Damn I did it, 126 episodes 1 movie and 1 ova it was long but it was good, at least it trained me for my future marathon Space Battleship Yamato

This final season of Ippo so still animated by Madhouse and surprise for me co-produced by MAPPA, Yeah the studio now known for Dororo Dorohedoro and Jujutsu Kaisen in particular made its first steps on Ippo after as long as we have a solid animation I do not complain and it is once again the case with fights always as dynamic and impacting in the staging of the blows received and some idea of realization that are welcome as many "X- Ray" when a character tears his muscle or breaks his ribs and a slice of lice more sparing but which is used to accentuate the gag, for example when Takamura and Aoki tears the manga of Umezawa and that he runs away of shame, we move the layer of the characters as if they were simple NPC to accentuate the shame and the embarrassment of the situation, it's methods that uses a lot Kill la Kill for example and that always works for me.

It's not the season that made me howl with laughter the 2nd one is still superior to it but the gag on the manga mentioned above or the passage with the characters who learn to fish are funny moments even more when like me we fish occasionally and we laugh at the mistakes of the characters that we made ourselves at the beginning

Same thing scenaristically I find the season 2 always at the top in term of fight but it remains of very good invoice: I mention all the same the fight of beginning between Ippo and Shimabukuro because we forget it enough considering what there is after but it is a great fight of beginning of season.
Because after we have my first surprise to know FINALLY we see fight of Aoki in whole, since Kimura had his hour of glory I waited that Aoki has his it was the only one of the trio not to have had it, his style of the Frog is very fun to see in more to be in front of an adversary mirror (the two are motivated by the love of their wife) and this blow of milking: this swivel of the head to make believe that something crazy is happening outside the ring and VLAN down, it reminded me the trick of Kiwi against Vegeta when he makes him believe that Freezer is behind before bombarding him with kikoha and in both cases it makes me laugh a lot.
Second big fight of the season Ippo vs Sawamura who is the second real villain of the manga, well unlike Hawk we know his past with his father who beat him, him who killed him to save his mother and the latter who abandoned him so there is still this ambiguous side to the character where Hawk as I said it was the absolute evil but it is still that in his immediate action he manages to make you wish to be dismantled piece by piece by Ippo and we know he does not carry in his heart, And the fight that follows is what I would call "a happy mess" with Samawura who transforms the ring into an open air tent flouting all the rules of boxing and still managing to put Ippo in trouble (not helped by his overtraining) it offers a good tension in addition to the unusual side of this fight which makes the task more difficult.
And the last major fight of course Takamura vs Eagle, Eagle is a cool opponent with a shonen motivation in the spirit (he wants to fight Takamura to see what kind of man can put Hawk in PTSD at the mere mention of his name) and it is precisely a Hawk reversed in terms of personality much more polite and friendly in order to propose an American character who is not an asshole (and we'll talk again about Americans) and not fall into the Manicheism that Ippo has always brilliantly avoided, and the fight that follows and just as mirror with Takamura vs Hawk, then it's a very long fight, even the longest of the anime, the characters make multiple openings until they have quite hot handicaps like blood in the eye (the worst thing to have in the middle of a match according to a close boxer friend) but it's much more professional where against Hawk it was an execution in public, It's so pro and shonen that when both seem to be at the end he orders to continue the match and even beaten he congratulates and encourages his opponent, no really it's an excellent mirror match.

However it's not the end and I think the best is at the end, when comes the flashback arc about the youth of Kamogawa and Nekota and how they helped Yuki against a new American scum which is for me one of the best arc of the manga, it's beautiful, it's just beautiful as an arc in what it tells and Yuki is really a wonderful character for his only appearance, not to mention that seeing Kamogawa and Nekota's bonus is a pure pleasure for the fan in me in addition to dealing with the consequences of the second world war on the characters suffering from radiation, well you address an absolute fan of Godzilla obviously it is a theme that speaks to me in Japanese works so you had the trifecta to conclude this season in beauty.

Oh and before I forget, best opening: Yakan Hikou is the song that I enjoyed listening to the most so I have no musical culture so it's not me who would do musical analysis but I love this song and visually it's beautiful so the 3D of the sets will not be to everyone's taste, but the transition between the different shots, the little idea like the moment between the characters in the sweat drops or just the animation of the exchange of shots absolutely crazy, in addition punaise they made Tumbling Dice come back during some scenes; ah it surprised me seeing how season 2 got rid of the compositions of season 1 but I really liked this return.

But here comes the unbearable collective expectation of a season 4, at least it will give me some reading in the meantime, I'll check it out but since there are 3 seasons, it must cover a big part....72 volume to catch up on at the time I'm writing? ah yeah, there's enough to make 5 seasons there.