REBORN!, VOL. 6

VIZ MEDIA
CARTOONIST; Akira Amano
ISBN: 978-1-4215-1474-1; paperback; Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
200 pp., B&W, $7.99

Tsunayoshi Sawada AKA Tsuna may be just a student in junior high school.  He may just be “Loser Tsuna,” a failure at socializing and sports.  That all changes when Tsuna learns that he is destined to be the 10th boss of the Vongola crime family, and the toddler assassin Reborn has the “magic bullet” to make a boss man out of Tsuna.

In Reborn!, Vol. 6, Tsuna meets his rival, Longchamp Naito, the 8th generation boss of the Tomaso crime family, and he’s an absolute loon with a taste in women who are butt ugly and even monstrous.  Tsuna and Longchamp are supposed to be rivals, but Longchamp always seems eager to pal around with Tsuna, much to Tsuna’s chagrin.

What Tsuna needs is a relaxing cruise to a south sea island resort, and his mother, Nana, just so happens to win cruise tickets for two.  However, Reborn and the rest of Tsuna’s extended mafia family show up to ruin things, and it turns out that the rest of the passengers on this luxury liner are also mobsters.  And the South Seas island?  It’s really Mafia Island, an ersatz theme park where the “good mafia” relax.  But who can relax in a battle between the superbabies?

THE LOWDOWN:  Manga-ka Akira Amano continues to expand the world of Reborn! using an ever-growing cast of peculiar characters, but Amano strains the narrative in an attempt to give so many characters, most of them as lovable as they are eccentric, space in the story to shine.  Longchamp Naito is a bust, and is extraneous even in his own storylines.  However, stories like “Flower-viewing” and “June Pride” are true to this unconventional manga’s winning comic appeal.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Reborn! is part of VIZ Media’s “Shonen Jump Advanced,” line of manga, which is billed as “The World’s Most Cutting-Edge Manga.”  This tightly drawn, edgy, gangster/fish out of water tale is truly cutting-edge.

B

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