Hajime no Ippo is a Japanese boxing-themed manga series written and illustrated by George Morikawa. It has been serialized by Kodansha in the ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' since October 1989 and collected into 135 ''tankōb ...

'' is a 2000 Japanese anime series based on the

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

written by

George Morikawa is a Japanese manga author known for the long-running series ''Hajime no Ippo.'' Born in Tokyo, Morikawa was inspired to become a manga artist upon reading Tetsuya Chiba's ''Harris no Kaze'' in elementary school. He was previously an assistan ...

. The first 75-episode anime television series, produced by Madhouse,

Nippon Television JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...

and VAP and directed by Satoshi Nishimura, aired on Nippon TV between October 4, 2000, and March 27, 2002. The episodes were collected into twenty-five DVDs released by VAP from March 16, 2001 to March 21, 2003. The last DVD includes a special episode which did not air in Japan, numbered 76. A television film titled '': Champion Road'' aired on April 18, 2003. An

original video animation , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

(OVA) titled '' Mashiba vs. Kimura'' was released on September 5, 2003. A second series titled '': New Challenger'' aired on Nippon TV from January 6 to June 30, 2009. In 2009, Rikiya Koyama, the voice actor of Mamoru Takamura, revealed in his blog that a sequel to the '': New Challenger'' television series was being planned. At the end of his blog entry, he wrote, "Of course, a sequel is also being planned!!". In July 2013, it was reported in that year's 34th issue of Kodansha's ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' that a third season of would air in the fall 2013 season. The third season, titled '': Rising'', ran for 25 episodes from October 5, 2013 to March 29, 2014. '': Rising'' was streamed on ''

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex. The service primarily distributes films and tel ...

''. In North America, the first series was licensed by Geneon Entertainment in 2003, which released it under the name ''Fighting Spirit''. Geneon distributed ''Fighting Spirit'' on 15 DVDs with five episodes per disc. The first DVD was released on July 6, 2004 and the fifteenth released on December 19, 2006. The DVDs included English and Spanish language tracks, as well as the original Japanese. The TV film ''Champion Road'' was released on North America on January 9, 2007. There were no plans to release the OVA, ''Mashiba vs. Kimura''. Disc sales of the series did not perform well. In September 2020, Discotek Media announced that they have licensed the series for a 2021 release, including the 76 episodes, ''Champion Road'' and, for the first time in North America, the OVA ''Mashiba vs. Kimura''.

Series overview

Episode list

Season 1: ''The Fighting!'' (2000−02)

Season 2: ''New Challenger'' (2009)

Season 3: ''Rising'' (2013−14)

References