Hajime No Ippo/The Fighting Spirit

Throughout his childhood, Ippo has always been picked on by his fellow classmates. Long hours helping his mother run their family business, a fishing boat store, has left him without the time to make friends and so he remains an introverted loner, doomed to be beaten day in and day out. Although he hates being bullied, he hates himself even more for not being able to fight back against his tormentors. "What is it like to be strong?" he asks himself as he stares at his clenched fist. "I want to be strong." His encounter with Mamoru Takamura, a professional boxer, leads to the discovery of a dynamite punch that opens up the doorway to a whole new world where that dream can become a reality. At the Kamogawa Gym, Ippo Makunouchi now trains with the aspirations of becoming a professional boxer and discovering what it means to be strong.

Anime

Geneon distributed the Fighting Spirit series in North America on 15 DVDs with 5 episodes per disc. The first DVD was released on July 6, 2004 and the fifteenth released on December 19, 2006. The DVDs included English and Spanish language tracks, as well as the original Japanese. The movie, Champion Road has also been released in North America on DVD by Geneon

Hajime no Ippo: Mashiba vs. Kimura

Hajime No Ippo also has an OVA release which has not yet been translated, it also goes by the name of Hajime no Ippo: Extra Round and was released by Studio Madhouse.

Manga

To date the Manga has 80 Volmues and is still running. It covers all 75 episodes of the anime series (Ippo Winning the Japanese featherweight Title) and continues to cover Ippos Road to a World Championship Title.

If you're interested in Hajime No Ippo and want to find out more about it, I highly suggests yo visit the Dynamite Gloves forums.

Some of the Information, I have copied from various sources such as wikipedia etc.

I've recently finished watching the anime. Although it's a little old, it has a great story and isn't all about boxing as I had initially thought. I can only recommend this anime as it is great fun to watch.

Personally I think this is one of the ebst anime/ manga series aroud. It is essentially Rocky without the lame. The amount of character development is crazy, to the point you often split support between Ippo and the opponent. Its a pity the anime ends so early in the story, or that they don't continue onwards. We all felt sorry for Shigeta after he got owned so bad he became scared of everything (okay, admitadly I laughed at that).

I'm somewhat daunted by the length of the manga too, though, and the fact its kind of stretching a lot of things out. I also found that highschool boxer they take on (I forget his name) a rather lame character, and felt his silly fights took up a lot of time that could be better spent.

Regardless, I think all anime fans should watch the anime at least once, to see how Shonen should be done.

quote Fire_Fox

I loved the anime, and got discouraged to read the manga, since it's so big...

It actually influenced me to start practicing boxing.

I can only recommend you read the mangas. All the good stuff happens in the mangas.

A few things you could expect are:

• Date Eiji will have another crack at the World title
• Takamura starts his quest to conquer six weight divisions
• Aoki will have a shot at the Japanese Lightweight title
• We get a glimpse at Kamogawa's Past (As boxer)
• Not to mention all the insanely strong guys Ippo faces
• Ricardo Martinez is the Undisputed featherweight Champion of the world (Undefeated in 62 bouts), so pretty much everyone in the featherweight division is gunning for him. Although the author has gone to great lengths to display him as some sort of unbeatable monster.

It's hard to summon up 80 volumes worth of manga, but those are just a few of the interesting things to happen.

I read the entire manga up to this point. Really strange that to not see a fight finish, like the current fight. A couple of thoughts:

1) The characters and each person's backstory is one of the highlights of this series

2) This series is really funny. I don't find a lot of mangas funny, but this series hits the nail on the head. Especially Takamaru.

3) I think Miyata and Ippo will still fight. Perhaps it will be for the WBA title or spot for the world title. It will be good.

4) The only thing I hate is the surprising slow development between Kumi and Ippo. They basically stayed the same for nearly 400 chapters! Jesus Christ...

Wow. So randomly I decided to challenge myself and read through all of Hajime no Ippo. I've hated on it a lot for being absurdly long and going on and on and on, but now that I'm 400 chapters in (not even half-way through yet), I see why it's gone on for so long. Hajime no Ippo is a great manga that really can just keep going forever and not get in the least bit worse.

I think it's #1 strength is the characters. They're just everything you could ask for. They've got chemistry that's just out of this world. When you see them goofing off and pranking each other you can't help thinking this is the kind of group you'd want to be with. They really are funny as hell. Sure, the romantic development with Kumi and Ippo is ground-breakingly slow (no seriously, from what I understand it's been 950 chapters and Ippo's only confessed to her once in chapter 350 or so, but she fell asleep and didn't hear it), but who cares? This manga is all about the boxing drama and the fabulous bromance. And it's got the amazingly human quirky characters to do that.

Takamura man. Takamura is *bleep*ing amazing. He's makes crude penis jokes, he's vain, and he'll fondle his friend's girlfriend's tits without remorse, but he's just *bleep*ing great. Man I have such a mancrush on this guy. Excellent manga, that if you ever have waaaaaaaaay too much time on your hands, you should read. Or if you don't want to go from the start, just jump into it from the latest chapter. Seriously that's how I started. I think I started reading new releases every week about a year ago, and then I just decided to start from the beginning. No regrets.

Geohulk, I started reading it at like, Chapter 850 or something, and about a week or two ago I decided to start from the beginning. I can see how you got religious. It's freaking awesome. Takamura has become one of my favorite characters ever. Right now I'm reading the Takamura vs Eagle fight. So chapter 540. I don't see Ippo vs Miyata happening for quite some time man. They won't fight until they start going for the world stage. Which they still haven't done. Also Ippo needs to make the New Dempsey Roll work without injuring him. It's such a good manga though man.

Obviously I haven't gone back and read fights yet, but I can see myself doing that, Darknet. The fights are generally really exciting. I find Ippo's fights get a bit repetitive sometimes. As in, he gets beaten to a pulp and pulls some absurd come back KO. But the other gym members have amazing fights. I loved Hawk vs Takamura. I was freaking thrilled when he won.