french officer anime girl
And don't even get me started on all the Ed/Rose shipping going on. Ugh.
I could go on all day about each of the characters, but I'll just end here so I don't end up with a really
long review.
tl;dr A lot of the lack of characterization can be given some slack as the manga wasn't far along enough to truly
establish the characters, but they could have at least written some development into the show.
That ties into the sloppy story. If the events had been better written, development could have actually taken place.
Also backstories were completely thrown out the window for a lot of characters that deserved their interesting pasts and ideologies explained. The only backstory that was explained in depth was the Elric brothers', and they conveniently took a painfully slow, nine-episode-long flashback to do so. I did like how they gave Nina's story ample time, but she didn't really provide any material as far as character development later on. Also, they didn't need to (try to) bring her back. They really didn't.
When he saw Taihei and Kintarō try to get ice from another trainer,
Ippo made them stop and apologise, recognising the trainer as Oguchi, and his boxer, Daisuke Watanabe from the Nabe gym. After Ippo apologised to Daisuke, the latter wonders how Ippo knows him, which Ippo answered that it is because he is in the same weight class as he used to be, telling him what he knows about him. When Daisuke left for his match, Ippo, Taihei, and Kintarō watched and cheered for Daisuke as he won his match by knockout. Ippo remembered when he used to be in the ring and did the best he could. He pondered that he has no regrets, but if there was one, it
would be that he couldn't fulfil his promise to Miyata. Walking away from the audience area, Ippo came across Miyata. As Miyata mentioned how he came to the venue to simply watch his former gym mate, Takamura fight, he began to tell Ippo about Dragon's dominant arm seemingly being his left, however, Ippo interrupted him, revealing that he also noticed it while watching Dragon play mahjong. Ippo ran off to Takamura's dressing room, regretting how awkward he is around Miyata still. Ippo helped Taihei and Kintarō build Takamura's ring entrance costume made by Wataru in time for Takamura to wear it. Ippo with Takamura, who has won his new WBC super middleweight belt. As Takamura's match against Dragon was about to begin, Takamura arrived to the ring with his costume designed by Wataru.
Then Baki turns the force of the
impact against him and destroys his knee joint, winning a duel. After the battle, Yuujirou enters the arena. It turned out he watched the whole match. When he sees his father, Baki goes crazy and attacks him. But once again, he's easily knocked out by him. Then, unexpectedly, Doppo enters and Tokugawa organizes a fight between them. Baki meets with Doppo and tries to persuade him to give up the fight. He says Doppo will die in this battle. Then the karate grandmaster decides to invite him to a "special day" of Shinshinkai, in which various karate fighters have the right to come and beat him in battle. Baki is impressed by Doppo's skills but still doubts about his chances of winning against Yuujirou. At some point, he decides to attack him himself, but after a while, the young fighter is completely pushed against the wall by Doppo.
