Hajime no Ippo.

Not for me". This would be an extremely bad judgement and you'd miss out on one of the greater Anime's of our time. Whether you are or are not a sports fan, this shouldn't be missed. It's a name that will set its mark on you after you finish watching it.

A friend of mine recommended this anime to me back in the day and I just couldn't understand what would be so great... about boxing. And even more so how it could stay interesting for 76 episodes. I decided to give it a go after seeing such positive reviews and the scores this anime was given and I must say this was one of the best decision of my life. There are few animes where you end up actually physically rooting for the main character, but even so I often found myself screaming at the screen and throwing punches in the air because it was just that captivating.

Synopsis:

Hajime no Ippo follows the development of one Makunouchi Ippo, a bullied, timid, bookish high-schooler. He works at his mother's local fishing boat business and is in his final year of high school with the opportunity to join any university and job he could probably want if he put his mind to it. However, on one day, he is being bullied once again by Umezawa and his friends, he takes it on the chin, as usual, before Umezawa mocks Ippo's mother. This singular action causes Ippo to be infuriated for a single moment before Umezawa beats him unconscious. By happenstance, Takamura Mamoru, a promising Middle-Weight (70-73 kg) boxer is running by as a part of his road-work routine (road work referring to boxer and other combat sport athelete's regular running routine), Takamura quickly dispatches the bullies and brings Ippo to his gym: the Kamogawa Boxing Gym, headed by Kamogawa Genji. Takamura reveals that he hates bullies, but especially hates people that let bullies do what they want, before giving Ippo the opportunity to blow off steam by punching a heavy bag with Umezawa's crude drawing on it. Ippo, having never thrown a punch before, demolishes the paper into shreds and sends the bag flying but flaying his knuckles in the process. The other members of the gym note that the latter observation is a sign of a hard puncher.

Takamura introduces Ippo to the world of Boxing with tapes of various Boxers. Ippo decides to pursue Boxing not just as a fan, but as a fighter, but is admonished by Takamura due to the extreme nature of the sport, Ippo cries before asking "What does it mean to be strong?". This begins Ippo's journey as a Boxer.

Story: 9.5/10

The story is set around Makunouchi Ippo, a typical highschooler. He lives together with his Mom and helps her with their Fishing Shop. He is bullied at school for not being able to join others since he has to help his Mom with the shop everyday.

I found the story to be very captivating. It had a great plot and each episode ended with a cliffhanger leaving you wanting for more. The story is simple yet brilliantly made. Many other sport animes are easy to see through and you can almost predict what will happen next, and although that happens at certain points they know exactly when to turn the tables.

The show switches easily from being about an intense Boxing Match to a hilarious turn of events usually ending up with Ippo getting toyed around with by his friends.

Art: 9.5/10

Ippo is one of the rare instances where both the manga and anime can be both enjoyed on an aesthetic basis with no "objective" medium being better than the other. The anime renders each movement and character with life and energy, as opposed to the "moving manga" art style of many other series. Each punch is afforded weight, power, and speed, instead of resorting to floaty, blurry, streaks, many other shows resort to when showing attacks. Each character's physique is rendered with care and changes over time as they improve, George obviously exaggerates proportions and muscularity greatly with each character packing on muscle like a heavyweight. Frankly, I'm not sure if I would've liked it any other way now that I think of it.
Each special attack is also extremely distinct from one another making it wholly unique to the character that uses it such as Mashiba's Omni-directional flurry of Flicker Jabs, Sendo's canvas-scraping Smash, Ippo's frenetic weaving to charge for the Dempsey Roll and many others.

Sound Design: 10/10

Ippo's sound design including its music, voice acting, and sound effects is actually one of its strong suits. Continuing on from the previous point about characters' special attacks - each special attack in the series has a clear sound profile to signal to the audience that shit is about to go down. Ippo has wind wooshing and jet engines blaring when he charges up for the Dempsey Roll. Mashiba has an link ear-grating, unnatural drone to signal his taking of the Hitman Stance. ....And Sendo just fucking screams his lungs out, but that's Sendo for ya.

Hajime no Ippo's music is also unique but dominates and dictates the mood and atmosphere evoking a Pavlovian effect in the audience just by being played with most boxing-related scenes marked by jazz and its many sub-genres. Smooth, relaxed, and textbook shadowboxing to the frenetic, unbound energy of sparring or a full-on match can be embodied by the incarnations of jazz. In regards to other scenes, music perfectly dictates their mood.

Character: 10/10

Now this, this is what separates this anime from the rest. Every single character is well made and given a proper background. Some may argue that not all characters were well-rounded but I believe each and every one had their strengths and weaknesses - and the anime made sure you got to see both sides. Every single character was likeable in it's own way, and none was like the other - they all had their own little twist.

This is something I rarely see: many boxers Ippo faced in the ring were actually given a proper background. Some even were so touching that you actually started having split thoughts about the fight, even rooting against the MC which is something I rarely see.

Something I find very important for animes, especially long ones like this one is the character development. And I just have to say, it was absolutely amazing. A little spoiler alert on this part but it was so good that he became one of my favourite characters: Out of the three guys that bullied Ippo, one was the obvious leader, Umezawa Masahiko. He is a huge fan of boxing, and when he finds out Ippo gets a Pro Boxer license he actually starts becoming friends with Ippo. As he continues with his career Umezawa eventually becomes his greatest fan and supports him in every fight. In the end he helps out Ippo with the fishing shop so that he has the chance to get the Featherwight World Championship belt. For me, the change Umezawa kun went through was absolutely amazing. But my favourite character other than Ippo is definitely Takamura. He's brash, arrogant, a pervert. But damn, he's a genius in the ring. There wasn't a single moment where I wasn't astounded by his brute strength in the ring. Aside from him, I love Aoki and Kimura a lot too. They're Ippo's senior but they're good in their own right. They also provide for the comedic relief in the Anime, especially Aoki(can't beat the Frog Punch!). Ippo's coach, Kamogawa, who is the owner of the gym deserves special mention as well. He's a veteran and highly likable, and makes sure everyone does their training regularly. Finally, each opponent of Ippo are really likable. My favourite being Sendo and Vorg. His fights with both of them are the best of the whole series. Tho the one character who I can't seem to like is Miyata. I don't get the rivalry between him and Ippo it's such a wasted opportunity, someone like Sendo would be a better rival in my opinion.

Enjoyment: 10/10

This anime was wonderful to watch, to the eye and to the heart. It was amazing to watch the intense fights and you couldn't help yourself but to cheer on Ippo when he was fighting.

I think everyone would enjoy this anime greatly. It's a well-rounded anime but it has some unique differences to it that makes it stand out among the many others. I have absolutely no interest in boxing whatsoever, and I loved the anime anyhow - so don't hesitate to watch it. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up finishing the whole series in less than a week, and as soon as I was done I kept going with the second season then third although I picked up the manga kinda late during 2018 but now I'm fully caught up with the manga currently sitting on 1364 chapters and still going believe me I wouldn't have picked up this humongous manga if I didn't enjoy it.

If you are not into the laid back style that Hajime no Ippo has this anime can be differently interpreted by some, but for the majority this will be an amazing find.

Overall: 10/10

This is one of the most influential series in my life, I highly urge everyone to watch it. I guarantee it will make you cry, laugh, love, and hate all at the same time. Even if one is not interested in sports or Boxing at all its story, characters, and aesthetic is phenomenal with a gradual, clean progression throughout as the audience grows along with the characters, it's a great anime that leaves you sitting at the edge of your chair wanting more episodes. 24 minutes ends up feeling like 5 and you've suddenly watched 10 episodes in one go.

Guide for watching the anime and from where to pick up manga:

Season 1 (Episodes 1 to 76) - Covers Volume 1 to Volume 30. Note Episode 76 isn't in the manga, it is a anime only content, that was released on the DVD in Japan only. It was never released/dubbed in the US

Movie/OVA - Kimura vs Mashiba - Covers Volume 31 to Volume 33

Moive/OVA - Championship Road (Ippo vs Sanada) - Covers Volume 33 to Volume 35. However, I believe most people watch this movie first, then the Kimura OVA. Since Ippo vs Sanada was actually dubbed/licensed, and the other one wasn't. Also, I think there some references in the Kimura OVA that refer to this movie first.

Season 2 - New Challenger (Episodes 1 to 26) - Covers Volume 36 to Volume 46; However, the Kamogawa Flashback Arc (Volume 45 to Volume 46) was cut out.

Season 3 - Rising (Episodes 1 to 25) - Covers Volumes 47 to 61; It also contains the Kamogawa Flashback Arc towards the end of the season. So it basically covers volume 45 to 61.

However, this series (Rising) has taken out quite a bit of content that appeared in the manga. Most noticeable missing content is the training/weigh in for the Shimabukuro fight (Volume 47/some of Volume 48), not to mention there is a few other things missing in it too, since they had to cram 16 volumes worth of material in 25 episodes. Where as for New Challenger, they had to cram 9 or 10 volumes worth of material in 26 episodes

So where you want to start reading depends on you. The stuff they cut out off Rising, isn't really important, you can always go back and read it at some later point in time. If you want to know what happens next in the story, you can start to read where the season ends in the manga with end of the Takamura match, which is about Round 558? If you want to read the great stuff they cut out in the anime, then you might want to start on volume 47 Round 416.