Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

Series Information

ANN Encyclopedia | AniDB
Genres: Sports, Comedy
Production: Madhouse
OP: 「Hekireki」 by Last Alliance
ED: 「8 AM」 by coldrain

Welcome back.

OP Sequence: “Hekireki” by Last Alliance

Loved the song as soon as I saw the OP sequence. It’s a very catchy rock song and the lyrics fit perfectly with the show. I’m dying for the single right now. The visuals accompanied by the song are just amazing. The OP even gave us a little Takamura vs Hawk clip which I’m sure many manga fans were fapping over. They used the leaves a lot which refers back to Ippo’s beginning in the boxing world. Seeing them again in the OP, it may symbolize that this is not only a new beginning for Ippo, the new featherweight champion, but for all the characters and show as a whole.

Bricks were shat across the interwebz when the new season was announced; and now it’s finally here with a refreshing updated look. With that said, I consider the first season of Hajime no Ippo to be my favorite anime series so seeing the show once more was exciting.

First off, for this post I’m just giving my general impressions of the show based on the first three episodes, I am not going to continually blog this for these two reasons:
- I’m a manga reader and I prefer to blog something I’m not familiar with.
- This season has enough material for AT LEAST 100 episodes and the manga is still on-going with no sight to an end. I don’t want to commit to blogging something that long. I want to stick with something fresh every season or two.
I don’t think anybody on the site is watching this so I figured I should at least do a “first impressions” post for this show.

I think the biggest difference between this season and the last one that most people have noticed is the music. Staff-wise, the two greatest changes are the director and composer. The first season IMO had a fantastic OST which featured a lot of guitar riffs. We have Imahori Tsuneo to thank for that who previously worked on Trigun and Gungrave. So when people go in with the new season, they’ll probably feel irked at the “medieval” sounding songs. I felt irked myself and I’m not even sure if I’ll get used to that. Well it’s only been 3 episodes, so the OST has plenty of time to win us over. Hirano Yoshihisa is in charge of the music for this season and he’s worked on popular shows such as Death Note and Ouran High School Host Club. Death Note had a superb OST so I’m hoping Hirano has a few tricks up his sleaves.

The animation so far has been very clean and solid. I love how during some moments the gleam on the boxing gloves looks more brilliant than usual under the stadium lights. Madhouse has stepped up their game over the years. I did notice a few QUALITY moments, but this show will be a very long running series so I can overlook that. As long as the fights have amazing animation, it’s all good. :3

If you thought the matches in the first season were good, you haven’t seen anything yet. If done right, New Challenger will raise the level of epic. Most of the first season concentrated on Ippo, but as New Challenger follows the manga it will cover a lot of the other boxers more such as Takamura, Aoki, etc.

So far, the show has been a joy to watch. It feels like I’ve met up with an old friend after a few years. It was nostalgic to see all these characters again and immerse myself in the boxing world. This show alone has made 2009 a pretty decent year for anime.

ED Sequence: “8 AM” by coldrain

A fun and relaxing ED. Probably intended for a cool down from all the action and stress. I’m reminded at how awesome the facial expressions are in this series. This and GTO’s have to be the funniest I’ve come across. The song is all in English, which I didn’t even realize until my third time hearing it when I read the subtitles. There’s nothing special about this ED in particular. It’s pretty… average.