Hajime no Ippo

My Favourite Anime <(^-^)>

Hajime no Ippo

Makunouchi Ippo has been bullied his entire life. Constantly running errands and being beaten up by his classmates, Ippo has always dreamed of changing himself, but never has the passion to act upon it. One day, in the midst of yet another bullying, Ippo is saved by Takamura Mamoru, who happens to be a boxer. Ippo faints from his injuries and is brought to the Kamogawa boxing gym to recover. As he regains consciousness, he is awed and amazed at his new surroundings in the gym, though lacks confidence to attempt anything. Takamura places a photo of Ippo's classmate on a punching bag and forces him to punch it. It is only then that Ippo feels something stir inside him and eventually asks Takamura to train him in boxing. Thinking that Ippo does not have what it takes, Takamura gives him a task deemed impossible and gives him a one week time limit. With a sudden desire to get stronger, for himself and his hard working mother, Ippo trains relentlessly to accomplish the task within the time limit. Thus Ippo's journey to the top of the boxing world begins.

"What does it mean to be strong?" 

Hajime no Ippo follows the story of a high school student named Makunouchi Ippo desiring to be strong. The story starts off with him getting bullied by your average school bully, to only be saved by a running boxed name Takamura. After that, Ippo wanted to learn how to box, to learn how to be strong. Thus he started his boxing career, a journey to learn what it means to be strong.

Hajime no Ippo is probably one of the first anime I've ever watched since young, and is one that will stick with me for the rest of my life. It is a fantastic sports anime, and anyone who likes boxing and anime should for sure watch this.
 

 

Story: One of the more lacking aspects of this anime is the story. However, for being a sports anime, it does have a relatively interesting story. It follows Ippo on his journey to be strong, encountering many comical characters and tough rivals that he has to beat. Otherwise however, it is rather bland and is usually the same thing each arc (although there are plenty of variants) where it's training, backstory, fight, end. On the other hand however, each and every character's back story are very interesting. I won't spoil too much, but some have dark pasts that even though you feel like you want Ippo to win, sometimes you have to root for them.

 

 Old Season

 

 New Season

Art: This is kind of bias considering how this is an old anime, but for back then it was very well drawn. The animation for a fighting anime is also very good. I haven't noticed anything completely wrong with the art style, and the animation is top notch. But, again, the drawings aren't as sharp as the newer versions or any modern anime. But again, this is due to my bias.

 

Sound: Soundtrack is one of my favorite parts of this anime. I loved it, and the feeling of victory is amplified when it plays the song. Words can't really describe how good it is, so do yourself a favor and get it now!
 

 Ippo's girls :)

Character: Arguably the best part of this anime (besides the actual fighting), is the character development. It is very well done, and learning about each and every character really makes you realize their struggle with each fight, the importance of it, why they need to try so much, and you get really attached to each of them. I have yet to meet one character in that show that I did not like at all, I felt they did them all very likable, and even the ones that are rather dark (Mashiba) still are likable in their own certain ways.
 

 Comical

Enjoyment: I loved this anime, I loved every single second of it, there was maybe one fight that I didn't enjoy as much as the others, but even still it was really great. Following all the characters, laughing at Takamura's antics, watching them all fight and seeing that knockout punch all really stood out to me and made this anime so great.

Rating: 10 / 10
-Kaito