DESCRIPTION

CAST

SPECIAL ComedyHajime no Ippo: Champion Road
MANGA ActionHajime no Ippo
SPECIAL ComedyHajime no Ippo: THE FIGHTING! Boxer no Kobushi

REVIEWS

• 

  makunochi

  100/100
  Makes you feel alive. Captures sports nicely!

  Everyone has their reason to fight. Whether it's for a family member, for a memory, for making ends meet, or just for loving the sport.

  Story and characters:

  This series is powerful. It's inspirational. No, it's way beyond inspirational. Each episode will give you a surge of motivation to just do anything. To be active in any way, and as a personal case, it made me start practicing sports again. This is the kind of series you'd want to show to your kids, but it's, not one bit, an anime just for children.
  Hajime no Ippo is no ordinary anime about sports. It's about sports, passion, and determination. About struggles, persistence, pushing beyond limits, fear, courage, and overcoming obstacles. It isn't like anything I have ever watched in the sports genre, let it be an animated series or a non-animated one. It truly is the authentic meaning of a masterpiece. It's, by no means whatsoever, a short anime. But every single episode of the series has importance, none of them are empty fillers. Hajime no Ippo shows the true meaning and struggles of being a sportsperson. It shows both the dark and bright side of boxing.

  I have always been a huge fan of boxing but never once considered watching it in an anime series. What grabbed my attention was the fact that Hajime no Ippo is one of the most highest rated anime series ever, which made me extremely curious and eager to give it a try. How can someone possibly make such a long anime series when it's just about boxing? Is it episodic? Is it full of fillers? What about this anime makes it so special?
  I started the anime with the intention to watch only the first episode so I can avoid it and move on, I was completely sure I wouldn't manage to even finish it.

  And hell if it didn't prove me wrong.

  From the very first episode, you get engulfed into the anime. The main character is an abnormally pathetic, weak, naive character. The moment you lay eyes on him, you know you'll be in for one hell of a character development. He's someone you can definitely root for, and cannot help but love. The passion he has for boxing is shown in every single episode.

  But it's not him exclusively.

  This is where the anime truly shines. It will take almost every character you get introduced to, and fill them with life, persistence, and determination. It will suck out all the possibilities of the characters coming off as shallow or one dimensional. Ippo surely was the main character of the anime, but trust me when I say you'll find yourself in a continuous state of confusion, wanting both parties to win, not fully wanting Ippo to win. Moreover, you get to see how a match is viewed by many people. Everything is thoroughly explained in a very interesting and engaging way. There is a huge amount of detailed, accurate information about the world of boxing. You'll get to see the importance of rivals and competitors. And how they can motivate you way more than your supporters can. Sometimes even more than your own self. You'll go out of the series understanding at the very least what boxers go through, if you did not manage to catch the basics. George Morikawa made sure to constantly show us the struggles they go through, what goes through their minds, and how they manage to get up no matter how many times they fall down. The anime is a direct punch to the moronic idiots who say boxing is all violence and brutality with no thoughts.

  Moreover, the anime showed me something I have ALWAYS failed to see in drama/comedy anime. The comedy ---wait for it--- comes at the RIGHT time! No jokes! Combining drama with comedy is not an easy task. Most if not all of the drama/comedy series I have seen so far make a huge, sloppy, awkward, cringe-worthy mess of the two combined genres. It would always end up with supposedly 'funny' scenes coming in the worst timing plausible, detaching you from the 'dramatic' scene and leaving you very uncomfortable. Morikawa does not once commit this huge mistake. And if pulled off, such as this case, it can be a mesmerising series. The dialogues are very well-written and executed. The anime simplifies the basics of boxing whilst showing the complexity of being a boxer.

  Art and music:

  I should mention one of the strongest, if not even the strongest part of the anime. Now I won't say it was flawless or even near flawless, there is a lot of lazy work and a huge amount of repeated scenes. But what made it special is how well presented the facial expressions of the characters are. I have never seen such a powerfully drawn and animated characters, their facial expressions are extremely expressive and very well suited, I'm not exaggerating when I say it's much, much more powerful than in non-animated series. The fighting scenes, repetitive ones excluded, are very, VERY well done. The alternation between spectators, cornermen, the two fighters, and the commentators adds a superb amount of suspense. At some points I felt that I was in Ippo's place, being out of breath with heavy shoulders. The voice acting couldn't have been any more flawless, and the right background music came at the right time, but it needed more music.

  Sure, there were things that annoyed me about the anime, but they were all minor and can be overlooked. The repetitive scenes and glossed over Miyata annoyed me most. It was very surprising to know that Miyata's teammates gave up so easily on him when Ippo showed, as we're shown that Miyata has been with them since he was a preteen. My other minor problems are mostly personal/what I preferred. I was looking forward for an anime about a very ordinary guy that gets beaten and loses a lot and then starts climbing to the top. But Ippo trained with a very talented coach and was around the best fighters. As for his inexperience, how he gets beaten to a bloody pulp in every fight makes up for the fact that he can beat those who exceed him in experience. He learns rapidly in his extensive training and in the fights, in the hardest way possible.

  Overall: 10/10
  My enjoyment level exceeded its limit. The anime made me happy, sad, angry, but most of all, it ruined my nerves. The average match takes about two episodes, which is equivalent to 40 minutes. And the big matches take about 3 episodes, that's a whole, ongoing hour of extreme tension. The final match had me holding my breath till the very end, I literally had to take fast, deep breaths after it was all done. Don't get fooled by the idea of a single, small match getting extended to 2-3 episodes, you won't feel a tiny bit bored through any minute of it.

  It's beyond impossible for me to re-watch anything even if it's a year after, but somehow, some way, I've started re-watching the series even before finishing it. Worthy of being my first ever 10/10 rated series.

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• 

  EasyDubai

  100/100
  Hajime no Ippo: the Greatest Sports/Martial Arts Manga of All Time

  "What does it mean to be strong?" - Ippo the Greatest Sports/Martial Arts Manga of All Time

  As a preface, this review will be for every instalment of Ippo in animated form thus far. It will include: Hajime no Ippo, Mashiba vs. Kimura, Champion Road, New Challenger, and Rising into its final score though not all series technically enjoy the same score on their own. All story lines continuing on from the anime, even controversial elements in the manga such as the Survival Match of Asian Champions Arc, Ippo getting CTE and losing twice in a row resulting in his retirement thus far - shall be ignored for the purposes of this review.

  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 (originally the manga only had Ippo watch tapes of Mike Tyson). 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.

  Storyline and Characters:
  Though not as heady, detail orientated, and inscrutable as other shows such as: Serial Experiments Lain, Ergo Proxy, Boogiepop, Monster etc. that many anime fans have watched and pretended to watch are; Ippo still holds a very well structured and satisfying loop to each story arc.

  The general process goes that Ippo or another Boxer in the Kamogawa Gym will be challenged by or challenge another opponent, this opponent shall be introduced, the Kamogawa Gym's fighters they will study the opponent to the best of their abilities and train in order to beat them, their opponent will do the same with other characters from other gyms often chiming in in order to give predictions and analyses of our given fighters. During this period, tension can be built with any number of interactions, plot twists, and other story elements added in order to give intrigue and suspense to the match. Eventually, the match comes and our fighters duke it out. More often than not, our fighters for this story arc shall be fleshed out even further through internal monologue, flashbacks, and the ilk (anime shit) and reveal their techniques or improvements they've made to counter their opponent. A victor is eventually decided after these multi-episode/chapter wars and the audience is given time to soak in what has happened with moments of brevity before repeating once again.

  In essence, this is literally Rocky: the Anime. However, due to Ippo being so long-form as it is, it allows George and the audience to have a fully fleshed out progression of the storyline and characters. With Ippo himself finding himself taking one step forward at a time towards attaining his answer as his fists become heavy with the weight of each loveable, hateable, interesting, and funny opponent along the way. Not to mention the progression of other characters like Takamura, Aoki, Kimura, and Itagaki (the former three of whom are often considered gag characters) being just as tangible as Ippo himself.

  Each opponent, no matter how minor, is given a fully fleshed-out set of abilities, personality, and motivations. Making the audience root for or revile them with every shade in the middle explored as well. And when the come times for the match, their character clashes with our main character's own in an intimate, frenetic, and wordless interaction as character is built and revealed. Occasionally, defeated opponents will also reveal themselves later on in the series, making for permanent/semi-permanent fixtures in the series or one-off cameos giving each opponent importance to them not found in some other series which kill off or forget about characters at the drop of a hat.

  Art Design:
  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. 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.

  However, the last season (so far, fingers crossed), Rising has had some of the most egregious and strange animation errors or just downright wacky moments which are more than unintentional such as when animators just forget to draw Ippo's arms correctly or when Ippo decides to block Sawamura's punches with his face
  but these moments are few and far between though this just makes it that when animation does slip up that it's so jarring to the audience in an otherwise beautiful show.

  Sound Design:
  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 it shit is about to go down. Ippo has wind wooshing and jet engines blaring when he charges up for the Dempsey Roll and ear-piercing rubber tires scraping against asphalt is used for his New Dempsey Roll before his muscles and tendons tear apart from Ippo daring to even try to stop his own force and momentum from running its course. 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 as well with the first season making great use of "that sad piano song" which I simply cannot find on YouTube but anyone who's seen the first season of Ippo knows what it sounds like.

  That being said, Ippo's unique sound design is only most prominent in its first season. That's partially due to some of the characters these sound cues/songs are dedicated to don't have fights in later seasons. But most of Ippo's unique sound just got forgotten to the wayside as time passed on, for some reason.

  Fanbase:
  Ippo's fanbase is actually one of the most chill out of all big shonen anime fanbases. That could be due to the large intersection between boxing fans and Ippo fans, with boxers (such as myself, wink wink, nod, nod) being quite calm and nice. But I believe it mostly has to do with the more cult following Ippo has as being one of Japan's longest and largest manga and anime series but still paling in comparison to the massive shonen series out there such as MHA, AOT, Haikyuu etc..

  In general, the only thing Ippo's fanbase argues about is about whether or not some arcs are boring. Even then, most of the time, they just post fan-art and memes, keeping only to themselves.

  Overall Thoughts/Tl;dr:
  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 with only minor errors in regards to animation and music exist. 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. Only minor errors in regards to animation and music exist.

  100/100

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• 

  Junomonogatari

  85/100
  Hajime no Ippo: golpes, uppercuts y espíritu de lucha.

  Hajime no Ippo

  ---

  Hajime no Ippo es la adaptación a ánime del manga con el mismo nombre. Esta serie es sobre Ippo, un joven que ayuda a su madre en el trabajo y no es muy sociable; debido a cuestiones del destino, Ippo termina despertando un interés por el boxeo. Este ánime es sobre la vida de Ippo como boxeador.
  En esta review quiero explicar las razones por las cuales considero que Hajime no Ippo es un ánime que, aunque no sea perfecto y falle en ciertos aspectos, se destaca por su buena calidad.

  

  En primer lugar, Hajime no Ippo cuenta con una trama acogedora y sencilla. Este ánime se centra muy bien en el deporte sin dejar a un lado la vida personal del mismo Ippo. Por lo tanto, es de esperar que este ánime no muestre cabalmente cada uno de los detalles de la vida diaria de su personaje principal. En mi opinión, esto hizo la trama algo repetitiva y con falta de drama diferente al de las peleas; sin embargo, no quiere decir que esto lo haga malo. Después de todo, Hajime no Ippo no es un slice of life, es un buen shounen de boxeo donde los haya.

  

  Por otro lado, este ánime cuenta con una buena animación en cuanto a peleas. El movimiento de los personajes se siente bastante suave, lo cual no solo incrementa su valor estético sino que aporta cierto realismo a las peleas. Además, este ánime cuenta con ciertos tecnicismos que a su vez son explicados de manera sencilla a lo largo de la historia; sea el caso de jabs, uppercuts y otras técnicas de boxeo, todo esto le añade un factor realismo sin mucho esfuerzo.
  Otra característica a destacar de este ánime es el hecho de exponer los pensamientos de los personajes. Con lo anterior me refiero a durante las batallas y entrenamientos, este ánime te hace sentir en la piel de los personajes mientras ellos razonan en cómo se está desarrollando la pelea, cuál es su condición y qué otros pensamientos u opiniones tienen de los acontecimientos que se desarollan en el momento. Esto es un factor clave en un ánime de pelea y Hajime no Ippo sabe retratar bien qué pensaría una persona en esos momentos puntuales.

  

  En cuanto a los aspectos que no me terminaron de gustar por completo, o bien me disgustaron, se encuentra el hecho de la duración de las peleas. Aunque entiendo que este sea un ánime de boxeo, los encuentros entre los peleadores a veces se pueden hacer pesados y sobreextendidos de manera aburrida o poco emocionante. Esto hace que podamos ver 2 o 3 capítulos seguidos viendo cómo se desarrolla un mismo encuentro que fácilmente pudo haber tomado un capítulo y medio como mucho. Aclaro que no es tanto el hecho de la duración sino de cómo se llega a esa duración, de qué estrategias usan los guionistas para mantener al espectador viendo una misma pelea por 3 capítulos seguidos.

  

  Otro aspecto que me gustó fue el desarrollo del personaje principal, Ippo, el cual muestra un cambio claro pero a su vez alcanzado de manera sutíl. Es decir, si comparas al Ippo de un capítulo, con el de los dos o tres anteriores, probablemente no notes la diferencia; mas al comparar al boxeador con los primeros capítulos, el cambio es bastante evidente. Claro, esto pasa casi desapercibido al ver el ánime y cómo se desarrolla poco a poco.

  

  En suma, Hajime no Ippo es un ánime que muestra muy bien la vida de un boxeador; es una adaptación bien hecha de un deporte con técnicas algo complejas. Hajime no Ippo no es un slice of life con drama; es lo que es y promete ser, un shounen de boxeo.

  Notas del autor:
  Justo anoche terminé Hajime no Ippo y decidí hacerle una review, a lo cual se me vino a la mente que había olvidado hacer una review en español, así que sería Hajime no Ippo mi pequeño debut en las reviews en español.
  Debo decir que, a pesar de ser mi lengua materna, se siente raro escribir una reseña en español. Supongo que ha de ser porque ya me había acostumbrado a escribir reseñas en inglés.

  Reviewer notes:
  I just finished Hajime no Ippo and I decided to write a review of it. As I recalled that I had forgotten to write a review in Spanish, my mother tongue. Thus, I came to write a Hajime no Ippo, which would be my debut for reviews in Spanish.
  I must mention that, although it is my mother tongue, it felt weird to write a review in Spanish. I guess it is because I had gotten used to writing reviews in English.

  IMPORTANTE: Esta es una resubida de una review que escribí en una cuenta que ya no uso. Me aseguré de borrar la original en la cuenta en la que estaba para que no fuera auto-plagio y no me lo marcaran como repetida.

  IMPORTANT: This is a re-upload of a review that I wrote in an account I no longer use. I made sure of deleting the original one in the account I had it in so that this wouldn't be self-plagiarism and moderators marked it as such.
  

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