Hajime no Ippo New Challenger Ep 13

Screens:

 

 

Summary:

  Ippo has recovered from his wounds from his last fight when he hears Wanpo whimpering outside. It turns out that Takamura is taking Wanpo with him, Kimura, and Itagaki on their training camp at the beach. Ippo wants to go along to as he lost his chance the last time, but Takamura reminds him that he’s still suppose to be recovering from his last fight. As Takamura, Kimura, and Itagaki leave with Wanpo, Aoki pulls up to Ippo’s house in a van with Tomiko. They invite Ippo to come with them to the beach, and Ippo declines at first but changes his mind when Kumi comes out of the van. At the beach Takamura is running through the crowd with Kimura and Itagaki following him; Itagaki comments that Takamura seems fired-up, but Kimura replies it’s because Takamura’s Title match was postponed so he’s letting out a little frustration. While running a stray beach ball hits Takamura; it turns out that it belongs to Ippo who proceeds to pretend he’s someone else and then runs away with Takamura and co. in pursuit. Following Ippo leads them to Aoki which leads Takamura to strangle both Aoki and Ippo; questioning why they’re at the beach with girls in a frustrated/jealous tone. Wanpo jumps up on Takamura in Ippo’s defense, to which Takamura threatens him reminding the dog that he’s defeated a bear before; before things escalate Hachi shows up with Nekota following. Apparently Nekota heard the coach was at the training camp so he came to check it out. Takamura calms down and leaves with Aoki and Itagaki following him; though Aoki feels bad since it was a coincidence they met at the beach, but Nekota reminds them that they both had tough fights so they should have some fun. While they’re in the water, Aoki informs Ippo that there’s two rooms arranged for them; of course Tomiko and Aoki will be in one and Ippo and Kumi will be in the other and Aoki tells him to be a man. 

 

  That night back in their room Ippo asks Kumi if she knew about this arrangement, to which Kumi replies that she assumed she would be staying with Tomiko. The two continue to awkwardly converse with each other before the walk out onto the beach. Kumi grabs Ippo’s arm, scared because she saw something in the ocean; Ippo replies that’s he’s heard something about this before: apparently when you see a round light, you’re not suppose to go near the shore because you will be dragged down to the bottom of the ocean before you realize what’s going on by numerous, mysterious white hands. This scares Kumi and causes her to cling to Ippo tighter. Fireworks light up in the sky and unbeknownst to Ippo, Takamura, Kimura, and Itagaki are crawling on the beach to prey on unsuspecting couples (well Takamura is anyways). Takamura catches a couple being intimate with each other and proceeds to interfere with the couple by fondling the woman’s breasts; fireworks go off and the light reveals that the couple is Tomiko and Aoki.  Ippo and Kumi, who also happen to be present, are shocked to see everyone gathered there as well as the scene of Takamura groping Tomiko with Aoki with his pants down. Aoki is understandably furious with Takamura for what he’s done, and Takamura is upset over the fact it was Tomiko he was groping; the incident ends with everyone running away from the scene. After running away, Takamura finds himself in the water unable to move because his foot is entangled on something; when he manages to lift his leg out, he sees a pair of hands holding onto his leg and panics.  Takamura calls for help, and even asks Wanpo to come help him; but Wanpo runs away and those hands have wrapped themselves around Takamura’s neck and drag him down into the water. As Takamura is sinking, he thinks about how his Title match was so close; which gives him enough motivation to get back to the surface and Takamura proceeds to punch downward in hopes of hitting whatever was pulling him down.

 

  Kimura and Itagaki show up and find a beat up Nekota on the shore. When asked what happened, Nekota replies that he played a bad joke and got a horrible reaction in turn; Takamura though is still running around the shoreline screaming about a ghost. Back in their room, Ippo and Kumi are alone together and Kumi mentions how when Ippo used to visit her at the bakery and when he was transferred to her section in the hospital she was happy. Ippo considers confessing his feelings to Kumi, but when he tries he gets too scared to try; even when he compares his experience of fighting Date and Sendo with the prospects of getting rejected, Ippo declares that the fright levels are far too different and tries to imagine what to do in this situation when he’s in trouble. The first thing he thinks of is jabbing and decides to go with a jab-esque conversation. Ippo talks about when he first met Kumi at Miyata’s match and all the other moments he met her and slowly gets the courage to confess to her. Unfortunately Kumi is passed out and asleep on the bed; though Ippo is satisfied he was at least able to say his feelings. The next day Aoki comments to Ippo that the atmosphere around him has changed and asks him if he got intimate with Kumi. Ippo denies this, but Aoki tells him that he owes him for giving him this chance, and asks Ippo to return the favor to him by getting back at Takamura for groping Tomiko. 

 

  Ippo and Aoki go looking for a sea roach near the fishing docks for a prank; since Takamura is too strong for Aoki to face head-on, and his instincts are too good for Aoki to even ambush him. The sea roach goes into an okonomiyaki that Aoki has prepared from a beach store; Ippo questions if a crab wouldn’t have been better, but Aoki believes a crab might actually taste good. As the go to the gym Takamura is at, they witness a spar between Itagaki and Kimura and note that Itagaki is able to keep up with Kimura’s speed. While Takamura is on the sandbag, Wanpo jumps on Ippo which leads them to be discovered by everyone. Takamura is still bothered by yesterday’s incident and feels like he should apologize, but is conflicted because when he sees Aoki’s face he wants to punch him.  Kimura suggests trying to compliment Aoki as an opener to apologizing to him. Takamura thinks about complimenting him, but questions on what he should compliment him about since it’s Aoki. As he’s about to compliment Aoki, he settles on complimenting Aoki on having a girlfriend with nice breasts; which leads to Aoki getting angry. Aoki holds himself back and offers Takamura the okonomiyaki with the sea roach in it; Takamura is about to eat it, when he’s overcome with guilt and so offers Aoki half of the okonomiyaki. Aoki tries to refuse the offer, but when Takamura jokingly asks if there’s something odd in the okonomiyaki Aoki agrees to take half but struggles picking a half as he tries to figure out which half has the sea roach in it. Before he can make a decision, Takamura shoves a half into Aoki’s mouth with Ippo commenting on how it was such a small revenge, but with a sad outcome. Ippo asks Aoki if he got the one with the sea roach, but Aoki’s unsure as the sauce was too strong to tell. 

 

 

Opinions:

Well that was a fun episode! I feel for Aoki, someone wrongs you and yet you’re too weak to do anything but a prank on them. I will say though, that I’m looking forward to the continuation on how that okonomiyaki prank plays out. If some of you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will; and it’s good, though a little gross. Next episode will have Ippo sparring with Itagaki, which I hope they’ll expand on more than they did in the manga. Itagaki is an interesting fighter, and it’s a shame we won’t really see him hit his stride till a long time from now. In any case we’re only a few episodes away from Takamura’s Title Match Fight!!!!