I have never seen a manga author write 1200 chapters only to do stuff like this to his title character. I just pretend that the manga ended after Ippo beat Karasawa and that everything afterwards is some meth induced nightmare.
The "manga that never ends" has Miyata whining about how he's the only one who never fought pro Ippo.
Nobody cares. Get over it, no one really wanted to see that match anyways.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
He was on his way to following in Rikishi's footsteps.
That's Joe's first rival in Ashita No Joe, who dropped three weight classes to settle the score at Bantamweight (Beneath Featherweight, which itself required insane weight management.). He was eating a single tomatoe a day, locking himself in a room to keep drinking water, and reduced himself to a skeleton.
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: He won the feud. Then he died.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
If you think Ippo is tragic, you should read Ashita No Joe. That thing's just hard to follow.
It's great, but it has that 1970's fatalism. It's kind of like Grave of the Fireflies for sport manga.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Remember that killer who fought a guy two weight classes above him?
I never got that. I thought weight limits were set in stone, yet a lightweight was fighting for the bantamweight title.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
The Vorg vs Mike Elliot is so good. It's like an entire side series condensed into a few chapters.
The way Elliot lost is somewhat ironic, as they established he lost the Olympic Gold to a brawler, and preferred Vorg's cerebral style.... and it was Vorg in feral mode who managed to overcome him.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
I used to consider this a "everyone gets what they want" match. Mashiba kicks his ass, he gets the title, the crowd gets a bloodbath.
And I still think it kind of is, but I'm pretty sure Mashiba wouldn't be happy if he knew how Sawamura felt about the "beating". The thing is, he's a true sociopath... Mashiba, he pretends to be stone cold, but he cares way too much about things like looking bad, losing a match, or losing a fight.
Sawamura, he loses or gets hospitalized, and he doesn't think twice about it. He won't be kept up nights thinking "Dammit, Ippo beat me!" He simply does.not.care.
So in that sense, Mashiba lost everything. His title, his ranking, and his beat down was wasted on a guy who won't "learn his lesson".
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Actually Mashiba did not give two flying ducks about how Sawamura felt, he just wanted to feel justified on getting blood-lusted and use that Edge to get sharper with his boxing. Technically he got what he wanted but it was a pretty stupid thing to look for.
Stupid, but hilarious. You could see where the "Heel/Face" turn tease was going a mile away.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
"Word of god" says Takamura is more skilled then Ricardo.
Logic says Takamura has struggled, while Martinez has not. If Date is his strongest opponent ever, then he hasn't struggled once in his entire career.
Yeah, there's weight management, and Takamura clowns around more then Martinez, but still.. David Eagle. You can't blame that all on weight problems.
Ricardo has no David Eagle.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
He has experience against Mexican fighters, and he has the advantage of seeing his fight with Ippo. He's smarter then Ippo, hits harder, but is just as tough (As we saw with Vorg, tanking the white fang)
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Takamura is a 200+ pound man starving himself to fight 155 pound guys.
Ricardo, from what we can tell, is naturally a featherweight.
It isn't really comparable.
And technically, word of God is that Takamura is the best boxer pound for pound in the series, not necessarily that he has the most technical skill. In terms of mastery of the finer points of boxing no one is on Eagle's level.
Narratively, guys like Rikishi are said to lose a lot of stamina/strength/whatever, but they're still dominant over their competition/rival.
Can you see Ricardo near starving himself to drop to Joe's bantamweight division (The same as Featherweight Rikishi) and having any trouble at all with end of series Joe?
I mean, once Takamura gets to middleweight class, will he struggle?
If he got to fight in heavyweight, his natural class, in some other country, will he struggle?
So far, Ricardo's really the only boxer who's near literally sleepwalked through his career.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
I'm not so sure.. Looking at how much Sendou pushed Vorg (The ref may have been biased, but Sendou certainly had a good performance), and comparing it to how Date destroyed a Miyata who claimed he was in his best health, without suffering from weight management..
I think Date > Vorg, personally.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
I'd also rate Date at his peak well above Vorg at any time prior to his American challenge. Technically speaken Vorg was unprepared to fight Elliot and had a terrible start at his title fight but caught up greatly, we can only really guess how good he'll be at the top of his game. Elliot is no Martinez though.
Thinking about it, why would Vorg handicap himself in Japan, if losing meant possibly ending his career?
He was DESPERATE to beat Sendou, yet Mori expects us to believe he could have coasted to wins with out boxing decisions?
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
KMC Community Forums
Jul 14th, 2018 07:13 PM
