‘Hajime No Ippo’ is just a Manga About Boxing but I’m Over Here Crying My Guts Out

“You should check out this boxing manga,” he said. “You’ll love the action and story,” he said. Seven years later, chapter 1202 of Hajime No Ippo has me staring up into at the rain like Vegeta. Remember when Diddy shouted, “What I’m supposed to do now? Huh? What I’m supposed to do now? It’s all fucked up now.” That’s how much of a wreck this chapter and series has left me. And I hate that I love that. This is all Ayinde Russell’s fault. In 2010, he told me to check out Hajime No Ippo created by Morikawa Jouji in 1989. I’ve been hooked ever since. I started the series when it was about 800 chapters deep. I read it every day and everywhere I went for months. It’s safe to say, all my shares of emotion are invested into this series.

I’m nervous even writing this because I’m so passionate about the series and I want to do it justice. Hajime No Ippo is an incredibly beautiful story about a kid that falls in love with boxing… but it’s also the most devastating literature I’ve ever kept up with. If you know the series you know what I mean. If you don’t, then in order to understand the heartbreak you need to get familiar with where it all started for Makunouchi Ippo. “Get used to me, far from what I used to be”

In Japan’s late 1980’s era, we meet Makunouchi Ippo. The most polite, modest, and good-natured kid. Period. It’s impossible for you not to love this kid. He doesn’t have time to make friends as he helps with his mother’s fishing business. His father died at sea saving a cre…