Hajime no Ippo Recounts Anime Woes Amid Growing Adaptation Debate

In the entertainment industry, few things are harder than adaptation. There are any number of lines that can be crossed when bringing a beloved story into a new medium. In manga, we see this all the time with anime adaptations, but there are others to watch for. In the past month, all eyes have been on manga-to-drama adaptations, and now one of the most famous mangaka in the game is addressing the situation.

The confession comes from George Morikawa, the creator of Hajime no Ippo. Recently, the artist opened up about their own issues they’ve faced with adaptations of Hajime no Ippo. Taking to X (Twitter), Morikawa said his original text on Hajime no Ippo was overlooked at first when adaptations began to tackle the sports series, and the artist remembers how bad that felt to this day.

“When I first started serializing Hajime no Ippo, I was approached by a number of companies about an anime or movie rather soon after the series started,” Morikawa revealed. “I wasn’t interested in those things at all, so I kept turning them down. About 10 years later, a company came to see me with a large group of people, and I nodded to their enthusiasm and offered them a condition: ‘Please don’t disappoint the readers who have bought 40 volumes of the manga.’ “

According to Morikawa, this offer led to the anime adaptation of Hajime no Ippo, but its first few episodes were rough to put lightly. The artist was left sickened by the situation, and in the anime’s next meeting, Morikawa set an ultimatum. The anime would either do the original manga justice or Morikawa would stop publishing Hajime no Ippo entirely.

“That’s not what you promised, stop now. If you don’t stop, I will stop the serialization,” Morkiawa told the group. “Everyone involved was in a panic but I was not satisfied.”

It turns out the threat worked as the Hajime no Ippo anime turned into a solid production from there on out.”I thanked the first and second directors for their hard work… I knew they were doing their best, so I felt a mixture of ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I can’t accept it,’ but I told myself that the priority was the readers, and I acted accordingly. I gave them the condition that if they would accept Kohei Kiyasu as the scriptwriter, I would leave everything to him. The editor in charge at Kodansha, the program producer, and the production company worked very hard and always reported back to me on the progress and results. These are my experiences.”

Of course, you can imagine how hard it was for Morikawa to step in during the anime’s production to get it on track. While the creator was involved in the project, Hajime no Ippo was left to the anime team to do what they needed. It was only after Morikawa noticed some discrepancies that he was able to step forward. Sadly, not every creator has that opportunity.

In the past month, the debate on manga adaptations has taken over headlines in the wake of Hinako Ashihara’s death. The beloved artist oversaw the series Sexy Tanaka-san, a popular manga that was adapted into a live-action drama recently. The show was popular in Japan, but its story and characters deviated from the source material. In the show’s wake, Ashihara lamented the fact she was unable to oversee the live-action drama despite being promised a faithful adaptation. Shortly after making the personal post, Ashihara was found dead by apparent suicide, leaving the manga fandom to mourn the tragic loss. Now, it seems Morikawa is sharing their own adaptation woes to help prevent this tragedy from happening again. 

What do you make of this latest revelation? Let us know what you think in the comments below as well as on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me up @MeganPetersCB to share your take!

HT – Bounding Into Comics