History YMMV / HighSchoolExcitingStoryTough

* EvilIsSexy: Kiryu.
--> '''Kiryu''': I have been to various countries and have been with various women in those places. But they were woman I only used for what you may call fun. Not one of them was strong enough to keep my interest.

* MagnificentBastard: Kiryu.

* EvilIsSexy: Kiryu .

* FanDisservice: Kido running after Ishige with his pants down and his penis flopping about.
** Kichi accidently walking in on Oton while he’s using the bathroom.

to pure Jiu jitsu is even better than Hyce was taken out with a quick jab from Garcie. The match lasted 3 seconds.

* DeusExMachina: Jet’s high kick shaking Kikuta’s brain to such an extent that it sent the N.T.S drug into short remission saving his life.
** Kichi surviving Son-O’s finally attack with a technique that not only had he never heard of but wasn’t even apart of his school while being completely drained of energy and barely conscious.
*** Not only that but he had instinctively improved it to a perfect level.

* HypocriticalHumor: Komatsu’s husband having an affair is depicted as a MoralEventHorizon that ended their relationship however her affair with President Ijuin is played for laughs.
* IdiotBall: Don Gambino has someone assassinated right in front of him but doesn’t check the body.
* InformedAbility: While Oton is described to be a powerful martial artist the only fight we see him win are either happened years before the series began or against mooks.
** Played with as it’s hinted that he threw most of the fights he did lose.
** Iron Kiba’s status as one of the strongest fighters in the world. However besides the occasional unnamed mook he’s lost every fight he’s been in.
us by the fact that the moment he moved out of the world of wrestling he lost in the first 52 seconds.
** Ricardo Itoh the Grappling Wizard who is said that when it comes to pure Jiu jitsu is even better than Hyce was taken out with a quick jab from Garcie. The match lasted 3 seconds.

** As the series goes on start to become this due to how hypocritical they are. This is probably best seen in Oton’s match against Morozov in Tough. Even though the match was promoted as the fight against fathers Oton was fighting for a combination of three totally selfish reason’s Morozov was fighting for basically the same reason Kichi was fighting in underground tournaments at the beginning of the series, to pay for his wife’s hospital bills. To further add to the parallel’s Morozov’s wife had stage 4 cancer while Oton’s body was being ravished by the cancer like Kaishuken. While it’s not quite DesignatedHero / [[DesignatedVillain villain]] it’s hard to root for Oton in this scenario.
** Made all the more sad due to the fact that Morozov’s wife died while Oton didn’t.
** This could be seen as an in universe example as Oton was perfectly aware of this which is why he told Morozov’s son that he was dying as well.
* SelfDeprecation: Ukons discussion with Kichii about the how violent the entertainment industry is.

** Kiba has been divorced 8 times his last marriage ended when he punched his wife hard enough to cause her to fly across the room crashing face first into a mirror for doing little more than being a career woman (which was the reason he fell in love with her).
** Also for all of his talk about being a good parent he ended up leaving the whole of his estate to any random fighter who won a tournament.
* VillainBall: The yakuza member who shot the sign beside Kichi to prove that his gun was real instead of shooting him-
** Yokoyama had Kiryu completely at his mercy. Yet for some reason decided to wait until later to kill him.

* WhatTheHellHero: Kichii gave one to his father after he attacked the drunk Fujita with all his might..
* WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief: Averted due to the NewPowersAsThePlotDemands makes the InvincibleHero aspect of Kichi gets tiring as the series goes on. For example even though he wasn’t able to keep up with their training regiment Kichi was able to defeat all of the trainees at the black dragon temple. He was even able to defeat one of their strongest member Chosho with a fever while fighting in a ring of fire.
** Then he only ended up defeating him using a technique he only saw once with a broken arm.

*** Plus the whole sending fighters to destroy the Nadashinkage for the chance to fight his seems kind of cowardly.
*** The fact that he had such a hard time defeating Kichi shows that he was never a match for Oton.
*** Oton himself mentioned that Kiba wouldn’t have lasted a minute against him.
*** Made all the more obvious by the fact that the moment he moved out of the world of wrestling he lost in the first 52 seconds.

* JerkassWoobie: Given how much of a monster Kiryu is this when he was finally defeated by Phantom Joe. At first it was more a case of KickTheSonOfABitch then Phantom Joe tried to give him his punishment.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
** Iron Kiba's abusive relationship with his wives. Is it simply an illustration of how much of a jerk and villain he is, or is it because he [[TheChainOfHarm subconsciously internalized abusive relationships as being a normal thing]], [[FreudianExcuse given that his relationships with both his biological and adoptive mothers were abusive and extremely unhealthy]]?

* AnticlimaxBoss: Kengo, who was knocked down after two punches by Kichi.
** Both in and out of universe after a month of prep for this fight. Kichi completely decimated Shiyachi after the gong went off. After just 3 seconds the Neo wrestler went down.
*** Out of universe all of this was done show the fight between Phantom Joe and Kiryu quicker.

* WhatAnIdiot: Naito. Even if your opponent is blind he became one of the remaining 16 fighters for a reason.
** Dogen. How do you expect your fighters to give their all in a match is they’re worried about you selling their organs if they lose?

** Kiibo temporarily dying after his fight with Enzou, due to how surprisingly realistic it is, Seiko breaking his stoic facade and genuinely panicking as he revives Kiibo while [[PleaseWakeUp repeatedly begging for him to come back]] makes it even more horrifying, even if he does successfully revive Kiibo. [[AdultFear It's also easily the single most horrifying and hard-to-read scene in the Manga if you're a parent.]]

** Iron Kiba's abusive relationship with his wives. Is it simply an illustration of how much of a jerk and villain he is, or is it because he [[TheChainOfHarm subconsciously internalized abusive relationships as being a normal thing, given that his relationships with both his biological and adoptive mothers were abusive and extremely unhealthy]]?

** Kentarou Ozaki seemed pretty nonchalant about the fact that a master sniper essentially used him as bait

* AnticlimaxBoss: Kengo who was knocked down after two punches by Kichi.
** Both in and out of universe after a month of prep for this fight. Kichi completely decimated Shiyachi after the gong went off. After just 3 seconds the neo wrestler went down.

** The Nadashinkageryu in general. The fact that it seems to have a technique for virtually any occasions a lot of Kiichi’s victories seem to be this especially since he’s mastered and even become aware of a lot of those techniques the exact moment he needed them.
** Kiryu being alive despite the fact that the massive amount of blood pooling under his body showed that the bullet hit dead on. The people who handled his body were most likely don Jos’s men it seems highly unlikely that not only was he able to survive but escape without anyone noticing
** The fact that Kichi turns out to be adopted, but can use skills that are supposed to be blood specific.

** Even though it was shown that Weasal was able to dodge the strike he still showed the symptoms of being struck by the Kaishuken. Of course all this was done so that Son-o really didn’t lose.

** The constant learning of new silly martial art moves when Kichi’s own family style is obviously the superior in every way.

* DesignatedHero: In-universe. Ted Austin is a hero in the USA so against him any other fighter will always have the role of the bad guy. He also notably threw a puppy into the river so he could get praise for rescuing it.

* DesignatedVillain: A truck driver accidentally ran over a dog at first the driver tried to explain that it was an accident but got angry when people started talking about calling the police. However Mitsuhidei Kuroda dismantling the man’s truck is seen as completely justified.
** The fact that the driver got down on his hands and knees crying about how sorry he was only made Mitsuhidei’s actions even worse.
** While Garcia regularly cripples his opponents, they are usually vicious monsters. In fact the only reason the hero of the series Kichi wants to fight Garcia is because he’s stronger then him. Made even worse due to the fact that Kichi was disgusted when he found out that Garcia was a government assassin despite assassination being the basis of his family art and he has used lethal techniques on numerous people.

** Kiryu did it by revealing the secret of Kichi’s birth during the Hyper Battle just to get a rise out of him

** The Dark Monkey from ''Tough'' is jarringly out of place for a martial arts manga villain, as he behaves more like a horror movie villain, and everything about him is unsettling and disturbing, from his introduction, which has him suddenly appearing, hanging upside down outside of a window while Rikimaru and Yanagiba talk about him and then disappearing just as fast to the point where Rikimaru assumes he's seeing things from fear, and the fact that Rikimaru is a [[HorrifyingTheHorror ruthless]] {{Yakuza}} [[HorrifyingTheHorror who manages to frighten himself just by talking about this assassin]], and describes how witnessing the carnage left by him after he killed a bunch of gangsters was disturbing even to him. He's also heavily implied to be a [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rapist]] on top of being a PsychopathicManchild, given how his den has toys lying about and a woman running away while screaming for help. There's also his [[BodyHorror eyes]], which are like that of a chameleon's, [[https://mangadex.org/chapter/8852b1fa-cc60-4399-a773-f311389c2e17/19 down to having the distinctive shape of their eyelids]].