Hippos Rising #01 — Naked Sweaty Men

October 5th, 2013

 

With fish.

Impressions:

Yeesh. After the introductory boxing montage of exploding heads, this spent the next ten minutes trying to our-melodrama White Album. Sure, sports shows, especially Japanese sports shows, are generally just soap operas for boys, but there’s still a limit. No surprises here either then either, I guess, aside from if you stopped about ten minutes into the episode, you might have forgotten that the show has anything to do with boxing whatsoever.

Production’s cheap as hell retro in all ways with all your favorites; corny animation loops, speedlines over stills (probably straight out of the source) all over the place, long pauses in the middle of punches to ponder things or even worse, wait for the announcer to finish explaining what the punch did, and of course, the boxing still being completely unrealistic. You’d think at some point in Ippo’s uh… 100+ volumes, someone would have watched an actual boxing match. Yeah, blocking probably isn’t as manly, but every punch causing bodies to explode, heads to snap back in ways that would break necks, and sending sweat rocketing away to soak the first row like it’s taking place at Sea World is worse and just highlights how arbitrary the fights are when every single punch has the exact same visual effect.

Yeah, I get that it’s over the top and a way for it to be okay for guys to admire those rippling, sweaty, manly bodies, but it seems completely unaware of that, delivered so obliviously that it’s difficult to swallow even as camp. I’m not sure how one is supposed to be awed or spellbound by it as it clearly expects. Aside from all the beefcakes at least.

If you’re reading this, then I’ve forgotten to change the template.

Posted in Anime | 4 Comments »

4 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • gedata says:
    October 5, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    you must be new to this

    the animation issues you have don’t really bug me since it does save up for plenty of explosions of awesome. I wasn’t awed much by this episode either really since I’ve seen better from Ippo, but still, it feels like this show was never gone

    and lol @ Hippo: Rising

  • Karry says:
    October 5, 2013 at 4:31 pm

    >and of course, the boxing still being completely unrealistic.

    Who gives a fuck ? After watching Ippo i cant watch real boxing, real one looks incredibly dumb and boring in comparison, very much like two monkeys flailing, it’s unbearable.

    • Aroduc says:
      October 5, 2013 at 6:16 pm

      I’d like to think there are levels between boringly realistic and every single punch creating sonic explosions and broken necks.

      But really, it’s the lack of differentiation that kills it. When all punches look the same and only the external narration differentiates what’s supposedly happening, something in the visuals has critically failed.

  • The Phantom says:
    October 6, 2013 at 12:49 am

    Cheap show with TERRIBLE plot. No thanks, next!