided among the fandom, some fans regard her as The Cutie with only good intentions who bring normalcy to the cast, the other half find her hopelessly bland and thinks her goody two-shoes personality is extremely frustrating to watch, also her common schtick of Damsel in Distress and staying in the kitchen makes a lot of fans either offended or annoyed.
  • An unusual case with Lambo thanks to time-travel shenanigans. Many people find 5-year-old Lambo to be an annoying Bratty Half-Pint rather than an endearing one, yet his older self is one of the more popular characters in the fandom as revealed in popularity polls. The older one rarely appears in the story, and the younger Lambo's status as The Load and causing tons of trouble for the main characters sours him in the eyes of the many fans. Yet there are many who do like him for the same reasons.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The "Choice" battle during the Future arc. It doesn't amount to anything other than some of the Funeral Wraiths being defeated. But in the context of the story, it just happens and that's it. Byakuran just ends up abandoning it for a straight-forward approach against the heroes.
• Broken Base:
  • The general consensus of the Daily Life Arc. Some fans don't mind the comedic story and weird characters that are introduced alongside the Debut Queue of the protagonists themselves, while other fans dislike this arc feeling that the comedy was overused, the running-gags had gotten stale after a couple of episodes, and did not like Tsuna's characterization in this arc. It's to the point that some recommend skipping over the first 60 chapters entirely and jumping straight to the Kokuyo Arc where the tone becomes serious.
  • The Future Arc. For some it's considered to be the most defining arc of the series for its characterization of the guardians, the newly introduced weapon upgrades, the introduction on fan-favorite villain Byakuran, the future counterparts of the Vongola Family, and finally establishing itself as an action series that can compete with the likes of other popular shōnen manga. Other fans see it as a long and drawn out arc that takes nearly half of the series to finally resolve ^note In the manga, the Future Arc started in 2007 and finished in 2010, lasting for 146 chapters., dislike the constant training arcs, overreliance of sci-fi, the treatment most of the supporting cast receive, and the anime incorporating too many recap episodes and filler arcs in between major events. There's also the debate on whether the series got better or worse after this arc completed.
  • The opinion on the two Filler arcs in the anime, the Inheritance Succession and the Primo Family arcs. Some fans enjoy these arcs for some of the lore established in this arc, particularly with expanding more on the first generation of the Vongola Family and the origins of the Arcobaleno. Other fans dislike these arcs for feeling unnecessary and being spaced in between major events of the Future Arc, effectively ruining tension by having Tsuna and his guardians freely return back to the present at their discretion, in comparison to the manga which had them trapped in the future.
  • The Curse of the Rainbow Arc. Some fans believed that it was a good take the War Arc trope that brought back many iconic characters, thoroughly expanded more on the origins of the Arcobaleno, developed the relationship between Tsuna and Reborn, and fleshing out the Vindice more. While others fans believe that arc was severely rushed, resulting in many of the cast suffering from Badass Decay, found the final battle between Tsuna and Bermuda to be underwhelming and his feud with Checker Face being resolved very quickly, and the Fan-Disliked Explanation of Uncle Kawahira being an alien in disguise who has been monitoring the Tri-ni-sette since the beginning of time. Of course, this also depends on what your opinion of the final three chapters was, which in itself divide the fanbase.
  • Who should Tsuna romance at the end of the story, Kyoko, Haru, or Neither?. Some believe that Tsuna should have ended up with Kyoko due to his canonical feelings towards her and some of the genuine development they receive throughout the series ^note such as Kyoko being the one to give him an omamori charm, her future counterpart referring to him as "Tsu-kun", and sensing Tsuna's presence before he leaves for Simon Island.. Others would rather see him with Haru as she already admires Tsuna and strives to become his wife. The fact that neither side won angered some fans since the resolution only reaffirmed storylines that were established nearly three-hundred chapters ago ^note The manga chapter that resolves Tsuna's decision on choosing Kyoko or Haru ends with a call-back to the first chapter, having Kyoko reaffirm her friendship with Tsuna and Haru continuing to admire him.. There's also another group who'd rather see him paired with other women or one of the male characters.
  • Tsuna's eventual choice of once again rejecting to become the Tenth Boss of the Vongola Famiglia for some. Some fans didn't mind this ending because it stayed true to his character of being someone who despises the mafia and wants absolutely nothing to do with the Vongola, making him stand out from other Shōnen protagonists with goals that are similar. Other fans dislike this decision, feeling that it hindered Tsuna's maturity and growth throughout the series and that entire story centered around him being trained to become a mafia boss only for him to refuse once again, the fact that Tsuna openly admits that having friends is the only thing that makes him different compared to the first chapter certainly doesn't help. The last-minute introduction of the Neo Vongola Primo didn't really satisfy either side since it was basically added into the finale so that Reborn could continue being Tsuna's home tutor as if nothing changed.
• Cargo Ship:
  • YamamotoxWall was a common joke during the early days of the fandom and is still remembered rather fondly. ^explanation In his fight with Genkishi, Yamamoto has the upper hand right up until Genkishi tricks him into running headfirst into a reinforced steel wall, effectively OHKO'ing him. For some the scene was so jarring that it was hilarious, and thus the joke ship took off.
  • HibarixNamimori. That is, shipping Hibari with the actual school building.
• Complete Monster: The future version of Byakuran, from the "Future Arc", is the head of the Millefiore Family. Using his ability to communicate with and gain knowledge from every other Byakuran in a different parallel universe, he conquered each and every one of them until the only one left was the main universe. He planned to cement his grip on all reality by obtaining the Tri-ni-set; first ordering the slaughter of the Vongola family itself and their friends and families, then releasing Non Tri-ni-set radiation into the atmosphere in order to kill all Arcobaleno members. While he displays a cheerful disposition around his subordinates, it's only if they hold his interest. In reality, he's ruthless and cruel. Once he "gets bored" of someone, he won't hesitate to have them killed. He will do anything to achieve his goal, not caring if it would mean sacrificing innocent people—who he refers to as his toys—or destroying the world.
• Common Knowledge:
  • The series is not a Shōjo or a reverse harem. The manga was published in the Weekly Shonen Jump for its entire duration, it is commonly assumed to have this genre because of the large amount of bishonen male characters and the yaoi fanbase that follows, despite this, not a single character in the series has ever been confirmed to be gay. The main character himself is straight and has a canonical female love interest, and other pairings such as Colonello and Lal Mirch, or Daemon Spade and Elena are straight as well.
  • Lambo's last name is not "Bovino", he was never officially given one, "Bovino" simply refers to the name of the mafia family that he was affiliated with. The same thing can be said about Dino as well, whose last name is frequently believed to be "Cavallone", because that is the name of his mafia family.
• Cult Classic: After the manga's conclusion, its popularity took quite a nosedive due to the infamous final chapter and it never reached the heights it had afterward. However, thanks to the crossover games, it has regained some of it's popularity, with a resurgence in early 2020. Tsuna being one of the biggest requests for Jump Force placed this manga as such.
• Damsel Scrappy: Kyoko. While she is likable to an extent, she is also known for being THE Satellite Character in the entire franchise. A lot of people and fans alike are unable to bring themselves to sympathize over her well-being when she’s in a bad situation, knowing full well that’s she’s usually rescued by her savior Tsuna and insignificant enough that she won’t actually get hurt.
• Designated Love Interest: Kyoko is this to Tsuna. Despite all of the hints that point to Kyoko being Tsuna’s One True Love, their interactions with each other are so insignificant that fans usually seek excitement elsewhere.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • M.M is hit by this with fans of Mukuro/Chrome, opting to make her the resident bitch that will try to steal Mukuro from Chrome.
  • Kyoko and Haru also get this treatment, though to a lesser extent since both girls don’t show up very often or strangely, ever compete for Tsuna’s affections to begin with.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Almost every single villain in the series has received this treatment; they can do anything from murdering children to enacting mass genocide by conquering the multiverse, and yet still be beloved by fans due to being attractive and/or charismatic.
  • Mukuro Rokudo is seen this way, especially with fangirls, often looking past many of his actions and believing he is completely sympathetic because of his tragic backstory of being experimented on by the mafia and for being a fan favorite. Usually looking past the fact that he has ordered his subordinates to brutally beat up innocent students and rip their teeth out, possessed Lancia's body and forced him to murder his own family, cared little about the well-being of his own allies, used Chrome for his own selfish purposes, and constantly seeks out to steal Tsuna's body to someday destroy all of the mafia. Not to mention feeling absolutely no remorse for any of his actions and receiving minimal comeuppance for them.
  • Ken Joshima is treated better than M.M by the fandom despite his far crueler treatment towards Chrome, constantly berating her offensive names like "stupid woman" and treating her terribly because of her relationship with Mukuro. While there are some instances that show that Ken may care about Chrome deep down, these only exist in the anime and supplementary material that is debatably canon.
• Ending Fatigue: The Future Arc. In this arc, there are two times where Tsuna and his guardians are given the opportunity to defeat the Millefiore Famiglia and return back to their original time period, once during the Melone Base infiltration and another during the Choice Arc. Both occasions involve something going off course and resulting in them failing to defeat Millefiore, which makes the Future Arc go on for even longer, usually to introduce more new characters or new powers for the guardians. This is even more noticeable in the anime, which involves two filler arcs in between major story events that involve Tsuna and his friends returning back to the present as a means to introduce more new characters and introduce new powers for the main characters.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Squalo, the Varia's swordsman. Fans love his extremely hammy bloodthirsty and Bishounen looks, and in the popularity polls, he's reached as high as 4th place.
  • Fran. His unique, snarky, personality is loved by practically everyone.
  • Enma. There's a reason he was the only member of the Simon Family that actually got a relevant role during the Curse of the Rainbow arc.
  • Daniela, the 8th Boss of the Vongola Family. She only shows up in one chapter alongside the nine other bosses and doesn't say a word, yet ranked 6th and 10th in later popularity polls.
  • The Acrobaleno Fon, namely his adult form which has only ever appeared on a poster in the manga and the two Filler Arc of the anime but still managed to rank in the top 20 in the latest poll. It's probably why he got lots of screen time in the Curse of the Arcobaleno Arc.
  • Pantera, a character who only appeared in six chapters of the Daily Life arc, made zero appearances in the anime, and was part of the same mafia family as the controversial Naito Longchamp. In spite of this she is a fairly popular character because of her lolita design and is featured in a lot of fanart, many of which pair her up with Belphegor in shippings.
  • The future counterparts of the Vongola Guardians. Most of them only make a small appearance at the beginning of the Future Arcbef ore getting switched out with their present counterparts, the only ones that stick around for a long period of time are Mukuro, Hibari, and Ryohei, with the last two eventually being switched out with their teenage versions, and yet they reappear in the series OVA special and are featured in numerous pieces of merchandise as if they were more important. Being the older bishōnen counterparts of already bishōnen characters likely helped.
• Estrogen Brigade: It's safe to say that 80-90% of its fans are actually Yaoi Fangirls. Surprisingly there is actually a lot less headbutting, since any male fans tend to avoid most of the online forums or have their voices drowned out among the Squee!. However, it has quite a lot of male fans too if you know where to look.
• Expectation Lowerer: First shown as being slightly weaker than Squalo, Basil is this for Tsuna, Yamamoto, and basically everyone else as the series progresses.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Apparently, "Hibird" started as a fan nickname, but the author liked it so much it became canon. It's even lampshaded in one scene:
    Reborn: Apparently, it's now called Hibird.
    Tsuna: Who made up such a name?!
  • Mukuro is called Pineapple Hair for obvious reasons, "Mukuro-samba" (a play on "Mukuro-sama" and a reference to "Kufufu no Fu -- Boku to Keiyaku", where at a point he talks about getting trapped in an eternal samba, and "Perverted Pineapple" concerning his playful attitude with Tsuna and everybody else he's ever attacked. The thigh-high boots his TYL self wore are sometimes nicknamed "hooker boots".
  • There are fans who called Kyoko "Miss Sparkles" due to how she always had the sparkling effect when smiling.
  • Apparently, the cast is very fishy since we also have Tuna for Tsuna, Squalo(Italian for "Shark"), and "Octopus Head" (Ryohei's Canon Nickname for Gokudera).
  • Mukurou-Glo Xinia's owl box weapon that is possessed by Mukuro. A "u" is added to differentiate between the two.
  • Let's not forget the number/letter code. Usually used for shipping. The Reborn Wiki has an extensive list if you get confused.
• Fanon Discontinuity: There are some fans who like to pretend the Daily Life Arc never happened, due to its slice of life tone that vastly contrasts what the series would evolve into, in addition to some of the comedy and running gags that last for 60 chapters or 20 episodes in the anime, and the characterization of Tsuna. Some fans even recommend newcomers to skip entirely over this arc and jump straight to the Kokuyo Arc to avoid watching it.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation:
  • The revelation that everything related to the Tri-ni-sette was actually the work of aliens this entire time, alongside the fact that Kawahira is the last of an extinct alien species and Yuni's ancestors were part of this species as well. This angered and confused some fans since the series previously never gave any indication that aliens even existed in their universe and the lack of foreshadowing on this plotline.
  • The Arcobaleno still remaining as babies even after their curse was lifted and now being forced to age regularly angered a lot of fans, especially those who were really looking forward to them finally becoming adults again. What made this seem even more confusing to a lot of fans was that Checker Face previously had the ability to turn the Arcobaleno back into adults with the use of their boss watch and later shows that he is unable to turn them back into adults again, which to some felt like a way to invoke Status Quo Is God.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: A lot of fans prefer pairing Tsuna with any other character rather than his female love interests, with a huge majority shipping him with Hibari as evident in their massive doujinshi numbers and fanfiction in both AO3 and Fanfiction.net. It has to do with Hibari's fixation with Tsuna's growing strength, obsessively challenging him to fights, his suggestive catchphrase^note  I'll bite you to death, and him being the stoic Bishounen to Tsuna's naïve personality has fans shipping both by droves. It helps that Future Hibari actually respects Tsuna's leadership in the Future Arc, which made the shippers ship them harder.
• Fandom Rivalry: Oddly enough, with elDLIVE which is also Amano Akira's work. élDLIVE Fabs wish that Reborn Fans would move on from the series and give the series a chance since the other series already has enough exposure to be popular in Shonen Jump. Many Reborn fans wanted to see the Inheritance Ceremony arc and Curse of the Rainbow arc animated and hopefully continue the story, and Reborn still has a large fanbase even after the manga, which overtook the anime, ended.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Has its own page here.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • There are MANY fics in regards to what happened to Tsuna and his guardians after chapter 409. Most have it involve the fact that he had accepted the role of the Decimo or the troubles he had to face as the official Decimo.
  • There are many class reunion fics with their old classmates finding the truth about Tsuna's heritage.
  • Mukuro/Tsuna shippers take Mukuro's will to "Take Tsuna's body" in a very different way than the one meant. The same is said to all ships including Hibari, but Hibari/Tsuna in particular, towards his catchphrase "I will bite you to death".
  • Flash Forward Fics of the Eleventh generation and beyond are many among the fandom, and the fuel is lit brighter by an official artwork of Vongola XV◊ by Amano herself.
• Fanon: Has it's own part here.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: Regular Tsuna does have his fans, but more fans prefer to draw him in Hyper Dying Will mode more than they would if he stayed normal.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Daemon Spade. When he possesses Mukuro, the result has him growing out his hair and wearing a gaudy military outfit. The standard fandom response is laughing your ass off.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With My Hero Academia. Fans of Reborn moved to My Hero Academia thanks to both having a Badass Adorable Launcher of a Thousand Ships main character, surrounded by a group that might as well be a harem for him, similar Gotta Ship 'Em All principles and very little Ship-to-Ship Combat.
  • Also with Harry Potter as there are a lot of crossover fanworks in fanfiction sites if one checks it out.
  • Some Reborn! fans are also Naruto fans as well, thanks to both anime running at the same time and it helps that Reborn! does not try to usurp Naruto in popularity at the time of airing. As with Harry Potter, it has the second-highest crossovers with Reborn!
  • With Mission: Yozakura Family with many people calling Mission Yozakura Family it's Spiritual Successor.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While the series is one of the more popular series to this day in Japan, it has a really MASSIVE fanbase over the Latin America, and the anime is also a big hit in Spain and definitely France. To compare, there are over 3500 and counting fanfics and a good portion of doujins are Spanish. And conventions over there will be filled with Reborn! cosplayers.
• Gotta Ship 'Em All: Thanks to Tsuna being the cute and innocent-looking protagonist and that he seems to attract nearly everyone in the series, shipping is very rampant in the fandom and everybody is able to ship whoever they want.
• Growing the Beard: By the Varia arc; the Kokuyo arc was the first to be Darker and Edgier, but the Varia arc did wonders in world-building and generally having a more engaging plot.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Reborn's early interactions with Lambo. Sure, we know how annoying Lambo is about the "rivalry" thing and that he's not gonna be killed even by grenades, but once you realize it's an adult hitman beating the living crap out of 5-year old kid...
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A decade after Reborn!'s airing, some of the voice actors from Reborn! voices characters from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, which is another story about teenage heroes joining the Mafia. Reborn! would later be serialized at Shounen Jump at the same time with Vento Aureo:
    • Kenjiro Tsuda who voices Adult Lambo, Lampo, and Spanner, voices Tiziano. He even gives him the same deep inflections that Adult Lambo has.
    • Called the greatest hitman in-story, Adult!Reborn's voice actor Ken Narita voices Illuso, one of the members of the La Squadra Esecuzioni or the Hitman Team in Italian.
    • Meanwhile KENN, who voices the Cavallone boss Dino, would later voice the psychopath Secco.
  • This series has the protagonists wield seven different aspects of the sky in the colour of the rainbow. The original flame, the Sky flame has the main ability to petrify opponents, and the flames generated from the rings can defrost enemies frozen, similarly to how My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has Rainbow lasers petrify their opponents while thawing away the Windigoes in the show itself. The name of the objects used to mainly channel them are called the Elements of Harmony, the namesake of the Sky flame's attribute. Secondly, Reborn is a Sink or Swim Mentor assigned with the yellow motif of the rainbow. Said motif in the series is associated with the Sun attribute which reveals that he is actually wielding the Sun Pacifier, just like Princess Celestia who raises the Sun in FIM and is the mentor of the main protagonist, Twilight Sparkle.
  • A katana style that mainly uses water? There is no way this kind of fighting style is ever going to catch on outside this manga. Right?
• Ho Yay: Has its own page.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: The characters' Goroawase Numbers often get used as ship names, leading to such things as 5927 (Goku/Tsuna). Even if you do know the fandom it's sometimes a bit tricky to work out.
• I Knew It!:
  • What the entire fanbase was thinking when the Simon Family was revealed to be Big Bad of the Inheritance Ceremony arc. People predicted that the Simon Family would have Earth-based flames, too.
  • People who had read the manga predicted Daemon Spade's role as the Big Bad in the anime's Inheritance Trials arc.
  • Hibari is the one who represented Fon in the Representative Battle.
  • Almost everyone was betting on Uncle Kawahira coming back to be revealed as Checker Face.
• It Was His Sled:
  • All the Arcobaleno are actually adults trapped inside an infant's body. Even though promotional material does nothing to keep this a secret, there was a point in time where the identity of the Arcobaleno was meant to be a secret for the majority of the series. We aren't even given an indication that Reborn was an adult until 157 chapters later in the fourth arc of the series and even then we never even properly see his adult form until the final arc of the series.
  • Tsuna being able to use Hyper Dying Will Mode and the X-Gloves. It was once supposed to be a surprise and catalyst for the series change of genre, but is now regularly spoiled in much promotional material and merchandise and is even more iconic than Tsuna's regular appearance.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Tsuna. The fandom ships him with his Bishōnen Guardians, almost every girl his age, his allies, his enemies, the list goes on. There's actually a name for shipping Tsuna and basically everybody else in the series: All 27 or All/Tsuna. Funnily enough, fans ships Tsuna with the guys more than his two tagalong girlfriends since the implied romance lacks so much significance a lot of fans decide to seek romantic tension elsewhere.
  • Chrome, by virtue of being the only female amongst the guardians.
  • Gokudera has the dubious honor of being shipped with his TYL!self and the TYL!Guardians as well, if not with the present counterparts.
• Memetic Loser: Tsuna is a loser in-story, and we do follow his Character Development where he does become more confident with himself and gains massive levels of badassery. In Fanon, he is a loser who can't help himself and needs his guardians and Reborn in order to help him. Or he will be a Shrinking Violet just waiting to be picked up by anyone who they are shipping him with. It also doesn't help that Tsuna keeps getting hit with Badass Decay as mentioned above and the infamous final chapter.
• Memetic Molester: Hoo boy, this series has a decent number of them.
  • Mukuro Rokudo's gonna have some goddamn fun with you. And wants your body.
  • Birds... just Birds. Gotta love the creepy old sadists...
  • Depraved Homosexual Lussuria of the Varia. Who during his fight with Ryohei expresses blatant interest in him while simultaneously revealing himself to be a necrophiliac.
  • Glo Xinia. It is heavily implied during his encounter with Chrome that if Mukuro hadn't stepped in when he did, Glo probably would have tried to rape her.
  • Spanner's wildly regarded as a pedophile due to his interactions with Tsuna, which included stripping him for no real reason and handcuffing him to his bed. His blushing face and sudden Heel–Face Turn don't help.
  • Byakuran smiles constantly, loves "symbolic flowers", kills off one of KHR's other memetic rapists, and has signature moves where he 'penetrates you'. Oh and let's not forget his image song where he asks you to 'give him your body'. Then there's his blatant obsession with Yuni once she escapes from his grasp. Although there is a good reason for it, the vibes are still there. Not to mention his grabbing of Tsuna from behind and whispering into his ear...
  • Julie Katou wants you to know that you have "date plans" with him. And he will help you dress for them~ Though it is all due to Daemon Spade possessing him.
  • Daemon Spade's a pedophile that wants your body. Nufufu~ How ironic that one of the Memetic Molesters above is a victim for this guy.
• Mind Game Ship: Mukuro/Tsuna is rife with this, with Mukuro able to possess bodies and Tsuna being the trusting naive Vongola boss that Mukuro can easily persuade and possess.
• Moe: A lot of the girls can qualify, but especially wide-eyed Shrinking Violet Chrome. Tsuna is a male example.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Whenever you hear "Tsuna Awakens", be prepared for some awesome asskicking.
• Narm:
  • Despite the clear amount of drama and "Oh, Crap!" moments going on in the Inheritance Ceremony arc, the fandom still laughed its collective ass off at how Daemon looks in Mukuro's body.
  • The Bloody Twins, who were horrifying in the manga, look more like two stoned freaks in the anime.
  • Bermuda's adult form. It's hard to take him as a serious threat when his face has cat-like features and his body's uneven proportions don't mesh very well. And his "Lethal Final Technique" have really suggestive shapes that take away the seriousness of the battle.
• Never Live It Down: The infamous scene of M.M slapping Chrome in the Future Arc for some fans, to the point that she is often even treated worse than some of the villains. This ignores the fact that she only slaps her once, does it out of frustration towards Chrome's deep devotion to Mukuro, and even attempts to warn her later on that Mukuro is simply taking advantage of her to escape the Vindice Prison.
• One-Scene Wonder: Adult Lambo, where he doesn't hesitate to show off his prowess and was almost able to defeat Levi before his time ran out.
• One True Threesome: Tsuna's Launcher of a Thousand Ships status makes him present in many, amongst Hibari/Tsuna/Mukuro and Gokudera/Tsuna/Yamamoto are the most popular.
• Padding: Happens in the anime's adaptation of the Future Arc, an arc that was already known for its long length in the manga. Each episode usually starts out with a full recap of everything that happened thus far, including constantly flashing back to the events that lead to Tsuna being sent into the Future and learning about Millefiore several episodes after that had already happened, which starts to become even more evident during post-Melone Base arc where each episode is now cut even shorter for comedic shorts that depict the characters as chibi such as Haru Interviews and Monster Tamer Tsuna.
• Periphery Demographic: Did the number of bishies in the story really convince you that this series was just for guys?
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Tsuna's relationship with Kyoko is up in the air as of the final chapter, as the development is almost non-existent and it doesn't help that she still sees him as a friend after all the sacrifices he made for her. Compare that to Haru who has more romantic interactions with him, explicitly telling him that she wants to marry him to his face many times in the series. Couple that with all the Ho Yay happening everywhere, it's one of the reasons why fans prefer to ship him with everybody else, or, in some fanfictions, set Tsuna up with an Original Character instead.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Kensuke Mochida, the villain of the first chapter, is treated considerably worse in the fandom and many fanfictions portray him as a bigger jerk than he actually was despite being a harmless jock who never returns in the series.
  • M.M. receives a lot of backlash from the fandom because of the scene of her slapping Chrome in the Future Arc and is treated much worse than she actually is. Despite this, M.M. is arguably one of the sane members of the Kokuyo Gang, seems to be aware of what Mukuro is planning in the grand scheme of things, and even tries to warn Chrome that Mukuro is likely using her.
• The Scrappy:
  • Naito Longchamp, where his antics and looks are so annoying and unlikeable that the anime adaptation removed him from the story.
  • M.M. isn't very liked at all, due to her bratty personality and the horrible way she acts towards Chrome, though for some reason her treatment of Chrome is given much more hate than Ken's equally bad treatment of her. Though it can be said that compared to M.M., Ken actually cares about Chrome to an extent.
  • Glo Xinia is almost universally disliked for his perverted tendencies and attempting to molest Chrome.
• Seasonal Rot: To some, the Arcoblaneo Trials and Primo Family Arc of the anime. Both are anime-exclusive arcs that occur in between major events of the Future Arc and revolve around the main cast being transported back to the present time to receive some additional training to defeat Byakuran. To some, the ability to allow the main cast to willingly travel through time at their discretion broke the tension of what was supposed to be an arc about Tsuna and his friends being trapped in a bad future.
• Ship Mates: Thanks to the anime's Gotta Ship 'Em All and Tsuna's Launcher of a Thousand Ships status, its really easy to Pair the Spares:
  • The most popular ships are usually Hibari/Tsuna or Mukuro/Tsuna, and Yamamoto/Gokudera is usually paired with the main pairing. And for the other ship, either Mukuro or Hibari is shipped with Chrome or is either made the rival to the main pairing.
  • Goku/Tsuna shippers usually pair Hibari with either Yamamoto or Mukuro and the one left is shipped with Chrome.
  • The most popular Het pairings are shipmates: Tsuna/Kyoko shippers will usually ship Gokudera/Haru, Ryohei/Kurokawa, and Mukuro/Chrome. Some will even add Lambo/I-pin if it's in the future arcs.
  • Meanwhile Tsuna/Haru fans will usually ship Kyoko with Mocchida.
  • If Mukuro is shipped with someone else, Chrome will usually be shipped with Ken, or Hibari.
  • Squalo/Dino shippers will usually leave Xanxus alone or ship him with Tsuna. Meanwhile Xanxus/Squalo shippers will usually ship Dino with Hibari.
  • In the event that Tsuna is not shipped with his guardians. Ryohei will be the one to fill up the blank spot if he is not shipped with his canonical partner Hana Kurokawa.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: There is an opposition between Gokudera/Tsuna shippers and Yamamoto/Gokudera shippers if they are not shipping the three together.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Hibari/Chrome is a popular pairing for Chrome, despite the fact that the two of them barely interacted with each other, and there's the problem of Chrome being the vessel of Mukuro.
• Squick:
  • Gamma admits to having an unrequited love towards his boss Aria, and when she passes away he says he feels the same way about her daughter Yuni which she appears to reciprocate. The problem is that Gamma is in his thirties while Yuni is fourteen or younger.
  • Meanwhile Bianchi's love for Reborn is this at first, as he is a baby and she's in her late 20's at least. It becomes reversed when it revealed that Reborn is really older than Bianchi to the point that he can be her grandfather.
  • Everything about the Vindice is this, as they are drawn in a really nightmarish way that will certainly fit a Junji Ito story and artstyle.
• Starboarding:
  • It's common to make fanfics of all of Tsuna's male guardians falling in love with him. Thanks to Tsuna's canonical love to Kyoko, it's justified by the fans to make every single guardian crushes on him either unrequited or having Tsuna develop a crush on the main guardian. Shippers of Gokudera/Tsuna, in particular, support the idea of Gokudera having an unrequited love for him.
  • Then there are fans of one-sided Yamamoto/Gokudera. Sometimes, this can be used in conjunction with Gokudera/Tsuna, making it a sort of shipped All Love Is Unrequited Love Triangle of: Yamamoto → Gokudera → Tsuna.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • There were many who were Demoted to Extra in the final arc, such as Ryohei, Lambo, and even Yamamoto and Gokudera. Especially jarring since they had just received brand new Cambio Forma weaponry in the previous arc, which Gokudera and Yamamoto had barely shown off.
  • 20YL!Lambo, the mature, handsome, and incredibly badass future version of 5-year-old Lambo, only ever appears in one chapter. It's justified that he can't show up in the Future Arc due to Lambo not being in possession of his 10-Year Bazooka, but even afterward it's only 10YL!Lambo that makes a reappearance.
  • TYL!Gokudera as well, where he only appeared at the start and end of the future arc just to give exposition to Tsuna and the audience before he is switched to his present counterpart. He never even shows off his gear, which TYL!Yamamoto was able to do before getting switched after a couple of chapters.
  • Kyoko and Haru. They were never the main protagonists of the series, but they had prominent roles in the Daily Life arc. After the series switches genres, they are given minor supporting roles where they hardly have any effect on the plot. The Future arc's treatment of the girls earned a lot of backlash from the fandom, where they were now considered "sexist stereotypes" for cooking, cleaning, and taking care of Lambo and I-pin being the only thing they provide in the series.
  • Tsuna, seeing as how every Arc any character progress he made was reset. Any lesson that was learned was either shoved to the side or forgotten, his enemies were all explicitly stronger than him, despite any/all upgrades he'd gotten, and anyone that was weaker than him in previous arcs was now equally strong.
  • Varia. Throughout the series, they're constantly described as literal demons in flesh with inhuman levels of assassination skills, and generally treated as The Dreaded. However, after their respectful arc, they mostly show up for the hype, but never do anything big or important story-wise. In Future Arc, Xanxus killing Belphegor's brother Rasiel, feels less impactful after the reveal that he was fake Funeral Wreath. Then Squalo, the Legendary Sword Master with an almost perfect win to lose ratio, gets curbstombed by Zakuro offscreen just to raise the stakes. And during the Final Battle in the Future Arc, the Varia was outmatched by Kikyo, Zakuro, and Bluebell, who effortlessly deflected their attacks and managed to almost kill the Varia officers, if they weren't illusion doppelgangers generated by Fran. To add insult to the injury, during the Rainbow Curse arc, the less popular Varia members are reduced to jobbers. Fon effortlessly kicks out of the game Levi, Lussuria, and even Bel, who's supposed to be an assassin prodigy. And then Xanxus and Squalo team up with a bunch of other characters, hyped up to be a big team for final Big Bad beatdown... only to get defeated by said Big Bad in a single hit.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • With the series prematurely ending after the Curse of the Rainbow Arc, many plot threads were inevitably left up in the air and never properly answered, such as Tsuna's relationship with his father, confessing his feelings to Kyoko, the identity of the Cervello, and Mukuro's goal of taking over the world.
  • Mukuro and Hibari never got their rematch despite the build-up. They do get to fight again in one of the anime's filler arcs, but it's cut short by Tsuna's intervention, which only occurs in an anime exclusive filler arc.
  • The Future Arc's plot revolves around Tsuna and his friends getting sent ten years into the future, yet the adult counterparts of the main characters only briefly appear and are replaced by their younger versions, only making a brief cameo at the end of the arc.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Bermuda's true form resembles a doll whose proportions are too unbalanced. His eyes are too large for his baby like face, has a nose that is practically nonexistent and has the arms of a bodybuilder attached to an adolescent body.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Although the physical and emotional abuse that Lambo experiences throughout the series is meant to be played for laughs, it's hard not to feel bad for him. He's been forced into the mafia at an even younger age than Tsuna is, gets mercilessly beaten up by villains way older than him, and Tsuna, Yamamoto, Ryohei, and the girls seem to be the only characters that don't hate him. Even sadder in his debut chapter and The Inheritance Ceremony Arc where's implied that deep down Lambo genuinely just wants friends.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Mukuro Rokudo. The ending of the Kokuyo Arc reveals that his hatred for the mafia is driven from being experimented on by the mafia during childhood and Tsuna even starts to sympathize with him. This ignores that Mukuro promptly slaughtered his family after breaking free from the experiments, possesses the body of Lancia to murder innocent people, even driving Lancia to suicide, sends his subordinates to torture and pull out the teeth of innocent middle school students, and uses Chrome's body as a vessel for his own selfish purposes depending on how you view their relationship. Not to mention that Mukuro doesn't feel any remorse for his actions and his only punishment is staying in prison for three arcs.
  • Shoichi Irie. He is viewed as well-intentioned extremist for creating a plan to successfully defeat Millefiore with the present counterparts of the Vongola Famiglia, even though it's because of his actions, namely his abuse of time travel, that allowed Byakuran to gain the power to look into parallel worlds and purposefully dragged Kyoko, Haru, and I-Pin into the future simply so that Tsuna would have a driving force to defeat Byakuran.
  • Daemon Spade. He gets some sympathy after it's revealed his actions stemmed from the death of his lover and her dying wish to make the "Vongola stronger". However, this pretty much ignores that he murdered Enma's entire family and successfully pinned the crime on Iemitsu Sawada.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Both Hibari and Mukuro are regarded as two of the most popular characters in the series, especially in the eyes of the female fans, despite being generally hated by half the cast for their Jerkass and Karma Houdini tendencies. Tsuna and Chrome seem to be the only characters who consider them friends, with Ryohei and Yamamoto having mutual respect towards them at best, and Gokudera still remains distrustful to both of them.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Mammon's gender is often debated between fans. Due to being a babywearing an eye-concealing hood their features and voice are both gender-neutral. Viz Media refers to them as male in English translations, and they're grouped into the male character category in the third popularity poll.
  • Kangaryu, Ryohei's box weapon, is female. Isn't helped at all by the fact that some people translate her name as Mangaryu.
• Wangst: A strange example. Tsuna's life is supposed to have gotten better after meeting Reborn, but Byakuran tortures him by saying how much his life sucked during the Future Arc. Ironically, he is kind of right considering how at the beginning Tsuna was exasperated with the idea of not going home while his friends were trying to stay calm about it.
• The Woobie:
  • Tsuna, who was treated terribly by his peers before the start of the series, constantly getting bullied and beaten up his classmates to the point that he regularly skips school and admits that seeing Kyoko is his only reason for his attending class, his own mother openly calls him a loser, his father is deadbeat who forced him to become a mafia boss despite his young age, and his home tutor is a talking baby that constantly torments him with cruel punishments and humiliation as a means of trying to toughen him up. It's hard not to feel bad for the poor guy.
  • Lambo, who was forced into the mafia despite only being five years old and is generally loathed by half of the cast aside from Tsuna, Yamamoto, Ryohei, and the girls for his annoying tendencies, sometimes being put down with offensive nicknames or outright brutally thrashed by the likes of Gokudera and Reborn, who never receive any punishment for their actions, with the latter even attacking him after recently coming home from the hospital and admitting that he doesn't care. It becomes even sadder when it's revealed that Lambo secretly admires the Vongola guardians and that he just wants to have friends deep down.
  • Chrome, due to the hell she goes through. Her parents abandoned her to die, half her organs are missing, she's homeless and more often than not starving, she's constantly belittled, gets harassed physically, emotionally, and sometimes even sexually by villains, and in the Inheritance Ceremony arc she's hypnotized and tortured by Daemon Spade purely to push Mukuro's Berserk Button. There's also the possible implications that Mukuro may not truly care about Chrome and that he was simply using her so that he could have a body to possess.
  • 20YL!Lambo, particularly when you realize, thanks to Byakuran, exactly what kind of future he has to return to.
  • Lancia, who was generally a pretty nice guy before meeting Mukuro Rokudo, who later posessed the poor guy and forced him to commit a number of terrible crimes such as being forced to murder his own family, taking the lives of many innocent people, tormenting Tsuna's friends, and even contemplates suicide once which he cannot do since Mukuro is possessing his body. Lancia eventually returns back to Italy, now forced to live with the knowledge that he killed so many innocent people against his will and that Mukuro never received competence for his crimes.
  • Yuni, and by extension Luche and Aria. Luche was Blessed with Suck, received the less-than-beneficial end of the Cursed with Awesome stick shared by her other partners, and worse yet has to pass that on to all her future descendants. Yuni has to sacrifice herself in the Future Arc to restore the Arcobaleno and in turn defeat Byakuran, but she's terrified of death and can't go through with it until Gamma joins her and they die together. The scene is regarded as one of the most tear-jerking of the manga/anime.

---