The Fighting Spirt of Hajime No Ippo

Combat sports are often framed as high adrenaline competitive displays of manliness and raw strength. In actuality it take years of training and conditioning to do any combat oriented sport and much of the competition comes from challenging one's self . putting one foot in front of the other untill you get to where your going so to speak, and when you get there you realize there's alwaymore road to walk,

Hajime no Ippo captures this perfectly. Ippo's journey dose see him face challenging opponents but, those matches are nothing compared to the time spent training for them. Not to mention that outside of the context of Boxing Ippo wouldn't hurt a fly. all of that makes this show a gold standard in not just sports shonen but anime in general.