Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! - Reviews

This next review is for a series I have always loved since I watched it a little over a year ago. It comes in at number 19 in my long list of community anime reviews and I am more than pleased to be writing about it, so much so that I've made this review extra long to express my undying love for it. The series in question is called Hajime no Ippo. It's a fantastic series of sports, action and character development. As usual, no spoilers or cursing in my anime reviews. I am not the kind of person, after all. Please comment or review my review so I know what to do better in future reviews. Thanks for reading and here goes the review!

Story; Meet Ippo Makunouchi, he is a loser and nothing is going for him in life. Hajime no Ippo is the tale of going from a loser to a winner and going through the tests and revelations of life itself. It's a fascinating, if not inspiring story that makes you feel well and want to continuously root on Ippo and his friends. Sure, it is  an anime about boxing, so it is a sports anime. Those aren't usually very popular. However, there is a charisma about Ippo's life and the stories it brings that makes you feel real good. I do not use the word very often because I believe by using it so often by my peers, it has lost its punch. The word that perfectly describes how I feel about Hajime no Ippo's story in general is this: epic.

Animation; The animation is solid throughout but once you reach the last third of the series, it truly shines through. It is almost as if it became more vibrant and colorful, much like Ippo's career in boxing. Madhouse did a fantastic job at animating the series, do not get me wrong on that. Character designs are appropriate and similar to how they should be from the manga. It's a very faithful adaption of the long-running and never ending manga. It's a shining star in Madhouse's portfolio. It just fits the style and manner of Hajime no Ippo. For a series in the early 00's, it is pretty freaking impressive if I do say so myself.

Sound; The soundtrack is very befitting of this anime. It's very manly and gets you pumped up for the episode ahead with the opening songs and the closing songs calm you down after the episode you just watched. If I had to put my favorite openings in order, I would put the second opening at first, the first opening at second and the third in last place. I usually skipped the endings because I wanted to get to the next episode as fast as humanly possible. I can say with certainty to watch the Japanese track and English subtitles. It is not very good (and that is putting it lightly) in English. You can choose for yourself, but I am strongly recommending the subtitle route here.

Characters; No matter what, you will always find yourself rooting for someone in this anime. This anime is completely about character growth. You watch Ippo grow from loser to a winner. Over the course of the 70-odd episodes and the second season, you grow up in a way, with these characters. You will be sad by the time this ends and even more so when you have finished all the Ippo available. Unless you want to tackle the absurdly long manga. Anyway, you will really enjoy what Ippo has to offer for characters. Every single one of them are fun and entertaining. You will laugh and you will cry with them. You will watch and root them on in their matches and their tests or trials. You will be with them through the thick and thin of it all.

Overall; I cannot recommend Hajime no Ippo enough. People already have this allergy to avoid sports anime. I had this allergy too at one time or another, but thanks to series where it is more about characters than the sport, I have gotten past that allergy. You are missing something magical and pretty darn fun if you allow this allergy to prevent you from watching it. It's an epic series. At the end of the day, that is all that can really and truly be said about Hajime no Ippo. Please check it out, do yourself a favor and do not let the anti-sports allergy stop you. It is truly a monster because it is preventing the word of the great Ippo prophets from spreading.

The anime makes use of every character it introduces and develops them very convincingly and you can really connect to them. Such as Ippo in gaining more confidence and motivation, Takamura in wanting to become a champion and a hero, and Miyata wanting to prove that his father’s boxing style is the best. The characters all have back-stories of why they became fighters but they still live lives in certain ways you can still relate to them and they all have every day issues as real boxers would have such as Takamura’s weight control. As for the pacing, yes, the anime is long and the manga is 10 times longer, but still evenly paced and I feel the intention after getting to a certain point is that Morikawa-sensei wants to tell a life story in the same way Araki-sensei does with Jojo and you really start to feel that and you really feel the character’s grow and there are times you can emotionally react or care what could happen to that character.

The art style is very faithful to that of the style of the manga, except I felt that the bodies looked blockier and more massive than they needed to be in comparison to it. Plus, the venues such as Kourakuen Hall and the surrounding environments are well accurately represented because I’ve been there before on a number of occasions and fought in a judo tournament there so I thought that was pretty cool. I really love the training sequences with Ippo and he comes up with crazy methods and is an animal. The only real life athlete I can think of that compares to Ippo’s training ethic and regime is UFC fighter Sean Sherk. 

And now lets get down to the heart and soul of this anime, and that is the fights. As someone who can’t stand the trendy over the top repetitive action you see in some animes today, this is definitely a liberation. This anime proves you don’t need fire balls or bullet time or any of that trendy bullshit to make a great fight. This is an anime that truly accurately portrays the technique, excitement, and intensity of the real sport of boxing by implementing all these real life moves and fighting styles. 1st example is Ippo. He is based on a prime Mike Tyson who uses the peek a boo stance, worked the body, and had an effective jab once he got on the inside. Sendo Takeshi is based on Razor Ruddock with his smash punch which is a mix between a hook and an uppercut. And Mashiba is based on Thomas Hearns where he uses his freakish reach to use a crazy jabbing system. And Hayami, you think his shotgun is unrealistic? Before Ali got suspended, he had incredible speed, 10x faster than the Ali who came back who was still pretty fast. There’s a video of Ali out there where he landed 15 punches in 3 seconds. And you know the old saying of how styles make fights? Well, that saying is applied very well in this anime and applies it very well and is just poetry in motion.


The dub seriously sucks. Takamura sounds like Adam Carolla. Ippo just doesn’t fit. Miyata sounds like a chain smoker. And the sound quality and the overall execution is just as bad as GTO’s dub where it sounded like they hired 5 voice actors. Avoid the dub at all cost. But once again, time to give you more info on the seiyuu cast. It’s very interesting to note that the voice of Kaoru from Prince of Tennis, Kiyasu Kohei plays Ippo himself. Despite that deep and hissing voice is the nerdy and assuming Ippo. And one of my personal favorites Tomokazu Seki plays my favorite character Miyata. He does a great job of being that lone wolf kind of character and knows how to keep his cool. And I truly felt that Takagi Wataru, the voice of Onizuka from GTO was born to play Aoki. And Onosaka Masaya the voice of Momoshiro in Prince of Tennis and Vash the Stampede from Trigun was also born to play Sendo. If anything, this is an anime that is truly meant to be watched in Japanese. 

The music is also pretty awesome and a quality you can’t deny which you can’t get in manga obviously. The opening themes Under Star and Inner Light have a heavy intense feel to it where you can really emotionally react to the clips in the opening theme and to the scenes whenever presented as a background song in the anime itself. And I like how the ending themes 360 and Yuuzora no Kamihikouki gives a different kind of emotional reaction where it’s more about relating to the characters and the hardships they go through, but yet there’s this huge reward waiting for them at the end. 

The only significant flaw I would say is that they ended this anime where the excitement truly begins in the manga. I say Ippo conquering Japan is just only the beginning because after that, the other characters get more focused and the development gets deeper and the fights get better. But overall, this anime has excellent themes in finding something you’re good at, and sticking to it and always keep believing. The good news is, you really don’t have to be a boxing fan or have any knowledge of boxing to really get into this anime. This anime will probably do it for you. After awhile, you start saying to yourself, how would Ippo do against Manny Pacquiao, or how would Takamura do against Roy Jones, Jr. So it really sparks interest in that kind of way from what I’ve experienced. Also, this anime truly accurately represents the Japanese feel of boxing itself. If you ever watch Japanese fighters, they are very exciting to watch. They love to go at it and fight with every last ounce of breath. I really have no experience competing in actual boxing since I’m more of a traditional martial arts kind of guy, but I only took up boxing for awhile just to improve my hands and when you’re training, you just got that tempting feeling to do the moves from the series and even train like Ippo because the things he does, you can go out and try for yourself for real since you can’t fly or shoot fire balls. I say that alone is magically captivating. If you want an anime free of virtually every stereotype and cliché, this one is for you.

Let's get one thing out of the way right now: I am a fan of this show.  The term "fan" is thrown around a lot these days.  People seem to forget that it is short for "fanatic".  So I am careful about calling myself a fan of any one series.  I truly love this show with a passion, but I do recognize it's faults.  Let's take a look:

-STORY-

In many ways, Hajime no Ippo is just kind of a generic shonen show.  I know this may not be the best way to endear you to this show, but it's the truth.  The main character is a highly skilled fighter who works his way up through progressively tougher foes in the dream of being the best fighter of them all.  Does that sound like any other shows you've heard of?  I thought so.

But Hajime no Ippo is different, I assure you.  It's different because it does away with most of the things I hate about shonen shows.  Firstly, the fights have rules.  Your friends can't show up at the last minute to save you.  You can't discover some new and devastating power.  It's just two men punching each other until one of them falls down.  That may sound boring, but the fights are creative and energetic, and definitely the high point of the show.

The show repeats the same basic arc over and over: Ippo learns about his opponent, Ippo trains, Ippo fights.  But the opponents are so diverse, and the fights are so exciting that you look forward to the next arc, rather than feeling that it is repetative.

-ANIMATION-

Meh, nothing special.  The art is very much like all other generic anime art.  Now, don't get me wrong.  The animation is good.  it gets the job done, and doesn't distract from the show.  It is especially good during the fight scenes, when everything gets a little rougher and stylized.  But the art in this show isn't going to set the world on fire.  There's nothing majorly original.  It's passable, and good at times, but they could have done a better job capturing the feel and mood of the show.

-SOUND-

Pretty good, if you ask me.  The show operates by having a few key sounds for different occasions, which it reuses often.  I know that probably sounds pretty bad, but the fact is that I think it works well.  When you hear the pumping rock music start playing, you know that it is time for the tense finish to a fight.  Or maybe it's the plucky, lilting romantic music.  Perhaps the strained vocals for when a fight is over.  By reusing these songs, you get conditioned to be in a certain mood whenever they play.  And they're good, catchy songs, too (if you ask me).

The low point of the music, however, are the opening and closing songs.  They range from passable to embarrassingly bad.  Then again, I might just be saying that because some of them have gratuitous misused English in them.  But no matter the reason, none of them are particularly memorable, and some of them don't fit the mood too well.  You need to understand that openings are important.  They set the tone for the entire episode.

-CHARACTERS-

This is something at the show does really well.  The show spends a lot of time building up the characters so that they all have a distinct personality.  What I was particularly shocked by was how much time they spend characterizing Ippo's opponents.  The show cleverly realizes that if you care about both of the fighters, the following boxing match will be much more impactful.  Ippo's friends and opponents are all vastly different from one another, and the interactions between everyone seems believable.  I cared about the characters, and what happened to them, and that's pretty much all you can ask for.

-OVERALL-

Some of you may be puzzled at this point.  It probably sounds like I've described an okay show, but not necessarily something to warrant a score of 9/10.  Well, remember what I said in the beginning of this review?  I am a fan of this.  I absolutely loved watching it.  I'm willing to admit that it's not the most well-done show out there, but I don't watch shows to study how skilled the creators are.  I watch anime to be entertained.  And in the end, this is simply my opinion.  I have tried to be pretty fair in the previous categories, so you can decide for yourself whether you think you'll like this.  As for me, I'll stick with the score of 9.

Well i think im going to start this review off my saying this . Normally i would not touch anime with a sports related theme , cause personally i really don't care for sports . What drawn me to this anime was the clip that i watched on youtube giving it a review . So i decided to watch it and i instantly was addicted to it . The story line was great mixing in Comedy , Action , a little bit of school life , Romance . I think what made me so attached to this anime was that i could see myself in Ippo shoe's , being also one that was bullied , but never giving up on his dream . This anime is inspiring to the max . You get so emotional attached to the characters that when a fight happens you are yelling at your screen , well for me it did , and im sure it will for you too . The animation style was a little old school for me , but it still looked great . The sounds from the matches to the voice actors was supreb . I would not change one thing about it , the puches would actually sound like punches and the the speeding of the dash took your breath away . Over all this anime was amazing , even if you are not into sports , you will still fall in love with this anime . I know that i did , And I hope you will too .

Hajime no Ippo - The Figjting!

 

First of all I have to mention that I rarely watch sport animes because they don't really captivate me. I lack a certain feeling of individuality. After seeing Kuroko no Basket and some other diverse sport animes, my picture has improved quite a bit.  

 

Story:

Hajime no Ippo did not follow a real plot, in other words there was no common thread. The anime only focused on the protagonist's progress, how he developed, used and expanded his potential and made his way through the tournaments. Certain goals have been set throughout history, but I would not define this as a story. The main focus of the plot was not only the protagonist, other characters also had certain appearances and meanings, but I will go into more detail about the characters. But apart from that, the whole process was a training -> fight -> fight -> training -> fight -> training course, which should not be awarded gold.

Subtext: The plot of Hajime no Ippo was quite average for a sport anime of its caliber, which makes it 3/5, but I have to admit that I really liked the implementation.

Animation / pictures:

The animations were fairly average at first and now and then they were even below the expected average. The combat animations were rather lax and consisted of still images, which were lacking in dynamics. The atmosphere was also quite black and white due to the weakening background animations and the lack of color.

But all this changed in the course of the anime, the background animations were increased, the anime got much more appealing colors which it was missing at the beginning. And especially the movement & combat animations were massively improved, the characters started to move very smoothly, the animation of the attacks, movements & muscles was also nicely refined.

Subtext: If these weaknesses had not been at the beginning of the anime, I could undoubtedly give it the full rating on the animation, but unfortunately that is not the case. In addition to the impressive animations, which, as I said, only occurred halfway through, there was also the quite individual drawing style, which also improved a lot. At first it looked very funny, but in the course of the plot it was presented with a lot more detail.

Characters:

The characters definitely impressed me the most in this work.

Our protagonist Makunouchi Ippo likes the character type that I hate the most and cannot judge him both objectively and objectively. He was quite monotonous, had no real character development. The only thing that developed about him was his build and fighting skills.

Among the other characters, like Takamura, Aoki, Sendo and all the others, I found much more interesting characters.

However, what impressed me the most was the individuality of the characters and the number of stereo types, because there were hardly any. The plot dealt not only with the protagonist, but also with the other characters and even with the enemies, each character had contributed to the plot. The most appealing to me was the self-loving Takamura, who really had a very interesting character. Also the fairly open personality of some characters seemed to me quite new, especially the kind of humor which some of those preferred and which rarely occurs in anime and I speak of "toilet humor" alla "tail comparison". The characters stayed pretty close to reality and were edited beautifully and in detail, which of course made me very positive.

Music:

The music was a bit sluggish at the beginning and didn't seem particularly appealing, but over time certain soundtracks were introduced that really gave the anime an improved atmosphere and more feeling. The opening songs were basically solid and there was not much to tell from the endings. What impressed me most was the later soundtracks, which gave the fights quite good dynamics.

My conclusion about Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting!

Hajime no Ippoauch called "The First Step" was a very successful work by the Mangaka Morikawa Jouji. The name of the series alone should already be an introduction to the story. "Hajime no Ippo" stands for "The First Step". Hajime stands for "Beginning or First" and Ippo for a level, which is also a play on words for the protagonist "Ippo".  I would like to recommend this work here, which was about the sport of "boxing". In this anime we were presented with a handful of good charismatic characters, an insight into the world of boxers. A fairly authentic ranking system, time-consuming training.

I wonder how this work will continue to do in the following seasons.

In the field of sports, from my point of view, this anime did very well and presented its sport in a way that you can hardly get better, authentic and serious.