Reborn! and Cerberus Syndrome

I've been in the mood for a certain style of manga that only shonen series seem to satisfy. As such, I've been doing a reread of Reborn! lately, and have gotten just over halfway through the American releases this month (Through volume 8). If you're familiar with the series, you know that's when Cerberus Syndrome hits the series full force. (As always, spoilers may be found after the cut, so proceed with caution.)


Cerberus Syndrome (here's a TV Tropes link for anyone willing to waste the rest of their day!) refers to the transition of a pure comedy tale to something more along the dramedy vein, or even to full drama. And while it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, for a lot of series it can be.

I didn't really notice it very much the first time, but now, reading the books all in rapid succession instead of months apart as they came out, it's glaringly obvious. It's also clear the transition was a little rocky with Reborn, but if I'm being perfectly honest, I think it actually improved the series.

Reborn! started out with incredibly short arcs - one or two issues mostly. They all not only focused heavily on comedy, but they seemed  to focus on a sort of comedy that I now associate somewhat with crackfic in fanfiction circles. It was like the creator just threw in any old thing that came into her head. Sometimes, it worked (A gun-weilding baby/tutor who also wants to groom our protagonist for a leadership position in the Italian mafia? Actually turned out to be a much more solid plot idea than you'd think) and sometimes it didn't (A majority of the shooting-body-parts-to-get-different results. The cheek shots and the top-of-head shot, once I saw them once, I never wanted to see them again). The characters that were introduced around him were interesting and the interactions between them all were a lot of fun to read about, but they were all pretty flat, and when depth was put into them, it was sort of... well, ridiculous. (For instance, what Yamamoto does when he injures his arm and can't play baseball for a little while left me feeling a little O.o and it actually seems a little odd with his later characterization.)

With the arc in which Mukuro is introduced (volumes 8 and 9, links lead to Goodreads reviews) took an abrupt but welcome right turn into pseudo-series territory. There was still a lot of wackiness but characters who had started to move beyond their central comedic traits and get rounded out. At the same time, several of them (most notably the main trio of Tsuna, Yamamoto and Gokudera) got a bit more of a serious edge.

The funny thing about a story that takes a turn to the serious is that I as a reader can take it more seriously as well. It's not that comedy is by any stretch either easy or flat as a writing style.  but it's been my experience that comedy can and often does work when you don't have more than the most basic emotional connection with the characters. You have to want to root for or against them, and empathize to a certain degree, but that's it.

Drama, on the other hand, or even action, needs a bit more background and a bit more of an emotional connection. And in Reborn!, once it took its turn, it really did feel like there was a lot more to everyone. Even just in this first arc, Tsuna goes from wanting to help his friends to being willing to do whatever it takes to save them. The depths of his self-sacrifice became far more evident. Yamamoto's dedication and courage also got a bit more of a focus, and Gokudera's dedication to Tsuna and his family were recast from purely joke fodder into something more serious.

Part of me really laments that the American version stopped at 18 honestly. Reborn was never a top-tier manga for me, but once it started to take itself seriously it becomes a much, much more entertaining story. :)