Awareness is Round 1076 of Jōji Morikawa's Hajime no Ippo manga series.
Details
- Title Page Character(s): Ippo Makunouchi
Summary
Ippo visits Umezawa to help with his manga. When he gets there, Umezawa is shocked by Ippo's swollen face, which Ippo notes how it has been three days since the match and it keeps swelling up. Ippo begins helping by inking spots Umezawa marked with a brush pen. Ippo thinks being a mangaka is hard, as even though Umezawa is a good artist, his one-shot still got rejected the other day. Ippo accidentally inked over the lines, so he is told to use white out to fix it. Umezawa expresses his shock that he lost by knockout, thinking that Alfredo's punches must have been crazy. Ippo claims that it doesn't matter how strong someone's punches are if he can dodge them, but admits he is terrible at that. After Ippo messes up with the white out, he is told to do the next page, but quits as he thinks he is having a hard time with helping today. Umezawa suggests to just fill in the big background in one of the pages. Ippo tells Umezawa how Kumi asked if he really wanted to become the world champion, but he couldn't answer her, which disappoints Umezawa, but he claims that he will still root for him. Ippo apologises for messing up filling the background, and when Umezawa looks how unusually bad he did, he has Ippo draw straight lines on a paper with a brush pen. However, much to Ippo's shock, all six of his lines were not straight. Umezawa decides to end his help with the manga for the day, thinking that after the match he had, it is no surprise his hands are messed up. Ippo claims he will come back when he is feeling better, before repeating himself again and leaving. When he goes back home, Ippo thinks that it has to be temporary while he is recovering. He knows that one day he will have to inherit his family's fishing boat company, but even though he loves boxing, he questions himself about keeping going.