Hajime no Ippo manga discussion: Ippo vs. Woli (SPOILERS)

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Oh Laura!

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Perhaps it's a bit improper for me to make this topic solely to discuss this horrible, horrible, fight, but whatever. If this becomes popular, I'm sure it can be continued to be used as the general manga topic.

Let me explain what makes this fight so bad:

Ippo is the Japan boxing champion in his weight class. Despite this, in most of his fights he's treated as the underdog and wins through an ass pull, and people really wanted a fight where Ippo just wrecks his opponent, showing why he's the champion. Along comes Woli, and at the start of the fight, Ippo indeed wrecks his ****. The fans are pleased. Then, Woli turns the fight around and starts beating the crap out of Ippo, and from then on, Ippo is completely unable to land a hit, and this has been going on for several chapters now. Fans are angry. To add to this, everyone watching is constantly commenting about how Woli is a fighting genius, despite being only 17 (while Ippo is in his twenties now), and it's revealed that he learned how to fight solely by playing with monkeys and has no formal training (and he has only fought in three official matches before this fight), and Woli himself has a constant smug look on his face.

Though really, you can only truly grasp the horribleness of this fight if you just read it yourself. At least, read the latest chapter with what I said above in mind.

... Truth be told, I mainly made this topic for these pictures.

First of all, the original
One
Two (Death Note spoilers)
Three (first one that I'd call brilliant)
Four (Naruto spoilers)
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine (Naruto spoilers)
Ten (my favorite, if only for the unexpected reference)

All taken from a GameFAQs thread.
 
I love Ippo to death (it's the reason I got into fighting), but yeah, this fight sucks. After the genius that was Miyata vs. Randy Boy Jr, Ippo is basically turned into the Naruto of his manga. Sure his name's in the title. He still seems to be winning by pure luck instead of skill.

I wouldn't be totally surprised if this fight ended with a Woli knockout. I make jokes about how inhumanely long Ippo is, but the guy we've been seeing would be absolutely crushed by Ricardo. (who is best described as Julio Ceasar Chaves meets Sosuke Aizen)
 
Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that Ippo will somehow win, but it really seems like the manga-ka is trying to make everyone angry, especially with the latest chapter spoilers:

The round enRAB with Ippo just barely tapping Woli, and Ippo's face is incredibly messed up when he goes back to the bench. However, he's smiling because he actually managed to touch Woli, and he thinks to himself that he'll just slowly move up from there.

It's just sad to see a world-ranked fighter, and the main character nonetheless, act like that when fighting a newcomer.
 
All 3 of Ippo's fights with the other national champions have been bad. Scratch J was probably the best one, but Gedo and now Woli...
 
At least Scratch J made sense because he was a returning character, one who was hyped early in his career. Gedo's inane trick (Protip, a boxing glove with nothing solid in it is about 8-12 oz of padding, a sharp slap if you will) was a way of hyping the Randy Boy fight. Worse than that is still Woli though.

Wasn't this addressed a while back? Ippo was looking so pathetic that everyone wanted a crack at him, but he was able to completely annihilate one opponent to get his cred back. Since then though, he's looked even weaker if possible.
 
I must say, up until the point that Miyata hit Randy with that lightning fist and Randy was literraly "blinded by teh light (of the lightning)", I thought that fight was okay, but dam, after that punch things have gotten ridiculous.

This series totally jumped the shark with Woli, the author must be in serious need of ideas if he had to bring out freaking Tarzan to kick Ippo's, the Guy just isn't human, makes me afraid of the kind of bs he has in store for Martinez, if Ippo even gets there (the Guy is still getting pwned by guys who don't even know how to box... Woli).
 
To put things in perspective for those of you new to Ippo...

You know how people complain about One Piece being long? Ippo is approaching 900 chapters with no end in sight. The last time Ippo fought the hyped final opponent in a public spar, he was brutalized with nothing but a jab. Do you know how big the skill difference is to be able to do that? It'd be like entering a basketball tournament and LeBron's playing.

At this point, he's running out of ideas. Ippo is coming off as Naruto if he was a pro boxer. Which makes Miyata Sasuke. Lord knows it's only a matter of time before we get a ninja boxer.
 
It sounRAB worse to me...Naruto's actually taken down an overwhelmingly powerful opponent (with some spiritual / inner monologue guidance, true) and has fought some battles that were at least decent, whereas from what I'm hearing Ippo's almost always on the edge of losing. Sorry to hear how it's going, I hope it turns around eventually. The idea of this opponent kicking butt thanks to watching monkeys is rather hard to swallow, I must say. I mean, really? I guess drunken boxing was off-limits for the comic or something.
 
Well, he basically grew up playing with monkeys since he was young (like Tarzan) and has monkey like agility. When we first saw him he was in a video where he was literally swinging from trees (like a monkey).
 
Because that makes so much more sense.

This isn't Ring ni Kakero where boxing is treated as a setting for Saint Seiya esque battles. This is a manga that prided itself on realism and attention to detail. To go this route is as close as we've gotten to the dethroning moment of suck since the Hajime no Emo chapters. The only good thing that's come out of this was a hilarious nature PSA chapter from Aoki and Kimura.

Edit- You know what would be an awesome precedent? Sendo vs. the one Japanese southpaw. The guy was being a jerk and winning through tricks, but then Sendo turned it on and gave the guy such a beatdown that he was terrified of ever fighting again. I would love nothing more than for Woli to be beaten into retirement.
 
New chapter's out and predictably, Ippo's putting up all the offense of a four year old girl.

God this fight is annoying! And of course, there's no new chapter next week either.

This is supposed to be the guy that won the JBA national title? Are we really supposed to believe that the Japanese boxing system, the same one that put out the Kaneda brothers, is really that pathetic?
 
This is what happens when you draw a story out for too long. 900 chapters? Hajime no Ippo is going to be twenty-years old this month, and it's covered a only a fraction of it's main character's development arc.

Morikawa should realize he's not going to live forever. A lot of these shonen manga writers should realize that as well. The only one who seems to be able to see the big picture and drive his story in the right direction is Oda, but even he's not perfect in this regard. Toriyama is still the king of focused plot as far as I'm concerned. Too bad no one else seemed to learn that critical lesson from him.

I'm being honest here. It's this excessive padding that has undercut so many great mangas over the past decade. Sometimes less is more, and a completed story is better than one that peters out halfway through.
 
New chapter's out and well, I lament the decline of this manga, chapter by chapter.

Ippo, battered and bruised, promises his corner that he's going to hit Woli 5 times? Seriously?

Meanwhile, Woli goes to his corner, pretty much saying he could finish Ippo off at any time and since Ippo's putting up all the defense of a two year old, this is the round where he'll knock him out.

Ippo realizes everyone's making fun of him, but concedes that Woli is a genius and he loves what he does.

And just as the round starts, Woli jumps off the TOP ROPE towarRAB Ippo, ready to end the fight.

This guy is making Naruto look like Gatsu.
 
Yeah, woli should just join the WWE if hes going to be jumping of the top ropes and stuff, hed fit in just fine over there, this is simply a mockery of boxing right here.
 
On the bright side, it might be nice if that five hit promise translates into Woli being defeated with that many blows or less.

Of course, I'm totally observing from the outside in and lacking context besides what is in this thread, so I could be out to lunch. But hey, something's gotta give eventually.
 
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