Why boxing makes for the best sports series

[Captain Cadaver]

Part of [mention]Flame[/mention]'s challenge to make a thread about boxing anime/manga in general.

- Actual stakes. If there's no stakes in the series, there's little reason to care whether the characters win or lose, a problem in most sports series. Combative sports, on the other hand, provide a good enough deal of risk to keep the audience invested and keep tension high.
- Permanent consequences. Following on from that, it's far easier to have the results of a match permanently affect both involved if exploring risks such as haemorrhages, punch drunk syndrome or even the internal conflict these results may cause to the boxer who inflicted either of these on his opponent. Yes, other sports such as Basketball (Slam Dunk and Real to be specific) have permanent repercussions for it's characters, but neither have any that could be considered life threatening within the confines of the series' sport.
- Easier for consistent physics than other combat sports. Whilst the previous two qualities can be found in series revolving around wrestling or MMA, neither tend to have much consistency in how their in-universe laws of physics work or how the scale of power progression is treat to the point many of the big names in those genres. For example, the best known wrestling manga are probably Tiger Mask and Kinnikuman, the former being guilty of every plot armour and plot convenience that any run of the mill Shonen will have and that being the same for Kinnikuman, which also has a fantastical enough plot to be more appropriately labelled as a battle Shonen rather than a sports series. This can also be said of the only MMA series that comes to my mind, Baki the Grappler, which suffers a ridiculous amount of power creep which just gets worse the more the series goes on. Whilst there's indeed some tremendous difference in tiers between the likes of World Champions and a rookie in boxing series, it's never to such an extent that you'll see oneshotting being as over the top as in most Shonen.
- A greater sense of desperation. Boxing is often called a "Hungry Sport" in which the desperate men of ambition have a greater chance at rising through the ranks. This, overall, makes them very compelling as underdog stories, as any fan of the Rocky movies would be well aware. It's a good way of having impoverished underdogs find an opportunity to put their talents to work and make both their fights and finances of equal importance.

That's a few reasons of why boxing makes for far more compelling stories than other sports series at least in terms of premise and potential. Such is why I'd consider Ashita no Joe to be unrivalled as a sports series, despite being one of the first anime/manga focused on sports and why Hajime no Ippo fails to live up to it's standard, despite having started out promising.

Anything anyone has to add to that or contend against?

 

[Kyo]

Guess all I have to ask is, why do repurcussions need to be life threatening in order for stakes to feel higher? Unless I misunderstood your point there. Obviously by the objective definition, stakes are higher when things are more life threatening and there are more permanent consequences, but isn’t it ultimately the characters that make you care about those stakes? I don’t care if something life threatening happens to Mr. 1-Dimensional Generic Bob Jones, even if that might make for some more entertaining scenes here and there. Meanwhile, Sakuragi’s journey is one you could empathize with despite its relative triviality compared to other things. I believe the level of stakes largely comes down to personal preference otherwise.

“High risk, large scale stakes = better” is a very “thatanimesnob”-like mentality (one of the few things I remember from the fellow) that I just disagree with. That’s a personal preference imo. It sweeps multiple genres under the rug as being inherently inferior and I don’t really know if that’s right (though perhaps that sounds a tad hypocritical given my thoughts on things like the pure ecchi genre — which just begs the question, does that even count as one? But I digress).

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Guess all I have to ask is, why do repurcussions need to be life threatening in order for stakes to feel higher? Unless I misunderstood your point there. Obviously by the objective definition, stakes are higher when things are more life threatening and there are more permanent consequences, but isn’t it ultimately the characters that make you care about those stakes? I don’t care if something life threatening happens to Mr. 1-Dimensional Generic Bob Jones, even if that might make for some more entertaining scenes here and there.

Correct, though this is referring to in terms of general premise. If characterisation and development is on equal footing, obviously the consequences of putting their life at risk as well as reflecting on their own mortality will be a lot more impactful not only on the series, but the character's general outlook compared to other injuries. A dead end means far more overall than a bump in the road or taking a different path.

“High risk, large scale stakes = better” is a very “thatanimesnob”-like mentality (one of the few things I remember from the fellow) that I just disagree with. That’s a personal preference imo. It sweeps multiple genres under the rug as being inherently inferior and I don’t really know if that’s right (though perhaps that sounds a tad hypocritical given my thoughts on things like the pure ecchi genre — which just begs the question, does that even count as one? But I digress).

He's right though, in a sense. In terms of premise, sports and slice of nothing happens life aren't engaging unless an additional aspect is provided to invoke more engagement. Whilst I agree characters can make the difference, there's an extent that their journey will lead to if the sport is the main focus of the series, as it would beg the question as to why view the series when you can simply play the sport or switch on a channel to watch a game? Whilst I agree that Slam Dunk and, to a far greater level, Real manage to avoid this pitfall for the most part in offering some additional elements to allow it to stand apart, that simply proves the point that a sport like basketball needs to think far more outside the box to keep tension high than that of combative sports. Exceptions prove the rule.

That's not to say I consider either inherently inferior to all boxing series. Whilst I consider Ashita no Joe to be the gold standard for sports series, Real and Slam Dunk are still far better than Hajime no Ippo which doesn't take advantage of the advantages of a boxing series and goes in circles to the point it's been milked for 1,000+ chapters.