Reborn!

There's a strong chance Tsunayoshi Sawada is the most pathetic middle schooler in anime history. His classmates literally call him 'Loser Tsuna,' he can't talk to his crush without imploding, and he has zero talents worth mentioning. Then a baby with a fedora shows up at his house, claims to be a hitman from the Italian mafia, and tells Tsuna he's the next boss of the most powerful crime family in the world. The baby's name is Reborn, and his training method involves shooting Tsuna in the head with a special bullet that unlocks a desperate, reckless version of himself. It's as unhinged as it sounds. This is a 203-episode TV series from Studio Artland, and fair warning — the early stretch is mostly comedic and episodic while Tsuna stumbles through increasingly absurd situations with the weird crew assembling around him: a dynamite-obsessed delinquent, a carefree baseball kid, and others who gradually become genuinely important. The thing people don't tell you is that this show has a slow burn before it shifts gears hard into serious arc-based storytelling with real stakes and surprisingly emotional battles. If you liked the long-haul payoff of Naruto or Bleach, where early investment in characters makes later arcs hit harder, Reborn follows that same trajectory. The comedy-to-action pipeline here is real, and the bond-building between Tsuna's ragtag family ends up being the whole heart of it. Just give it time to cook.