Katekyō Hitman Reborn! Watch Order: All Seasons & Specials
Katekyō Hitman Reborn! is a shōnen manga written and drawn by Akira Amano. Reborn! was published in Shūeisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump between April 2004 and November 2012, and was compiled into a total of 42 volumes in March 2013. It was adapted into an anime comprising 203 episodes broadcast between October 2006 and September 2010 by the Artland studio. Several OVAs were also released. In this article, we are going to bring you a proper and detailed watch order for the Katekyō Hitman Reborn! series.
Katekyō Hitman Reborn! watch order by release date
In this section, we are going to bring you an overview of the Katekyō Hitman Reborn! works in the proper release order:
- Katekyō Hitman Reborn!, Seasons 1–9 (anime, 2006–2009)
- “Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Special” (ONA, 2010)
- “Katekyo Hitman Reborn! x ēlDLIVE Special” (special, 2016)
In the next part of this article, we are going to tell you how you should watch Katekyō Hitman Reborn! in chronological order.
Katekyō Hitman Reborn! chronological watch order
In this section, we are going to give you a chronological overview of the works in question:
1. Katekyō Hitman Reborn!, Seasons 1–9 (anime, 2006–2009)
The plot of the series is built around a schoolboy Sawada Tsunayoshi, who is chosen to become the tenth boss of a mafia family – the Vongola. To prepare Tsuna for the position of boss, the ninth Vongola boss sent him a tutor, the world’s strongest hitman named Reborn. Gradually, Sawada makes new friends and saves them more than once after Reborn shoots him with a “posthumous will bullet”, which gives his target the opportunity to awaken and become stronger if the person regretted something at the time the bullet hit.
In the first arc, Tsuna became interested in the criminals who escaped from the mafia prison, led by Rokudo Mukuro. Together with his comrades, Sawada has to fight them and defeat the entire Kokuyo gang. Later, in the second arc,Tsune is challenged by the head of the Varia, the Vongola family’s elite assassination squad, Xanxus. Xanxus, who believes that the tenth Vongola boss should not be Tsuna, but himself, the adopted son of the Ninth Vongola, and the members of the Varia, the friends of Sawada, get the halves of the Vongola rings.
According to the decision of the Ninth, the keepers of the halves of one ring will have to meet in a duel and the winner will take the ring. The candidate whose team collects the most rings becomes the official heir to the Vongola. There are seven rings in total, each of them is named after a celestial phenomenon and reflects the role that its owner should play in the family.
From Tsuna’s side, their guardians are: Hayato Gokudera, an expert in dynamite and bombs, a hurricane; Takeshi Yamamoto, fond of sports, especially baseball, rain; Ryohei Sasagawa, the captain of the boxing club, is the sun; Kyoya Hibari, head of the disciplinary committee, cloud; Lambo Bovino, a weak kid walking around in a cow costume and annoying everyone and everything, is a thunderstorm; and Mukuro Rokudo (Chrome Dokuro), the girl who has a mental connection to him is a mist.
As a result of difficult battles, and the final duel between Sawada and Xanxus, Sawada wins. Varia goes back into the shadows. The third arc starts with the events happening after defeating the Varia, when Tsuna and his guardians are transported into the future ten years ahead one by one. There, it is revealed that the Vongola was almost completely destroyed by the rival Melfiore family.
They learn that in order to go back to the past, they need to find Shoichi Irie, a confidant of the head of Melfiore. With the fight, Tsuna and his friends infiltrate the Melfiore base and find out that in fact their transfer in time was Tsuna’s future plan, because in his time he destroyed the Vongola rings, and without them they have no chance to defeat Byakuran, the head of Melfiore.
To carry out the plan to the end, Sawada’s team trains hard and learns the true power of the rings. After returning to his own time, in the fourth arc, Tsuna is forced to take part in an inheritance ceremony where he will officially become the heir to the “Vongola” family. During the ceremony, the heroes are attacked by the Simon family, once an ally of the Vongola.
Simon kidnaps the Vongola Sin and Chrome Dokura, destroys the Vongola rings, and goes into hiding. The heroes restore and strengthen the Vongola rings and follow the Simon family to their island. On the island, the heroes find the Simon family and try to fight, but they are prevented by the Vindici. The Vindici report that the first generations of the Simon and Vongola families envisioned a similar scenario.
They asked the Vindici to hold pride fights between the keepers of both families, and reveal the true story after each fight. The losers in the battles of the Vindici are imprisoned by the mafia. During the fights, it turned out that the conflict was organized by the first guardian of the Vongola – Damon Spade.
He betrayed the first generation of the Vongola and Simon, and also survived and monitored the well-being of the Vongola throughout their history by changing bodies. During the fight between Rokudo Mukuro and Damon Spade, the latter captured Rokudo Mukuro’s real body and broke out of Vindici’s prison. After defeating the head of Simon, Emma Kozato, the heroes face Damon Spade, in a new body.
Before the fight, the Vindics are informed that if the heroes defeat Damon Spade, the Vindices will free the captured heroes. Together, and with a gift from the first generation, the heroes defeat Damon Spade. The Vindici free all members of both families, including Rokudo Mukuro. The fifth arc begins with the appearance of the Chess Head in a group dream of all the Arcobalenos, the seven strongest children.
The Chess Head informs that one of them can be uncursed in order to choose who exactly he will hold the battle of representatives. Each Arcobaleno will have 7 Representatives, 6 Normals, and 1 Boss, and will also be given 3 minutes to remove the Curse. Arcobaleno gather teams for themselves, telling that it was the Chesshead who cursed and made them children.
During the battles, the Vindice appear and take away the clouds from the Arcobaleno team – the Skull Watch to participate in the battles of the representatives, and take their place. The Skull’s own watch is taken by an infant Vindice named Bermuda. Immediately, the Vindice attack the representatives of the other teams during the break between fights to destroy the clock.
During the battle, the heroes learn that the Vindici are zombies. Afterwards, Bermuda invites Reborn and Tsuna to talk, and reveals that the battle of representatives is one of the ways to choose candidates for the new Arcobaleno Seven. All the old Arcobalenos will become the living dead like the Vindici. Therefore, Bermuda invites Reborn to join him against Chesshead.
Tsuna gives up on all this and decides to save Reborn himself. Tsuna enlists Talbo’s help, joins forces with the rest of the teams, and marches against Bermuda. The fight turned out to be difficult, Tsunu’s team underestimated the power of Jaeger, and he almost killed all the heroes. Bermuda came to Jaeger’s aid with a temporary curse lift, which was defeated by Tsuna using the final mode of the death will, revealing the secret of Bermuda’s power.
At the end, Chesshead appears, telling the story of how tri-ni-sette came into being. Tsunu persuades Chesshead and Bermuda to form an alliance and break the vicious cycle of the Arcobaleno. Chesshead removes the curse from the Arcobaleno and leaves.
In the final arc, Reborn approaches Tsuna, forcing him to make the final choice to become the tenth boss of the Vongola, but Sawada refuses to join the mafia, so Reborn leaves him. A week later, Tsuna realizes that despite all the battles, nothing has changed. He is still the same as he was in the beginning. Reborn returns, this time saying that he will make Tsuna a Neo-Vongola Primo, which is essentially the same as becoming the tenth boss.
As far as the 203 episodes of the anime are concerned, they can be watched in the order they were released. Reborn! has a very small percentage of fillers, so you can watch most of the show without any problems. If you want to skip the fillers though, the episodes in question are 56, 97, 119, 142-154, 177-189, whereas episodes 141, 155, and 190 are mixed filler/canon episodes.
2. “Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Special” (ONA, 2010)
This standalone OVA episode follows the main characters as they go to various tourist spots in Japan. It is not connected to the main plot in any way and is more of a fun outing than anything else.
3. “Katekyo Hitman Reborn! x ēlDLIVE Special” (special, 2016)
This shirt anime video is actually collaboration between Reborn! and ēlDLIVE, both series written and created by Akira Amano. In it, the main characters from both series meet in a standalone story unconnected to either of the plots.
