Fighting Spirit
(Geneon/Pioneer DVD)
(2004)
review by Big McLargehuge

Who’d think that western boxing would make a good anime topic? Apparently Jyoji Morikawa, author of the serial Hajimino Ippo for one, and I must say, Fighting Spirit is a hell of a lot of fun, and better still, actually teaches some fundamental skills of boxing.

16 year old Ippo Makunouchi works for his mom running a small charter fishing boat business and goes to school. His work schedule means he can’t spend too much time making friends at the new school in the town where he and Mom had just moved. This lack of social skills and persistent smell of fish attract the local bullies. After a particularly fierce asskicking, Makunouchi is rescued by recently-turned-pro-boxer, Takamura.

Takamura patches up Makunouchi at the BKG Gym and tell the boy that what he hates more than bullies are weaklings who won’t stand up to bullies. Then, feeling charitable, he teaches Makunouchi how to throw a simple right hand straight punch. Strangely, Makunouchi has a knack for this single aspect of boxing. Better yet, Takamura piques the kid’s interest in the sport.

Once Makunouchi realizes that the key to becoming not only a boxer, but a new person, rests under Takamura’s tutilage, he sets off on a quest to impress the pro boxer with his desire to learn.

Okay, that’s all the story you need to know, because that’s all there is. Much of Fighting Spirit is akin to watching a boxing lesson and entire episodes focus on one or two aspects of boxing technique, from learning to keep the hand open when punching until making contact, to keeping the guard up, and throwing lefts and rights.

Makunouchi is such a fun character to watch develop into not only a boxer but into a person with extremely developed confidence and humility.

The character design by Koji Sugiura tends towards the whimsical with faces reminiscent of Lupin the Third, and Madhouse’s animation, when not showing boxing scenes, is subdued with a healthy dose of funny super deformed stuff that keeps the story moving along and emphasizes the big ego’s needed to be a boxer. The boxing sequences, on the other hand, are fantastic and really capture the speed and power of the sweet science.

Geneon offers five episodes on Fighting Spirit: The First Step with English, Japanese, and Spanish subs and dubs, outtakes and bloopers, and a bunch of other previews.
Dollar for dollar I’d put Fighting Spirit up against every boxing movie except maybe Raging Bull for entertainment value, and even a notch above for technique and reinforcement of technique.

Fighting Spirit is a strange anime in that I can’t imagine the audience for it, although I know Western Boxing is a growing sport in Japan, it’s all but died under big money corruption here (not to mention a bunch of recent lackluster pay-per-view fights). American anime fans don’t seem to be the boxing type, and Fighting Spirit definitely isn’t geared towards the ladies.