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Category:    Home > Reviews > Animé TV > Fighting Spirit 3 - Test Of Endurance

Fighting Spirit 3 – Test Of Endurance (Animé TV)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C     Episodes: B-

 

 

Ippo Makunouchi is back and is now facing his first professional boxing match in the latest set of episodes from the Animé TV series Fighting Spirit, which may be one of the best of the last thirty years in the genre.  The right mix of great fights, fun storylines and humor that has great timing continues.  The episodes this time around are:

 

11) Obsession For Victory

12) Becoming A Bully’s Buddy

13) The Eastern Japan Rookie Championship Tournament Begins

14) Powerful Arms!  Hook vs. Uppercut

15) Test Of Endurance

 

 

Instead of falling into a simple formula, while the fun and surprise comes from the way the show continues to take the high road on boxing.  Instead of going the Raging Bull or Rocky route, it continues to portray it as a fun sport that is cleaner than it tends to be in real life.  In the process, it creates its own world of boxing as sport that is refreshing and yet has just enough realism to suspend one’s disbelief in watching as the storyline unfolds.  I wish more Animé TV were this clever.

 

The full frame, color image continue to offer the intentional bit of softness, but is still one of the better 1.33 X 1 Animé titles we’ve seen from any company to date, but I continue to wish it were a tad sharper.  This is based on a comic book and is done in the good spirit of such.  The sound continues to be available in Dolby Digital 2.0 English, Japanese, and Spanish language with some Pro Logic surrounds.  Credit should go to Tsuneo Imahori for an exceptional music score.  I should note that the English subtitles are more bluntly written than the spoken English.  Extras include the Spanish end credits again and three new trailers for three other Geneon DVDs.  That is par for the course for such releases, but that is good.  Be sure to start with the first DVD and if you are enjoying it enough, you will want to see the whole series.  On some ways, I can say this is one of the best since the original Speed Racer.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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