“If you don’t stop, I will stop the serialization”: George Morikawa Was Supremely Pissed When Hajime no Ippo Anime Didn’t Meet His 1 Condition

The process of turning a manga into an anime is always coupled with risks. First, the creator of said manga themselves should talk to the company, oversee the script, the production quality and then approve the adaptation. Second, the success of the adaptation depends on how fans receive it. If it’s up to their expectations, then the anime will perform decently in terms of revenue. If it exceeds their expectations, then the anime will be remembered beyond one season.

It’s even trickier for production companies to adapt longer shows. Believe it or not, the anime adaptation of the famous boxing series Hajime No Ippo didn’t have a great start. And that’s because the author had serious problems with it.

Hajime No Ippo author talks about anime adaptations deviating from the manga

In Jan 2024, Hajime No Ippo George Morikawa took to X to open up about his own issues he’s faced with the anime. Before Studio Madhouse made their move, Morikawa-sensei was approached by several companies to animate their series, and for 10 years he had turned the requests of such companies down. Only Madhouse was able to bag an agreement but with a certain condition.

When I first started serializing Hajime no Ippo, I was approached by a number of companies about an anime or movie rather soon after the series started. I wasn’t interested in those things at all, so I kept turning them down. About 10 years later, a company came to see me with a large group of people, and I nodded to their enthusiasm and offered them a condition: ‘Please don’t disappoint the readers who have bought 40 volumes of the manga.

Morikawa-sensei was very particular about preserving the essence of the author’s intentions in their works. And it’s the animator’s job to make sure that essence is kept in the adaptation. That’s why the author targeted anime studios for changing or adding their interpretation to the manga creator’s work. In another post on X, Morikawa-sensei asserted that the author’s vision is absolute and they need to do everything to preserve their intellectual rights.

During Hajime No Ippo‘s anime production, Morikawa-sensei realized that the anime deviated from the manga right at its initial phase and said something that riled up the manga staff.

George Morikawa threatened to stop serialization if the anime quality didn’t improve

Upon seeing episode 2 of Hajime No Ippo, the original creator realized that the anime deviated quite a bit from the manga. Then, he proclaimed to the series’ production team:

That’s not what you promised, stop now. If you don’t stop, I will stop the serialization.

This is a wild but much-needed claim from a successful mangaka like Morikawa-sensei. He loved his work so much that he didn’t want to see it getting tarnished somewhere else. He stated that everyone was in a panic but he stood his ground.

However, his speaking out ultimately paid off, as after threatening to cancel Hajime no Ippo‘s serialization, studio Madhouse significantly improved the anime’s quality and made an assurance with the author.

I was assured that they would improve the quality of the work, and I backed off for the time being. After that, the work turned out great, and we developed a relationship of trust, so I stopped checking the script and left it entirely in their hands.

Morikawa-sensei was later happy with the changes and thanked the staff for their work. He had to do what he had to do for the sake of the readers. But, he mentioned that he would leave the adaptation entirely in their hands only if Kohei Kiyasu was made the scriptwriter.

Since then, the editor in charge at Kodansha, the program producer, and the production company worked very hard and always reported back to him on the progress and results. Thus the anime adaptation of Hajime No Ippo that fans know and love finally began to take shape.

It’s not the first time authors were unhappy with adaptations. Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama was so upset over Dragon Ball: Evolution that he decided to come out of retirement to write the script for Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.

It’s important for production studios to respect the vision mangakas have inscribed in their work, and they should strive hard to carry forward that in the anime.

Hajime No Ippo is now available to watch on Netflix.