sushi-scan
The press then asked for a comment, which
Ippo told them that he would do what he was trained to do and work hard.
Kojima mocked Ippo's comment and then claimed that the weakness he knows Ippo has is the fault of his trainer, Kamogawa. The provocations made Ippo visibly angry. As Ippo walked away, Kojima claimed that arcade games measure his punching power as two tons. When the press asked for Ippo's score, Ippo replied for them to ask Kojima after their match. Ippo defeating Kojima with one punch. The next day, Ippo went to the Ryōgoku Kokugikan for his match against Kojima. In the waiting room with Takamura, Takamura asked Ippo if he was
going to be fine in the match, to which Ippo answered that it won't take long. Ippo then entered the ring and the match began. Ippo took a wider stance than usual and, after about a minute of neither boxer moving, Ippo dashed toward Kojima. In range, Ippo began to throw a left hook, however, he was hit with a counter.
There is legitimate thematic weight to not only Kurose but the abundance of supporting characters, each with their own unique pain and reasons to their own problems.
However, sadly this Manga seems to suffer from it's affiliation with Young Jump and thusly it's purpose as a Seinen. Now, my speculation here is not to be taken for verbatim. However, there is little else that could explain the bizarre sexualization and characterization inside the series.
Minenami Ryou has dabbled in ecchi in the past but to place nudity within Shounen no Abyss to the point where it dabbles on the line of ecchi/fan-service is a bizarre choice to say the least. Now, sex and romance (or lack thereof) is most certainly apart of Coming of Age and a massive causation of depression worldwide and of course most importantly, within Japan. Though, in no good mind can I find the reason for the female characters to be one minute rendering their
soul apart in double page spreads of pure outbursts of sorrow, anguish and rage to the next issue be throwing themselves on our main character as if he was lathered in aphrodisiac. In order to justify these rapid moodswings and sudden appearances of intense thirst, Minenami Ryou has to apply rather tired character archetypes in order to placate the Young Jump crowd and editorial staff. Particuarly of note is the disillussionment of the teacher character, one that as previously noted, has a legitimate reason to be involved with Reiji Kurose and has a genuine feeling of sadness about them but is then degraded to having a far too familiar trope seemingly forced onto them in order to remain prominent in the series and satisfy some weird neccessity that far too much Seinen seems determined to have.
As for the other aspects of the manga, the art retains the familiarlity of the rest of Minenami Ryou's work, not exceptional but acceptable, except for some occurrences where there are mild flexes that show impressive talent. It can also be said that the character designs are unique to the point of everyone being instantly identifiable whilst still maintaining utter believability.
I honestly couldn't find much depth or intrigue in this anime at all. It's just not interesting to me whatsoever and feels like a ginormous waste of time. And the whole revenge plot surrounding Thorfinn and Askeladd had
about as much substance as the awful revenge plot featured in Masamune-Kun's Revenge. Which is to say that there's practically zero substance, as it never feels like Thofinn makes any progress whatsoever at getting back at Askeladd. Now this would be fine if the anime took the route of trying to develop their bond and bring them closer over the years, but it doesn't feel like that either. That is of
course until the anime force feeds us that angle at the end in a last ditch attempt to derive some emotional impact. sorry, it didn't work. The whole show is just Thorfinn being perpetually angry at Askeladd and Askeladd being sort of indifferent to Thorfinn, which was quite disappointing for me. It made the whole anime feel sort of pointless.
