Ippo Makunouchi (幕之内 一歩, Makunouchi Ippo?), voiced by Kōhei Kiyasu (Japanese) and Steve Cannon (English), is the main protagonist of the series with an aggressive fighting style based on Mike Tyson. His boldness as a boxer is juxtaposed with his shy and amiable personality outside the ring. He lives with his mother, Hiroko Makunouchi, and helps with the family charter boat fishing business—a job which has developed his lower body well enough to become an effective boxer. When he was young, Ippo used to get bullied and picked on by others in his school. As fate would have it, Takamura came upon Ippo as he was getting a beating from a couple of bullies and decided to help him. Takamura saw something in Ippo and introduced him to the world of boxing. After seeing a video of Tyson, Ippo becomes inspired to take up boxing to feel reborn with strength and asks Takamura to get him into Kamogawa Gym. Immediately after arriving at Kamogawa Gym he impresses Takamura and Kamogawa with his explosive punching power and guts in the ring. Like he has with Takamura, Kamogawa personally takes on Ippo as his pupil and starts him on the path to being a pro boxer. Since then, Takamura has treated Ippo like a younger brother and has taken him under his wing.
Ippo is described as an in-fighter (though, he resembles more of a boxer-puncher) and is well known for his comeback KO victories, his Peek-a-Boo style defense and his heavy blows which include three signature punches: a rib-cracking Liver blow, Gazelle punch (an uppercut variant), and the Dempsey roll, modeled after punches used by Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, and Jack Dempsey respectively. He stands at 164 cm (5'5") tall with a 165 cm (5'5") reach and has consistently weighed 126 pounds (57 kg). His natural talents include stamina, balance and enough punching power to turn around a match instantly; combined with his superb fighting spirit, these assets lead to his comebacks victories and have allowed him to overcome any technical shortcomings. His destructive Dempsey roll technique has been a particular focus in the story and has continued to evolve through the series: in the match with Sawamura, he added a rapid stop-and-start to prevent it from being countered, and against Jimmy Sisfa, he incorporated an uppercut to the rotation, but Makunouchi needs to continue to develop his lower body to use these without risking further injury. He temporarily stopped using the Dempsey roll in order to refine his basics and become a more complete boxer. His nickname is the God of Wind, coined after the force of his powerful blows. In addition, his intense training has allowed him to mimic some fighters' specialities with a degree of success such as Sendo's smash attacks or Jimmy Sisfa's jolt attacks during their matches.
Makunouchi Ippo, the main character of the anime and manga, is said to be modeled after Mike Tyson. It was stated by Takamura in the manga that Mike Tyson was also bullied when he was still small and, even though he has an image of cold hearted man, when he was small he had a kind heart. Whenever he was bullied he ran home crying to tend to his pigeons. When, one day, a pigeon that he was bringing up got killed, Tyson charged into the scene of the crime and went completely berserk. That was the first time he realized his dynamite punch.
During his fight with Sendo, Ippo showed the Dempsey Roll's perfect form. Since the Dempsey Roll could not be used if the opponent won't back down, Ippo utilized all three of his techniques. Starting with the liver blow, which damaged Sendo's right ribs, Ippo then used a feint with his own version of "Sakki"(killing intent), called "Courage", making Sendo raise his guard. Ippo then followed up with the Gazelle punch (an uppercut using the strength of the legs for additional power), which made Sendo's jaw fly up and stunned him for a few seconds. Taking the opportunity of Sendo being stunned, Ippo then revved up his Dempsey Roll which hit Sendo a couple of times before knocking him out. Ippo used the same pattern of attack on his first title defense with Sanada but due to the damage that he sustained his attack stopped after a couple of hits.
Hajime no Ippo has covered each of Makunouchi's fights, starting with his introduction to the boxing world and winning the All Japan Rookie Kings tournament in a talented rookie Featherweight class (it has produced a four national champions and two OPBF Champions so far). The story continues with his ascension to becoming the Japanese Featherweight Champion, a title he currently holds and has defended eight times. He's now begun his journey towards the world stage by challenging other national title holders in the OPBF. His current record as a professional boxer is 25 matches, 24 wins and 1 loss with all 24 victories by KO, and he holds the seventh ranking in the WBC. His only loss is to Eiji Date in his first attempt to challenge for the Japanese Featherweight title, who would go on to challenge Ricardo Martinez for the world title, but the injuries Date sustained forced him to retire and pass the baton to Ippo. Ippo's most recent fight was his eighth title defense against Kojima Hisato, which he won in a first round KO with only one punch and now holds a record of 24 wins, 1 loss and 24 knockouts. His objective is to defeat the current WBC Featherweight Champion Ricardo Martinez.
Read more about this topic: List Of Fighting Spirit Characters, Kamogawa Gym