Let me stop here: as of the year 2021, after 32 years of manga and titles acquired/defended, this fated bout has yet to occur as that would effectively mark the series finale. As he trains to Be Like Mike (Tyson), the in-fighting Ippo befriends a fated rival, out-boxer Ichiro Miyata, for whom he promises to one day face once they’ve both become accomplished professionals. An encounter with a professional boxer, the boisterous Mamoru Takamura, inspires Ippo to take his first step along the champion road. The diminutive and unassertive Ippo Makunouchi is picked on in school despite his years of helping his widowed mother operate a fishing boat granting him power and a sturdy build. Now, years later, Discotek Media is remedying the accessibility issue, as Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! is now streaming on Crunchyroll and also available on Blu-Ray over three sets each containing over 20 episodes. such that when the third series, Hajime no Ippo: Rising, was simulcast on Crunchyroll, few tuned in because there was no way to easily see the beginning or middle. The second series, Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger, was never officially released in the U.S. The now-defunct Geneon Entertainment released the first season under the name Fighting Spirit! and did their best to appeal to sports fans rather than anime fans, to no avail. In the 21 years since, Ippo has held onto a fervent yet small American fanbase, and the stymied growth is due entirely to the fractured release it’s had in North America.

It took Jyoji “George” Morikawa roughly a decade before he would agree to permit his signature boxing manga series, Hajime no Ippo (“The First Step” or maybe “Ippo’s Beginning”) to be adapted into anime, only acquiescing once he found out that producer Masao Maruyama and animation studio Madhouse were responsible for the definitive boxing anime of his childhood: Tomorrow’s Joe, whose legacy lives on through the commemorative series Megalobox. The definitive boxing anime of the 2000s is back, and perhaps for the first time it’s getting a fair shot at success in the US.

Hajime no ippo manga stream