A Nation's Hopes is Round 757 of Jōji Morikawa's Hajime no Ippo manga series.
Details
- Title Page Character(s): Ippo Makunouchi
Summary
Baron was trying to poach Ippo away from Kamogawa gym. He mentioned that the way he held the mitts was different than some "old fools" since he moved the gloves to difficult positions which made Ippo a little mad. He told Ippo if he was able to keep up with him, he will become stronger. They started practising, and Baron kept on increasing the speed as they went and moving the mitts to keep Ippo off balance. Baron keeps bad mouthing Kamogawa which was making Ippo angry. Ippo started putting more power into his punches while Baron was grading Ippo's punches, where Ippo was scoring kept on getting higher as he went. Finally, Ippo landed a full power body blow on Baron causing him to throw up some spit. Baron tries to get Ippo to stop, but Ippo wasn't listening to him and only paying attention to the mitt's placement. Ippo continued to drill punches into Baron, causing him to finally get knocked out of the ring. Baron didn't think it counted, but Ippo told him that he doesn't care if Kamogawa's ship sank, he wasn't getting off of it. He will never abandon Kamogawa. He planned to go to the world with only Kamogawa. Takamura arrived, saw Baron and recognises him from when he was a member of Kamogawa gym before Aoki and Kimura joined. He started calling him "Marron", and bullies him. Before Baron's debut, he chickened out because his stomach hurt. He was so broken up about he got into a car wreck. Later on, every gym hated him and want nothing to do with him. After hearing about Maroon, everyone realised that he was trying to steal Ippo from the gym in order to increase his reputation as a trainer. Aoki and Kimura chased after him in order to beat Baron up. Baron told them about his past at the gym, where Takamura was the cause for all his problems. He would get bullied every day, since he was the only person able to spar with Takamura. Aoki and Kimura started to sympathise with him, until they found out Baron was only lying to them about being unpolished gems. As Baron leaves, he told them he will get revenge in the future. Yagi and Shinoda (who were lured away by a prank call by Baron) returned, and learned about Baron trying to steal Ippo. Takamura believed Kamogawa would be happy if he heard Ippo's statement about only going to the World with him.