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Alex has a muscular build with black unkempt hair. In the ring, his attire consists of light coloured boxing trunks that is dark coloured at the belt area, along with light coloured boxing shoes that are dark coloured at the top.


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Volg has a muscular build with unkempt burgundy red hair grown to a medium length, keeping it just long enough to touch the base of his neck with one or two thick tufts resting on his forehead. He has eyebrows of moderate thickness and his pupils are brown (blue in the anime).

Volg is first seen in the ring and in an interview, showcasing his confidence by directly challenging Eiji Date for his Japanese belt. However, outside of the media Volg is shown to be kind and caring, genuinely worrying about his sick mother back home in Russia. His knowledge of the Japanese language is lacking, and Volg is often comically shown to speak expressively with his hands to convey meaning. He is also unable to read kanji. Despite his demeanour outside of the media, it is also mentioned that Volg turns into a completely different person in the ring. He becomes brutal, possessing strength comparable to a wolf's and is shown to never relent until the referee halts him. When he does register a match's end however, Ippo makes a note that Volg shows no signs of happiness or relief, but sadness, hinting that Volg regrets hurting people in the ring, and that his wolf-like hunger is only controllable to minimal extent.
It is later revealed in a conversation between Volg and Ippo that he (Volg) hates boxing because he hates hurting people to get what he wants. However, amidst his fight against Ippo, Volg finally realises that he does love boxing, and wonders what his mother would think of him now that he has lost to Ippo. Upon receiving encouragement from Ippo's mother , Volg leaves Ippo's hospital bed with the new goal of "trying his best, at everything from now on" .
Volg is an amazing technician with great talent. He has perfected most of the basic boxing punches and his trademark finishing move is the White Fang , a lightning fast combination of a quick, hard uppercut followed by a chopping right. Volg hesitates to use this punch because it attacks the brain from both above and below, and can easily end a boxer's career. Volg is currently the 1st seed for the WBA Junior Lightweight division and, as a former amateur world champion, Volg had an amazing record of: 223 wins, 223 KO victories and 0 losses with all his KO victories achieved before the third round.


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Alfredo is slim, pale-skinned, with sleek black hair. His forward bangs are parted on the left side. He has a long straight nose and sharp eyes, whose brows are always slightly furrowed. As for his training look, he wears sharp-style sunglasses.

When he first arrived at the gym in Japan, he was polite to his sparring partners and also really calm. He even said that Japanese people are really polite and good, but it turned out that his politeness was masking an aggressive and ruthless personality. By the sixth round during his match against Ippo Makunouchi , the look on his face changed completely to a highly aggressive look, about right after Ippo started using the Dempsey Roll. He has his hidden side famously called "Mextli" by others, consisting of a brutal nature in the ring and the bad habits of his, which also earned him the nicknames "Mexican Grim Reaper" and "Death God". He feared Ippo near the end of their match, especially during his "Mextli" state, not wanting him to face Ricardo Martínez because of what he may do to him, and felt pressured by Ippo's indomitable will. [7] [8]


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Antonio has dark skin and a muscular build, as well as short black hair with bangs going over his forehead. His eye colour is black and he has thin eyebrows. As a young boy, he was underweight and wore white tattered clothes. His boxing attire consists of black boxing trunks and shoes. [1]

Antonio has an easy-going, confident attitude. He's willing to fight anyone in order to achieve his goal, to bring back money for his family. He has shown to be very kind and good hearted. He has not shown another side of his personality, even in his match against Ippo, he showed less fierce look than Ippo while fighting.


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Arman has short black hair. His attire in the ring consists of dark green boxing shorts with "ALUMAN" on the front.


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Arman has short black messy hair. His attire in the ring consists of green boxing shorts.


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He has long blond hair, and seen wearing an Outback Hat with Crocodile teeth in it, to match his nickname.

Outside of the ring, Gregory appears to be a decent man. He is kind towards the Japanese and respects their fighting ideal of "warrior spirit", which he witnesses during his match against Miyata. He is also a bit showy; during his match against Miyata, he entered the ring by jumping over the ropes and throwing his cowboy hat to the cheering crowd.


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Tamaki has a muscular build with short straight black hair with widows peak. In the ring, his attire consists of red, white, and light blue boxing trunks.

Tamaki shows respect for his opponents as, during the weigh in, he expressed interest in wanting to challenge Takamura at his best.


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Bill has the appearance of a middle-aged man with white short hair. He wears brown tinted shades.

Bill is somewhat of a cocky and intelligent trainer, just judging by the fact that when Ricardo was going up against Eiji Date he wasn't worried much. However when Ricardo hesitated to finish Date due to the fact that an unfortunate accident could occur, he demanded that Ricardo finished him. During the José Nargo vs Takeshi Sendō match, Ippo comments that Bill is known for being a great tactician. He believes the perfect boxer is a combination of science and violence. He mentioned that he felt elegance and technique aren't enough to claim the world, and that there are times when savageness to coat the ring in blood is required.


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McCallum is a dark skinned man with a muscular build. He has black coloured eyes, light coloured eyebrows and hair that is shaved with widows peak. His attire in the ring consists of boxing trunks that are dark coloured on top and light coloured on the bottom along with boxing shoes that are light in colour. He has an American flag on the top left of his boxing trunks.

McCallum is a calm and serious individual who is confident in his abilities. He strives to prove to others that he is the strongest featherweight around. When he was not called "the strongest" when he was a WBC featherweight champion, he decided to relinquish his belt to fight Ricardo Martinez , as he saw that Ricardo being around was the reason he was not called the strongest, wanting to fight Ricardo to prove he is the strongest.


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Bonchai has short black hair with bangs going over his forehead. He wears light blue boxing shorts in the ring.


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Boy is a dark-skinned male with short black hair and black coloured eyes. His attire in the ring consists of grey and white boxing shorts with "BOY" in red letters on the left side.


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Hawk possesses a dark-skinned complexion. He has short blonde hair styled in spikes with thick eyebrows and relatively large horizontally slanted eyes. His pupils are small and dark green in colour, but change drastically when Hawk is experiencing Ecstasy , in which his pupils enlarge and turn bright green, along with the whites of his eyes going blood red. He's often seen with a confident, arrogant grin.
According to Fujii Minoru and many other reporters, Hawk is comparatively larger in body size than many junior middleweight boxers in Japan but is surprisingly not in need of weight management.

Growing up in the slums of New York has given Hawk a 'survival of the fittest' view on the world around him. He is a natural street brawler and has a bloodthirsty antagonistic attitude, to the point where he can easily classified as a sadist. When in a fight, he displays an ecstatic love of violence and killing characterised by a sudden 'burning' in his body that can only be pacified with continued violence to the point where he either knocks out, cripples or even kills his opponent or sexual intercourse with women. Impulsive and judgemental, he enjoys provoking others and greatly underestimates any boxer other than himself. He claims to be able to kill anyone easily by simply punching them to death but holds back because he enjoys seeing his opponents live with the pain of defeat and only uses his "License to Kill" as a last resort, the only time he's ever had to use it is in his fight with Takamura.
His long string of victories against boxers has given him a most arrogant, lecherous, and ignorant personality. During his WBC Junior Middleweight Championship press conference in Tokyo, Japan , he openly declared his willingness to give genes to Japanese women (whom he refers to as 'delicacies') in order for Japan to breed boxers strong enough to give him a challenge. He also openly offered Īmura Mari to come to his hotel room so that he may "teach her some things", while licking his hand suggestively. He is notorious for his flippant attitude towards boxing and is known to barely train before matches as he spends most of the time playing mind games and tormenting his opponents before their match to the point where he breaks them mentally, spiritually and eventually physically. He shows a strong desire for glory and power as he almost always is shown boasting about how about how great and strong he is compared to the rest of the worlds fighters and expresses these opinions either through verbal, physical or theatrical means.

Hawk & Girls in his Costume Before Getting in the Ring

Shown to care only about women and the time he spends with them, Hawk has a group of female fans known as the Hawk Girls that cling to him during his visit to Japan. He intentionally draws a sparring match against a Japanese boxer longer so as to wait for his Hawk Girls to arrive, later leaving the boxer in a bloody mess after mere seconds upon realising that his fans have arrived.
Despite all of Hawk's strength, his overall biggest flaw is his that he is a secretly a coward deep down, so deep down that not even Hawk himself knows it. Hawk is afraid of losing and not just in terms of fighting but everything he owns he is afraid of losing, since he was born dirt poor and was raised in the harsh "do or die" streets. He never had anything to begin with, so everything he has gained in his boxing career means more to him than his own life. However, Hawk's victories have never been earned since he was born a fighting prodigy and has never had to try hard to achieve victory, he has never needed to be brave and has never experienced fear or pain before so when he feels actually threatened by Takamura he has no idea how to respond, as he lacks what his coach would call "Boxer Backbone".


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Choi has a muscular body, and his black hair is in a bowl-cut style.


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Daisuke has black coloured eyes and short black hair with two bangs in the middle going over his forehead.


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Daisuke has fair skin and, being a boxer, has a muscular build. He has black unkempt hair and dark coloured eyes. His attire in the ring consists of boxing shorts of unknown colour with advertisements on the front, and a light coloured vertical stripe at the sides, along with boxing shoes that are light in colour at the bottom and darker at the top.

Daisuke is an outgoing individual with a sense of humour, calling his coach , Oguchi , his "Demon Sergeant" (鬼軍曹, Oni Gunsō ) for example. While he has become highly ranked in the JBC, he is not overconfident in his power, as he believes that he lost a few too many times. He looks up to Ippo, having started boxing because of him, and wanted to fight him before the latter retired. Daisuke was thrilled to meet Ippo before his nineteenth match, and that Ippo knew about him and took an interest in him.


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As a young adult, Dankichi had black hair in a shaved hair style along with black bushy eyebrows and a black eye colour. He also had a muscular build. Older, Dankichi grows out his hair, which is short, and turned white along with his bushy eyebrows. Dankichi also grows a full white beard and moustache. With age, his face has gained wrinkles and he begins walking with a brown cane.
In his younger days, Dankichi wore a beige buttoned shirt while being Kamogawa's second against Anderson. In his older appearance, Dankichi wears a green beanie with a dark green shirt under a green winter coat and an orange scarf. As a corner man with Sanada, Dankichi wears a long sleeved shirt with "DYNAMITE GLOVE" on the front and back along with his green beanie.

Frightening to Kumi Mashiba and having the same intensity as Kamogawa, [5] Dankichi can be seen as stern and intolerable to some. However, Dankichi has a passion for boxing and cares about his students, wishing Sanada the best when he decided to retire and focus on his medical career. Dankichi cares about Japan and boxing and keeps his pride as a Japanese from his younger days, wishing to have a Japanese boxer to take down the WBA featherweight super champion Ricardo Martínez . [6] He dislikes it when younger individuals look down on the elderly, thinking as if they treat them as invalids. [7] He takes boxing seriously, believing that the two boxers fighting each other should be enemies even outside the ring, not even a handshake between the two.

Dankichi and Kamogawa's rivalry.

His rivalry towards Kamogawa, who he deems as his eternal rival, [8] is something he holds dear from the post-WWII days and something that he still keeps with him, using his student to fight Kamogawa's student as a way to fight Kamogawa, even if his student only inherited Kamogawa's spirit. After Sanada lost to Ippo, Dankichi hopes to meet Kamogawa in the ring again, continuing their rivalry.


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Just like in his series, Danpei is an elderly man with fair skin, hairy arms, an overbite, and a stocky build. He is bald with black eye brows, a short moustache on both sides of his mouth and black coloured eyes. He wears a black eyepatch over his left eye, and has stitch marks on his forehead and left cheek. His attire in the game consists of a white shirt and black pants, along with a brown back brace.


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Eagle is strikingly handsome and tall. Eagle was assumed to be a movie star or famous actor for his good looks, and it is said that his popularity with the female demographic stretches from America to Japan. Eagle has a small, neatly swept back blond pompadour with a few hanging hair strands, blue eyes, and eyebrows of average thickness.

As opposed to fellow American (former) boxer Bryan Hawk , Eagle comes off as polite and easy-going, willing to overlook his schedule to answer a question from the Japanese press. He is disciplined and serious despite being undefeated, remaining modest and unpretentious of his boxing abilities. Against strong opponents Eagle shows a fiercely competitive, spirited, and strategically observant side, claiming he has never been able to show his true potential in any fight until his match against Takamura. Takamura also mentions that Eagle's eyes are identical to Ippo's, hinting at a very strong-willed fighting spirit. Both Iimura Mari and Fujii Minoru note that Eagle does not hunger for glory, yet has unwavering determination, and that he survives through hard work as opposed to monstrous natural talent. They both agree that Eagle is a "true champion".
Eagle shows a cool head and is able to understand people. During the pre-match press conference, Takamura refuses to shake hands and turns away. Instead of being provoked, Eagle realises that Takamura is already in fight-mode. During the match, Eagle shows a sense of honor in not targeting Takamura's cut eye, earning the admiration of the Japanese audience in contrast to Bryan Hawk's lewd antics.


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Donnie is a young adult who has dark skin, a muscular build and black short unkempt hair.


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Date first appears to be the average middle-aged man with a tall, well built body and tanned complexion despite his previous retirement from boxing. His black hair is grown short and styled neatly into a short, slicked back pompadour save for a few stray strands sticking out in several places. Date's iconic scar on the bridge of his nose is present, along with his ever present stubble. His eyes are black in colour.
Prior to and during his second challenge against Ricardo Martinez, Date has messily grown his hair shoulder-length, his stubble having visibly thickened since last seen during his fight with Ippo. After his second retirement, however, Date is shown to have shortened his hair once again, recovering his original appearance.

Date shows the determination to go through great lengths to accomplish his goals and depicts the ideal image of a strong-willed man. However he is no where near stoic or serious, and has been shown to openly express his hearty and humorous spirit. He is good friends with Takamura and close to fellow featherweight Ippo, encouraging both to do well in their boxing careers after his second retirement. However, he was irritated by Takamura for being a perverted and cocky world champion, as shown at the end of Takamura's world title match against Bryan Hawk where he said his perverted speech, making Date embarrassed as he felt he shamed Japan. He hates being called "grandpa" and "coach Date". He has shown to be competitive outside of the ring, as he bet on who would win between Ippo and Volg with Takamura.
In the ring, Date is shown to be serious, especially during his match against Ricardo Martinez. A flashback concludes that Date used to be naive and overconfident to a certain extent in the ring until his first defeat at the hands of Martinez. Though he states that his second match against Martinez had nothing to do with revenge Date is shown to be competitive and vindictive to a certain extent, determined to give Ricardo "one hell of a nostalgic greeting".
At home, he is a family man who cares for both his wife and son, who in turn supported him fully through his boxing career.


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Eleki is a dark-skinned man with a defining feature in his partially bald haircut, a lightning bolt shaved on the top his head, along with three horizontal stripes of hair around his head. He also has a large nose and no eyebrows. Eleki has the Plus sign (+) and Minus sign (-) on his trunks like the Positive and Negative currents of a battery.


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Makino is a man with a muscular build, average height, and fair complexion. He has black coloured short unkempt hair with black coloured eyes. His eyebrows are short and sharp, his nose is short, and he has pronounced cheekbones. In the ring, his attire consists of red boxing trunks with "MACK" on the front bottom left and "NOTOYA" on the front centre, along with red boxing shoes with a white vertical stripe.

At first, despite having a passion for boxing, Makino was portrayed as an awkward boxer with a meek attitude and a lacking in self-esteem - he himself was very much aware of his sub-par boxing skills, something that disheartened him.
Prior to Itagaki's rematch against him, Makino's personality changed drastically, becoming unsociable and bitter. However, he was shown to be very friendly and kind towards Atsushi, his only true fan and supporter. After developing the Hitman-Style, Ippo notes Makino as having a similar style to Mashiba as well as a similar in-ring attitude to Ryūhei Sawamura . When he met once again with Itagaki face to face since their first match, his behaviour towards him was aggressive and vindictive, also mocking Ippo by stepping on his foot when walking away. Makino is shown to be extremely jealous of the 'elite' class of prestigious boxers, like Itagaki, deeming himself to be a "weed". After winning against his first match against Itagaki with a foul, Makino developed a taste for fouling opponents whenever he deemed it necessary, and wasn't against breaking the rules for his own gain. Despite this, he deliberately refrained from fouling Itagaki in their rematch due to Atsushi being a spectator, wanting to prove to him that even someone like himself could succeed through hard, honest work. However, he later ended up attempting to foul Itagaki as a last resort to win.


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During his youth, Kamogawa sported messy, dark-brown, hair and a muscular physique. He also had a very rigid face structure, with a bulky isometric nose and large eye-brows. This refined jawline is less prevalent in his older years.
In his twilight years, Kamogawa is partially bald with grey hair residing on the sides of his head, as well as an unusual small clockwise spiral of hair above his forehead. He also has large grey eyebrows and a large nose. His age leaves him with liver spots and wrinkles. It also leaves him often walking with a brown wooden cane.
His attire at his gym and during matches usually consists of a white long or short-sleeved shirt with a small "KBG" in black letters on the front in the top-right corner, and "Kamogawa Boxing Gym" in big black letters on the back along with black pants and shoes. Occasionally at the gym and when doing business outside the gym, he wears a brown suit with a red tie, brown fedora, pants and shoes. During Ippo's match against Shimabukuro , Kamogawa wore a navy blue long-sleeved shirt with "Dynamic Glove" in big white letters on the front, black pants and red shoes.

Kamogawa is fairly stubborn, stoic, and introspective, rarely displaying his emotions outwardly. He is deeply passionate about boxing as a sport and takes great pride in his boxers success. Despite this, he is prudish and does not tolerate indecency and debauchery, disciplining his disciples with his cane when they step out of line. He only yells at people who he has hopes for and deems dependable [6] ..
He is repeatedly proud of Takamura and Ippo, though he rarely expresses it. It is Ippo who he regards as his "last son". He seeks to raise a world champion whose boxing is principled on fighting spirit, not just talent or skill.


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Despite being muscular and physically fit in his younger years, Nekota's appearance has drastically succumbed to his old age. However, Nekota has extremely healthy bulging back muscles despite his age. Now, his height has taken a plunge along with the amount of hair on his head. Nekota is shown to have tanned skin, a progressively balding head of grey hair, dark eyes and a prominent oval-shaped pink nose. A tuft of his small amount of grey hair rests on his forehead and a small beard graces his chin. Due to his age Nekota has grown a fair share of wrinkles on his forehead, upper lip and chin.

Nekota is a cheerful old hermit who, despite having retired, still immerses himself in the world of boxing by watching tapes and helping Makunouchi Ippo and his group of gym mates train. He is shown to be competitive and vindictive, as seen during his first on-screen reunion with Kamogawa Genji in which both individuals attempt to land a punch on each other regardless of their age in order to "finish their fight". Nevertheless he remains a very supportive character for both Kamogawa and his trainees.


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He is an elderly man with a tan complexion and short messy white hair. His attire consists of business suits and his gym's shirt.

He is a man who cares for his boxers and is serious about boxing.


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She appears to be a older woman dark brown hair that is tied in the back and bangs over her forehead. Her attire in the gym is a white shirt with the gym's logo on it.

She is a nice, caring woman who helps the Hachinohe Boxing Group by fixing the gloves and sewing the sandbags.


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Yagi has black short hair, a large nose, and black coloured eyes. He is always seen wearing eyeglasses, something he wasn't wearing in his youth.
His attire usually consists of the white KBG t-shirt and black pants. At times, he wears dress shirts and formal suits of various colours.

Yagi possesses a gentle and friendly personality as a manager for the gym and its boxers. In contrast to Kamogawa's gruff and strict attitude, Yagi prefers to be more nurturing and optimistic when speaking to the boxers, showing genuine concern for their well-being. That said, it sometimes allows Takamura, Aoki and Kimura to take advantage of his meeker approach (often leading to Kamogawa stepping in with a swinging cane). He often adds ~kun to the end of the names of the Kamogawa gym members.
Despite being quite friendly as a gym manager, he becomes incredibly competitive and cocky when it comes to sport fishing, more than willing to make bets (and fully aware that he will win them).
Like Kamogawa, he puts a lot of trust in Ippo's ability to fight, though this is not without limits- if the fight has taken a turn for the worse and he feels that a boxer is at risk, he will readily suggest throwing in the towel.


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Hiroko has a slender build and long unkempt dark brown hair that is down to her shoulders and bangs that go at the sides of her forehead. When she was a young adult, her hair was shorter to her chin and unkempt with bangs going over her forehead. She also has dark brown coloured eyes and visible cheekbones.
Her attire usually consists of plain short and long sleeved shirts, sweaters and buttoned-up shirts of various colours. Her usual choice of legwear are black or beige pants. While working at the Makunouchi Fishing Boat, she wears a green hat and a black apron over her clothes.

She is a very kind and strong-willed woman who cares for her son a great deal. Though she refuses to attend any of Ippo's matches because she doesn't want to watch him get hurt, she supports his boxing wholeheartedly because she knows how much joy it has brought to his life and how it has helped him with his self-esteem. She also would always know when Ippo would hide his tears when he came home from school when something happened to him.


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Hoshi's appearance is somewhat intimidating, being tall for a featherweight and having a muscular body that one can see through his clothes [8] . Hoshi has fair skin and his black hair is cut in a buzz-cut and his eyebrows are thick. He has a prominent rectangular-shaped nose, a notable amount of stubble, and his eye colour is black.
In the ring, he wears dark coloured boxing trunks that have a star on both sides of the front as a reference to his surname, "Hoshi" meaning "star" (星).

Hoshi displays an extremely brash and hot-blooded personality, much like his senpai Sendō. He displays very little respect for others and tends to speak his mind extremely often, regardless of the situation. The only person to earn his respect is Sendō, whom Hoshi regards with utmost respect and politeness. He claims his reason to start boxing was because he admired Sendō's prowess, as the latter was the only person to remain standing after taking Hoshi's signature Seiken directly.


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Ōta has short dark brown hair and forehead wrinkles. He also has visible cheekbones. His attire while sparring against Ozuma was a basic white t-shirt.

Ōta is a overconfident and reckless individual. He underestimates people at times, such as when sparring against Ozuma, he believed he did not need headgear, a mistake that made him go to the hospital.


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Before his weight training, he appears to have a healthy looking body. He has uncombed black hair and a goatee. His expressions in front of others exude confidence. After the match with Ippo, he has his head shaved.

Kojima is an outwardly kind and approachable individual, easily able to make friends and strongly supports other members of his gym. He is also quick to stand up for himself, slyly retaliating against Miyata Ichirō 's scorning of his inferior boxing style with equally damning comments about him being a "bore" and a "chicken".
When meeting Ippo, he held a spiteful presence towards him and constantly goaded and taunted not only him but his previous challengers and Kamogawa as well, which greatly upset and angered Ippo. However, it is soon revealed that this attitude was nothing more than a facade to get Ippo to fight him at his best; he was actually a big fan of Ippo and idolized him and his style of boxing, going so far as to partly name his own son after him.
Kojima is shown to be an exceptional trash-talker, effortlessly able to get under both Ippo and Miyata's skin with his comments.


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Miyata is a tall and muscular boxer with fair skin. He has short jet-black hair with bangs covering his forehead and ears, and his sharp eyes are dark red in colour. He is said to physically resemble Tatsuya Kimura , have a "pointy nose," as well as "handsome," with most of his matches garnering female spectators who encourage him to "not get hit in the face". His attire usually consists of plain t-shirts, shirts, and tank tops of various colours. His usual choice of legwear are blue jeans or beige or black pants

As a child, Miyata was extremely cheerful. He set his father as a role model and went to many of his matches, but after his father's defeat at the hands of Randy Boy Senior and subsequent retirement from boxing, Miyata became calm and serious. There are few instances in which he is seen smiling, such as after defeating Jimmy Sisphar and Randy Boy Junior , when Mr. Sakaguchi 's assault was posted in the newspaper and while sparring with Sendō .
He is very stubborn, as evident in his refusal to move up to another weight class to ease the severity of his weight control, and when he didn't want to learn uppercuts to defeat Randy Boy Junior. However, he has his reasons for being stubborn, namely his promise to Ippo and his pride in his father's boxing. Miyata is also prideful and dislikes being disrespected, such as when Sendō playfully smacked him in the back of the head, Miyata threw a glove at him and told him to get in the ring. Miyata is shown to be snarky at times, as he sarcastically stated that he wouldn't be enough to take on Ippo, who never fought before, before their first spar began.
He is particularly close to Takamura , Kimura and Ippo , but doesn't have many friends outside of his former gym mates. While Miyata does not have a love interest, he has many female fans, and Ippo's admiration of Miyata gets pointed out by the Kamogawa gym members at times, jesting that he is in love with him. [36] Miyata has shown fluency in speaking Thai and English.


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Main Article: Ippo Makunouchi/Gallery

This section is a stub . You can help Wiki Ippo by expanding it .

Ippo's appearance.

Striking a resemblance to his father, he has black, short shaggy hair and thick eyebrows. He has a light tanned complexion, and his eye colour is black, while in the anime, after the first season, his eye colour was changed from black to brown. At one point, Ippo shaved his head as a way to take the guilt of having injured Taihei after he slapped him until it slowly grew back. [57] Later, he shaved his head again while helping Kimura go through weight management by shaving his whole body to cut off some weight. [58]
His body was in shape even before becoming a boxer due to working at the Makunouchi Fishing Boat. While being in the featherweight division, his body is stressed as extremely muscular. It should be noted that Ippo has a larger than average penis, a quality apparently not uncommon amongst featherweights as Sendō has one as well, according to Takamura.
His attire usually consists of plain t-shirts, shirts, and buttoned-up shirts of various colours, as well as checkered shirts. His usual choice of legwear are blue jeans or black pants, sometimes shorts in the Summer. While at high school, Ippo wore a black gakuran with yellow buttons over a white buttoned-up shirt and white shoes. [59] While at the Kamogawa gym or training his students, Ippo usually wears shirts that have the gym's name on them. During roadwork he usually wears his blue and white jogging suit that he received from Kumi for his 23rd birthday.

As a child, Ippo was a very shy, kind and obedient boy who was also very strong-willed and stubborn. He carries most of these personality traits as he got older. He is usually a kind and reserved person who dislikes fighting, and because of that he had been bullied since grade school. He would also come home after school, holding back his tears and try to convince his mother that everything was alright after being bullied.
Despite his strength and courage, Ippo still behaves rather meek out of the ring and often humbles himself around his rivals. For example, even though he has defeated both Mashiba and Sendō, he fears Mashiba and tries to avoid discussing a second rematch with Sendō whenever he is around. He also continued to be intimidated by Umezawa, his former bully, long after he began boxing. He has a great deal of respect for his gym-mate Takamura and Date and he was completely shocked when Ricardo requested a spar with him.
Ippo is quite friendly, and many of his rivals have become friends of his, most notably are Miyata, Sendō, Date, Sanada, Volg, and Kobashi, whom all still keep in touch with him from time to time. He is well liked by his gymmates, especially Takamura, Aoki, and Kimura. Even though he still has the personality of a young boy, he still manages to serve as a good senpai for his kōhai Itagaki.
When it comes to love, Ippo is definitely a late bloomer, he is naive, pure-hearted, and awkward. He is in love with Kumi whom he dates frequently, and she feels the same for him, but because of the silent pressure of Kumi's older brother Mashiba Ryō, the "attacks" of reporter Mari and Nanako, and the meddling of Takamura and the others, their relationship has yet to progress much. The one time Ippo confessed to her, Kumi had fallen asleep after drinking too much alcohol, and unfortunately didn't hear it.

Ippo's rare display of anger.

Because of his personality, Ippo is seldom seen as being angry before a fight, even if his opponent insults him or his boxing skills. However, it has been shown on rare occasions that he is capable of displaying anger whenever an opponent says or hurts someone close to him, or does something to look down on the sport of boxing, which he loves. Such occasions have been when he saw Sawamura intentionally commit fouls in his previous matches, despite having the upperhand, and then later on when he struck Kumi with a sharp jab, cutting her face. Another occasion when his opponent, Kojima, insulted his previous opponents, both in person and publicly in a magazine, and also insulting Kamogawa's teaching methods as they were fault. This resulted in Ippo displaying a new attitude, even going so far as to calmly state to Takamura, when asked if he would have any problems, that "this won't take long", referring to the match. Ippo's anger side also shows when he sees someone getting bullied, confronting the bullies. As the result of his time in the Kamogawa gym, sometimes he could be a pervert, but covert and unintentional, aware that he was influenced by his gym member's perversion. Mamoru Takamura notes that Ippo is "drowning" in thoughts of women whenever his nose puffs up like a warthog. [60]


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He is an elderly man with black hair and large eyebrows. He usually wears a grey business suit over a white dress shirt and a red tie. He also wears eyeglasses with a beige coloured frame.

He is a stern teacher who is serious about his student's his students' future, pushing them to go to college for higher education to help them in life. He attempted to make Ippo leave boxing, which he assumed Ippo was lying because he was poor, for college.


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Isamu is a tall and thin man. He has black hair styled to match his idol, Aoki, having a short afro hair style with a prominent hairline. He changes his hair style whenever Aoki changes his, such as during Aoki's Broccoman fad. His ears are long, he has black coloured eyes, large eyebrows, and has wrinkles on his forehead.
Isamu is seen wearing a red and purple striped long sleeve shirt and long black pants.


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He appears to be a middle aged man with short brown hair and a thin moustache. He is seen wearing a white sweatshirt advertising his boxing gym.


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Jackal has black shaved hair and forehead wrinkles. Mamoru Takamura noted that he had a "Yankee haircut". In the ring, he wears navy and light blue boxing shorts with the name "Omyama" on the name tag.


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Shimabukuro is a man with tanned skin, short messy black hair, and a small amount of facial and chest hair (chest hair absent in the anime). Though even shorter than Ippo, his body is like a steel fortress, bulky and cabled with muscle. He has a very thick and strong neck, helping him take powerful punches to the face. His rough appearance (like a fisherman) sometimes make people assume he's older than he looks despite only being in his early twenties.

Despite his rough appearance, Shimabukuro is a polite and friendly, albeit prideful fisherman. He boasted that he would be able to defeat and endure Ippo's Dempsey Roll even before they've fought; this indicates he is very analytical of his opponents long before they fight.
As someone who was raised with blue skies and blue water, Shimabukuro can experience homesickness if he's gone from the ocean for days, causing him to feel low in spirit and lose focus during spars. He felt anger when he saw how dirty Tokyo Bay 's water was. He can behave strangely at times, as seen when he sniffed Hiroko and asked if she was a woman of the sea. Upon realising that she was, and thus Ippo was a son of the sea like him, Shimabukuro boisterously laughed and said that he looked forward to fight Ippo. He envisions the actual fight as a battle between sons of the sea, until it became clear he was fighting in a ring, not in the water. Realising this too late, he illustrates his pride being shattered as Ippo delivers his finishing blow.
He showed great sportsmanship when he approached Ippo shortly after their fight to thank him, shake his hand and compliment his boxing skills. He also has a high sense of humour, as when he saw Ippo when he is fully naked, calling it a "python".


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Towering in height compared to Ippo, Ozuma's appearance can prove to be incredibly intimidating. He has a dark skin tone and black hair. His hairstyle, as expected of a man from the military, is cut short and styled neatly to prevent any stray strands to fall in his line of vision. In addition to that, Ozuma also has a neatly trimmed stubble beard that wraps around his chin and mouth. His eyebrows are short and moderately thick. Ozuma's eyes are onyx in colour.
Ozuma's attire consists of a variety of clothes such as black muscle shirts, buttoned shirts, and jean jackets. In the ring, he wears boxing shorts that are blue in colour with " OZUMA " on his name tag.

Ozuma possesses a polite and outgoing personality. He is kind, compassionate, and charitable, stating that his reason for boxing is to earn money for his gym. He treats his coach and gym mates like his own family, supporting them and fighting for them with hardened resolve.


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Brooks is a dark skinned male with short straight black hair. In the ring, his attire consists of dark coloured boxing shorts.

His personality mostly remains unknown, but in the match against Date, he was shown to not be aggressive, or having animal instincts like others in world ranks.


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Murakami is a man with a somewhat large physique, dark short hair that is combed back, trimmed eyebrows, moustache, and goatee. While in a mahjong match, he sports his button-up and partially checkered styled dark coloured professional mahjong jersey that has a logo on the shoulder, his team logo " AMASAMA DONBURIS " on the middle front, and his given name, " JEN " on the back, along with shorts. [1]

Murakami is a friendly and competitive individual, speaking kindly towards his opponents in his hobby, mahjong. He takes mahjong seriously as a professional mahjong player and wanted to show Dragon the difference between Japan and the United States of America 's levels. Murakami is not a superstitious person, even when faced against someone in mahjong who is known for his luck like Dragon, who made repeated rare hands.
Being a pupil of Yagi , Murakami looks up to him, and calls him "Yami" (Darkness). However, he still wants to get pay back for when Yagi beat him badly at mahjong. When he was called to the Otakugon by Yagi to have Dragon lose in a mahjong match, Murakami only wanted to beat Yagi, not caring about Dragon. Despite wanting to defeat Yagi, he will still look forward to seeing him win against someone else in their mahjong match.


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Jimmy before his match with Miyata, he didn't have grown hair or scratches. He was one of the most famous boxers of Thailand.

Jimmy acts like a somewhat arrogant champion, who easily thinks he won when he fought Miyata.


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Just like in his series, Joe has fair skin and, being a boxer, has a muscular build. He has long black unkempt hair that is swept forward and black coloured eyes. His attire in the ring consists of boxing shorts that are blue and white with white coloured "J" on the left side.


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Nargo is a man with a muscular build and tanned skin. He has shoulder-length black hair. His eyes of unknown colour are squinted.


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Not much is known about how he fights, but he uses the Mexican Jab, where he puts his whole shoulder into it when he punches, causing the reach extends further than normal making it hard to adjust to.


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Juan has a muscular build, straight short black hair with bangs over his forehead and black coloured eyes. He has visible high cheekbones and a trimmed beard along his jawline connected with his moustache. While heading to the ring, he sports a light coloured open robe that has a vertical coloured line from the shoulders down to the bottom on both sides at the front, along with a coloured line that goes from the arm to the hand on both sides. His attire in the ring consists of dark coloured boxing trunks that have a light coloured horizontal line in the middle, multiple promotions on the front, along with light coloured boxing shoes.

Juan is a serious individual and perceptive, analysing the situation while boxing quickly, even when faced with the unknown. After losing his world title in a way he did not agree with, he has a desire to return to the world title ring.


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Hotta has short black hair and black coloured eyes.
His attire in the ring consisted of navy blue and white boxing shorts with the number 38 on the left side and kanji on the right.


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Junpei has straight short black hair with two strands hanging over the middle of his forehead. He often wears a stern expression on his face. During his weigh-in session for his match against Kimura , he wears a black shirt. In the ring, Junpei wears dark coloured boxing shorts and shoes.

Junpei is a serious and no-nonsense individual. He thought he was being deceived when Kimura showed up to their weigh-in in a "half-dead" state.


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Kamiya is a young man with black hair with bangs combed over both sides of his face and black coloured eyes, Kimura didn't recognise him when he saw him after not seeing him in awhile due to his changed hairstyle.
During school, he wore a black school uniform, and carrying his book bag and Karate uniform.


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He has black hair, he is short and wears always a purple shirt, when his boxer's fight and usually in the gym. He is a friend of Sawamura's teacher .


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Katsuo has fair skin and a muscular build. He has black curly hair in a short afro hairstyle and black coloured eyes. His attire in the ring depicted in the Fighting Soul portrait consists of white boxing trunks with his given name "KATSUO" written in red on the name plate that is coloured white on the white belt area. His appearance as a coach has him looking older in age with straight black hair.


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Imae has long black hair, and brown eyes. He also has a mole above his left eyebrow. He tends to be on the serious side, and dresses the part.

Imae is a boxer with the same tastes in girls as Aoki. However, he dumped his girlfriend and said he never wanted to see her again, since he believed having any sort of relationship would be half-assing his boxing career. He later reconnected with her after facing Aoki and having a change of heart. When he was about to lose the match he remembered that impressing his girlfriend was the reason he even started boxing to begin with and this motivated him for the rest of the match.


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Kawabe has black hair and he usually wears a grey jacket above his white shirt.

Kawabe is an incredibly kind-hearted and considerate individual, who was, for a while, Sawamura's only source of support. Because of the fact that Sawamura grew up in the same harsh environment as he once did, Kawabe largely emphathizes with Sawamura's struggles and tries his hardest to deter him from going down a dark path. He served as something of a father figure to Sawamura and tries to be as supportive as possible to him, whilst trying to keep him out of trouble. Conversely, Sawamura did not seem to hold Kawabe in high regards, though he was seemingly hurt after he thought that he had betrayed him and subsequently spat in his face during his match with Ippo. It was not until Kawabe's childhood was unveiled to Sawamura did he truly begin to appreciate his company, desiring to treat him to a grade-A steak after he left the hospital.


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He appears to be a middle aged man with black hair, and is always seen wearing eyeglasses. As a second, he wears a dark purple "KBG" shirt.


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Hirano has slicked-back black hair, black eyes, and a thin moustache. He has a well-built muscular toned body. His boxer shorts are dark blue and yellow with black letters labelled KAZU , his shoes are blue and white.

Hirano is a confident and arrogant person.


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Yanaoka has short black hair with multiple bags going over his forehead. He is never seen without his round silver frame eyeglasses. Yanaoka usually wears his gym's shirts and, at the ring, wears a red Dynamite Glove shirt.


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Kazuhito is a young man with short brown hair and black-colored eyes.
His attire in the ring consists of navy blue boxing shorts with "KAZU" on his name slot and his initials, "K.Y" on the front on the bottom.

Kazuhito is an individual who is confident in his abilities. However, he can get overconfident, resulting him in doing a reckless action that leads him into losing a match.


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Sanada has short dark brown hair with bangs going over his forehead. Unless in the ring, he wears black eyeglasses over his black coloured eyes. He also has long eyebrows, and a somewhat large nose.
When Sanada first meets Ippo, he wears a white shirt under a dark coloured opened coat, along with black pants and a scarf around his neck. During a sparring session to test his Tsubame Gaeshi and after his match with Ippo, Sanada wears a black shirt. When Sanada did his ring entrances, he wore a robe. When he was in the ring, Sanada wore blue boxing trunks with a yellow vertical stripe at the sides. While at the Imperial College of Medicine , Sanada wears a white business shirt with a blue tie under a white lab coat.

Sanada is known to be confident in himself. He is a very kind man, even to his opponents, as well as incredibly smart. Sanada is eager to challenge himself, moving up a weight class to fight Ippo just for a challenge and wanting to fight him at his best. Sanada admired the JBC featherweight belt even when he was a junior featherweight, admiring the former JBC featherweight champions Date Eiji and Sendō Takeshi , not liking it when Ippo seemed to show little pride of his own belt. He seemed to act strange when Iimura Mari was talking, most likely not wanting to discuss his past.


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Kazuo looked similar to Ippo, but more rough looking and signs of a beard growing.

It has been mentioned that Kazuo loved getting into fights. According to Hiroko Makunouchi , he imagined his opponent as a Fish.


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Okita has short black messy hair and small dark-coloured pupils. His nose is long and prominent. After Okita retired, he grew his hair out some, and started having a short moustache. His attire usually consists of a white jacket over a green shirt. In the ring, he wears green boxing shorts.

Okita became a fan of Date during his childhood years and started boxing at the Nakadai Boxing Gym, that same gym in which Date trains. His admiration came to the point of adopting and mimicking Date's styles and techniques. His adoration can be comparable to that of Itagaki Manabu 's.
Thinking of Date as an unbeatable figure, Okita quickly becomes jealous of anyone sparring with Date and quickly challenges them out of blind jealousy (as shown when Okita challenged Ippo ). He seems rather prideful and overconfident, completely assured that his victory would be secured due to his boxing being the same as Date's boxing. However, he has shown respect to his one role model, Date, and would go great lengths to support the latter in his endeavours.


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Keiko has short black hair, and she wears glasses.

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Dragon is a man with a muscular build. His blond hair is made into an elephant trunk-style pompadour hairstyle with some hair strands hanging over his forehead, and with wavy hair that hangs at the back of his neck. His eyes are brown [8] in colour and he has sharp eye brows. When he is not training or in a match, Dragon is seen wearing black shades almost everywhere he goes.
His usual attire includes a black dress shirt and tie under a white coat, along with white pants and a white fedora hat. [9] [10] When he played mahjong against Yagi , Ōi , and Murakami , he wore a light coloured zip-up jacket with an X-shaped design on the front, light coloured pants and dark shades. [11] While training, Dragon wears a dark coloured tank top. [12] When he played mahjong against Yagi, Robo , and Matsu , he wore shades and a light coloured suit that has spots on the inside.
When Dragon was about to fight Takamura , he walked into the ring with black shades, a white coat with gold fur-like material [13] at the ends of the arms and at the ends at the top, along with " 国土無双 " ( Kokushi Musō ), literally meaning "no man in this country compares", while also meaning a "distinguished person", and the winning mahjong hand "thirteen orphans".
While fighting Takamura, his boxing attire consisted of white on the sides and gold in the middle [14] or purple [15] boxing trunks with a white belt line and gold fur-like material on the bottom [16] . The trunks had " MAHJONG " at the front, the mahjong tiles "red dragon (中)" "green dragon (發)", and "white dragon (no marking)" as his name plate, the winning hands "All Simples (断么九, tan'yaochuu )" and "No-points hand (平和, Heiwa )" from mahjong on the right side, with the "Heiwa" also meaning peace, and fur-like material at the bottom. His boxing shoes also has fur-like material coming out at the top. [17] While in other boxing matches, his boxing trunks are light coloured with two different black coloured stripes on the bottom, along with light coloured boxing shoes. [18]

Dragon is a superstitious person who believes that there are things not explainable in life by mere logic. He also believes in luck, thinking that he is lucky enough to charm the goddess of good fortune and that one doesn't always win even if they are skilled in activities such as gambling and boxing. [19] While he uses his luck to his advantage, he dislikes it when others do the same, such as when Yagi used the damaten, a luck based tactic, against him in mahjong, deeming it cheap and lucky. He also get nervous when someone else becomes lucky against him. His many times where he became blessed with luck and having everything go his way has caused him to be laid-back, not even becoming nervous when a typhoon was over the country he was wanting to fly to. [20]
Dragon has a hobby of the Japanese rules version of mahjong and gambling. He plays mahjong for money, where his luck is so good that he is able to win with rare hands many times. [21] His love for mahjong helped his decision to fight in a match in Japan, wanting to fight mahjong pros that exist there. He is friendly towards his opponents, however, when he plays, he tends to wear a demonic expression on his face and apologises when he knows he is about to win. He incorporates mahjong into his boxing as well, as his boxing shorts have mahjong references on them.
He has a love for Japan, having always wanting to visit the country at least once and his favourite food is the traditional Japanese dish sushi. [22] During his trip to Japan for his match against Takamura, he had Japanese writing on his boxing outfit and was able to communicate with other Japanese people without a translator, showing that he speaks and understands the Japanese language. He seems to take a liking for sumo wrestling also, as he liked seeing the pictures of sumo wrestlers at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan . [23]
While he is a laid-back individual, he is serious about boxing, wanting to train immediately when he arrives to a different country. [24] After fighting Takamura, he lost his luck, which caused him to sweat and become confused, hurried, and frightened when he was losing a mahjong match. [25]


The First Step

He is similar height to Takamura, and has a strong body. He wore a business suit to the Press Conference, and has a cleanly shaved face with trimmed haircut.

He is somewhat arrogant. Prior to the match, Keith was able to research Takamura (because of the information age), and he believes he knows Takamura's weakness. He thinks Takamura is a naked champion, and wants to show everyone.


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While muscular and average in height, Kobashi is known for his weak and fragile body despite being in the featherweight division. His appearance is largely without special quirks, with a pale skin tone and short black hair. His eyebrows are of average thickness, matching the colour of his dark eyes.

Kobashi possesses an openly shy, mellow attitude with a lacking in self-confidence. This attitude is the result of Kobashi possessing relatively weak punches, being forced to adopt an out-boxing style that many consider to be "cowardly", and he is regularly mocked by his peers for lacking any punching power. He is shown to be extremely uncomfortable around most people and displays a want to avoid any social interaction with others. However Kobashi has a (typically dormant) fighting spirit that occasionally emerges during matches, as seen in his match against Ippo where he, despite his fragile body, wanted to win against Ippo with a KO because he "felt it in his fist". After his loss, Kobashi shows a very encouraging personality towards Ippo, whom he requests to win in the tournament for the sake of both he and Ippo's previous opponents.


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Take is portrayed as a relatively slim, mildly muscular man of average height with short, shaggy dark coloured hair. A small amount of wrinkles outline his dark coloured eyes, both of which are constantly seen half-lidded. The lower part of his face is covered in stubble, accompanied by a thick moustache.

Take's first appearance in the series was during a weigh-in, during which he became sick and could barely walk over to the scale. He is initially seen as polite, respectful and considerate, keeping Ippo at bay so the other wouldn't catch his flu. In the ring he is depicted as brave, incredibly spirited, but also relaxed to a certain extent. He seems to care a lot about his family and his son, taking a leave from boxing when the latter came down with a terrible illness.


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Kida has short unkempt black hair, black-coloured eyes and he has visible cheekbones.


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He has shoulder-length brown hair with bangs over his forehead and wears square-shaped eyeglasses. His attire consists of a red t-shirt at his boxer's matches and inside the gym.

He is a planner and he can do anything to draw attention to his gym and his fighter.


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Kinoshita has dark brown unkempt hair and he wears black eyeglasses on his face.
He wears a teal sweat shirt advertising his gym. Later, he wears a polo shirt.


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Kintarō is a young man with straight black hair. As a delinquent, Kintarō dyed his hair blond, [3] and had straight shoulder length hair. In order to prove that he changed from his delinquent days, Kintarō shaved his head, which eventually grew back.
When Kintarō became a member of the Kamogawa gym, he began wearing variants of the Kamogawa gym brand shirt with pants or shorts which became his usual attire. Kintarō's attire during the time he was a delinquent and was about to fight Taihei, he wore a white t-shirt and black pants. [4] . When Kintarō went with Taihei to ask Ippo to teach him boxing, he wore a gakuran with pants of the same dark colour. [5] When Kintarō went with Ippo to watch Mashiba's match against Iga, he wore a black t-shirt under a jacket and also wore black pants. [6] While Kintarō was with Ippo as he talked about Aikawa to Kumi, he wore a dark coloured shirt with white pants. [7]

Kintarō has shown to be hard-working and cheerful when training with Ippo . When together with Taihei , the two will sometimes quarrel, causing Ippo to separate the two in a senpai-like fashion. He is respectful towards boxers who have dedicated themselves to be a true professional, seen as he slapped Taihei when he shows his opinion towards his older brother's fight. Like the rest of the Kamogawa gym 's boxers, he has a high sense of humour.
He has shown to fear Kumi , as her personality inherited from her brother scares him during her moments with Ippo, and Takamura as well, while he respects him as the world champion, seeing he is delighted to carry one of his belts, he is still fearful due to his wild attitude, especially if he is in bad mood, ironically, it was Takamura who gave him the nickname " Kintamarō " (金玉郎, Kintamarō, with Kintama literally meaning testicles), which clearly disturbed him.


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He has short black hair with squinted eyes of an unknown colour. During his spar against Ippo, he wore a green shirt with a light-coloured vest.


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She is beautiful with short brown hair and dark coloured eyes, furthermore she isn't tall like her brother. In New Challenger, her body gains a paler/lighter skin tone.

In contrast to her brother, Mashiba Ryō , Kumi is quite cheerful and pretty. She first appears as a high school student and attracts the attention of many boys. However, her overprotective brother scares most of them off, resulting in her not having a boyfriend throughout her school years. She does not like boxing, but seems to have accepted it since the Ippo/Mashiba fight, which is also when she met Makunouchi Ippo . She disappeared for awhile afterwards but reappeared as a nurse after Ippo's fight with Volg Zangief . As a nurse, she often worries about Ippo and the other's wounds and even occasionally examines Ippo after his fights.
After meeting Ippo her feelings towards boxing have calmed considerably, but she still retains her basic feeling of wanting him and her brother to retire. She is often unable to cheer for even her brother and seems envious of Nanako, who can cheer for her own brother Itagaki quite easily. Also, after the Mashiba/Sawamura bout she told Ippo that she doesn't believe she will ever like boxing.
She and Ippo are in love with each other, but Ippo's clumsy personality and thick-headedness prevent their relationship from progressing at all, as well as the numerous intrusions from Nanako and Iimura Mari . Particularly, Nanako intentionally disrupts their time together, often claiming to be looking for Itagaki or just suddenly noticing them while walking by.

Kumi's Flicker Jab

Although mostly different from her brother, when he went out to go clothes shopping with someone (Itagaki), she immediately called Ippo up to help her follow him, showing that she actually worries about him the same way he does for her. As she has become an adult she has also become a stronger woman, and has developed a habit of throwing objects at people (usually Mashiba) when her foul temper raises. She's arguably the only character in the entire series who has no reason to be afraid by her brother, and her comfort around him reflects this.
She has a hidden dark side that appears when someone gets in her way between Ippo. It makes her eyes look like her brother’s when she's angry. Kumi is able to give one menacing look to most people and they back down. She has done this to Taihei and Kintarō and they backed down immediately after seeing how sinister and dangerous - just like her older brother, if not more - she could be when truly infuriated.


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Kumiko is a young woman of average height with long brown hair. As a Japanese idol, she was seen as pretty by the Kamogawa gym members. During her visit at the gyms, she wore ear rings and a formal outfit.

Kumiko has a cheerful and energetic personality, fitting for her career as an idol. She often refers to herself in third person. Kumiko was shocked at the Kamogawa gym members more out-going personalities when she first met them.


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Baron is a man with black hair, styled in a slicked-back fashion accompanied by thick sharply curved eyebrows. His eyes are constantly hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. He has a neat black moustache that is also present on his upper-lip, which he later turns into a handlebar moustache.

Baron is seen as a ruthless trainer, overworking his athletes with merciless training routines. Vindictive, he carries a deep-seated hatred for the Kamogawa Gym, making fun of Coach Kamogawa on many occasions.
He is shown to be brutal, petty and selfish, as seen in the Class-A tournament fight against Aoki Masaru . He tells his fighter, Iga Shinobu to 'break' Aoki's spirit after a long drawn-out battle and even goes as far as to threatening Shinobu to achieve his need for revenge. He is, however, also shown to be very cowardly, obviously easily intimidated by Takamura's threatening retribution on Kurita should Aoki's injuries be severe.


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Kyōka has fair skin, dark eyes, and long brown hair. She wears white earrings and is seen wearing a sweater and black skirt.

Kyōka is a nice and caring person. She was glad when she met Takamura's friends and believed that he found where he belonged.


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Fukui is an outboxer. Kamogawa admitted that Fukui was a skilled boxer who had his basics down and was very determined and passionate; he even believed that if Fukui fought his usual way, Ippo would finish him off in the middle rounds, but if Fukui had focused on running away to win on points there were no telling to what would have happened.

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Imai is a man with short black messy hair with strands of hair going over his forehead. His eye colour is black and he has large bushy eyebrows. His body is well-built for the featherweight class. His boxing attire consists of dark coloured boxing shorts with a giant "I" for "Imai" on his front left side and a giant letter "K" for "Kyōsuke" on his front right of his shorts.

An incredibly serious and respectful member of the Otowa Boxing Gym, Imai is shown to show great admiration towards fellow featherweight in-fighter Ippo. It is shown that he wishes to befriend Itagaki sincerely on one occasion, even going as far as calling him by his given name, but quickly recoils and turns harshly confident when the latter refuses his offer of friendship.
He has an unrequited love for Itagaki's younger sister Nanako Itagaki and comes from a rich family. It is mentioned that Imai's relatives strongly disapprove of his choice to become a boxer.


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He has sharp eyes, dark brown skin, a neatly trimmed beard, and a muscular, well-built body.

Bernard shows as a gutsy and confident person when being interviewed at the press conference for the main event of WBC junior middleweight title. He is also a serious person, as shown in the fight with Takamura.


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Li has a tanned muscular body. He has black hair in a bowl cut, black eye colour, thin eyebrows and a large nose. In the ring he wears black and gold boxing shorts with his name in Korean on the left side.


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Lisa is a very beautiful looking young woman, with medium sized straight-wavy black hair and tanned skin. She has an average height for a female.

Lisa being Alfredo's girlfriend she has shown to worry a lot of his fights, especially afraid if he gets a rematch with Ricardo Martínez again, similar to how Kumi worries for Ippo , but in a lesser way since Lisa knows boxing is Alfredo's way of living. She avoids watching him fight. [1]


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Luisito is a man with a toned muscular body of average size. He has brown spiky hair. His face is not shown. His attire in the ring consists of a two-toned aqua and light blue boxing shorts.


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He is an older man with a light skin tone and a fit physique. His hair is short with two strands sticking out and black in colour. He has forehead wrinkles and visible cheekbones at the sides of his mouth. His eye colour is dark and wears eyeglasses with black frames. His attire consists of a light blue shirt and navy blue pants.


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Gedo possesses a muscular but flexible dark skin toned body. He is depicted as a bald man with eyes that are low in depth, giving him a mocking yet menacing look in addition to his fearsome reputation. Gedo has prominent cheekbones. He also sports a scar on both his left shoulder and midsection from bullet wounds he received before initiating his boxing career.

Gedo is an insanely greedy individual and is completely shameless in his attempts to gull or swindle other characters for their money. His exploitative nature is usually played to extreme altitudes and he will happily accept bribe money to throw his own fights. Gedo is noticeably one of the few antagonists in the series to not turn a new leaf after fighting Ippo, (such as Sawamura Ryūhei or Jimmy Sisphar ) as he openly admits that he will continue swindling and scamming other people, upsetting the latter. Despite his ill-natured behaviour, his desire for money stemmed from a traumatic event in his childhood in which he was shot for stealing money to survive; Gedo from then on swore to never be stricken by poverty ever again, an oath that he has obviously taken to over-exaggerated lengths. Everything has a price to him and he sees the ring as just another place for business. When pressured in the later rounds against Ippo however, Gedo shows genuine fighting spirit, something he had lost after his fight with Randy Boy Junior .


The First Step

As of a stereotypical description of a Japanese delinquent, Takamura dons a curly pompadour while wearing his school uniform in a more laid back style with a few of the top buttons loose. His eyebrows are considerably thick and he has a tough looking face. Even before joining the Kamogawa Boxing Gym, Takamura had a very refined physique. Along with the Kamogawa training regiment, his body is even more refined, having bulging biceps, bulging pecs, and a hardened 6-pack stomach. While at the training camp at Nekota's place, he fought a bear, the encounter resulted in the three scars visible on his chest. Rarely, his hairstyle will change from his usual pompadour-style, to a messy hairstyle with his bangs dropped. Whenever Takamura struggles with his weight training, his appearance drastically changes. His stomach and ribs show through his skin, he gets chapped lips and wrinkles, and his skin begins to peel off.

Takamura with messy hair.

His basic attires consists of plain shirts, t-shirts, buttoned-up shirts, tank-tops of various colours, sometimes under an opened coat, and pants of various colours. His attire when he's doing roadwork consists of a navy blue sweatshirt with a hoodie and a shirt underneath with navy blue sweatpants.
His boxing match attire consists of burgundy and dark azure boxer shorts with his given name Mamoru written on it. It also has tags such as a label that has KB in red print, Takamura's hawk logo, and a flag of Japan. He also wears burgundy boxing shoes.

Takamura has a broadminded, arrogant, outrageous, and incredibly cocky personality. However, other dimensions of his personality have shone throughout the series, the culmination of which is a concerned, insightful, ambitious man. He dislikes people who pick on the weak, however, he hates the people who let it happen to them more. [29]
He is one of the most well-studied characters in the series, having on numerous occasions identified strategies and traits of different boxers in tangent with and sometimes even ahead of; Kamogawa. He has never fallen into an opponent's trap. Despite this, Takamura does not invent his own tactics during matches, which further exemplifies both his straightforward nature and his boxing talent. Because of this, while he's usually brash and devil-may-care both in the ring and outside of it, he is surprisingly pessimistic and level-headed when watching other boxers' matches, usually anticipating the difficulties his partners are going to encounter.
Takamura has deep belief in the supernatural and fear of the unknown. When Nekota snuck up on him underwater as a joke while at the beach, he ran away in fear believing it to be a real ghost. He believed that he was cursed before his match against Hawk after finding a sea slater in his faeces, causing him to check his faeces every time for a while. He also had a very Kazuo Umezu -like face when Tomiko used tarot cards to accurately guess how many times he had masturbated after a fight.
Another less admirable trait of Takamura's personality is his perverted nature. He has a strong belief he is a ladies' man, despite rather obvious evidence to the contrary and despite fancying himself a ladies' man, rarely actually sees any action. This is due to his abrasive, perverted nature as he once made the newspaper by trying to force himself on a woman and her running away. He is not above spying on couples and groping women and getting peeks at women's panties. During his victory speech against Hawk, he says how the women of Japan should come to him so he may donate his sperm to him. In addition, he even often grabs the penises of his fellow boxers and makes inappropriate comments regarding them, particularly towards Ippo. He also is tender towards older women such as Yamaguchi. He dislikes certain types of women who he deems "ugly", making inappropriate remarks about them, and making fun of Aoki's taste of women, including his girlfriend, Tomiko.

Takamura's influence on Aoki, Kimura, and Ippo.

He can be a rather big bully to his fellow boxers and kōhai. He is fairly childish and egotistic, considering himself the best and hates being left out of events or people forgetting to invite him. He can also hold grudges, once attempting to set fireworks against Ippo and the others at the beach because they were shooting fireworks without him and showed a good time and only stopped when they appealed to his ego and said he should come because it wouldn't be fun without him. He can be petty and somewhat a bad sport, as Ippo manages to dodge his punch and right when Ippo is about to land a punch on him during a sparring match, Takamura (in a panic) elbows him (which is illegal in a boxing match). Despite pulling pranks on his gym mates, he is highly-respected, and is a reason Aoki, Kimura, and Ippo started boxing.
Even during important matches he has a tendency to play around, such as by using Aoki's " Look Away " technique, labelling a regular uppercut the Beetle's Uppercut in a fight where he wore a beetle costume, and arguing with the spectators when they mock him. In spite of all of this, he is the one who got Ippo, Aoki, and Kimura into boxing, he is well respected at the Kamogawa gym. Even though he constantly looks down on and ridicules their achievements, his unrivalled strength and rare moments of kindness have earned him respect from his fellow boxing juniors. He has also occasionally shown concern for Miyata and seems to genuinely look forward to Ippo's rematch with him.
Takamura likes boxing and considers it a place where he belongs. He gets agitated when others look down on boxing or makes light of the professional aspect of it.


The First Step

He has a pale complexion and long face with a reasonable amount of wrinkles and facial markings to tell of his age. He wears a black coloured wig over his bald head. He has thin eyebrows, dark coloured eyes, and wears a pair of glasses.

Along with the rest of his family, he has quite the notorious personality of cracking some of the worst puns ever heard. He is shown to have a terrible sense of humour, but is a kind, caring father when his comedic acts are overlooked. He often competes with Takamura over who has the better puns and often gets the last laugh.
Whether he cares about his son's boxing career or not is something of a mystery. He shows up for most of his son's matches, but his main concern seems to be centred around the money Itagaki will earn if he wins.
He passes gas whenever he gets excited or sad while saying his son's given name as a pun. At boxing matches, this upsets those sitting around him.


The First Step

She is a middle-aged woman who appears taller than her husband. She has long brown hair, thin eyebrows, and dark coloured eyes. She doesn't show any distinct signs of her age and appears younger than she really is.

She is shown to have a very kind personality much like her daughter Nanako. However, like the rest of her family she has a terrible sense of humour and a tendency to make terrible puns. While she may initially appear polite and well-spoken, all composure is lost when she laughs at one of her family members's horrible jokes, which is said to happen very often during their times together. Like husband , she doesn't express much concern for her children aside from wanting to see them succeed; in particular, she wishes for Nanako to marry Imai Kyōsuke , the heir of a wealthy family. She shares in the rest of the family's remarkable fearlessness.


The First Step

Itagaki has a very toned and lean build suitable for both his weight class and fighting style. He has brown hair that stretches to the base of his neck, thin eyebrows and matching dark-coloured eyes. He seems to favour wearing headbands to keep his oversized bangs from obscuring his vision.

The newest member of the Kamogawa troupe is a remarkably friendly and cheerful young man. Itagaki's open personality allows him to get along with just about anyone, including and especially the fearsome Mashiba. Beneath his disposition lies a bitterness toward rival Imai (despite the latter viewing him as a friend) and the losses he experienced in the past. As opposed to Ippo, Itagaki has proven himself to be immature and overconfident of his speed and flexibility. He is rarely ever afraid of other characters.

Itagaki without his bandana

Despite Ippo being his senpai , Itagaki often watches after him like an older brother, defending him during discussions about boxing and reassuring him when he loses confidence. He is attracted to Mashiba Kumi , though he tries to keep this a secret from Ippo and has never made a romantic advance on her out of respect for her and Ippo's relationship. He respects Ippo a great deal, but in truth, he is jealous of him and desires much of Ippo's fortune. Itagaki has made beating Ippo's KO times his primary goal. It is his unique way of challenging his idol.
Like the rest of his family, Itagaki possesses a terrible sense of humour and has the tendency to crack some lame puns. He states that this "Itagaki Family Way" is what keeps their family cheery from their poor financial situation.


The First Step

Marascas is a muscular man with hair on his chest, short dark coloured hair with a single strand of hair going over the middle of his forehead. He also has prominent lower eyelashes and a moustache.
As a Luchador, he wears tights and a Luchador mask with the Venus symbol on the mouth part and a butterfly near the top, with the top of the butterfly designed to look like male genitalia.


The First Step

Rosario has a muscular build, light coloured eyes, a white cross tattoo on the middle of his forehead, no eyebrows, and light coloured hair that is twirled around in multiple spots in a way that resembles tubes. The hairstyle requires Rosario to go to a salon to have it done. Before becoming a professional boxer , Rosario's hair was slicked back. After coming back from jail before his world title defence match against Mashiba , Rosario's hair was down and unkempt before going to a salon to get it twirled back to his usual hairstyle. In his world title match against Juan , his hair was styled into multiple spikes. When his hairstyle comes undone during a match, his hair stays standing up.

Rosario with unkempt hair.

His attire while he was in Puerto Rico before his match against Mashiba consisted of a white cross necklace, an open dark coloured shirt with nothing underneath, and black shorts. Upon arriving to Japan , Rosario wore a light coloured hat, a light coloured coat over a dark coloured shirt and tie, dark coloured dress pants, and light coloured dress shoes. While getting ready in his waiting room before his match against Mashiba, Rosario wore a shirt that had the "Judgement Day" slogan from the match's match poster. His ring entrance attire is a light coloured robe with a symbol of a cross on the back of it and on the front top left. His ring attire consists of light coloured boxing shorts that have a dark coloured belt area, and a coloured cross symbol on the sides, while his shoes are light coloured with dark coloured socks.

Rosario is described as "world level evil," as rumours continuously come up that he has done every crime but murder, however, Fujii noted that he may have committed murder as well. Rosario has been involved in crimes almost his whole life, as even in his teens he was scouted into a criminal organisation. He carries a gun everywhere he goes, and when he wasn't allowed to carry a gun on the plane to Japan , he was annoyed about it. [12] He is also not afraid to say that crushing people's lives is his hobby. [13] He is very irritable and violent, willing to shoot a dog with a gun because it was being loud, and even shooting a bullet past Mr. Bin , almost hitting him for being loud as well. Rosario takes a liking of motioning firing a gun while shadowboxing . [14]
Rosario doesn't listen to anyone, even if it is to help him, as he shot a gun despite Mr. Bin telling him that it would cause a huge incident and the police would be involved. [15] Rosario was annoyed when the Japanese did not seem to care about his presence, wanting everyone to pay attention to him when he first arrived to Japan. Rosario dislikes Mashiba, as he shot a picture of him with a gun and hit it with his fists, as well as wanting to wreck his happiness. [16] However, Rosario began to respect Mashiba during the sixth round of their match, where he viewed Mashiba as a pure boxer. [17]
He gets frustrated when he is unable to do what he wants, deeming the whole world as "wrong," and when he is unhappy, he wishes to make everyone around him as unhappy as he is. [18] This twisted mindset originated when he worked for a criminal organisation, when at some point someone provided intel to the authorities, where suspicion fell on him, albeit seemingly with no evidence and he was attacked and apparently left for dead. He believed this unfairness to be unwarranted and directed his anger at the people who didn't suffer the same level of misfortune, believing it unjust that (in his view) only he suffered while others did, which sparked his psychopathic mindset of making others suffer the same way he does. This warped view extends to extremely petty levels, as he was irritated that Mashiba could easily pass the weigh-in, whereas he failed it, blaming him and the world for this "unfairness".
Feeling betrayed by everything in his life, he decided to rely on his fists, the only thing he felt did not betray him by becoming a professional boxer. [19] He believes that his fists and boxing are the only things that hasn't betrayed him. While he thinks many things are unfair, he deems that boxing is fair. [20] When he began to question if boxing betrayed him, he admits that he was the one who betrayed boxing. [21]


The First Step

Mari is slim, has long, sleek black hair, and is bespectacled. She usually wears a jacket of some sort, pants (she was only seen once in a skirt), and heels. She has a pearl earring in each ear which seems to vary from hanging from her earlobe to being in her earlobe.

Mari is one of the more sophisticated female characters in the series. When she is first introduced, she comes across as a polite and cheeky woman, which misleads her co-workers into thinking she was not prepared for her duties as a boxing reporter. As Mari has stated, however, she is quite an aficionado of the sport, and has rarely been impressed by Japanese boxing. She has some experience reporting on boxing in other parts of the world, such as America and Mexico, where she claims to have seen some spectacular matches (presumably those of Ricardo Martinez ). In many ways she is even more of a fan of boxing than Fujii.
Like Kamogawa and Takamura Mamoru , Mari possesses a keen eye not only for boxing, but for the character of the boxers themselves, which is where her real passion lies. She is the only character to have figured out Itagaki Manabu 's secret challenge to Ippo and is usually the first to question the motives of other boxers, such as Sendō Takeshi and Kojima Hisato .


The First Step

Umezawa has fair skin and black coloured hair and eyes, along with thick eyebrows. During high school, his hair was in a pompadour style. After graduating, his hair was unkempt with bangs going over his forehead. For a short while upon becoming a professional manga artist, his hair grew to his shoulders and he had a stubble and a thin moustache. After Ippo's loss against Alfredo, his hair is short again and unkempt with bangs going over his forehead, along with a thin moustache and stubble.
His attire usually consists of plain t-shirts, shirts, and buttoned-up shirts of various colours. His usual choice of legwear are beige or black pants. Umezawa also often wears a red or white t-shirt that has the kanji "一番" ( Ichiban ), meaning "number one". While at high school, Umezawa wore a black gakuran with yellow buttons over a white shirt and black shoes. [1]

In high school, Umezawa was a delinquent who would bully and beat on Ippo, which made him feel important and like the king of everything. He would bully Ippo in a group with Takemura and Matsuda, who all thought it was funny seeing Ippo afraid. However, after becoming interested in Ippo and his boxing, he began to become more friendly to him and eventually became his friend and cheered him on during his boxing matches after being amazed on how strong he really is. After graduating high school and attempted to apologise to Ippo multiple times for bullying him, he would later repay him by helping him at the Makunouchi Fishing Boat in order for Ippo to not retire and help at the boat since Hiroko was being overworked. He is remorseful for bullying Ippo and apologised to him and Hiroko for it, believing that they have taught him how to see the world properly and feels that he owes them everything.
After reforming from bullying, Umezawa thinks that bullying is unacceptable and shouldn't be inevitable in schools. He realises the effects of bullying on the victim can lead to suicide and thinks that the victim should not be alone. When hearing stories from other people who have been bullied, like Teru, he almost passes out from the guilt.
After watching Ippo fight, Umezawa became a boxing fan, even making a boxing manga about Ippo. When he had time before becoming a professional manga assistant, he would watch and cheer for Ippo and his gym mates' matches, and also design merchandise such as t-shirts for the events.


The First Step

Masahiro has short black hair and black coloured eyes. His attire in the ring consists of blue boxing shorts with "SISIDO" on the name tag.


The First Step

Aoki has a tanned complexion with a body build that fits an orthodox lightweight in-fighter. He has curly dark brown hair in a short afro hair style with a prominent hairline. During his delinquent days, he had a more noticeable prominent hairline with shorter hair. He has dark brown eyes, large nose and pointed ears. In addition, Aoki has relatively short thick eyebrows and a wrinkle on his forehead. After Aoki's draw against Papaya Dachiu , due to a promise, Takamura cut Aoki's hair into a broccoli-style.

During his youth, Aoki was known for his troubled school life as a delinquent. He, along with long-time friend Kimura, were known to participate in countless fights and brawls with 'rival' schools, with Aoki being the more aggressive and violent of the two. Throughout the series Aoki has shown a rather immature, mischievous and boastful personality, contrary to Kimura who is generally more laid back. Despite his often tough-looking demeanor, his overconfidence and goofy personality in and outside the ring usually earn him the frequent ridicule of other characters, and he is usually the butt of many of Takamura's pranks and attacks. Due to this, many characters, even to an extent Ippo, indirectly look down on and sympathize with Aoki and his embarrassing antics. However, he is mostly easygoing and is able to get along well with others, also usually being the one to help Ippo out with his girl-problems when around Kumi . A long-running gag is that Aoki keeps revealing impressive talents, that sadly have no connection with boxing. His prankster personality extends to his own teammates and is most notably reflected in his attitude towards Ippo and (at times) Takamura. Together with Kimura, he is paired into the Aokimura duo by Itagaki.
Aoki's taste in women is seen as a running joke where, in contrast to the tastes of his gym mates, Aoki places his preferences in women considered 'ugly' by everyone else. Aoki admits that he gets nervous around beautiful women, specifically his ex-girlfriend Miyuki (who was caught cheating on Aoki with another guy), and is unable to make any further advances on them. However, surprisingly, Aoki seems to be very kind towards women and he himself prefers to judge them firsthand not by their looks, but as a person, unlike Kimura and Takamura. Even though he may have a taste for 'ugly' girls, he is able to hold a girlfriend, Tomiko , longer then any other members of the group.


The First Step

Matsu has short messy black hair with bangs that go over his forehead mostly to the right. He has sharp dark coloured eyes, visible cheekbones, trimmed eyebrows, and a short stubble.
His attire while having a mahjong match with Yagi, Dragon, and Robo consisted of dark tinted glasses, a dark coloured business suit over a dark coloured dress shirt and tie. [1]


The First Step

Matsuda has tanned skin and dark brown coloured hair. He also has short eyebrows and black coloured eyes. During high school, his hair was in a short curly afro style. Many years later, he changed his hair into a more straight and shorter style.
While at high school, Matsuda wore a black gakuran with yellow buttons over a white shirt and black shoes. [1] During Ippo's match against Sendō, Matsuda wore a dark purple jacket with an orange vertical stripe.

Matsuda was boastful and a bully during his delinquent school days. Matsuda would team up with Umezawa and Takemura to bully and beat up the timid Ippo. Matsuda changed his ways when he saw and cheered as Ippo won in a boxing match against Fujiwara , considering him strong and a friend, cheering him on in later matches until his loss against Date. After meeting Ippo again during a reunion party for their high school, Matsuda apologised to Ippo for bullying him.


The First Step

He has shaggy black hair and dark skin. Being a boxer and former Muay Thai kickboxer, he has a muscular body. His eye colour is green and he possesses a dark sclera. His ring attire consists of boxing trunks that are red, blue, and black, along with an elephant symbol on the lower left.


The First Step

Goat has dark skin, short dark hair, and a goatee with trimmed moustache. He also has long, thick black eyebrows. During a press conference, Goat wore a light coloured suit with black vertical stripes over his black dress shirt and tie, along with light coloured pants with black vertical stripes. During his entrances to the ring, he wears a robe that has a goat head symbol on the back, with goat horns on the hoodie.

He is a well-mannered individual who, in a short visit, loves the people in Japan.


The First Step

Miguel's appearance strongly reflects his old age. His hair, a dirty blonde in colour, is styled similarly to a faux hawk and sits upon the centre of his otherwise bald head. Miguel's large bushy eyebrows tend to overshadow his significantly smaller eyes.

Miguel is established as a world famous boxing trainer equipped with a great amount of boxing knowledge. He has the skill to point out strengths and weaknesses of both fighters in the ring and is shown to possess incredible insight and patience for boxing.
While depicted as proud and confident in the abilities of his 'suns', Miguel is also shown to genuinely care about the well-being of his fighters (most prominently shown during Ippo's fight against Wally). However, Miguel also mentions that he harbours a well-hidden fear of his former 'sun' Bryan Hawk, possibly due to the latter's violent bloodthirsty behaviour.


The First Step

Mikami has short black hair and dark brown eyes. He usually wears a turquoise coloured shirt.

Mikami is a serious and strict man who is protective over his daughter. He takes his training seriously. When one of his boxers get lazy, he yells at them. Mikami thought of Oda as lazy at first, however when Oda began training seriously and lost the match against Ippo, he began to respect him.


The First Step

Elliott is an African American boxer with an athletic build. He has a short haircut and triangular goatee.

Elliott is confident and slightly arrogant. Though he is aware that Volg is handicapped, he expresses no sympathy for him. However, he also possesses great sportsmanship and an appreciation of the technical side of boxing. He holds other cerebral fighters in high regard.


The First Step

Milo is a muscular man with hair on his chest, short dark coloured hair with a single strand of hair going over the middle of his forehead that is curled. He also has prominent lower eyelashes and a moustache.
As a Luchador, he wears tights and a Luchador mask with the Mars symbol on the mouth part and a butterfly near the top, with the top of the butterfly designed to look like male genitalia.


The First Step

Fujii has black eyes, spiky dark brown hair, a thin moustache that later grows into a fuller moustache, and a stubble. His attire is usually a black or brown business suit.

Fujii is one of the most knowledgeable and intuitive; been able to predict events or figure out techniques before most. He also has many connections within most local gyms, as he frequently visits the members in order to gather and share information. In addition to Ippo, he also seems to be friends with Mamoru Takamura and Eiji Date .


The First Step

Yoshida is a man with a well-built tanned body. He has black hair with several bangs over his forehead. Yoshida has forehead wrinkles and visible cheekbones.
His boxing attire in the ring consists of purple and light purple boxing shorts. His boxing shorts have "Yoshida" in English on the bottom front and, in the anime, "Mitsuo" in English as his name tag.

Yoshida has shown irritation when he was unable to hit Kobashi in the East Japan Rookie King Tournament and grief when he lost by decision.


The First Step

Miyata has fair skin, and, when he was a young adult, he had a muscular body. He had brown short hair with a tuft of hair hanging at the middle of his forehead, visible cheekbones, and small black coloured eyes. As he got older, he loss his muscle mass, his hair turned grey, and lost his tuft of hair at the middle of his forehead.
Miyata usually wears dress shirts, business suits, and pants of various colours when he is away from the gym. When he used to be a trainer at the Kamogawa gym, he wore the white Kamogawa gym shirt and black pants. When he is at the Kawahara gym, he wears the Kawahara shirt that is usually purple.

Miyata is a serious and straightforward man. He describes himself as a small-minded person. [10] After not being able to handle the shock of being defeated so close to getting to the world and retiring, Miyata relied on alcohol, and drank even more alcohol in frustration when the the person who defeated him lost at the world level, which made the people close to him leave him in isolation. When he was drunk, he was irritable, grumbling at people who passed by him.


The First Step

Miyazaki is a middle-aged man with black hair slicked back and has a short beard. While fishing, he wears a fishing vest over his dress shirt along with pants, fishing hat, and sunglasses.

Miyazaki has been a long time customer of the Makunouchi Fishing Boat and friend to Kazuo Makunouchi . He is a professor of physical education at a university, but he enjoys fishing as well. He also has a judo and karate background. He has always supported Ippo's boxing career and was saddened by his retirement.


The First Step

Mizutani had black hair and wore eyeglasses and berets. He received a new beret from Mashiba after the latter's first match.

Mizutani was a kind and caring man. He cared a lot for Mashiba, as he stuck with his ever since he was his probation officer and up to his death. He was shown to be selfless, as he ran to Mashiba outside of the jail despite being ill, having a coughing fit after catching up to him. [3]


The First Step

He has grey hair due to his old age, and usually wears a white shirt.


The First Step

West has a dark skin tone and muscular body of average height. He has black coloured eyes, thick eyebrows, and short messy black coloured hair. West's face appears to be quite rugged, and his cheekbones are quite prominent through his dark skin. He also has an amount of visible wrinkles and skin creases. In the ring, his attire consists of blue boxing trunks with a red name label, having " WEST " in yellow writing.

West has an attitude of a champion, and easily underestimated Takamura due to the latter's failed weight control prior to their match. Overconfident, he thanked Takamura silently from his own corner for giving him an "easy world ranking", but is subsequently shown to be shocked at Takamura's powerful comeback and his own loss.


The First Step

Mr. Bin is a man with black slicked back hair, moustache, and visible forehead wrinkles. He is always wearing eye glasses. His attire is usually a business suit and tie with dress pants. For Rosario's match against Mashiba, Mr. Bin wore a shirt that had the "Judgement Day" slogan from the match's match poster.


The First Step

Mr. Sakaguchi is a short elderly man with dark skin. He typically has a white moustache and white bushy hair and eye brows. He is typically seen wearing a business suit.

Mr. Sakaguchi tends to be arrogant, and looks down on people. When he first came to Japan, he tends to be over confident in his boxer's ability, and looked down on Japanese boxers and people. Mr. Sakaguchi tends to be petty, and he will carry a grudge if he is wrong, as his feud with Miyata has shown. He is willing to use his money or influence to get his way.
He is strongly interested in money. It was mentioned he could have took Randy Boy Junior to Mexico to spar with other boxer,s but in order to save money, he took him to Japan instead. He tried to get Ippo to sign a contract with him, but Ippo refused.


The First Step

She has long wavy black hair. Her facial looks tend to be average or below average. She wears a employee outfit for Márquez . She wears earrings that resemble male genitalia.


The First Step

Nakadai is an elderly man with grey (black in his youth) short hair and brown eyes. He has wrinkles on his forehead and near his eyes.

Nakadai usually looks soft, but when it comes to training, he becomes serious. He doesn't look down on his fighter's contenders and he loves to coach those who can resist hard training.


The First Step

He is a fairly young male with short cut black hair, and big ears. He is shown wearing a dark t-shirt that has "Monkey" on the back.


The First Step

When she first appeared in the story, she is pretty young, and Ippo comments on her beauty.

A 16 year-old high school student at introduction, Nanako is one of Ippo Makunouchi 's biggest fans. Because of this, she views Kumi Mashiba as a rival and competes with her at almost everything. She takes any chance to be around Ippo, and even tried to steal a kiss from him once when he was sleeping after a rough match, but she was interrupted by Kumi. It's shown that she has a perverted side, as when she jumped into pool where Ippo was, she rudely grabbed his penis while stating an innuendo.
Like her older brother Manabu she is very attractive, but she also has the same love for puns as the rest of her family. Kyōsuke Imai is in love with her, but she tends to ignore his feelings as she has no interest in dating her brother's rival.


The First Step

He appears to be an elderly man with dark grey hair and large eyebrows. His forehead also has wrinkles. His attire consists of a brown business suit and a plaid (green in the anime) hat. While at the gym, he sometimes wears his gym's shirt that is red in colour.