Originally Posted by
brothernumber9
I think since Naruto became so popular with little kids, and punk teens, that the "cool" crowd wants to disown it. I still like both the anime and the manga.
Hajime no ippo is my favorite. Once you get sucked in, you will have no choice but to watch all of them. There are a few filler and silly type episodes mixed in, but by and large the series is all build up to fights and the fights themselves. The only way I can draw parallels to Baki is that the main character picks up a new skill so to speak, leading up to each fight. And each opponent has some specialty or quirk that needs to be specifically addressed.
The core characters are what make the anime, it's really funny. Just as a side note, eventhough I do not know any Japanese, I simply cannot watch the english dubbed episodes. The voice-overs do not match the characters at all and drive me crazy. I have to watch it in Japanese with subs.