A Conspicuous Challenger is Round 916 of Jōji Morikawa's Hajime no Ippo manga series.
Details[]
- Characters Introduced: Hisato Kojima
- Locations Introduced: Game Play Game
- Title Page Character(s): Genji Kamogawa, Manabu Itagaki, Tatsuya Kimura, Masaru Aoki, Ippo Makunouchi
Summary[]
Kamogawa reveals that Ippo's opponent is non-ranked, which Yagi explains that he was ranked eighth as a lightweight and then moved down to featherweight and has just fought, so his featherweight ranking should come out soon. As his name is revealed to be Hisato Kojima, Aoki remembers him as someone during his Rookie King days and was beaten in a spar before by him until Aoki used his legs, making him be of no challenge to him. Ippo realises that he will be colliding heads against someone two weight classes above him. At the Game Play Game, Kojima gains the highest score on the punching machine. After walking out with two of his kōhai, Kojima mentions to the two how he believes that he is the only one in Japan that can stand a chance of defeating Ippo as he knows the mistake that his previous opponents made against him. Kojima wishes to accomplish something impressive as a boxer, and it has to be against Ippo. At the Kamogawa gym, after seeing Ippo land a hit on the sandbag, Aoki and Kimura wonder if weight classes even matter to him.
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| World Contender | |||||||||||||||||||
| Blind Step | |||||||||||||||||||
| Manga Volumes | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95 | 96 | 97 | |||||||||||||||||
| Manga Rounds | |||||||||||||||||||
| 913 | 914 | 915 | 916 | 917 | 918 | 919 | 920 | 921 | 922 | ||||||||||
| 923 | 924 | 925 | 926 | 927 | 928 | 929 | 930 | 931 | 932 | ||||||||||
| 933 | 934 | 935 | 936 | 937 | 968 | 939 | 940 | 941 | |||||||||||