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Wild Horses posted:Implying there's anything wrong with Baki the grappler
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Aug 28, 2015 20:48
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Fabricated posted:I wouldn't say the artist has a great grasp on anatomy. Sure, but Keisuke Itagaki (from Grappler Baki) has definitely improved over time. His latest manga, Baki-Dou, features some incredibly good looking artwork. In my opinion, his strength is his emphasis on stylization, facial expressions, and creating dramatic moments during fights. Do you remember when Morikawa gave everyone chicken legs, with virtually no muscle detail? Mori's grasp of anatomy has been all over the place, too. Fortunately, HnI has been looking much better lately.
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Aug 28, 2015 21:36
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Wild Horses posted:Implying there's anything wrong with Baki the grappler Everyone looks like they're on meth and steroids.
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Aug 28, 2015 21:36
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Hnis art changes a ton over the series. There's a solid few hundred chapters where everyone is tolked as hell in the middle and now they're all skinny. Honestly it doesn't make me feel one way or the other realism wise I actually kinda prefer the jacked up look
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Aug 28, 2015 23:27
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I laughed outloud at calling Shinoda a "boxing phantasm." He's a pretty mysterious dude.
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Aug 29, 2015 06:40
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Itagaki vs. Imai, Ippo vs. Take Keiichi, and Miyata vs. Plot Contrivance! So I ended in the early lead-up to Itagaki's fight before, early enough that the conflict hadn't really been established, namely that Imai is a really good inboxer, and will eventually track down and loving murder Itagaki in the ring, and no amount of dancing around and getting points is going to matter when he's been KOed. The fight itself is actually pretty decent--Itagaki's realization that "there are more ways to box close-up than just charging the dude and hitting him really hard", and the development of a high-risk hit-and-run was fun to watch. I can also appreciate that he mostly is able to avoid hits, although given that this is HnI, he eventually does get lit up and have to GATTSUN his way through the final rounds, but it goes to a decision which we don't really get to see much! I've said it before, but I don't mind WILLPOWER that much if it's working towards an actual goal, in this case "I just need to not get KOed, and I'll be able to keep the point lead, I just have to go the distance". We get to see more of Shinoda as a second, and while he doesn't give much in the way of useful advice (it seems like the seconds never say much worthwhile), he has a pretty good grip on keeping Itagaki's head in the game. He still doesn't exactly have a character yet, but you can see the edges forming. The real problem with this match is... I don't actually give a single poo poo about Imai. There's nothing compelling to him at all. Miyata and Sendo already took all of the good rival material, so Imai's left with "I am the guy who has beat you a lot!". As a result, Itagaki's win doesn't feel as satisfying as it's probably meant to. Take Keiichi was loving great. He's what Aoki would be if Aoki didn't have to carry the comic relief role (and I really hope that Aoki gets another feature match where he incorporates what he saw Take do). His backstory is reasonably solid, and I like Date's description of him being basically "I am glad I did not have to fight this guy because fighting this guy is pretty much just the worst". I think what I like most about this fight is that Take fights in a way that makes it clear that he really understands boxing, in a way that Ippo really doesn't. He doesn't just use the first round to get a sense of range and timing, he takes note of how Ippo figures out his range, and then switches up his stance to gently caress that up for Ippo. He clinches in a way that makes sure he doesn't end up eating a liver blow. He knows how to position himself to essentially render Ippo unable to punch, while he's able to spam the same uppercut over and over with great power. It's a really canny way of fighting, and to do all of this he has to really understand why different things work. Ippo doesn't. Kamogawa literally talks about how Ippo is super-reliant on just doing what he's trained to do, and is pretty bad at making adjustments mid-match. He only really knows one aspect of boxing, and given how badly Take schools him in proper positioning for an infight, it comes into question how well he actually knows it. And it's clear that Kamogawa really doesn't teach Ippo jack poo poo. Oh, he'll tell him what to look out for in his upcoming match, and work with him on that, but even if you just look at the fact that Ippo was loving baffled by the existence of southpaws, it makes it clear that he never really *teaches* Ippo. If I have one complaint about this match, it's that Take going "I MUST BE HONORABLE AND NOT TARGET THE CUT" is kinda counter to a lot of his prior portrayal. Dude faked illness to try to make Ippo go easy on him, why is he giving up an edge like this that nobody would blame him for? Is it just because Jyoji couldn't figure out a believable way for Ippo to not just lose to that? And Miyata... look, we knew that Ippo vs Miyata wasn't going to happen. I'm still in the middle of this fight, actually. But goddamn if Miyata suddenly deciding to ignore the guy trying to punch him in favor of trying to identify a guy in the stands is just the dumbest poo poo. Come on.
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Aug 30, 2015 06:57
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I am enjoying these breakdowns. Please keep doing them as long as you can, it's always fun to read when people take the time to do stuff like this. Just prepare yourself, Ippo fights start taking a downhill turn very fast from here on out. His technique and skills don't improve or change at all, so I think you're gonna find it really frustrating when the tactics which barely got him through the Japan brackets( most of which relied on his opponent doing something dumb for no reason, which is fine because most of the opponents were up and coming rookies so it makes sense there that they would make critical mistakes at key moments) keep working on the world stage against people who really know what they're doing. Asuron fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 15:46
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Asuron posted:His technique and skills don't improve or change at all Technically they start getting WORSE. I think there are even times where Aoki goes "Yup, he's staring to punch like he used to again." REVERTING is an improvement for Ippo later on.
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Aug 30, 2015 15:56
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This is kinda where Ippo goes off the rails. There's still good matches in the series but increasingly they stop being Ippo's matches.
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Aug 30, 2015 18:46
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Where have you gone, Jason Ozuma? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo...
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Aug 30, 2015 18:53
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Apparently the fight with Ippo damaged his spine and retired him permanently? I think that comes up in the run up to one of Ippo's matches before the Date fight, and then much later Geromichi's coach (who's the same as Ozuma's) says Ippo "broke" him. A blade for life indeed. Honestly the worst thing about this manga, personally, is that Ippo is still, by and large, the spineless cowardly loser he was at the beginning of the manga, despite being the type of boxer that wins matches by hitting people really hard, and has caused career ending injuries. I mean I'm not saying he has to go like, full Takamura egoist rear end in a top hat, maybe just Date level. afatwhiteloaf fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 19:40
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afatwhiteloaf posted:Honestly the worst thing about this manga, personally, is that Ippo is still, by and large, the spineless cowardly loser he was at the beginning of the manga, despite being the type of boxer that wins matches by hitting people really hard, and has caused career ending injuries. He'll go through puberty and get his first boner eventually. Then he can actually get with Kumi-chan, and become champion of the world. I'll be dead by then but I'll pass Ippo on to my kids so someone gets the payoff. e: Is it weird that I'm really only still reading to see what happens with Ippo and Kumi despite the fact she only appears about once every 3 months and he's still a child? Captain Narwhal fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Aug 31, 2015 |
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Aug 31, 2015 01:12
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afatwhiteloaf posted:Apparently the fight with Ippo damaged his spine and retired him permanently? I think that comes up in the run up to one of Ippo's matches before the Date fight, and then much later Geromichi's coach (who's the same as Ozuma's) says Ippo "broke" him. A blade for life indeed. Also he broke tons of bones on Sawamura; if I recall he broke ribs and multiple bones in his face and his second/trainer were horrified at the extent of the damage afterwards.
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Aug 31, 2015 01:36
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We've just seen too many people who are more interesting than Ippo is, both in the ring and outside of it. If you still wanted your protagonist to be a high-powered infighter, Sendo has way more fire, and the Slam feels more like part of a toolbox than the Dempsey Roll does. Miyata isn't the best personality, but he has a good thoughtful approach to fights. A fighter in the Aoki/Take mold could consistently bust out new tricks and combine old ones and feel like a constant underdog in a believable way. The guy Ippo has his first defense against has a style that you could do a lot with. And while Ippo is goddamn horrible about Kumi-chan, it isn't like she's taking initiative either. She knows he'll never be able to say it, but it hasn't stopped her from just waiting.
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Aug 31, 2015 01:38
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The Lord of Hats posted:Miyata and Sendo already took all of the good rival materia Sorry, Miyata's just a moody dude who's salty all the time. He's real boring.
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Aug 31, 2015 02:16
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the randy boy jr fight is really good in my opinion. i know some others done like it because it gets a little ludicrous but if you accept the physics of it as "late ippo" then its really good bc its so shonen. after that they're all garbage as hell. i wonder when new chapters will ever come out
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Aug 31, 2015 03:29
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Green Intern posted:Sorry, Miyata's just a moody dude who's salty all the time. He's real boring. What I meant there was less that Miyata is interesting, because he's really not. But Imai manages to make him look interesting by comparison.
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Aug 31, 2015 03:48
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I would have a beer with imai meanwhile ippo would be too much of a square to go to a bar
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Aug 31, 2015 04:10
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Regarding the long delays between chapter releases: is it entirely that the translators take long breaks or is it that the author also takes breaks?
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Aug 31, 2015 06:05
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I know I've mostly been doing two fights per post, but they've been getting longer and longer, and Mashiba vs. Sawamura was a really good fight that deserves the space. The lead-up to it did feel kind of abrupt, because so much focus had been given to Ippo vs. Miyata. I mean, it was clearly planned since Sawamura's introduction, because the main reason that the match happened at all was Sawamura hitting Kumi-chan in front of Mashiba. So the abruptness isn't really a case of bad writing, it's because it actually is sort of that way for all the characters. They were busy hyping themselves up for Ippo's match, and then when that doesn't happen as planned, they finally notice something that's been kind of passing them by. It shows good planning on the author's part, although it does kind of make the complete lack of progress in other areas sort of puzzling, because you'd think it'd be thought through better. I guess I'm mostly thinking of Ippo and Kumi-chan again, because that's one of the very few non-boxing plotlines, but I'm sure there's other examples of this. Maybe Ippo is just kind of this weird black hole of plot stasis. Everything related to him has to stay the same. In other random tidbits I don't think I mentioned, it looks like Takamura is planning a pattern of "take title--one defense--vacate belt for next title", so it seems like he'll be moving up to Super Middleweight next except... I don't think they actually said anything him actually following through? Did it happen? I mean, I guess if he actually does that that's going to burn through Takamura's matches really quickly (because he only really has 4 more on-screen fights), so maybe it'll be stretched out a bit more than that. There's also the Eleki/Papaya rematches, in which Kimura and Aoki apparently avoided looking at their opponents at all during the weigh-in. Kimura has really been suffering from lack of screen time lately I feel... his fighting style is starting to look really one-dimensional around setting up the Dragon Fish Punch, when he was initially billed as an outboxer. And outside of the ring, while I know what his personality is like, I have trouble applying any actual adjectives to it. He does show that he is very hungry for the belt, but there's also a sense of resignation to his limitations. But that's not really enough to carry a character. Anyways, Sawamura vs. Mashiba. They're both ready to loving destroy the other person, Mashiba because of what Sawamura did, Sawamura because... well, because he's Sawamura, I guess. He doesn't actually seem to have a particular beef with Mashiba, outside of recognizing their similarities. AFter the setup of the fight as MURDERBRAWL, we actually get treated to two super-impressive, super-clean rounds in which it's clear that these guys are both incredible at the technical aspects of boxing. And that's something that has really felt like it's been missing lately--Ippo wins, but this match and Ippo vs. Take both make it apparent that he never really feels like a great boxer in his matches. We're told that he's very good, and he *is* the champ, but we haven't had that many fights where he actually looks good--mostly just flashes and that one match with that outboxer who trained to take a hit but failed and got owned. But here, here we're treated to a battle of boxing gods, showing us what actually skill really looks like. Incidentally, this also has the side effect of making Miyata look similarly overhyped. He's never looked as strong as Sawamura does here. Maybe it's natural that it works out that way--if, say, Ippo's fight gets built up a bunch, and then Ippo just owns the guy, that feels like a waste of time, and he just beat on a weakling. But because Mashiba and Sawamura were both already introduced in prominent matches where they looked good, you come into this knowing that they're both really good (instead of needing to be told it), so everything they do against each other looks that much more impressive, because you know it's not just against some scrub. I guess what you'd have to do is feed another featherweight who's been prominent to someone before they faced Ippo, like when Volg lost to Sendo, making for a better title match. Of course, the pinnacle of skill match doesn't last (nor should it have, given the personalities at play--these guys both play up the fact that they are scary dudes, as shown by their entrances, and they're also both vicious as hell), and we finally get to MURDERBRAWL, which is also really good! Sawamura opens the floodgates, and Mashiba responds in kind, and holy hell that ref is the worst referee of all time. He's all worried about "WAIT WHO DO I DOCK POINTS FROM", when it's already clear that neither of these guys gives a poo poo, and that this is going to be an endless parade of fouls that he somehow never ever sees. Seriously, how does he miss so much, is he actually blind? He's gonna get fired. What he really should have done is just ended the match and said "You guys clearly don't want to actually box, this isn't the place for the poo poo you're trying to do", but I guess ending the title match could just be beyond what he's able to do. The actual dirty boxing shown is kind of an education in and of itself of "this is how you cheat to get ahead, and why that works". Mashiba fouls a lot better than Sawamura, I feel. Sawamura blew a foul on a dumbass backhand (and generally seems to use them just for damage), Mashiba uses a headbutt to cripple Sawamura's vision so he can beat the hell out of him. In the end, Mashiba gets DQed, and he certainly deserved it (although with a competent ref, I think Sawamura would've been DQed first), but you're also clearly left with the sense that even if he hadn't committed that final foul, and instead waited for the signal, he still would have blown Sawamura the hell up. Sure, he loses the belt--that he was going to vacate anyways--but I think he ultimately won the match. I'm sure Mashiba felt that he accomplished what he entered the ring to do. Sawamura also felt like a winner--although it's kind of hard to tell with how he leaves the belt behind--up until he drove headfirst into a truck. Great work keeping an eye on him, coach. And that's the end of Sawamura's career. I suppose he did go out on top, and if you want to be optimistic about things, he probably still took less damage from that truck than Ippo does from boxing. He'll probably be fine in the long run, just mysteriously unable to box. At least, I hope so. I wish we'd had a chance to see him demolish Itagaki and take the featherweight title, because he's clearly easily capable of it. Actually, judging by the first two rounds, he was probably world-class if he'd been able to stay in. Alas, it was not meant to be. I hope we get to see him again, though, his character is fun. After the match, we get a bit of a blowup between Kimura and Ippo, although it's very quickly patched over even before the comedy baseball arc, in which we learn that Aoki and Kimura probably should have become pro baseball players and made fat stacks of cash without getting beaten up, as opposed to making very small stacks of cash getting pummeled. We also get to see that after Kumi-chan was clearly upset after her brother's match, Ippo loving ignores her for almost a week. Way to go you goddamn moron. Holy poo poo I didn't realize I had that much to say.
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Aug 31, 2015 07:13
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and now you enter the era of darkness.
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Aug 31, 2015 07:51
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Bushmaori posted:Regarding the long delays between chapter releases: is it entirely that the translators take long breaks or is it that the author also takes breaks? The translators sit on it. The raws for the past chapters were up for ages before they got around to translating them. It's worse than usual though because the current Takamura fight is pretty awesome
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Aug 31, 2015 13:22
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The Lord of Hats posted:We also get to see that after Kumi-chan was clearly upset after her brother's match, Ippo loving ignores her for almost a week. Way to go you goddamn moron. 
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Aug 31, 2015 17:53
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So, after the greatness that was Mashiba vs. Sawamura we get... a whole lot of nothing, it turns out. I mean, things are technically happening, and there are matches that get a fair amount of time to shine, but it feels like things are kind of.. meandering? Somehow, even when it was just Ippo defending his title a bunch of times, the plot seemed to have a lot more velocity than it does right now. It's not the most tremendous issue right now, because I can just keep reading, but following this part as it came out seems like it would have been torturous. Our fights in this section are Itagaki vs. Sendo's Kouhai Whose Name I Cannot Be Arsed To Remember, Miyata's comeback vs. Random Mook, and Ippo vs Jimmy Sisphar. So all of this more or less starts after the match in which Miyata busts his hands, and his match with Ippo is delayed. I'm probably going to be referencing some stuff out of order here, but eh. At this point, the match is delayed, and Hoshi (okay, I did look it up after all) demands that Ippo accept a title match if he beats Itagaki. Hoshi gets a fair bit of buildup, too--Itagaki has been having some struggles lately, getting hit by stuff he shouldn't, and Hoshi is shown to have a really terrifying right, which he's been demolishing people with. He also came to boxing because he was owning his karate dojo too hard and wanted different people to fight. As part of this leadup, we get a pretty great scene in which Sendo basically tells Ippo "Look, gently caress Miyata, he's a poo poo rival who you're never going to actually fight. Make me your rival! We fought for the Rookie King title, we fought for the Japanese Featherweight title, our matches have been huge intense draws, and I will cut fantastic promos about the match. Miyata is going to dance around punching you in the back of the head and be stoic and boring. Cmon, man, you know I'm right". Ippo talks about NO I AM FATED TO FIGHT MIYATA, and the scene ends, but still. Sendo owns. Sendowns. We also get to see more Shinoda as we head into Itagaki's match, and he stakes his career at the gym on the match's outcome, because he is apparently uncertain about how good he is at coaching, because he coaches perennial mudfighters Aoki and Kimura, who have accomplished not a ton! Except actually Shinoda knew that Itagaki was going to suddenly unlock BULLET TIME, and handily dismantle Hoshi, proving that deep down he is a smug fucker. Sure, he doesn't seem to actually teach boxing any better than Genji "EAT THE PUNCHES" Kamogawa, but I still like him more. The actual match I'm... not sure about. On the one hand, the way Itagaki's skill is portrayed is really excessive, and doesn't seem to actually be very conducive to good fights, but on the other hand it is kind of fun to watch him dance around his opponents like he does. I have a feeling I'm ultimately going to end up liking his boxing, but not actually liking any of his matches. I would also point out that like Sawamura before him, Itagaki displaying this kind of outboxing skill makes Miyata look bad. We're told he's good, but we've seen too many other characters look better. Miyata's fight with Random Mook With Poverty-Stricken Family does little to alleviate this issue. Yes, he shows off incredible speed, and a new style of counter, but when it's against someone that you know is just going to be a jobber, it just doesn't mean anything. Hopefully the Randy Boy Jr. fight fixes the problem somewhat, but I have to wonder if that's not going to be too little too late to keep me at all interested in Miyata. Also, the whole calling off the match with Ippo thing is very unsatisfying. This whole time Ippo and Miyata have been shown to be gunning for each other, except Miyata suddenly goes "whoops, nevermind, this new guy I have not met before is my rival!", and he just leaves Ippo with boxing blueballs. You should've listened to Sendo, Ippo! Also, I know that sports manga pretty much always end up feeling kind of homoerotic, but Ippo's obsession with Miyata combined with his negligence of Kumi-chan goes beyond that to the point where I am wondering if Ippo is just straight-up gay and in denial about it. I really do hope that they actually follow through with calling off the rivalry, but I doubt it'll happen, because then Miyata has no reason to exist at all. So we're inevitably going to come back to this. The Ippo vs SCRATCH J, DJ SUPREME fight is the best of these three, but that's really just damning it with faint praise. Jimmy has decided that he is going to abandon whatever his style was against Miyata, in favor of just running at his opponent and throwing giant haymakers all the time. gently caress jabs, who needs jabs? Just throw huge-rear end hooks and hope that your opponent will be so terrified of getting beheaded that they forget how to box. And you know, the basics of this fight, technique and all. could've been a good stepping stone... somewhere around the Rookie King tournament. It's just impossible to take seriously at a stage where Ippo's getting ready to seriously chase the world title. This is the best featherweight boxer in all of Malaysia? Seriously? He's not even boxing! And to compound the problem, Ippo has trouble with this guy (thus making it look like he doesn't really know how to box), only winning because he takes the first step towards implementing the 'perfected' Dempsey Roll, in which he can apparently just throw whatever punch he wants somehow? The paneling for showing this is kind of super awkward, one panel in particular showing Ippo facing a direction that would require him to be facing directly away from Jimmy doing a Matrix-dodge style lean back, but that's just me being picky about something clearly meant for dramatic effect. But part of what I've enjoyed about the series is how many of the special techniques that people pull are actual boxing things, so having Ippo rely on something that I'm pretty sure is complete bullshit is disappointing. We do see the return of taking a punch by making it hit earlier than the other person is expecting to reduce damage, in the form of Ippo eating two haymakers to the shoulders. It is honestly nice to see that brought up again, but doesn't make up for the lack of overall technique. From there, we're headed into the
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Sep 1, 2015 06:46
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ippos fights are actually retarded from the point you're at onward. there is really no fun in any of them, except the most recent which is not terrible i guess. miyata has a single good fight. takamura i think has a few of those rinse and repeat comedy fights where we come in at like the 10th round and hes throwing haymakers. the manga doesn't go anywhere anymore.
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Sep 1, 2015 14:23
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I really didn't like what the author did to Jimmy. I thought if he ever reappeared, he would be a good stepping stone for whoever fought him, like he was for Miyata where his skill was just overwhelming and Miyata was forced to evolve his style a little. Instead he just goes crazy and like you said, doesn't even fight like he's boxing and Ippo apparently struggles with that and his answer is to make the Dempsey Roll work however he wants it to work. It's just silly and a big waste of the character. And yeah, now you're hitting the point where the quality drops like a rock. The series just loses alot of it's direction and focus from here on, so we get to mill around with tons of fights that are basically a waste of time.
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Sep 1, 2015 15:07
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Asuron posted:And yeah, now you're hitting the point where the quality drops like a rock. The series just loses alot of it's direction and focus from here on, so we get to mill around with tons of fights that are basically a waste of time. Oh man, you sure aren't kidding. I've read through Ippo vs. Malcolm Gedo, Miyata vs. Randy Boy Jr., and Mashiba's short fight for the OPBF Lightweight Championship. And... uh. Well. The Gedo fight, much like Gedo himself, pulls a trick on you. The leadup is pretty bleh; mostly dealing with everyone's righteous indignation about a boxer throwing matches for money, and how they need to raise the stakes super high to get a serious fight out of him. I can accept that. But while we're told a lot about how Gedo is super tricky in the ring, the characters never seem to feel the need to track down footage, instead opting for basing the strategy off of vague rumors and mysterious theories about EXTENDABLE ARMS. And then you get to the match, and it's pretty good! Gedo does indeed pull some vision based tricks, playing with Ippo's perception a lot. And you're thinking, hey, this fight isn't so bad... and then it's over, and when you look back on it you realize Ippo barely featured in it. The first trick he ran afoul of was Gedo blocking his sightline with his glove, and then shifting into his blind spot. This is defeated when Ippo starts focusing on his feet... except wait, wasn't Take switching to southpaw predicated on the fact that looking at the feet was Ippo's default method of judging distance? The extendable arms trick is defeated by "JUST GET IN CLOSE DAMMIT FLEX THAT NECK"... which is what he should've been doing anyways, right? The heartbreaker to put the fear in Gedo is kind of neat, except that it's clear that it will be a one-off punch he will never ever use again. And then you look back on the fight again, and you realize that Ippo didn't come up with any of those solutions. The match was not actually Ippo vs. Gedo, it was Gedo vs. All Of Ippos Seconds. Kamogawa gives him the 'focus on feet' advice. Aoki is the one to figure out what Gedo's doing with his gloves. The heartbreaker was Kamogawa's (ludicrously vague) advice. Makunouchi Ippo did not feature in the match at all, except as a tool for everyone else to use. The initial impression of a quality match was all smoke and mirrors. It's just the Take fight but not nearly as good. While the Gedo fight had kind of bleh leadup, but the fight appeared decent at first, the Randy Boy Jr. fight is built up super well. Gedo turned into a scumbag because he lost to this guy so hard. A lot of emphasis is placed on how rough it is to fight someone who can freely switch between Orthodox and Southpaw. Itagaki gets his rear end handed to him. There's the whole destiny angle that gets played up. Miyata has to face two guys at once to train for this. Sendo winds up in town to be Miyata's sparring partner to work on his uppers! There's a lot of excellent hype here! And then you get to the actual match, and it's just kind of a letdown. Miyata owns the opening rounds, because Randy apparently just kind of doesn't really go at him? I mean, he attacks, but he's not even bothering using any of what makes him dangerous. He's following the same script as a random side-fight mook. Eventually he gets his poo poo together, and starts taking over, because Miyata punches like a kitten when he's in SPEED HELL. Then Miyata gets gassed, and has his ribs turned to loving powder. His father watches his son get murdered for a couple of rounds because I OWE IT TO HIM, before Miyata finally somehow pulls off a devastating counter despite his utterly hosed ribcage, and then throws his PERFECT PUNCH when Randy comes at him again, once again completely failing to display any of his vaunted skill. Randy just completely fails to live up to his reputation in the slightest. It's just... bad. The only saving grace is the presence of Sawamura, except he doesn't even really feel like Sawamura anymore, which just makes me miss active boxer Sawamura. Speaking of Sawamura, a bit of a tangent about Itagaki--things just go way too goddamn well for him. I like the whole CRAZY EYES inside the ring bit, but his wins feel too effortless, other characters call him a genius just a little too often, and he gets along with other people too well. I mean, Mashiba being strangely open with him I can accept because of how it started, but when *Sawamura* is giving him any respect whatsoever, my disbelief gets strained. He also pulls off the Jolt Counter and then decides he isn't going to ever use it again, he just did it to show that he TOTALLY CAN YOU GUYS (and again, this makes Miyata look bad). Fuckin' boo. Mashiba's match is the exact same script as his spar with Ippo (granted, that was training for this match) just spread out over more rounds. I'm pretty sure that Jyoji has run out of scripts for Mashiba fights. Well, at least he's OPBF Champ now. From here, it's going to be a bunch of durdling around before Ippo's progressed enough for Mashiba to be allowed to actually challenge the world! And now I'm leading into the Wally fight and... uh. Not exactly filled with confidence. This is going to be my complaints about Itagaki to the nth power, combined with "how the gently caress did Ippo win that was bullshit", isn't it.
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Sep 2, 2015 02:35
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I like Itagaki a lot actually. Whenever he's fighting I get to see Shinoda or whatever his name is, who is more pleasant than Kamogawa, and Itagaki at least behaves how someone with super genius plot armor would behave instead of being a whimpering little weirdo.
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Sep 2, 2015 02:46
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The thing that always gets me is that Miyata is supposed to have a glass jaw that he inherited from his father but you wouldn't know it the way he fights. This has been a problem going all the way back to the first Jimmy fight, Miyata has two kinds of matches, ones where he takes no damage at all or ones where he takes a poo poo ton of damage that should have put a chinny boxer like we're told he is away several times over by the time he stages a miracle comeback.
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Sep 2, 2015 03:42
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I liked the Gonzalez fight a lot aside from when Alfredo decided to stop boxing but at least it ended right.
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Sep 2, 2015 04:48
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It's just another boxer in this series who was brought up from the streets, and harbors a secret bloodlust that their trainer thinks will get solved by the organized violence in the ring.
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Sep 2, 2015 12:17
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The Lord of Hats posted:And then you look back on the fight again, and you realize that Ippo didn't come up with any of those solutions. The match was not actually Ippo vs. Gedo, it was Gedo vs. All Of Ippos Seconds. Kamogawa gives him the 'focus on feet' advice. Aoki is the one to figure out what Gedo's doing with his gloves. The heartbreaker was Kamogawa's (ludicrously vague) advice. Makunouchi Ippo did not feature in the match at all, except as a tool for everyone else to use. The initial impression of a quality match was all smoke and mirrors. This is the difference between Takemura and Ippo in a nutshell.
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Sep 2, 2015 12:24
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Hypocrisy posted:I liked the Gonzalez fight a lot aside from when Alfredo decided to stop boxing but at least it ended right.
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Sep 2, 2015 12:26
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Woli was the jump the shark moment for me. I kinda gave up on the series ever being good again after that. It's a horrendous fight. Miyata's glass cannon status and unexplainable reason for staying in Ippo's weight class despite both of them kinda realizing they'll never fight again gets annoying. It's somewhat interesting from a boxing perspective because you get to see someone other than Takamura suffer badly with weight management, and there's the one good moment in Thailand where the little boy kinda becomes his fan because he sees Miyata starving himself and suffering horribly with it and realizes that he's not some pompous rear end in a top hat tourist...but he's not going to fight Ippo so why is he doing that again?
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Sep 2, 2015 12:39
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And I've reached up to chapter 918, which is the last chapter on Batoto. I've found 927 onwards, but judging by the jacked up right hand, the defense vs. Kojima is probably going to be short enough that I'd mostly miss the fight which... well, I probably wouldn't be missing much, the way things are going, but still. For the sake of completion, you know? In any case, we've had Ippo vs. Woli and Itagaki vs Karasawa. Ippo vs. Woli... oh boy, where do I even start. Ippo vs. Sisphar is bad, but it's short enough that it doesn't make a huge impression. Maybe it's just to show that Ippo is able to tangle with the OPBF champs effectively, taking Jimmy out in 4 rounds. The Gedo match is bad, but at least the badness is only *really* apparent in retrospect. So while I would say Jimmy's fight is where the real quality drop starts, it's only really Woli that makes it clear we're not getting off of Mr. Bones' Wild Ride any time soon. Probably the only good thing I can say about it is that Kamogawa gives Ippo clear advice for a change, instead of delivering it in the vaguest way possible. Reaching this (sort of) endpoint prompted me to look back at some of the fights, and it made me realize a couple of things. Firstly, holy hell did the art decline. It's hard to notice when you're just pressing through, but it definitely looks markedly worse than it used to. The other is that the fights I've really enjoyed--Mashiba, Sanada, Shimabukuro, Sawamura, Take--the fighters did all have a gimmick--the flicker, the Hien, sheer oxygen capacity, counters, infighting positioning--all were very firmly based in the principles of boxing. You could see what made them what they were, understand the logic behind it, and it all impressed upon you just how deep and complex a sport boxing can be. But starting with Jimmy... the fights stopped being about boxing. Jimmy just brawled. Gedo was a single dumb trick. And Woli... Woli isn't even close to boxing. He just pinballs around the ring and punches Ippo a lot. And everyone oohs and aahs about how much of a genius he is. The strategy for beating him--get some body blows in and slow him down!--doesn't show up for multiple rounds, despite being boxing 101. No, Ippo and Kamogawa start by trying to corner Woli (despite being told "He is dangerous in the corner, guys" beforehand), then once that starts failing spend a round or two going OH NO WHAT DO. And despite the win being painted as a matter of actual boxing experience, the difference isn't that Woli makes some dumb rookie mistake, like going for something he really shouldn't, it's just that Woli does not understand what body blows do (then again apparently Ippo doesn't either). Furthermore, we're expected to believe that 11 lovetaps--there's practically a 'paf' sound effect--over the course of two rounds is enough to insidiously wear him down and stop his feet. Ippo doesn't come close to looking good in this match, and you can't be impressed by Woli either, because he isn't boxing god loving dammit. Is the problem that Jyoji just can't think up any more believable tactics for Ippo to face? Are we really just doomed to a bunch of awful fights until things finally end? Itagaki vs. Karasawa has similar problems. I keep going back and forth regarding Itagaki... I disliked his last match, but his hyper-focus crazy eyes, plus his slowly building jealousy of Ippo have me liking him again. But the actual match really suffers from that fact that like Woli, Itagaki starts teleporting around the ring because EXTREME SPEED. A few chapters after the match, we get to hear him explain "nah, I'm not actually going that fast, I'm just really good with my feints when I'm focused like that"... so why couldn't we have seen that in the match? That's way more interesting! Show us the technique that goes into a feint like that! Don't just present a Naruto fight and then explain it after the fight's already left a bad taste in our mouths. But really, the problem is that the manga just isn't about boxing anymore. I mean, broadly speaking it is, but it never tries to teach you anything. We don't even really get to see Ippo doing the kind of focused muscle training that he did before, like how he had to build up his toes and ankles super hard for Sawamura (at least, I think it was Sawamura, that was the Dempsey Stop, right?), or oxygen capacity for Shimabukuro, or anything like that. As much as I complained when I was writing about Ippo's title defenses, I'm realizing in retrospect that those matches were all pretty good. Sure, Ippo himself was boring, but it was fun! But now the boxing is gone and there is just nothing left anymore.
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Sep 3, 2015 03:55
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The Lord of Hats posted:But now the boxing is gone and there is just nothing left anymore. Thread title
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Sep 3, 2015 11:39
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The woli fight is a really really obvious ashita no joe reference that seems to have missed anything good about the time where joe fought a savage caveman and stopped boxing and started biting in the middle of the match
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Sep 3, 2015 12:56
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The Lord of Hats posted:And I've reached up to chapter 918, which is the last chapter on Batoto. I've found 927 onwards, but judging by the jacked up right hand, the defense vs. Kojima is probably going to be short enough that I'd mostly miss the fight which... well, I probably wouldn't be missing much, the way things are going, but still. For the sake of completion, you know? In any case, we've had Ippo vs. Woli and Itagaki vs Karasawa. Yup. Woli is rock bottom for this series. No better way to put it than the way you did. To cheer you up a bit, from here on out it gets better again (slowly). There's an amazing, i'd say top 5 serieswide, match coming up that involves actual boxing, the challenger is an american called Mike. After that without spoiling anything i'll just say that there is actual progress on Ippo's story arc.
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Sep 3, 2015 14:04
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Takamura remains as entertaining as ever, at least.
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Sep 3, 2015 15:07
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| # ? May 14, 2024 06:40 |
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The Lord of Hats posted:Firstly, holy hell did the art decline. It's hard to notice when you're just pressing through, but it definitely looks markedly worse than it used to.
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Sep 3, 2015 18:29
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