This week for Manga Monday I’m covering a series that has run for an incredibly long time. It’s Hajime no Ippo by George Morikawa!

Plot Synopsis: Ippo Makunouchi was an extremely shy high school student who never had the time to make friends because he was always busy helping his mother run their family fishing charter business. Because he kept to himself, a group of bullies led by Umezawa got into the habit of picking on him. One day, these bullies gave him a rather serious beating. A middle-weightprofessional boxer who was passing by stopped the bullies and took the injured Ippo to the Kamogawa Gym (鴨川ボクシングジム Kamogawa Bokushingu Jimu), owned by retired boxer Genji Kamogawa, to treat his wounds. After Ippo awoke to the sounds of boxers training, the boxer who saved him, Mamoru Takamura, tried to cheer Ippo up by letting him vent his frustrations on a sandbag.

Plot: The plot is pretty standard, but if the fact that the series has been running weekly since 1989 and is still being published don’t clue you in that this is a good series you need to go back to school.

Characters: Ippo’s a pretty nice kid, and is a great main character. He’s my favorite, because he reminds me of myself when I was younger. The rest of the extremely large cast is great as well.

Art: It’s gotten much better over the years, but it’s easily one of the better series in terms of Artwork even in the beginning.

Overall: This is a huge series, even longer than One Piece with over 1,000 chapters.

For those who like: Sports, Boxing, Long Running Series, Action, Great Cast of Characters, Amazing Plot.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.