Tsubame Gaeshi

Tsubame Gaeshi
Name
Alternative Names	"The Second Hien" "Swallow Return"
Debut
Manga	Round 303
Anime	Hajime no Ippo: Champion Road
Info
Related Techniques	Smash
Parent Techniques	Uppercut
Users
Users	Alexander Volg Zangief Kazuki Sanada

Tsubame Gaeshi (燕返し (つばめがえし), Tsubame Gaeshi) is a double uppercut guard breaker invented by Dankichi Hama while he was in Mexico. This is the second technique created by Dankichi, the first being the Hien.

Usage

The user hits their opponent's guard with a right uppercut. The shock from the uppercut makes the guard go off centre, making it looser. The user then turns his fist from a horizontal position into a vertical position and sends out a sideways second right uppercut, albeit more compactly. This second uppercut penetrates the guard, allowing a clean hit. The execution of the technique must be rapid in order for it to be effective.

Due to the width of an eight-ounce glove being 17 centimetres and the height being 10 centimetres, the sideways uppercut goes through the crack in the guard that the first uppercut leaves.

Kazuki Sanada is able to set up this technique with his Hien by tricking his opponent into stiffening their guard in order for him the break it with the Tsubame Gaeshi. Alexander Volg Zangief strings the Tsubame Gaeshi into his White Fang. While being a guard breaker like the Smash, even being able to break the Peek-a-Boo Style guard, it is unable to break the Cross-Arm Block.

Trivia

• Tsubame Gaeshi and Hien are the names of sword techniques invented by Sasaki Kojirō, who is most prominently cited as the chief rival of legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi.
  • For further parallel, the existing records of Kojirō's Tsubame Gaeshi describe the technique as a two-step strike, claim that Kojirō would use the first step of the technique to slip the nodachi under his opponents before striking upwards, and was supposedly developed in order to allow the long nodachi to strike within close-quarters (a range that was considered to be a vulnerability of a nodachi).
• Wally does something similar to this technique against Ippo Makunouchi. Wally broke Ippo's guard after turning his fist sideways and launching one (rather than two, like the Tsubame Gaeshi) right uppercut through a small gap in Ippo's guard.