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Hajime no Ippo

The hair gives him weird villain vibes, which is kind of necessary when you're dealing with Mashiba. I think Mashiba's losing this one.
 

BLUE BALLED.

But he needs to get over this. I don't particularly like Kumi anyway. She's sweet but she tries to control him. Until she stops that and tells her brother off she's not right for him. Both Mari and Nanako would be better for him.

Of course in the real world Kumi would have long lost patience anyway.
 
I feel like this chapter sort of vindicated how I felt about Ippo x Kumi for all of this time. They actually had a solid romantic progression for a while, but that beach night is where it went to a complete standstill and that was a long fucking time ago already.
 
I'm getting tired of the endless runaround with Ippo and Kumi and both of them just being comfortable with letting her brother insert himself into whatever it is they have going on.

Morikawa either needs to shit or get off the pot. Neither one of them feel like they've developed at all from the time this manga began. Ippo's still an awkward goof. Kumi's still that weird girl who should've lost patience with him by now but hasn't because plot.
 

Ooooh finally something good. A sparring rematch between Takamura and Sendo, the two best characters in the series.

Sendo should've been the main character. Not geeky pussy Ippo. Be like Sendo.
 
Finally got around to reading Ricardo vs Woli. Didn't think I'd like it since Woli is over-the-top even for HnI, but it ended up being one of my favourite fights of the series. Woli sacrificing himself to get Sendo some intel, and Ricardo's evil smile at the end were amazing.

And somehow it was still only mid-diff at most, Ricardo really is on another level.
 

Sendo pulled off what Aoki and Kimura could never do. Landing a punch on Takamura’s face in a spar

Miyata not being all mopey is a nice change of pace. Can’t wait to see the completed version of this Feint Smash Combo after Sendo refines it with spars against Miyata.
 
Sadly, Sendo is gonna have to job to Ricardo so the focus can go back to geek Ippo.
I would love to see the shock it would cause in the Ippo fanbase if against all odds Sendo actually pulls it out

Or even a draw since that would be a nice parallel to the real life rivalry between Finito Lopez and Rosendo Alvarez
 

Mashiba is so losing.

But I'm getting annoyed that it seems every major character in this story now is more interesting than Ippo. Sendo, Miyata, Mashiba, all would have made more interesting mains than Ippo at this point. His development since part 1 on his road to the Japanese title has been disappointing.
 
I think this is like the first chapter where I've seen Morikawa actually copy and paste shit, but in this context it's fine since it's so nice to see a proper Ippo training chapter after so long.
 


For Ippo this is throwing some pretty heavy shade

Then they even say how they heard the rumors about Ippo fucking up Volg's ribs in training.