This is just a fair warning for those who go to read Hajime No Ippo thinking that this is the ultimate fighting sports manga. Ippo isn't a series geared towards the fights themselves. Ippo is a series geared towards the DRAMA of said fights. If you want grating, tense fights, and a colorful cast of different, charming personalities please enjoy your stay. Now if you want strategic fights that will highlight how the boxing world is more than meets the eye... either you have to give broad breaks between arcs/fights, or you'll have to look somewhere else.
Because this series is good, but it's highly repetitive and formulaic. You can guess who the winner of the fight will be WAY before the arc even BEGINS if you pay attention. There are no easy wins, nearly every single fight must drag on and on and on and on, and tip, nearly no strategy from any fighter will work, and Ippo must, MUST end nearly every fight looking like Rocky Balboa, no matter if he hit an uppercut on a glass jaw foe (and they even lampshade it sometimes) with enough force to kill. Most of the times Ippo and his friends will win through (or will lose to) sheer "Willpower". And said repetition gets tiresome, REALLY tiresome, if you try to take the whole series at once. You'll start seeing flaws on Ippo's trainer reasoning and training techniques, you'll realize that Ippo could have ended a fight way sooner if he suddenly hugged the idiot ball (I'm looking at you, fight against Sawamura) and refused to let go till after the fight. And may god have mercy upon your soul if you expect any sort of character development. Thirty years and Ippo has yet to just tell a girl how he feels, acting like a teenager.
Good, but hella repetitive and grating. Don't try to read everything at once.
This is just a fair warning for those who go to read Hajime No Ippo thinking that this is the ultimate fighting sports manga. Ippo isn't a series geared towards the fights themselves. Ippo is a series geared towards the DRAMA of said fights. If you want grating, tense fights, and a colorful cast of different, charming personalities please enjoy your stay. Now if you want strategic fights that will highlight how the boxing world is more than meets the eye... either you have to give broad breaks between arcs/fights, or you'll have to look somewhere else.
Because this series is good, but it's highly repetitive and formulaic. You can guess who the winner of the fight will be WAY before the arc even BEGINS if you pay attention. There are no easy wins, nearly every single fight must drag on and on and on and on, and tip, nearly no strategy from any fighter will work, and Ippo must, MUST end nearly every fight looking like Rocky Balboa, no matter if he hit an uppercut on a glass jaw foe (and they even lampshade it sometimes) with enough force to kill. Most of the times Ippo and his friends will win through (or will lose to) sheer "Willpower". And said repetition gets tiresome, REALLY tiresome, if you try to take the whole series at once. You'll start seeing flaws on Ippo's trainer reasoning and training techniques, you'll realize that Ippo could have ended a fight way sooner if he suddenly hugged the idiot ball (I'm looking at you, fight against Sawamura) and refused to let go till after the fight. And may god have mercy upon your soul if you expect any sort of character development. Thirty years and Ippo has yet to just tell a girl how he feels, acting like a teenager.