List of Hajime no Ippo characters


This is a list of the fictional characters that appear in the manga and anime series, also known as Fighting Spirit. Characters are grouped by the boxing gym they are a member of.

Kamogawa Gym

Ippo Makunouchi

Ippo Makunouchi
Ippo is the main protagonist of the series. His boldness as a boxer is juxtaposed with his shy and amiable personality outside the ring. He lives with his mother, Hiroko Makunouchi, and helps with the family charter boat fishing business—a job which has developed his lower body well enough to become an effective boxer. When he was young, Ippo used to get bullied and picked on by others in his school. As fate would have it, Takamura came upon Ippo as he was getting a beating from a couple of bullies and decided to help him. Takamura saw something in Ippo and introduced him to the world of boxing. After seeing a video of Tyson, Ippo becomes inspired to take up boxing to feel reborn with strength and asks Takamura to get him into Kamogawa Gym. Immediately after arriving at Kamogawa Gym he impresses Takamura and Kamogawa with his explosive punching power and guts in the ring. Like he has with Takamura, Kamogawa personally takes on Ippo as his pupil and starts him on the path to being a pro boxer. Since then, Takamura has treated Ippo like a younger brother and has taken him under his wing.
Ippo is described as an in-fighter and is well known for his comeback KO victories, his Peek-a-Boo style defense and his heavy blows which include three signature punches: a rib-cracking Liver blow, Gazelle punch, and the Dempsey roll, modeled after punches used by Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, and Jack Dempsey respectively. He stands at 164 cm tall with a 165 cm reach and has consistently weighed 126 pounds. His natural talents include stamina, balance and enough punching power to turn around a match instantly; combined with his superb fighting spirit, these assets lead to his comebacks victories and have allowed him to overcome any technical shortcomings. His destructive Dempsey roll technique has been a particular focus in the story and has continued to evolve through the series: in the match with Sawamura, he added a rapid stop-and-start to prevent it from being countered, and against Jimmy Sisfa, he incorporated an uppercut to the rotation, but Makunouchi needs to continue to develop his lower body to use these without risking further injury. He temporarily stopped using the Dempsey roll in order to refine his basics and become a more complete boxer. His nickname is the God of Wind, coined after the force of his powerful blows. In addition, his intense training has allowed him to mimic some fighters' specialities with a degree of success such as Sendo's smash attacks or Jimmy Sisfa's jolt attacks during their matches.
During his fight with Sendo, Ippo showed the Dempsey Roll's perfect form. Since the Dempsey Roll could not be used if the opponent won't back down, Ippo utilized all three of his techniques. Starting with the liver blow, which damaged Sendo's right ribs, Ippo then used a feint with his own version of "Sakki", called "Courage", making Sendo raise his guard. Ippo then followed up with the Gazelle punch, which made Sendo's jaw fly up and stunned him for a few seconds. Taking the opportunity of Sendo being stunned, Ippo then revved up his Dempsey Roll which hit Sendo a couple of times before knocking him out. Ippo used the same pattern of attack on his first title defense with Sanada but due to the damage that he sustained his attack stopped after a couple of hits.
Hajime no Ippo has covered each of Makunouchi's fights, starting with his introduction to the boxing world and winning the All Japan Rookie Kings tournament in a talented rookie Featherweight class. The story continues with his ascension to becoming the Japanese Featherweight Champion, a title he has defended eight times. He's now begun his journey towards the world stage by challenging other national title holders in the OPBF. His current record as a professional boxer is 26 matches, 23 wins and 3 losses with all 23 victories by KO, and he holds the seventh ranking in the WBC. His only losses are to Eiji Date in his first attempt to challenge for the Japanese Featherweight title, Alfredo Gonzales, ranked #2 in the World, and to Antonio Guevara after making a 10-month comeback. Date would go on to challenge Ricardo Martinez for the world title but the injuries he sustained in his title bout forced him to retire and pass the baton to Ippo. Ippo's most recent fight was with Alfredo Gonzales for the #2 spot in the WBC World Rankings. While Gonzales dominated most of the fight, Ippo was able to knock him down and caused Gonzales to begrudgingly accept Ippo's strength. Gonzales won the fight after being luckily saved from a second knockdown by the ropes and caused massive damage to Ippo in his final attack. His objective is to defeat the current WBA Featherweight Champion Ricardo Martinez. In that respect, he decides to vacate his Japanese Championship in order to focus exclusively on the World Championship. Recently, Ippo's friends have realized that repeated blows to the head have given Ippo some degree of brain damage, and he has promised Kumi that if he loses one more time, he will retire. He was finally pitted against a new opponent months after returning to Japan unveiling a new Dempsey roll but lost due to fatigue. Ippo retired after this fight due to worry over punch drunk syndrome and injuries he sustained. He is currently being trained as a second at the gym while becoming a trainer at the same time.

Mamoru Takamura

Mamoru Takamura
Takamura is an undefeated two-time World Champion boxer for the Kamogawa gym. The other fighters there look up to him and feed off of his energy, and he's their unspoken emotional leader. Like a big brother, he teases them without tact and facetiously bullies them constantly, but he also gives them advice and helps them to become better boxers. Takamura also has an insatiable appetite for women, which is only overshadowed by his obsession for victory. At one point, he single-handedly knocks out an adult bear while sustaining gashes on his arm and chest. The weakened bear is eventually shot and killed by Nekota, and Takamura was dubbed "The Bear Slayer". Sometimes he honors the moniker by wearing the Bear pelt, bearing his scars proudly.
During one of his title defense fights, Takamura defeated his challenger using only his left hand, starting from left jabs that evolved to left straights, proving the old adage "He who rules with his left rules the World" as stated by Mr. Nekota. This is Takamura's appeal to the world. The boxing commentator stated further that Takamura has proven that "Japan is too small for him".
He originally was a delinquent who often got into fights. Because of his strength, he usually left his victims with serious injuries. He was disowned by his family due to a brawl he initiated with some fans who were booing his older brother in a rugby match. By the time the brawl was over, at least twenty people were injured. After the incident, Takamura continues to street fight until he meets Coach Kamogawa. After weeks of training, and without a single sparring session, Takamura defeats his first opponent twenty-five seconds into the first round. He works his way to becoming the JBC Middleweight Champion, and then moves on to defeat Bryan Hawk to become the WBC Junior Middleweight Champion, and then beats David Eagle for the WBC Middleweight Championship, and then beats Richard Bison to win the WBA Middleweight Championship and unify both the WBC and WBA Middleweight Championships. His current aspiration is to conquer the next four classes up through heavyweight, but first he must win his upcoming fight for a Super Middleweight Championship.
Morikawa described Takamura as by far the best pound for pound fighter in the series. He's the ideal blend of both athleticism and technique, and intelligence and instincts. Morikawa often uses Takamura's keen insight to break down what is happening during a fight. Even before he started boxing, his strength, speed, stamina, and reflexes were already world class and he easily could have become a national champion. But despite his prodigious natural talent, his determination to achieve greatness has pushed himself to work tirelessly at his craft, and he suffered through painful weight control without complaint to reach the world stage. His character resembles former Middleweight Champions Sugar Ray Robinson, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Roy Jones Jr. for his versatile repertoire of punches, his ability to box and brawl at any range, and his uncanny physical gifts. He is the former Japanese Middleweight Champion, the former WBC Junior Middleweight Champion, and the current unified WBC and WBA Middleweight Champion. Takamura currently holds a record of 26-0-0, with all twenty-six wins coming by knockout.

Others

Masaru Aoki

Manabu Itagaki

Ichirō Miyata

Ichirō Miyata

Takeshi Sendō

Takeshi Sendō
Sendō is an aggressive mid-range fighter, and his specialty punch is the "Smash", Deadly Smash and Ultra Low Smash which was popularized and created by Donovan Ruddock. He resides in the Naniwa Ward of Osaka, where his is known as "Rocky" and the "Naniwa Tiger." His "Rocky" nickname was influenced by his power boxing style similar to that of Rocky Marciano, the only heavyweight champion in history to retire undefeated. In a recent interview with Shōnen Magazine, Hajime no Ippo's manga artist, George Morikawa said that Hidekazu Akai was also one of his models for Sendo. Like Sendo, Akai was from Osaka and was nicknamed the Naniwa Rocky.
Sendo's mother died after childbirth, so he spent his first years with his father and paternal grandmother, raised under the motto "you should protect those around you". When he was around five years old, his firefighter father died while rescuing a boy about the same age as Sendo during a blaze. Sendo, proud of his father's sacrifice, continued to follow his advice by trying to help others. He started by helping people from bullies, but eventually became very violent with his "justice". By high school, Sendo had already become one of the most feared street fighters and gang leaders in Osaka, but not attacking people, rather defending the weak.
One day, he beat up several boxers from Naniwa boxing gym, and met his coach, Yamaoka. He soon became interested in boxing, going on to win the Western Japan Rookie Championship. As a result, he was slated to fight Ippo who defeated Ryo Mashiba to become the Eastern Rookie King Champion, during the All Rookie King Japan Tournament. However, during the fight with Mashiba, Ippo injured his right hand and as a result decided to skip the fight with Sendo. After finding out Sendo literally goes out of his way to make Ippo change his mind and after seeing his determination to want to fight him so badly akin to his desire to want to fight Miyata, Ippo decides to go on with the match despite his handicap. In the end Sendo loses the fight by TKO, however despite this Ippo was left feeling that the battle hadn't been fully resolved, since he was clearly losing the fight and was barely able to walk when the 4th round was about to start but Sendo remained in his corner unconscious due to a punch that Ippo connected to his temple.
Sendo has held the Japanese featherweight following a questionable win over Volg Zangief to decide who would take the Featherweight Championship vacated after Eiji Date retired, defending it twice by KO. Ultimately not only would he lose the title to Ippo in their rematch but as a result of Ippo's devastating punches, he was shelved due to Ippo cracking his ribs with body blows and Liver blows. Despite their Rivalry, and Sendo's desire to avenge his losses, he has become good friends with Ippo as the series has progressed.
Following his recent comeback, Sendo holds a record of 21-2-0, with 20 KOs and is the former JBC Featherweight Champion. After several victories over highly ranked Mexican opposition, he becomes known as a 'Mexican Killer'. Sendou is ranked 5th by the WBA and declared his ambition to defeat the WBA champion, Ricardo Martinez albeit not before indirectly threatening Ippo's most recent opponent Alfredo Gonzales, instructing his most recent knockout victim to inform Gonzales that he'll 'see him real soon.' Recently, George Morikawa released a 48-page one-shot manga focusing on Sendo before his time as a fighter. Sendo is based on legendary heavyweight world champion Rocky Marciano, whom Sendo admits he admires most, for his fearless style and passion for infighting.

Others

Japanese boxers