Hajime no Ippo New Challenger Ep 20

Screens:

Summary:

In the aftermath of Ippo’s 3rd title defense, the crowd is going wild over his overwhelming 1 round KO victory. Ippo tells the coach he won using his style while smiling, but the coach tells him his style is using compact precise blows and quick step-ins to take the pace. He tells him he’ll lecture him on this later, but for now he should greet the fans. Having set the stage, Ippo runs to the locker room to tell Takamura that he fulfilled his part of the promise. When Ippo gets to the locker room, he’s surprised to see it packed with people, some of who are former champions; Ippo sees Miyata, Sendo, and Date there as well. Ippo greets Miyata and Sendou, and Sendou commends Ippo on his 1 round KO. Date asks Takamura why he chose Kokugikan as the venue; Takamura jokes around saying he chose it to correct the mistakes of the previous person, and Date playfully swings at him in retaliation. Date then goes over to Ippo and asks him to thank Takamura for him, since he feels Takamura’s trying to help ease the regret he has. Everyone has gathered to support Takamura as they feel insulted by Brian Hawk’s actions and behavior toward the Japanese boxing community; they’re relying on Takamura to break Hawk’s nose as he’s the only one they can rely on, and they tell him tonight every boxer in Japan and everyone in the country will cheer for him and ask him to win. Takamura responds with “Leave it to me”

Takamura is now dressed up for his match and there are only members of the gym and Nekota in the room now. Aoki comments on how quiet it is now that the crowd is gone and how the pressure’s getting to him now, but Kimura yells at him telling him not to say that. Takamura sits d0wn and comments that hearing that does add some weight to his shoulders, but being here around familiar faces has calmed him down. The coach comes in to signal everyone to leave, and as each of them leaves, they tell Takamura something; Aoki tells him to hit Hawk as hard as he can, Kimura tells him he’s not worried, Itagaki tells him he’ll be proud to say he goes to the same gym as the world champion after tonight, and Nekota tells him he believes in him. When Ippo goes up to him, Takamura reconfirms their agreement that he’ll become champion since Ippo got a 1 round KO; as Ippo stutters, Takamura asks him if he thinks he’d break a promise. Ippo shakes his head and Takamura tells him he’ll show him a real fight, and Ippo tells him that he believes Takamura will be champion when the final gong has rung. The coach gives Takamura one last speech before the match; the coach tells him that while not all people who work hard succeed, all people who succeeded have worked hard. Finally he tells Takamura that everything he’s built up till now resides in his fists.

Everyone leaves the room, and Takamura lies down thinking how everyone will be crying when he’s world champion, even though it’s common sense to him. Takamura starts recounting from when he started boxing; how he met the coach, how weak Aoki and Kimura were, how Ippo was just a kid when he met him and how he’s now the Japanese champion, and all the fun moments at the training camp. Takamura starts laughing as he remembers all of these moments, and starts commenting how he should be crying right now but he’s laughing instead. Takamura says he’s really thankful he started boxing, and he’ll show them how he repays favors.

The match begins with both fighters walking towards the ring. Takamura walks down proudly in his hawk costume and enters the ring, with the crowd cheering for him and chanting his name; Hawk’s entrance is much more flashier with women escorting him and Hawk is dressed in battle armor, and the crowd jeers at him. As both fighters are now in the ring, everyone’s surprised to see the Hawk is wearing a Takamura shirt under his costume; he then rips the shirt off in an obvious effort to provoke some kind of reaction. This obviously pisses the crow off even further, but Takamura is calm. Before the fight begins, the American anthem is plays as is customary since the current champion is American; Hawk and Takamura glare at each other calmly and await the gong. The gong finally rings, and both fighters head towards center ring.

Opinions:

Man, the episode seemed strangely short. Say what you want about Hawk, but he knows how to make an entrance; sure there are more better and nobler entrances, but his is definitely one of the top in terms of flashiness. Granted it’s probably more suited for wrestling instead of boxing. The coach makes a great speech in the locker room about how all those who have succeeded have worked hard; it was a good speech, but for some reason there’s a part of my mind that says “It’d be nice if that were true”. In any case, the match finally starts and we’ll see Hawk show his stuff next episode!