Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I decided to give this anime its own topic, what with the show being relevant again thanks to Rising.

First of all, I'll say this: If you don't want to read a 1,000+ chapter manga, then don't bother; the anime condenses the first 250+ chapters of the manga into a manageable 75 episodes, and is better for it (since you don't have to deal with pacing issues or filler). On top of that, it leaves off at a spot that would make for a satisfying ending, so you don't have to bother going into the manga to see what happens next unless you just really want to.

Overall, this is easily the most entertaining shounen sports series that I've ever gotten into. It avoids the tropes of ass-hole rivals and actually has some really well-developed characters. I particularly like how this manga isn't just full of that "feel good" vibe of some underdog overcoming all of the odds, and has a bit of harsh reality to it as well, with certain fighters getting injured to the point of early retirement, and on top of that it goes into the business of boxing quite a bit, and it turns out the way the sport runs as a business is actually quite interesting (it's sort of like how Bakuman goes into the business of manga, in that regard).

One particular thing I like in this series is how you rarely have any of those 1-dimensional bullies who automatically turn into sympathetic good guys once the main character kicks their ass (because, you know, that's a good lesson to teach to kids). Characters just are who they are due to the circumstances that brought them to where they were. For comparison, one of my gripes with Kuroko no Basket is that all of the top teams have this mindset of looking down on the main characters and just generally being ass-holes who don't care about their own sport (or at least say they don't), and obviously it's just done to get you as the reader pumped to see them get their asses handed to them, which works well enough, but it just feels inconsistent  when they only start revealing other layers to their characters after they get one-upped by Kuroko, Kagami, and the rest of the Seirin High School Basketball team. In HnI, you really get a good sense of what the characters are like and why they are like that both leading up to and after the match, which just feels a lot smoother to me.

At any rate, I'm not here to make comparisons between this and other sports manga/anime (and I like both, BTW). I just wanted to point out that this show just struck a formula that worked for me, and combined with some good fight animation, a really memorable soundtrack, and a pretty entertaining English dub, it really hooked me. As for the sequel OVA, TV Special, 2nd season (New Challenger), and the now currently running 3rd season (Rising), none of them are quite as good as this first series, which just seemed to strike such a great balance of everything, but they are all still worth watching if you want to continue the story, and they are certainly quite entertaining.

As for who I'd recommend this show to on this board, I don't think that Avaitor, Foggle, Dr. Insomniac, or Lord Dalek would really care for it since I already know that they don't like 99% of shounen series (I know LD downright hates them ), but I do think everyone else on this board who hasn't tried it should give it a shot. It ain't exactly some deep, artistic masterpiece that absolutely must be admired by all, but it's an entertaining as fuck series if you're just into good (read: LIKABLE) characters and stellar (and occasionally downright brutal) fights.

Also, the final fight featured in the first season of the TV show is still the best damn fight that I've ever seen in a shounen series, though in that regard I'm specifically referring to the anime version of it, which just took a fight that was already great in the manga, and managed to crank it up to 11 by actually taking full advantage of being an animated medium.

[Daikun]

Discotek got it.