The Rising Saga is the fifth in the series, and first in the second part of the series.
Ippo Makunouchi follows up with his fourth JBC featherweight title defence, being challenged by the "Ryūkyū Warrior" Iwao Shimabukuro, who claims that he will defeat the Dempsey Roll and prove who the real son of the sea is. Later, to everyone's surprise, Masaru Aoki, who was ranked fifth in the JBC, unexpectedly has a title match, against the JBC lightweight champion Katsutaka Imae.
After Aoki's comic show, Ippo travels to Osaka to see Takeshi Sendō's come-back match. Ippo has more defences lined up and is called by his coach Genji Kamogawa a "Cheese Champion", the Dempsey Roll is weak to counters. Ippo picks to challenge the dangerous "Owari Dragon" Ryūhei Sawamura and seeks to evolve his Dempsey Roll in order to defeat him. Takamura announces his six weight class conquest and after his defence against challenger Larry Bernard, he challenges the middleweight WBC world champion, David Eagle, while Aoki and Tatsuya Kimura face national champions, Papaya Dachiu and Eleki Battery respectively as undercards and, as a semi-final, Ichirō Miyata defends his OPBF title against Medgoen Dachboy, who is hired by Mr. Sakaguchi specifically to study Miyata, with the promise that with enough money he can cure Medgoen's daughter. Miyata proves his results from the training with Takamura and the improved counter the latter showed him.
Everyone awaits the potential match of Ippo and Miyata, wanting to see them fight each other at their best condition.
Story Arcs[]
Trivia[]
- In the French manga licensed version, the publishers named this Saga as (Saison 3 - "La défense suprême"), translated to Season 3 - "Supreme Defence". Spanning from Round 416 to Round 627.
- It was adapted into an anime season called also Rising, hence the name Rising (also, the last episode of the previous season, Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger, adapted the beginning of the Submarine Wars Arc).