Naruto and Hajime no Ippo

Hajime no Ippo is a manga about boxing. In the beginning it’s serious but later it becomes more carefree between the matches.

Explaining:

Weight classes: the classes where the boxers are put in, it’s sorted by weight the classes (from heavy to light obviously) are:

 Heavyweight: 200 pounds and above/90.7 kg and above

Cruiserweight: 175-200 pounds/79.4-90.7

Light heavyweight: 168-175 pounds/76.2-79.4 kg

Super middleweight: 160-168 pounds/72.6-76.2 kg

Middleweight: 154-160 pounds/69.9-72.6 kg

Junior middleweight: 147-154 pounds/66.7-69.9 kg

Welterweight: 140-147 pounds/63.5-66.7 kg

Super lightweight: 135-140 pounds/ 61.2-63.5 kg

Lightweight: 130-135 pounds/59-61.2 kg

Junior Lightweight: 126-130 pounds/57.2-59 kg

Featherweight: 122-126 pounds/55.3-57.2 kg

Junior featherweight: 118-122 pounds/53.5-55.3 kg

Banthamweight: 115-118 pounds/52.2-53.5 kg

Junior banthamweight: 112-115 pounds/50.8-52.2 kg

Flyweight: 108-112 pounds/49-50.8 kg

Junior Flyweight: 105-108 pounds/47.6-49 kg

Strawweight: up to 105 pounds/up to 47.6 kg

Infighter: A boxer who prefers to fight in close range and beat their enemies with quick and heavy blows.

Outboxer: A boxer who prefers hit and run tactics their best weapons are their feet.

Rookie King Tournament: A tournament between the rookie pro’s, there are 2 tournaments in Japan (east and west) and in the end east has to fight west for the title of all Japan rookie king

Class A tournament: A tournament between the top 10 rankers in a weight class, the winner gets a chance to fight the champion.

Plot:

Ippo always gets beat up after school until he meets a pro boxer called Takamura who lectures him and gives him a test. Ippo passes the test and joins the gym where Takamura trains and this is the beginning of Ippo’s boxing career.

Characters:

Makunouchi Ippo

The main character with huge power behind his fists. He has a crush on Kumi Mashiba but doesn’t have the guts to tell her. His personality is kinda simple minded must be because of all those hits against the head. 😛 He Fights in the Featherweight class.

Takamura Mamoru

A monster pro boxer who fights in Junior Middleweight his original weight is Heavyweight but since he can’t find opponents in that class he decided to drop 5 classes and he now aims to become the world chapion from 6 classes. His personality is very carefree he only jokes around, his reputation is one of the worst but he’s still called japans hope for a world title.

Miyata Ichirou

Ippo’s rival he leaves the kamogawa gym after a promise with Ippo to settle the score in the pro ring (they fought 2 times before and both won 1 time) He is a counter puncher who is also in the Featherweight class. He get’s the most screentime of all the characters that are not from the kamogawa gym. Nicknamed the Lightning God.

Kamogawa Genji

The owner of the Komogawa gym and the trainer of Ippo and Takamura. He’s shorth tempered and is one of the few people who can stop Takamura from doing bad things.

Aoki Masaru

PRo boxer from the kamogawa gym, he’s in the Lightweight class and ranked in the top 10 but he doesn’t have much luck in winning. He’s the one that falls for Takamura’s pranks most. if you see him together with Takamura you can say for 90% that there is sometihng funny coming up.

Kimura Tatsuya

Best friend of Aoki, he is smarter than Aoki and mostly knows Takamura’s pranks so he ends up better off then Aoki. Just like Aoki he’s a japanese ranker but doesn’t have much luck, he plays in the Junior Lightweight class.

Itagaki Manabu

Boxer at the Kamogawa gym who starts roughly 2 years after the staret of the series. He’s a featherweight and looks up to Ippo. He and his family are pro’s at making puns. He’s also good with his mouth and can cheer up anyone if he wants to.

Shinoda Tomoyuki

One of the trainers in the gym he trains Aoki, Kimura and Manabu. Not much is known about him.

Aoki Gumi

2 guys who look up to Aoki and in some way have guts because they only do what Aoki tells them which often results in being beaten up by Takamura.

Kenta Kobashi

Fighter who lost to Ippo in the Rookie kings, after he loses he drops a weight class but retires quickly after losing his first title defence.

Hayami Ryuichi

One of the favourite Featherweight boxers in the rookie kings. He has a special weapon called the shotgun where he throws many jabs and straights where it feels being hit by several punches in one time. Later he drops a weight class and retires after his jaw get’s scattered in a title fight against Kenta Kobashi.

Mashiba Ryo

Scary boxer doesn’t care about the rules but changes a little after fighting Ippo. After the rookie king tournament he changes from feather to Junior Lightweight where he get’s the belt without too much troubles. His sister is the only one he cares about. Nicknamed the Grim Reaper. He uses the hitman style combined with flicker jabs, due to his long reach this makes him a fearsome opponent. Recently he has moved up another class: Lightweight.

Mashiba Kumi

Sister of Ryo and has a crush on Ippo (everyone knows this exept the simple minded Ippo). She used to work at a shop where Ippo used to buy his food, but she later changed jobs to work at a hospital. She is one of the few (if not the only one) who can keep her brother calm.

Sendo Takeshi

Featherweight boxer from Osaka he fights Ippo at the all Japan rookie kings. He’s a proud boxer who takes the title after Date retires it. but he soon after has to give it to someone else. He has a rivalry relation with Ippo. His nickname is the Naniwa Tiger (Naniwa is the name of his gym). His speciality is the smash.

Saeki Takuma

Featherweight boxer nicknamed the speed star because of his inhuman footwork and punch speed. He doesn’t get much screentime other than his battles with Ippo and Sendo. Recently he gained some more screen time because of him participating in the class A tournament.

Alexander Vorg Zangief

The former amateur world champion. He’s a foreigner from Russia and wants to earn money to cure his sick mother. However due to 2 lost matches he gets send back to Russia. Later after finding out his mother has died he goes to America to box on the world class level. He has a special attack called the white fang. His style is outboxer but he changed because infighting catches the audience more which is important for a foreigner.

Date Eiji

Claimed to be Japans strongest featherweight boxer. He’s fought against Ricardo Martinez 2 times for the world title but lost both times. His strongest weapon is the heart break shot which is a corkscrew punch that hits the heart, It’s powerful enough to stop the “time” for someone for a while.

Sawamura Ryuuhei

A featherweight boxer who enjoys to put his enemies in pain and he doesn;t care much for the rules. Before he get’s introduced the losses he has are by disqualification for using his elbows or feet. He retires after he takes the Junior Lightweight title because he gets into a traffic accident.

Imai Kyousuke

Itagaki Manabu’s rival since their amateur days. he aims for the japan championship belt and his style is a textbook infighter.

there are more slightly important characters but only appeared 3 times or so.

AMV:

Best Battles:

This is something new but i thaught it would fit in this post since it’s mainly about fighting. i made a top 5 of which in my opinion are the best battles in the series.

5. Makunouchi Ippo Vs Vorg Zangief

Class A Tournament finals, was the hardest one to pick because it didn’t stand out much and there were enough battles who were almost as good as this one.

4. Byan Hawk Vs Takamura Mamoru

The fight for the world junior middleweight Belt. It start with boxing but ends brawling with gloves.

3. Randy Boy Junior Vs Miyata Ichirou

After Miyata gets injured he’s forced to taske a break in this break a new pacific champion has been chosen (Randy) this is the mach to decide the opbf champion.

2. Sawamura Ryuuhei Vs Mashiba Ryo

The junior Lightweight title match between 2 guys who don’t care about the rules, in the end the winner is decided because the other gets disqualified. If it would become a decision the points for both fighters would be below 0.

1. Makunouchi Ippo Vs Sendo Takeshi

Featherweight Title match and the second battle between Sendo and Ippo. The battle they had before ended i na wierd way so they want to settle it in this match.

Comparing:

Ippo – Naruto: Simpleminded, populair with the girls but don’t realize it, are sometimes thaught to be gay cause they think more about their rival than about girls.

Miyata – Sasuke: Sometimes confuse the reader about the name of the manga, Rival of the main protagonist, ladykiller.

Takamura – Jiraya: Powerfull, perverse and likes to use pranks.

Aokimura (Aoki and Kimura) – Iruka: Victim of pranks most of the time, experienced fighters with semi high rank but not able to shine as brightly as the younger ones.

Coach Kamogawa – Hiruzen: Old people who used to be the strongest ones when they were young.

Dankichi/Nekota – Elders: Rivals and best friends of ^

Mashiba Ryo – Gaara: Evil becomes less evil after fighting the main protagonist.

Mashiba Kumi – Hinata: Major crush on the Main Protagonist.

Date – Itachi: Strong and can stop the enemies time.

Sanada – Kabuto: Medics who use their knowledge about the human body in their fights.

Shimabukuro – Kisame: Have a huge advantage in the water but are powerful on the land too.

Brian Hawk – a mix between Jiraya and Hidan: The only thing that can keep Brian calm are woman and fights.

Mr. Sakaguchi – Madara: Manipulate others to do the dirty work.

Link manga

Link anime season 1

Link anime season 2

Something to close off this post a few pages of the manga:

This proves that good things do happen when Takamura is pissed

THE NEXT DAY