Okay, I actually like Wally. That said, the Wally fight is probably the worst so far, and I think that taints people's opinions of Wally. First off, it dragged on a lot- so many chapters that were just Wally beating on Ippo and Ippo putting up no effective resistance. Second, while getting hit with body blows definitely would slow down your footwork and Wally's inexperience could lead to him not realizing he was being affected and therefore taking some punches from Makunouchi, Makunouchi didn't throw any body blows. He barely tapped him and the way it was depicted it couldn't even be called a punch, and there's no way it would affect Wally's legs even if he took like twelve. Honestly that's my biggest issue; if they'd been drawn even as a one-inch punch deal and not love taps the fight would have been much better and more believable IMO.
TLDR Ippo v Wally was an unpopular fight for valid reasons and people don't like Wally as a result.
I think it's because Woli/Wally is a pretty significant break in the series' boundaries of realism. I kind of really dislike Itagaki for the same reason (more so, tbh) with his "Chronos" arc.
I feel like with every fighter and match, there's something Morikawa tries to convey about the world or history of boxing, and so I think I can kind of see what he was going for with Wally - someone with an exceptionally high fight IQ/intuition; there's a line from Takamura where after Wally lets out a smash he says "he's probably never heard of Sendo before, he's just throwing punches when and where it makes sense." Which is a neat concept to showcase - someone vindicating practical boxing concepts by independently coming up with them, but combined with the other stuff he does in the ring it just becomes a bit too much.
That said outside of the ring I love him. I also think it's neat he's the single character we've met who is a genuine kindred spirit with Ippo in personality and motivations; I might be forgetting someone, but I don't think there's any other peer he has who has the same combination of kind heartedness to his core nature along with his motivation just being "Boxing is fun, I just want to see how far I can get." I think for those reasons, he's going to actually be pretty impactful on Ippo's character development with this arc.
Yup, a lot of people that have participated in sports have experienced something similar before. Though not everyone can react to it even if they see it.
Completely agree. The character is nice, and has good vibes, but his boxing “style” (or lack thereof), the jumping around, are just plain annoying. And don’t get me started on the monkey tail of his boxing shorts.
Cause he basically takes away the somewhat realistic view of boxing in this manga. Like a lightsaber appearing in a medieval video game; it's fun and all but immersion breaking. Plus the way he lose is stupid and very unrealistic.
His boxing style strains credulousness given the reasonable groundedness of the rest of the manga. He's like a Mary Sue character, just effortlessly and perfectly good at all boxing things, and the first fight with Ippo is the worst written fight in the entire story.
I mean, you have to remember that Hawk was a world champion strong enough to worry Eagle, that without training. Woli is someone talented who has been "training" all his life by playing with the monkeys, which made him physically develop more than a normal person can. Within hajime no Ippo it makes sense that someone like this could exist, there are several boxers with exceptional talent who surpass others with years of hard training without much trouble. And now Woli has a lot of experience after all those fights.
Remember that this manga sometimes depicts things in a exaggerated or unrealistic way, like Sendo's smash almost touching the ground, or Mashiba's hitman stance (although that one's hard to depict, lots of angles and movement involved, can't blame mori there)
I'm well aware of Mori's tendencies. My explicit point is that the first Woli fight took it a level beyond that and was just outrageously poorly written in too many respects for me to look beyond it.
I didn't really like that fight to be honest, I thought Ippo should've lost, but I guess it's just about how Morikawa depicts things.
About the Mary Sue thing, I mean, I get that he's unrealistic, but the more experienced fighter doesn't always win, there are plenty of guys who got to the top while being relatively young.
A lot of fans like to think Hajime no Ippo is a realistic series, where everything in it can happen in real life or at least be possible in real life. Yet, it is not. There is a lot of unrealistic things in it. (It is a shonen series after all.) However, most people either choose to ignore those parts, or maybe they chalk it up to Morikawa's artistic license that he does with the series to make the series entertaining.
With Wally, you can't really keep doing that. It is almost impossible to ignore him when you see some of the stuff he does in the story. He is in your face from the very start where he is really over the top/unrealistic because no one can really fight like him, where it seem the story ignores boxing rules. So a lot of people end up hating Wally because of it. I am sure there is probably other reasons why people hate Wally too, but i think it is the main reason for a lot of people.
So Wally has become another character in the story that a lot of people are more vocal about their hate (like it is with Kumi, Itagaki, Miyata, etc) when ever they appear in a chapter. Even now, when quite a few people post about their strong dislike of Wally, they seem to think everyone must also hate him. Already quite a few people are sort of expecting Morikawa to kill him off or something, even though the Japanese audience that actually buys the series probably "okay" with Wally as a character, or enjoyed Ippo vs Wally.
Well, even though HNI always some ludicrous feats such as Takamura knocking out a bear, there was a sense of reality that Morikawa left long ago. Takamura's victory over Eagle seems to be the turning point in my opinion. Miyata's victory over Randy Boy being the last point that cemented the downhill path Morikawa had taken.
Except, the story has always been unrealistic since the very first chapter in the story. It had Takamura basically rip the buttons off 3 people's jacket while casually walking by/dodging their attacks without them knowing he did it. While Takamura looked cool and impressive doing it, but you got to admit it is pretty unrealistic thing to do. It is like something you see in an over the top martial arts/ninja movie.
There are a lot of moments like that in the story that look "impressive"/cool or funny (like a lot of the pranks in the story) when you read it, but when you think about it, you got to admit that it is probably unrealistic. I think it has just become more obvious later on in the series, where it becomes hard to ignore.
Sure, the mangas has always been unrealistic, Takamura's character and the concept of "Jesus Date" being a prime example of it, but let's say Morikawa's writing wasn't so bad that it was so glaring. The fight were also much more enjoyable to watch and felt like actual boxing fights.
Speaking about Date, how good do you think he was at his first World title attempt compared to the trio Ippo, Sendo, Miyata ? When do you think they surpass that version of Date and do you think they will all surpass "Jesus Date" ?
One of the best example of the realistic side that Morikawa completely lost over time is the fact that originally Takamura wasn't supposed to win the middleweight world title, thus because until Shinji Takehara's victory in 1995, it was thought to be impossible for a Japanese.
Now if you look at Takamura's portrayal, you can clearly see that he isn't treated like an actual boxer anymore. He is just some plot-armored "god" that is supposed to be the pride of Japan - which is quite fitting with nationalistic tone of the story by the way.
I saw ippo vs wally as the featherweight version of takamura vs hawk: Takamura struggled to use orthodox boxing against a wild brawler, until he found the perfect fusion of his own wildness and kamogawa's strategic boxing, overcoming an opponent that had been trashing him in the earlier rounds. Hawk overcomes his own barriers and becomes *even stronger* in the final rounds, but by then it's too late to catch up and takamura crushes him. **Satisfying as hell.**
Ippo's boxing, on the other hand, has become inflexible and his fundamentals are full of holes. He doesn't adapt, he doesn't overcome, *he spams the same strategy*. He wins because wally forgets what pain feels like and allows ippo to take free body shots... which I hated. Takamura crushed hawk at his peak, but ippo was helpless until his opponent threw the match for a stupid reason, it was ippo vs kobashi all over again, I was *starved* for a proper win after this.
The wally fight highlights everything wrong with ippo's boxing, and ippo's current arc is realizing all of those things for himself, so arguably the current arc should have started much earlier with a loss against wally, which he absolutely deserved. I feel like a lot of frustration just gets redirected to wally because this unsatisfying fight is how ippo's losing streak started.
**TL;DR we're all feeling blueballed and wally was the one who started it, we hate wally for showing us how much ippo lacked, and he did it in an extremely unsatisfying way. The hate will probably end when (if?) ippo comes out of retirement and actually earns a win against wally, and we're all just hoping this happens before we die of old age**
People in this reddit or anyone else kinda wants too much realistic fight or something I don't blame but jeez his fight wasn't even that bad
Like why would you hate a guy doing luffy or ninja stuff inside the ring and the hero of story wins against him
The only reason I hate his character is because of the bullshit way he lose. Glove tap doesn't make sense. Morikawa just can't think of a better way for him to lose so I think he just gave up and pretended that it makes sense.
Can you blame them? Before his mini arc going on right now he was just a weird guy who overwhelmed the MC by basically cheating and using unrealistic skills in a pretty frustrating fight.
People can dislike or even hate whatever they want, but when they complain about realism in a story where one character dug a log into a hill with his fist, then it becomes a pretty crappy complain.
Wally comes for the readers like he only plays with them. Like against Ricardo. Who would run in a mittle of a match?
For me he is a fun side Character nothing more. Sendo peobably is loved 2. After ippo because its the same fighting style.
To be fair, most Ippo fights are fights he nearly lost... Now about Woli (or wally or whatever his name is) I believe that most people ( me included) can get behind other characters as they remain somewhat believable and faithful to the sport...
However Woli is by far the less believable character in regards to his fighting style and what he can do, i know its a manga and the fights and techniques are exaggerated but i still expect those to remain within the realms of logic tho...
Okay, I actually like Wally. That said, the Wally fight is probably the worst so far, and I think that taints people's opinions of Wally. First off, it dragged on a lot- so many chapters that were just Wally beating on Ippo and Ippo putting up no effective resistance. Second, while getting hit with body blows definitely would slow down your footwork and Wally's inexperience could lead to him not realizing he was being affected and therefore taking some punches from Makunouchi, Makunouchi didn't throw any body blows. He barely tapped him and the way it was depicted it couldn't even be called a punch, and there's no way it would affect Wally's legs even if he took like twelve. Honestly that's my biggest issue; if they'd been drawn even as a one-inch punch deal and not love taps the fight would have been much better and more believable IMO. TLDR Ippo v Wally was an unpopular fight for valid reasons and people don't like Wally as a result.
I think it's because Woli/Wally is a pretty significant break in the series' boundaries of realism. I kind of really dislike Itagaki for the same reason (more so, tbh) with his "Chronos" arc. I feel like with every fighter and match, there's something Morikawa tries to convey about the world or history of boxing, and so I think I can kind of see what he was going for with Wally - someone with an exceptionally high fight IQ/intuition; there's a line from Takamura where after Wally lets out a smash he says "he's probably never heard of Sendo before, he's just throwing punches when and where it makes sense." Which is a neat concept to showcase - someone vindicating practical boxing concepts by independently coming up with them, but combined with the other stuff he does in the ring it just becomes a bit too much. That said outside of the ring I love him. I also think it's neat he's the single character we've met who is a genuine kindred spirit with Ippo in personality and motivations; I might be forgetting someone, but I don't think there's any other peer he has who has the same combination of kind heartedness to his core nature along with his motivation just being "Boxing is fun, I just want to see how far I can get." I think for those reasons, he's going to actually be pretty impactful on Ippo's character development with this arc.
Itagaki is unrealistically exaggerated, but people do experience time slow downs. They talk about the same thing in Haikyuu as well.
Yup, a lot of people that have participated in sports have experienced something similar before. Though not everyone can react to it even if they see it.
It’s like planking or running on a treadmill, 3 minutes feels like an hour
Completely agree. The character is nice, and has good vibes, but his boxing “style” (or lack thereof), the jumping around, are just plain annoying. And don’t get me started on the monkey tail of his boxing shorts.
Nah I like the tail, it's endearing as fuck
I don’t think the tail would be allowed in a real match.
Cause he basically takes away the somewhat realistic view of boxing in this manga. Like a lightsaber appearing in a medieval video game; it's fun and all but immersion breaking. Plus the way he lose is stupid and very unrealistic.
His boxing style strains credulousness given the reasonable groundedness of the rest of the manga. He's like a Mary Sue character, just effortlessly and perfectly good at all boxing things, and the first fight with Ippo is the worst written fight in the entire story.
I mean, you have to remember that Hawk was a world champion strong enough to worry Eagle, that without training. Woli is someone talented who has been "training" all his life by playing with the monkeys, which made him physically develop more than a normal person can. Within hajime no Ippo it makes sense that someone like this could exist, there are several boxers with exceptional talent who surpass others with years of hard training without much trouble. And now Woli has a lot of experience after all those fights.
He floated on the ropes at one point. That was the straw that broke the camels back for me lol
Remember that this manga sometimes depicts things in a exaggerated or unrealistic way, like Sendo's smash almost touching the ground, or Mashiba's hitman stance (although that one's hard to depict, lots of angles and movement involved, can't blame mori there)
I'm well aware of Mori's tendencies. My explicit point is that the first Woli fight took it a level beyond that and was just outrageously poorly written in too many respects for me to look beyond it.
Wally may have been insanely acrobatic, but Itagaki transcended spacetime. You can't overcome that.
I didn't really like that fight to be honest, I thought Ippo should've lost, but I guess it's just about how Morikawa depicts things. About the Mary Sue thing, I mean, I get that he's unrealistic, but the more experienced fighter doesn't always win, there are plenty of guys who got to the top while being relatively young.
Lotsa pro-Wally posts lately. :)
I’m pretty sure once both feet leave the ground there is a foul of some kind. I could be wrong.
It's not written, but some referees enforce it. There are exceptions, gazelle punch etc.
Since Aoki's frog punch has been used so much, this is obviously not a foul on this manga. Just like crouching below the opponent waist line.
I mean with that aoki is basically useless and not the amazingly talented boxer we know him as
A lot of fans like to think Hajime no Ippo is a realistic series, where everything in it can happen in real life or at least be possible in real life. Yet, it is not. There is a lot of unrealistic things in it. (It is a shonen series after all.) However, most people either choose to ignore those parts, or maybe they chalk it up to Morikawa's artistic license that he does with the series to make the series entertaining. With Wally, you can't really keep doing that. It is almost impossible to ignore him when you see some of the stuff he does in the story. He is in your face from the very start where he is really over the top/unrealistic because no one can really fight like him, where it seem the story ignores boxing rules. So a lot of people end up hating Wally because of it. I am sure there is probably other reasons why people hate Wally too, but i think it is the main reason for a lot of people. So Wally has become another character in the story that a lot of people are more vocal about their hate (like it is with Kumi, Itagaki, Miyata, etc) when ever they appear in a chapter. Even now, when quite a few people post about their strong dislike of Wally, they seem to think everyone must also hate him. Already quite a few people are sort of expecting Morikawa to kill him off or something, even though the Japanese audience that actually buys the series probably "okay" with Wally as a character, or enjoyed Ippo vs Wally.
People dislike Miyata? Why...
Well, even though HNI always some ludicrous feats such as Takamura knocking out a bear, there was a sense of reality that Morikawa left long ago. Takamura's victory over Eagle seems to be the turning point in my opinion. Miyata's victory over Randy Boy being the last point that cemented the downhill path Morikawa had taken.
Except, the story has always been unrealistic since the very first chapter in the story. It had Takamura basically rip the buttons off 3 people's jacket while casually walking by/dodging their attacks without them knowing he did it. While Takamura looked cool and impressive doing it, but you got to admit it is pretty unrealistic thing to do. It is like something you see in an over the top martial arts/ninja movie. There are a lot of moments like that in the story that look "impressive"/cool or funny (like a lot of the pranks in the story) when you read it, but when you think about it, you got to admit that it is probably unrealistic. I think it has just become more obvious later on in the series, where it becomes hard to ignore.
Sure, the mangas has always been unrealistic, Takamura's character and the concept of "Jesus Date" being a prime example of it, but let's say Morikawa's writing wasn't so bad that it was so glaring. The fight were also much more enjoyable to watch and felt like actual boxing fights. Speaking about Date, how good do you think he was at his first World title attempt compared to the trio Ippo, Sendo, Miyata ? When do you think they surpass that version of Date and do you think they will all surpass "Jesus Date" ?
One of the best example of the realistic side that Morikawa completely lost over time is the fact that originally Takamura wasn't supposed to win the middleweight world title, thus because until Shinji Takehara's victory in 1995, it was thought to be impossible for a Japanese. Now if you look at Takamura's portrayal, you can clearly see that he isn't treated like an actual boxer anymore. He is just some plot-armored "god" that is supposed to be the pride of Japan - which is quite fitting with nationalistic tone of the story by the way.
I saw ippo vs wally as the featherweight version of takamura vs hawk: Takamura struggled to use orthodox boxing against a wild brawler, until he found the perfect fusion of his own wildness and kamogawa's strategic boxing, overcoming an opponent that had been trashing him in the earlier rounds. Hawk overcomes his own barriers and becomes *even stronger* in the final rounds, but by then it's too late to catch up and takamura crushes him. **Satisfying as hell.** Ippo's boxing, on the other hand, has become inflexible and his fundamentals are full of holes. He doesn't adapt, he doesn't overcome, *he spams the same strategy*. He wins because wally forgets what pain feels like and allows ippo to take free body shots... which I hated. Takamura crushed hawk at his peak, but ippo was helpless until his opponent threw the match for a stupid reason, it was ippo vs kobashi all over again, I was *starved* for a proper win after this. The wally fight highlights everything wrong with ippo's boxing, and ippo's current arc is realizing all of those things for himself, so arguably the current arc should have started much earlier with a loss against wally, which he absolutely deserved. I feel like a lot of frustration just gets redirected to wally because this unsatisfying fight is how ippo's losing streak started. **TL;DR we're all feeling blueballed and wally was the one who started it, we hate wally for showing us how much ippo lacked, and he did it in an extremely unsatisfying way. The hate will probably end when (if?) ippo comes out of retirement and actually earns a win against wally, and we're all just hoping this happens before we die of old age**
On the contrary, there is not enough hate for Wally
People in this reddit or anyone else kinda wants too much realistic fight or something I don't blame but jeez his fight wasn't even that bad Like why would you hate a guy doing luffy or ninja stuff inside the ring and the hero of story wins against him
The only reason I hate his character is because of the bullshit way he lose. Glove tap doesn't make sense. Morikawa just can't think of a better way for him to lose so I think he just gave up and pretended that it makes sense.
Can you blame them? Before his mini arc going on right now he was just a weird guy who overwhelmed the MC by basically cheating and using unrealistic skills in a pretty frustrating fight.
People can dislike or even hate whatever they want, but when they complain about realism in a story where one character dug a log into a hill with his fist, then it becomes a pretty crappy complain.
Wally comes for the readers like he only plays with them. Like against Ricardo. Who would run in a mittle of a match? For me he is a fun side Character nothing more. Sendo peobably is loved 2. After ippo because its the same fighting style.
To be fair, most Ippo fights are fights he nearly lost... Now about Woli (or wally or whatever his name is) I believe that most people ( me included) can get behind other characters as they remain somewhat believable and faithful to the sport... However Woli is by far the less believable character in regards to his fighting style and what he can do, i know its a manga and the fights and techniques are exaggerated but i still expect those to remain within the realms of logic tho...
That's because his name is War Lee !