What they Say:
“The Dempsey Roll Destroyed” – With his title on the line, Ippo goes toe-to-toe with Shimabukuro. The battle is so intense Ippo doesn’t even have room to breathe, to the point he starts turning blue! With Ippo struggling at the “bottom of the ocean,” has Shimabukuro met his goal of destroying the Dempsey Roll?!
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers).
Ippo’s strength as an in-fighter is severely tested as Shimabukuro’s hard-packed bulkiness and incredible stamina begin to wear him down. After the bell is rung for the end of the fifth round, Ippo is left battered, bruised, and out of breath, still desperately clinging to the hope that he’ll be able to unleash his game-changing Dempsey Roll in time to turn the tides of the match. In the sixth round, Ippo receives the chance he’s been waiting for, as he forces himself out of a brutal one-sided pummeling and begins to weave in the familiar “figure 8” pattern of the Dempsey roll. It seems as if he’s made his way out of the ocean depths, until Shimabukuro’s untouchable brute force puts a stop to Ippo’s comeback.
Both fighters enter the next round showing major wear-and-tear, and Ippo’s normally devastating punches become weak and ineffective. He begins to fall back on his rote technical know-how just to keep himself on his feet, and somehow the technical perfection of his form gives Shimabukuro pause – he realizes too late that this isn’t the “deep sea” battle he had assumed, but a true fight in the ring with someone who’s a boxer through-and-through.
As quickly as the match seemed to begin in the previous episode, it’s put to rest in this one. However, despite the short time frame and the relatively quick (at least for this show) conclusion, this episode ramps up the tension a bit. There was never really a major question as to whether Ippo was going to come out ahead – unlike Ippo’s fight with Date Eiji during one of the earlier seasons of the show (which served as the obligatory “shounen sports anime main character loss” that always serves as a life lesson for the protagonist), there was never really any narrative reason for Ippo to lose the match. Like many similar series, though, the pleasure of watching comes not from seeing whether-or-not the main character will win, but rather in how he’ll pull it off.
This, like a lot of sports series, puts a strong emphasis on the main character’s “fighting spirit” (see what I did there?) as reason enough for his deserving victory; often enough in the past his sheer resolve has rescued Ippo from the brink of defeat. In this case, though, it’s another factor that gives Ippo the edge, and to those of us who are long-time viewers it’s not that much of a surprise – the trained technical proficiency demonstrated in Ippo’s form gives a certain “power” to his weakened punches, enough to throw Shimabukuro off-balance mentally and emotionally. Though I think it’s a bit of a disservice to viewers who haven’t seen previous seasons of the show to only have this one streaming at their disposal (hopefully Crunchyroll might be able to backfill the other episodes at some point), demonstrating Ippo’s mettle in this manner does paint a fuller picture of the time and work he’s put into his training, even if the specifics aren’t completely obvious.
Likewise, there’s maybe a bit of callback “fanservice” to the fact that Shimabukuro manages to utilize another of Ippo’s more frequent techniques – the Gazelle Punch – and yet its execution isn’t the game-changer that it has been for Ippo previously. Like all of Ippo’s specialty techniques, the Gazelle Punch was the result of both a great deal of training, as well as some natural talent, adaptability and intuition. In this case, it just goes to show that even two individuals that appear to be very similar on the outside can use the same tools and strategies in entirely different ways. It demonstrates to us, the viewers, that a sport many people believe believe to be comprised of unfocused brawling is actually full of very strategic, individualized skill.
As an aside, I hadn’t realized prior to my husband mentioning it that the VA for Genji Kamogawa (Ippo’s coach), Utsumi Kenji, passed away sometime earlier this year, to be replaced by Iizuka Shozo. I have to say that, as someone who isn’t entirely focused on anime VAs I found the transition relatively seamless, but thought it warranted some mentioning to viewers who have either a keener ear or a greater attachment to the men and women who bring to life the characters who populate the anime they enjoy.
In Summary:
While I’m still not entirely thrilled with the pacing so far this season, the resolution of this first match felt much more as if it captured the spirit of what makes Hajime no Ippo one of the better long-running sports anime out there. While the actual outcome was predictable as usual (I mean… it’s not as if the protagonist would lose such an inconsequential match, right?), the way in which the match resolved itself managed to retain some element of surprise and there was a decent amount of tension maintained because of that. I hope that the following few episodes will either focus on some of the other gym members or give our characters a chance to take a breath and have a little fun, but on the whole a lot of my initial misgivings have begun to dissipate.
Episode Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: Acer P235H 1080p LCD Monitor connected via DVI input, Logitech S220 2.1 Speakers, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
