Home Tutor Hitman Reborn! (TV and DVD)
Home Tutor Hitman Reborn! (Katei Kyoshi Hittoman Reborn!), currently showing on Japanese channel TV Tokyo, features the antics of baby hitmen and wannabe Mafioso. It belongs to what I call the baka (or 'stupid') genre of anime and manga.
Other shows in this category are Akira Toriyama's Dr. Slump (creator of Dragon Ball) and Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura (Invader Girl Lum, creator of Ran Ma 1/2).
Hitman Reborn! is based on the original manga work of Akira Amano with Artland handling the anime production. Artland has done support work for other production houses on animes such as R.O.D. - the TV, Ouran High School Host Club and xxxHOLIC.
The story revolves around a junior high school boy called Tsunayoshi 'Tsuna' Sawada. He doesn't know it, but he is the future head of the Vongola Famiglia, an Italian mob family. Tsuna happens to be the great-great-great-grandson of the first Vongola Don. All the other descendants of the ninth Don have been killed off, leaving Tsuna as the only living heir.
However, Tsuna is known as 'No Good Tsuna' because of his bad grades, ineptitude at sports and general bad luck. To make Tsuna a worthy successor to the family business, the current Don sends Reborn, his most trusted hit man, to Japan to train Tsuna.
