Hajime No Ippo: The fighting and Shōnen's spirit.
Shōnen is one of the most popular genres in the manga and anime industry, sadly, that often leads to the overproduction of stories following the same plot devices. Nonetheless, there are only a handful of mangakas who know how to use those devices in the correct way. Jōji a.k.a "George" Morikawa is one of them and he is also the author of Hajime no Ippo, but I guess you already figured that out if you are reading a post about that manga. Well, 'Sherlock', let's dive into one of the greatest sports manga of the last decades and why it's the spirit of shōnen mangas.
Hajime no Ippo follows the story of Makunouchi Ippo, a humble, middle-class student who often finds himself being a victim of bullying. Ippo is an underdog (cough loser cough), but everything changes when he meets Mamoru Takamura, a professional boxer on the rise to become one of Japan's finest. Inspired by the strength of Takamura, Ippo decides to become a boxer but not to beat the hell out of his bullies, he does it seeking the answer for one specific question; What is strength? Times goes by and our loser, I mean, our underdog faces his first challenge; he will have a sparring session with newcomer and boxing prodigy, Miyata Ichirō. Fearful of the obvious outcome, Ippo follows the instructions of Takamura to survive his encounter against this mighty opponent. He manages to survive for some rounds but ends up losing against Miyata in decisive fashion. Kamogawa Genji, the head of the boxing gym, decides to take Ippo under his wing and train him so he could become a relentless professional boxer. He saw something special in Ippo and he gave our humble protagonist a chance. This is how Ippo's journey begins.
If you are still not motivated enough to start reading Hajime no Ippo, I will tell you that there is way more to delve into apart from the summary I did before. The manga/anime is filled with different characters, each one of them bringing something different and interesting to the story, characters like Aoki, Takamura, Kimura and even Kamogawa will have their own arcs throughout the manga/anime, which will not only develop their relationships with Ippo even further, but it will make the world created by Morikawa feel even more real. Interestingly enough, this not only applies to the friends of Ippo but with his enemies as well. Mashiba and Sendo are notorious cases of this, having great matches of their own and even showing an unknown side of them. Each character will be given time to be introduced in the story and we will be able to know their background as well as their motivations. Some of them will be endearing and could be the protagonists of their own mangas.
Morikawa's portrayal of boxing is fun, dynamic and most importantly, real. Boxing is not just an entertaining exchange of blows in Morikawa's eyes, boxing is gruesome and he masterfully reflects that reality through storytelling and his artwork. Blood sprays through his panels when fights reach their climax, characters feel deep sorrow when they lose, and injuries can end careers in just the blink of an eye. Morikawa knows plenty of this since he is the owner of JB Sports gym in Tokyo and has been in the corner of many boxers. He has the experience of someone who lives boxing and he shows that through the ways in which he conveys emotions. Morikawa understands how shōnen mangas work and he perfectly uses each device. He doesn't bring new elements to the table, but he uses the one he knows perfectly. The underdog story has been overproduced way too many times and Morikawa clearly sees that, so he is not afraid of making his characters evolve and deal with problems in ways that you don't expect. His characters feel happiness, fear and many more emotions in the same way any of us could feel. Hajime no Ippo is relatable and that's the beauty of it, we can all be like Ippo.
Hajime no Ippo is Shōnen in the purest form, yet it is not afraid of change. In some chapters, it could even be classified as Seinen, which is crazy to think if you know its humble beginning. Hajime no Ippo is not the story of the exceptional hero that wins in the greatest way possible, in fact, it's the story of a human, someone that can be weak and fragile. That's a noble concept if you think about the nature of popular shōnen mangas. In times like these, characters are like powerful gods fighting over galaxies or the destiny of mankind, but Ippo is not like that, Ippo just wants to know what is strength.
Morikawa's portrayal of boxing is fun, dynamic and most importantly, real. Boxing is not just an entertaining exchange of blows in Morikawa's eyes, boxing is gruesome and he masterfully reflects that reality through storytelling and his artwork. Blood sprays through his panels when fights reach their climax, characters feel deep sorrow when they lose, and injuries can end careers in just the blink of an eye. Morikawa knows plenty of this since he is the owner of JB Sports gym in Tokyo and has been in the corner of many boxers. He has the experience of someone who lives boxing and he shows that through the ways in which he conveys emotions. Morikawa understands how shōnen mangas work and he perfectly uses each device. He doesn't bring new elements to the table, but he uses the one he knows perfectly. The underdog story has been overproduced way too many times and Morikawa clearly sees that, so he is not afraid of making his characters evolve and deal with problems in ways that you don't expect. His characters feel happiness, fear and many more emotions in the same way any of us could feel. Hajime no Ippo is relatable and that's the beauty of it, we can all be like Ippo.
Hajime no Ippo is Shōnen in the purest form, yet it is not afraid of change. In some chapters, it could even be classified as Seinen, which is crazy to think if you know its humble beginning. Hajime no Ippo is not the story of the exceptional hero that wins in the greatest way possible, in fact, it's the story of a human, someone that can be weak and fragile. That's a noble concept if you think about the nature of popular shōnen mangas. In times like these, characters are like powerful gods fighting over galaxies or the destiny of mankind, but Ippo is not like that, Ippo just wants to know what is strength.
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