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Ytlaya posted:But the guy Takamura is fighting right now is currently in his same weight class, so why would he have an advantage? Like, yeah, when he was in a heavier weight class I'm sure he would have been stronger, but currently both him and Takamura have a low body fat % and should be around the same weight and thus have similar musculature (if anything, it seems Takamura would be a little buffer if he's also shorter than the American). Stress on the body is part of it, crash dieting is not very good for you. If his opponent is at his natural weight he wouldn't feel underweight and exhausted, for one.
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Jul 26, 2015 18:22
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The guy has the advantage because he fights(spars) guys at his weightclass and even above at the regular, which Takamura does not do. He is used to the heavy punches that they can deliver.
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Jul 26, 2015 19:22
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Middle weight is 160pounds. Which is Takamura's current weightclass Heavy weight is 200pounds. Which is the belt Takumura is aiming for, and is close to his natural weight when eating properly and training. Takumura is not losing a few pounds. He's an over 6 foot man losing somewhere around FORTY. He starves and more importantly dehydrates like crazy before his fight. He does not step into the ring at his best, he steps into it at his WORST. There's a reason there's been multiple chapters about weight training, and they mentioned a few times how lucky Ippo is to be able to do specific training before his fights, since he is in his natural weightclass.
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Jul 26, 2015 19:29
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Most fighters cut weight though. 40 pounds is a bit excessive but this is a shonen. He bullies most enemies with his huge power, so it's been good for him. This is ( i think ) the first time he fought someone with a similar frame/physique. It's a test to see if he got the skills to back up his athleticism.
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Jul 26, 2015 19:32
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Wild Horses posted:Most fighters cut weight though. 40 pounds is a bit excessive but this is a shonen. He bullies most enemies with his huge power, so it's been good for him. This is ( i think ) the first time he fought someone with a similar frame/physique. It's a test to see if he got the skills to back up his athleticism. It's hard to tell when literally all of his opponents since Hawk have looked the same size.
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Jul 27, 2015 20:01
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Wild Horses posted:The guy has the advantage because he fights(spars) guys at his weightclass and even above at the regular, which Takamura does not do. He is used to the heavy punches that they can deliver. Has the author ever brought up why Takamura stays in Japan instead of going overseas to train and actually have matches in his weight class? Because sticking in Japan the higher he goes just seems silly, he basically won't ever get to spar in the higher weight classes while he stays there.
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Jul 30, 2015 23:24
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Takamura's "Prime Sparring Partner" was a literal God drat Bear that he beat to death in hand-to-hand combat, skinned, and wore to the next match. Unless his next step is literal loving Godzilla, there's really no reason for him to seek out other sparring partners.
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Jul 31, 2015 00:42
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Asuron posted:Has the author ever brought up why Takamura stays in Japan instead of going overseas to train and actually have matches in his weight class? Because sticking in Japan the higher he goes just seems silly, he basically won't ever get to spar in the higher weight classes while he stays there. It's because his management is incompetent, possibly with actual outright dementia.
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Jul 31, 2015 00:54
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Repster posted:Middle weight is 160pounds. Which is Takamura's current weightclass yeah lol vs hawk he legitimately was on the verge of death. best arc in shonen history IMO. Toshimo posted:Takamura's "Prime Sparring Partner" was a literal God drat Bear that he beat to death in hand-to-hand combat, skinned, and wore to the next match. Unless his next step is literal loving Godzilla, there's really no reason for him to seek out other sparring partners. takamura did NOT kill the bear. he respected the bear following the battle and left it alive due to the cubs. the other old man later shot the bear, and takamura ate it in stew form to honor its memory.
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Jul 31, 2015 00:57
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Yeah didn't Taka just KO's the bear? Like he kept punching it to stay alive til he could knock it out hitting the weak spot consecutively.
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Jul 31, 2015 01:23
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Whether or not he killed the bear himself, the point still stands.
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Jul 31, 2015 01:28
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Just started on this recently, and I'm up to Ippo's match with Date. Ippo is going to be so loving busted after he retires from boxing. He's going to be dead by the time he's 40.
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Aug 12, 2015 03:54
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The Lord of Hats posted:Just started on this recently, and I'm up to Ippo's match with Date.
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Aug 12, 2015 04:07
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It's bizarre that the mention that Ippo has some form of brain damage feels more like a concession Morikawa felt he had to make after looking at his body of work, rather than something he planned to show as a consequence of stupid boxing all along. Like enough of his friends mentioned to him "Hey George, you know your kid would be a vegetable, right?" and he just grudgingly puts it in there. I dunno, maybe that's just something I'm picking up from it.
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Aug 12, 2015 04:14
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Fabricated posted:Ahahahah if you haven't seen the loving beatings he takes after that Oh man, it gets worse? I mean, it's not like I expected him to suddenly turn into an outboxer, but you'd think at some point his coach would reconsider the "Have Ippo eat a million punches to the face but land a KO while he's standing unconscious" strategy.
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Aug 12, 2015 04:45
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Nope. It's sad to say but Ippo's fights are very mudane and boring. Everyone else is just better. I mean I have yet to see ONE bad Takamura fight.
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Aug 12, 2015 05:53
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Shindragon posted:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yup, I wholeheartedly concur. After a certain point, just resign yourself to the fact that Takamura's fights are the only reason to keep reading.
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Aug 12, 2015 05:56
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The Lord of Hats posted:Oh man, it gets worse? I mean, it's not like I expected him to suddenly turn into an outboxer, but you'd think at some point his coach would reconsider the "Have Ippo eat a million punches to the face but land a KO while he's standing unconscious" strategy. There's a distinct 'jump the shark' moment way, way after where you are and I'm curious to see if you come to the same conclusion that most of us came to.
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Aug 12, 2015 11:30
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Shindragon posted:HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. A VEGETA-ble who can't even wear his BOX-ers without help. What, are you expecting a PUNCH-line?
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Aug 12, 2015 11:30
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My personal jump the shark moment was when Ippo ate the biggest counter of his life against that rear end in a top hat, because he was mad and just rushed in. And he ate the "one ton" right that snapped his neck off and which he proceeded to just revive from and KO the other guy. It was the point where it felt like there was no real consequence to anything in his fights. apart from the latest one, which was excellent because he got KTFO
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Aug 12, 2015 12:16
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Well, I finished the Date fight. It was good, although I kinda don't like how many of Ippo's opponents decide "I WILL INFIGHT THE MAN WITH BRICKS FOR FISTS, BECAUSE REASONS". The fact that Mashiba stuck to his guns are probably part of what made me like that fight. Also the fact that Ippo is still scared of Mashiba a bunch of chapters later. Basically Mashiba owns. But goddamn Kumogawa, you are a giant piece of poo poo. You don't get to go on about how it's a second's job to watch out for their boxer's safety when you loving repeatedly send Ippo out when he's standing around unconscious, just so he can maybe get a KO he isn't even going to be able to remember. He already punches ludicrously hard, maybe you could spend your time working on his gigantic loving weaknesses (like his lovely, lovely technique)? No? The Lord of Hats fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Aug 15, 2015 |
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Aug 15, 2015 05:43
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Wild Horses posted:My personal jump the shark moment was when I think that's already past the point of no return.
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Aug 15, 2015 05:52
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The Lord of Hats posted:Kumogawa Literally, Spiderman.
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Aug 15, 2015 08:53
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The Lord of Hats posted:Well, I finished the Date fight. It was good, although I kinda don't like how many of Ippo's opponents decide "I WILL INFIGHT THE MAN WITH BRICKS FOR FISTS, BECAUSE REASONS". The fact that Mashiba stuck to his guns are probably part of what made me like that fight. Also the fact that Ippo is still scared of Mashiba a bunch of chapters later. Basically Mashiba owns. nah running at the opponent and taking hits to the head repeatedly until either you get a lucky shot or your opponent does something incredibly dumb for no reason is the way to win fights. Would it be so much to ask that he develops a strategy that doesn't end up giving him an incredibly short life.
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Aug 15, 2015 09:09
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Toshimo posted:Literally, Spiderman. Dammit He would probably be a better second tha Kamogawa though.
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Aug 15, 2015 14:07
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What's funny is that the guy his fighting style was based on, Mike Tyson, was insanely fast and evasive for his size. He bobbed, weaved, and head slipped punches well and had insane hand speed. He didn't just no-sell 300 punches to the head, start losing on points, and then KO everyone in the 8th round or whatever.
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Aug 15, 2015 17:27
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You'd think Kamogawa would be more aware and wary of head injuries, given his experiences after WWII.
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Aug 15, 2015 20:20
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Wild Horses posted:My personal jump the shark moment was when That was the one where the fight was just them standing there for the first round right? Cuz that's about when I realized that I've always, always cheered for the bad guy in this terrible series, because the bad guys tend to have strategies and try to out-think the opponent while all the heroes except for like, Aoki and Kimura inevitably just fall back on their undefeatable japanese spirit. Aoki and Kimura have both had what, one serious fight each? They're both probably top five in the series
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Aug 16, 2015 17:02
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Bingo. I can't remember the last time I wasn't cheering for the antagonist. I'm still hoping that the Detroit guy takes down Takamura, and I like Takamura way more than Ippo.
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Aug 17, 2015 01:54
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You all also have to have rooted for WWII Kamogawa, who trains by punching logs into hills.
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Aug 18, 2015 05:45
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Ippo's the champion!  For all that I complained about the "eat a million punches until you get a lucky hit in", it mostly made for a pretty satisfying match with Sendou, probably because it working didn't require some dumbass fuckup on Sendou's part for it to work (although on a vaguely related tangent, I wish Shigeta hadn't gotten dumpstered forever by Sendou, I loved how much of an rear end in a top hat he was). But while I don't think I would end the manga here, because Ippo as champion does have play to it, there's loose threads and it doesn't really match up to the presentation of the overall structure of boxing with title defenses and whatnot, but the finishing combination on Sendou felt really... final. I don't know if Ippo's fights have a lot of room to grow from here (and from what you guys have said, they don't), so that's disappointing. Also seeing Sendou do his thing made me realize that Ippo hasn't actually had any real character development in forever. He never feels like he has any actual confidence, despite being one of the best boxers in Japan (he sucks at actual boxing but you know what I mean). Actually, nobody's had any character development in forever, now that I think about it. So it's Kimura challenging Mashiba for the title next, and even if I hadn't watched the fight on youtube because I like Mashiba, it'd be clear there was no way he was going to lose, because Aoki and Kimura are the dedicated losers of Kamogawa Gym, having him take the title right after Ippo took his would feel silly, and because Mashiba losing here would take all the wind out of his sails. Except that now Takamura and Ippo are going to keep going up and up through the ranks, and Aoki and Kimura are going to be stuck in this weird situation where we're supposed to still take them seriously despite them being on a dramatically lower level of boxing. I'm enjoying it, but oh man the flaws are there.
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Aug 19, 2015 05:50
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Kimura v Mashiba is the best fight in the series.
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Aug 19, 2015 06:48
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The Lord of Hats posted:For all that I complained about the "eat a million punches until you get a lucky hit in", it mostly made for a pretty satisfying match with Sendou, probably because it working didn't require some dumbass fuckup on Sendou's part for it to work (although on a vaguely related tangent, I wish Shigeta hadn't gotten dumpstered forever by Sendou, I loved how much of an rear end in a top hat he was). But while I don't think I would end the manga here, because Ippo as champion does have play to it, there's loose threads and it doesn't really match up to the presentation of the overall structure of boxing with title defenses and whatnot, but the finishing combination on Sendou felt really... final. I don't know if Ippo's fights have a lot of room to grow from here (and from what you guys have said, they don't), so that's disappointing. This is the biggest issue with all of Ippos fights. Most of them rely on his opponent completely messing up or doing something stupid that gets him the win. That's why the fight with Sendo is satisfying, because it finally feels like he won on his own merits instead of his opponent just being stupid. His fight with Gonzalez is one of the best examples of that kind've stupidity, where Gonzalezs style completely locks Ippo out, Ippo has no other options because he's only ever been trained to rush at people and take punches, so the only way he can conceivably win is if Gonzalez starts trading blows for no reason. Which he does. Luckily that fight ends with Ippo losing, but the only thing I'm taking away from new chapters is that he's not gonna recognise he needs more options than just rushing at his opponent and hoping he gets a lucky punch in, but rather that he's going to rely on "spirit" to keep himself up through all the punches,which is just stupid. I mean the only way he ever wins against Ricardo Martinez with that style is if Ricardo does something stupid like Gonzalez did, which if the writer does is a really big copout because we've seen him just destroy boxers like Date who had tons of options to use against him, unlike Ippo, and he just destroyed him.
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Aug 19, 2015 11:49
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If you don't like the Date right is say this manga isn't really for you, it's a lot about machismo and the nobility of a fight, not really about good boxing strats or whatever, and in a big fan of that but I understand if others want something more realistic. Personally I think the date fight is too three or four in the entire run, the emotional climax is really high for both characters and it had some really sick moments, I especially liked ippo leaning on date unconsciously pushing forward like some kind of war machine The other top fights are the sendo one and takamura vs hawk, the latter of which I can't imagine anyone ever disliking because everything about it is the culmination of shonen manga, still haven't seen a shonen arc that comes close to it tbh. I also really like the randy boy jr fight, while the manga had gotten a lot more ridiculous by that point in terms of a narrative arc and miyatas growth I thought it was really good
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Aug 19, 2015 12:33
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Gonna go ahead and say the last Vorg fight was one of my favorites. Just good all around.
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Aug 19, 2015 13:07
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Asuron posted:This is the biggest issue with all of Ippos fights. Most of them rely on his opponent completely messing up or doing something stupid that gets him the win. That's why the fight with Sendo is satisfying, because it finally feels like he won on his own merits instead of his opponent just being stupid.
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Aug 19, 2015 13:24
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i dont really mind them switching up the strategys because the manga seems to follow an internal logic where the more "primal" a fighter gets the better they are, whatever their natural strength is is the best they can be or whatever
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Aug 19, 2015 14:19
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tbp posted:i dont really mind them switching up the strategys because the manga seems to follow an internal logic where the more "primal" a fighter gets the better they are, whatever their natural strength is is the best they can be or whatever Hawk's second comments that Kamogawa had imprinted a "sophisticated strategy for beating a man to death" inside the ring into Takamura. So who knows what the point he wants to make about style: natural? or trained?  Since its been a while: Ippo.gif   Fabricated fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Aug 19, 2015 |
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Aug 19, 2015 14:47
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Fabricated posted:Even that's a bit off technically. When Takamura snaps on Hawk, he just flips out and gets angry enough to power through being hosed up so bad. He wins because even though he's Hulked out his muscle memory from his training caused him to only throw good punches at vital areas. Both. You take a fighter with natural talent. Teach him to box, and then fuse both together refining his natural style. Like Takamura natural aiming for the vitals instead of just punching a guy like he would without training. I think that's what the other guy wants to do with Woli as well. Ippo's natural fighting style however, does not exist. He just punches really hard. Everything else was implanted into him becasue of his size and stature, and his obsession with the Dempsey Roll. If not for the latter he'd be a better boxer since he'd have worked harder on his defense, and would have better refined the rest of his arsenal. Which is the one thing Kamogawa is really good at. Teaching a man to punch another.
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Aug 19, 2015 15:42
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I read this, for some reason. I'm not a big fan of sports or shounen but this thesis isn't going to avoid writing itself. I think up through Ippo becoming Japanese champion (around chapter 250) is the 'good' period. The plot has clear forward momentum and Ippo's skill has a clear upward trajectory. He constantly expands his armoury with new techniques and the training to use them, including advanced skills like the dempsey roll. After that the story never really finds its feet, even if there are individually good fights like Karasuma or Aokimura's title matches. The only actual development Ippo undergoes over this period is learning a new Dempsey he can't use, and learning some actual boxing skills Morikawa won't let him use. A few defences would have made the point but instead they go on and on and on. The cancellation of the Miyata fight was where it took a real downturn. Not only was there even less plot direction, but from there until Gonzalez every Ippo fight was bad. No national champion should have any trouble with Scratch 'telegraph pole' J. Against Gedo Ippo fights another weird jab, but this one works for the entire match for no reason rather than being learned in a round or so like Mashiba, Sanada or even Gonzalez. Woli is just miserable. And in his last title defence Ippo takes a perfectly executed counter from a man who explicitly hits like a truck, but it can't even knock him down. And the pacing for the last two is hideously bad, so bad not even binge reading can improve it. Gonzalez was a big improvement over the previous ten years of Ippo fights, but only because Ippo lost. It's not clear how future fights will be different except that Ippo will win for no reason. The signal we've been given for how Ippo will change from here out is Sendo's superior performance (presumably to be repeated against Gonzalez), which suggests the solution will be 'your enemies make more mistakes' and 'get up from counters that rightly put you down, because ambition', which isn't promising. I don't think Kamogawa is going to teach him anything we'd recognise as worthwhile. The only thing said about the future training-wise is 'back to square one', which is silly, since Ippo is competent at basic boxing skills. He just lost to Gonzalez because he has no technique, getting demolished by strategy in the first half and counters in the second. He doesn't need to go back to square one, he needs to move on from square fifty. And that's the one thing the story absolutely refuses to let him do.
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Aug 22, 2015 13:04
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