Plenty of boxers name their techniques out there. Also, the action isn’t slowed down in itself. It’s just the slowed down perspective and most of the commentary comes from the ringside observation. Also, the mangaka is a bit of a boxing expert. It ain’t Dragonball Z or Prince of Tennis. There’s some pretty wild moves in there, but it’s not to the point of being totally unrealistic.

“Cotto Vs Margerito and Pacman versus Marquez are way more exciting than any fight in Ippo and I love Ippo… ”

Westlo, you are not an Ippo fan if you say that. Some of the Ippo fights are freakin’ incredible. Real life fights, there’s good ones of course, but why are you putting down Ippo when you say you love it? It’s obvious. You don’t.

(Also, I think the author is working on a Neatherlands character, so s/he might appear in the anime if we’re lucky)

Look who’s talking! Oh well, the average taco might really not be the brightest bulb.

As for Toradora, I don’t think you’d like it, but I may just be over-thinking how much you’ve been whining about teenagers lately- because the essence of it is that the high school setting isn’t being used specifically for the appeal that shows with that setting have, then building from there-the characters are in every way TEENAGERS. They can be shallow, perverted, and jump to conclusions a lot. They can surprise you one second with their insight and tenacity, only to fall on their faces over an issue seemingly insignificant. Most of them don’t have the faintest idea where their lives are taking them or if they’re going to like it there, and sometimes the only proper way to express their confused emotions is the most straightforward and/or outrageous way. Which leaves the story kind of ridiculous for the sake of the drama at times, but also does a really good job of showing adolescence. Toradora gets points for well-depicted teenagers-they aren’t likely to take the most logical actions, but they’ll do whatever makes the most sense to themselves.
If you think you can deal with that, it’s not like it’s all drama, or even too much so, either. Very fun comedy/slice-of-life.

Of course they included Greece, so that argument slaps me right in the face.

Anyway, Tales of the Abyss time. I’m trilled to see that its still hasn’t fallen in the limbo of good video games but bad anime, along with Xenosaga and other Tales adaptations.

Senerikfred: crap, I thought people wouldn’t notice. Yeah, when I was about to make screenshots, I found out that I already deleted all of the ToA-episodes on my computer, and I was too lazy to download them again.

ll: I watch that show exactly because I lack the patience to enjoy real sports matches.

Wyrdwad: Afganis-tan sounds so awesome. :)

Jerry, tekky: I dropped Toradora for pretty shallow reasons (I couldn’t stand Taiga’s voice actress because she reminded me too much of Shakugan no Shana), but with the immense amount of support for that show, I might end up watching it at some point.

If you were offended by Hetalia, though, then I have to wonder how offended you’d be by its earlier middle-eastern counterpart, Afghanis-tan. ;)

-Tom

Yes, because in the modern world, when something offensive appears in a piece of fiction, it’s inherently bad, right? Idiot.

go watch real boxing then…the so called boxing in this anime is really…who names all their moves? and who does their moves slow enough so people can see it and go like, that’s the belly roll! or that’s the _____!