#so I'm either thinking that the Vongola is so great and powerful that they basically took out all of the police

[dreaming-hibi]

thanks Amano-sensei for the lack of police involvement in KHR, I shall do it myself

[insanescriptist]

Hi! I've gotten Black Sky recommended to me by a lot of people because I really like long well-written Girl!Harry fics - so I gotta say thank you guys so much for 200+ chapters! The thing is that I'm not an anime fan and don't know much at all about the Reborn (?) part of the crossover; do I need to watch or read that first before Black Sky to understand what goes on? (PS. One of my friends suggested listening to the Gunslinger Girl OST while reading to make it more epic. I'll give it a try! :D)

Izzy’s not a big anime fan either; she’d rather read manga. Much faster, less irritation with character voices or the episode recaps and also doesn’t have to worry about buffering.

Black Sky for the first 40 or so chapters doesn’t focus on KHR elements, although we leave hints here and there for those who know what to look for.

After that we start introducing KHR-elements a lot more. Specifically focusing on three organizations within the KHR-verse; the Varia, the Vongola and the CEDEF.

Most of Black Sky doesn’t focus on Tsuna (KHR’s protagonist) at all so a basic knowledge is needed but not much more than that. Because KHR conveniently leaves most of the mafia in Italy around the Vongola as a blank slate. But you do need to know who some people are. We’ve got lots of OCs.

So summary of what you need to know:

Uh, KHR has a pretty simple premises in the ‘loser guy gets unexpected inheritance and things are complicated.’

The story of KHR focuses on Sawada Tsunayoshi who is introduced as so terrible at everything his nickname is Dame(Useless/No-good)-Tsuna.

And then he gets the ‘Greateat Hitman in the World’ Reborn sprung on him as a mafia tutor as he’s the last remaining heir candidate for the Vongola as Nono’s three sons are dead. Tsuna is understandably disbelieving as Reborn looks like he’s two or so. Reborn then introduces Tsuna to the Dying Will Bullet which unlocks his ‘Dying Will’ based on his ‘last regrets.’ Basically Flame Superpower with special color-coordinated properties which are explained later in series.

Reborn basically steamrolls over everyone for shenanigans. Tsuna gains friends in the Daily Life arc, notably Gokudera Hayato and Yamamoto Takeshi. Tsuna gains other friends and house-guests/dependents and of the greatest import is Lambo Bovino who has a bazooka that can cause whoever was hit by it to change places with their future self for five minutes. Not the wisest thing to give to a five year-old child okay? Reborn engages in shenanigans for about a year and some months.

And then we get Rukudo Mukuro kidnapping one of Tsuna’s ‘acquired dependents’ due to said dependent’s powers. Anyway, Mukuro’s introduced into things, KHR acquires a genre shift from gag to shonen. Mukuro is a former human experiment of the Estraneo and more or less spent the five years after slaughtering his way out of the Estraneo by killing mafia famiglias. For which he got tossed into the Mafia Prison, Vindicare which is run by the Vindici who are the mafia boogeymen; think Dementor like, wrapped in bandages, cool chain techniques and fancy top hats. Tsuna ends up fighting Mukuro and wins due to shonen power-up. The Vongola’s reputation as the ‘largest, bloodiest and most powerful Famiglia built on an empire of sin and suffering’ is mentioned here. Also because this is shonen, overpowered teenagers is a thing and so Mukuro is like a year or so older than Tsuna.

Then a month later, we get the Varia showing up. Which is the Vongola’s elite assassination division. Which is what Xanxus is in charge of. Xanxus is Nono’s ‘son’ that he took in from the streets due to manifesting his Flames young. Xanxus ended up getting raised as a possible Decimo canidate, was considered a much better choice than his ‘brothers’ and ended up in charge of the Varia because Squalo -who had taken over the Varia by killing the previous Head- decided to follow him. Xanxus leads a coup against his father -the narrative implies different things depending on perspective and how deep you read into it, the characters and the arc- and so like a great father, Nono decides to freeze his ‘son’ in the Vongola Secret Technique for years.

You can image that the relationship there is not the greatest. For reasons.

Anyway because both Xanxus and Tsuna are seen as ‘candidates’ and have been ‘nominated’ by the two people who’s votes matter in the means of Vongola Family Succession: That would be Nono Vongola aka Timoteo Vongola and Sawada Iemitsu, the CEDEF Boss and Outside Advisor. Both nominate their respective ‘children’ for Crazy Vongola Tradition. Anyway the Crazy Vongola Tradition is known as a Ring Battle.

Because of course, jewelry decides who gets to rule the Family. It helps to understand that the jewelry also amplifies Flame Superpower. So the rules go ‘whoever gets the most Rings becomes Decimo.’

As Izzy doesn’t wish to spoil the series, Izzy will stop here.

Recommendation:

Izzy says read about the first twenty chapters of the manga and wiki the other characters. Just a word of warning, the art style the first 100-chapters is a bit rougher than the rest of the series and ugly in comparison to later chapters. Mukuro hits the scene like chapter 61 and the Varia about twenty chapters after. So the art is still rough.

As another word of warning, the Reborn-wiki is not the best source to gain all your information from as some things are still off about it. At least they’ve ‘fixed’ things so that they no longer say that the Varia’s ‘all male’ instead of ‘no female members have been shown’ with a touch of ‘lack of confirmation about which gender Mammon is.’ Which is true in the anime but less so in the manga. Chapter 134, like last page. Is it really that hard to find and verify a character who is wearing lipstick, has long hair and an openly worn jacket with three-quarter sleeves as female? It’s like the last page and Izzy doubts that they can’t find a scanlation or physical copy of it. Sure it’s only one panel but a picture speaks a thousand words.

It’s not like this is totally non-binary and possible trans erasure because of Lussuria anyway. Luss who has canonically asked Varia Minions to refer to him as ‘big sis.’ And they did.