356 WAS AWESOME, I WANT A WRISTWATCH.
SO MANY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS! BUT HERE I AM STILL STUCK REVIEWING CHAPTER 350 AND UP FIRST.
SUMMARY OF THIS CHAPTER:
STOP! IN THE NAME OF LOOOOOVE--
Ahem. So we open the brand new ARCOARC (which Amano made a hilarious failed attempt to dub "The Curse of the Rainbow Arc"... heeheehee. Classic) with a color page of shininess and an even shinier color page in which Amano grants one of my fondest wishes causing me to flip out with excitement, but more on that below*. Cut to Reborn having some trippy dreams about lizards, and his secret past! In said past, he was incredibly hot, and then some masked guy with a checkerboard fetish came and asked him to join "the world's strongest."
Reborn snaps awake before any useful knowledge can be gleaned from this dream, due to Tsuna being an adorable worrywart/busybody. Reborn muses some more and before long goes back to dreaming about that fateful day when he made the retrospectively stupid decision to trust this man wearing a tablecloth and batman mask, and followed his map written on a napkin or some shit to a quaint little town in Italy where he met the other six Arcobaleno for (I'm guessing) the first time. Then suddenly spotlights fell on them and they all just TURNED INTO BABIES for NO APPARENT REASON.
But it turns out that this is no ordinary dream! This is in fact a shared dream orchestrated by, you guessed it, Checkers, who is greeted warmly by his old friends with cries of "BASTARD" and "I'M GONNA KILL YOU." Checkers calmly reminds them that THIS IS ONLY A DREAM, DERPWARDS, YOU CAN'T HURT ME, which just goes to prove he never saw Inception. Then he asks them if they want to be freed from the Curse of the Rainbow. And judging by their reactions (not that I actually expected any of them to go, "Eh, nah, I'm good"), they are interested.
THINGS OF NOTE:
- I wonder if Amano has completed line drawings somewhere for those silhouettes on the Arco color page. I'd like to see those. I mean, come on, Adult!Reborn is holding TWO guns. GIANT GUNS. While wearing a trenchcoat!! The world's most badass picture is hiding away in the mangaka's desk drawer somewhere and that is just not fair, damn it.
- *KAWAHIRA. I WAS REFERRING TO KAWAHIRA. IN THE COLOR PAGE. KAWAHIRA. MY INITIAL REACTION UPON SEEING THAT WAS SOMETHING LIKE: KAWAHIRA!!!!!!! (/゜o゜)
- Seriously, can we take this as all but confirmation that Kawahira is FINALLY going to show his stupid ramen-eating face in this arc? Because every single other person on that color page has made an appearance thus far, and I do mean every single one. Well, except for Shamal (ANOTHER LONG TIME NO-SHOW), Glo Xinia, and Genkishi, but seriously, other than that they are all here!
- Does Reborn keep random bullets just lying around next to abandoned water glasses? Standing up on their ends? For absolutely no reason?
- Anyone else note the parallels between the scene where Checkers shows up to present Reborn with his pacifier, and the scene where the Cervello first gave Byakuran his Mare ring way back when? Mysterious unknown characters appearing at random to gift a character with a piece of the trinisette. Makes me wonder if there's any connection between this new guy and the Cervello... probably not, but you never know.
- Note to self: NEVER DISTURB REBORN WHILE HE IS ASLEEP.
- I don't know what it is with Tsuna all of a sudden but lately it's Reborn this, Reborn that, he is like obsessed with all things Reborn. WHO ARE THE ARCOBALENO, WHY ARE YOU HAVING WEIRD DREAMS, OOH, WERE YOU DREAMING ABOUT A MEMORY, WHEN WAS IT, WHAT WERE YOU DREAMING ABOUT. It took him this long to develop an interest into the mysterious inner workings of his tutor? And if you were going to ask these intriguing questions at long last, why the fuck did you have to go and fall asleep again afterward? CURSE YOU, TSUNA.
- Not that I can stay mad at him for long when he's doing that same snot-bubble thing that the Arcos do when they're asleep. XD
- I am dying to see more of this dream/memory, guys. The fact that it keeps getting interrupted by Tsunas and checkerboard men is killing me here. NNNNF.
- STOP A BULLET WITH HIS BARE HANDS WTF ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SERIOUS
- Why was adult Lal in the dream but suddenly she vanished and then baby!Colonnello was there? So were they both having the dream, or was he the one dreaming the whole time (about things he was never even there to originally witness??), or did she start the dream and then when the right moment came she just passed it off to him? See, Colonnello, this is why your stupid little chivalric stunt done gone fucked everything up. XD
- "Who are you?" ""Hi, everybody!" HEY, NO-NAME, QUIT SIDE-STEPPING PERTINENT QUESTIONS ALREADY.
- As impatient as I am to have all these questions answered, I can't deny that I'm having a blast watching Amano set up this arc so far. I know they all seem to start out awesome and then fizzle out in the end, but I've still got high hopes for this one, I can't help it. Mysterious mysteries, battle royales, character reunions, POSSIBLE KAWAHIRA AND MAYBE EVEN SHAMAL SIGHTINGS (one can hope)? Hell yes. I'm in.