I went on a mega-binge in the past couple of days and caught up in time at all, even though I’d dropped the Hajime no Ippo manga yeeaaars ago. I dropped it when Miyata was about to fight Randy Boy, so I had a lot of catching up to do. Actually I went all the way back to Sendo-Ippo II (Lalapalooza) because that’s really the best fight in the series, and then I continued from there. I skipped some of the more boring fights along the way, like… pretty much anything didn’t feature Ippo. Definitely skipped anything featuring Miyata except the very final page of his fight with Randy Boy. It’s about time he moved up two or three classes already.
But enough about that and more about the latest chapter, 1099 (raw spoilers follow from here on). The first round of the unification match between Bison and Takamura is over and Bison has a point lead. Since he’s a Thomas Hearns copy, Bison has a flicker jab that is giving Takamura a hard time.
Flicker jabs are portrayed as being dangerous and tricky to deal with every time they show up, but… why doesn’t Takamura have a strategy to deal with it? Why is the Coach asking him when it’s the coach’s job to come up with strategies like this? Why hasn’t this whole matter been discussed in advance?
I mean, I could buy the “I didn’t know he could do that!” excuse for foreign opponents like Woli, though even then in this day of Youtube and the internet it’s hard to believe there’s no video footage or Google Translateable newspaper article about them at all. But Richard Bison is a World Champion. From the USA, no less. There are bound to be hundreds of videos of his matches available if Team Kamogawa cares to find out, but they don’t. That’s just DUMB.
Then the two of them bicker about Taka not having a sparring partners on Bison’s level. Taka, with all due respect this is your fault for refusing to go to America. In fact Kamogawa should have sent him there to Dankichi along with Volg, that way Taka could have moved to up the heavyweights faster. Lots of selfishness, stupidity and clinging to each other from both men. I know I’m alone among Ippo fans for thinking this, but I think Kamogawa is a really bad coach, Anyway, none of them have any ideas. Bison’s busy steaming about Takamura stealing a treasure he wanted, most likely the other belt, so he won’t be much help either.
Chapter ends with the start of the second round. This might be a long match, maybe 10-12 rounds, so even if Morikawa writes one round per chapter we still won’t get anywhere for the next 3-4 months. Looks like it’s time for another lengthy hiatus from Hajime no Ippo. I’ll check back in once Ippo’s next match ends, whenever that is.
