Reviews for Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! (7.55) 12503i

Hajime no Ippo doesn't have the humor of Prince of Tennis, the sheer hair-raising intensity of Initial D, or the fine polish of Hikaru no Go, but quite possibly, it may be the best of all of them. If you at all like the sports anime genre, you owe it to yourself to watch Hajime no Ippo. Even if you don't like the sports anime genre, you don't get such an absurdly high rating on without genre-spanning appeal, so dammit, go watch it anyway.

Animation
A note about the animation, despite what other reviews have said, it's not dated and its certainly not shoddy, it's absolutely brilliant and fits both boxing and the sports anime genre like a glove. The animation in Ippo is well thought up and detailed, and is actually one of the strong points...but probably other reviewers were talking about the aesthetic appeal of the characters' faces. Not as bad as Initial D, but certainly not attractive.

Sound
I couldn't get over the music, which was not only appalling musically, but overly macho and used entirely too much bad English...but all that is par for the course for sports anime. Worse, that's just the vocals. Though I had somehow blocked it out, after listening to the OST, the BGM is far, far worse. The worst part is that some of the songs actually grow on you like bacteria on putrid, infected masses of decayed tissue, particularly the third intro Tumbling Dice, and the 1st ending Yuuzora no Kamihikouki.

The sound effects on the otherhand, are downright amazing. Yea, you know the Dempsey Roll soundeffect is pure cheese...but you love it anyway:) And the sound of ribs cracking...pure bliss.

Character
The main characters are actually kind of lacking on any kind of emotional level beyond that of the Fight, and on their strength alone, this anime would have received a far lower character rating, but like all good sports anime, the opponents receive a great deal of attention and are interesting by themselves.

Ippo's gymmates are real gems of character though, and provide the vast majority of the comic relief. Well, actually...the comic relief is probably the reason they lack emotionally outside of boxing:)

Extras
One more thing, I highly recommend the Playstation 2 game based on this series, which is titled in the US "Victorious Boxers" or something of the sort. Technically brilliant, it's also the most fun boxing game since Mike Tyson's Punchout. A real sleeper hit, and even more enjoyable if you've seen the series(I recommend you watch before playing, since I got considerably spoiled by doing it the other way around.)