Ippo Makunouchi

(幕之内 一歩, Makunouchi Ippo?), voiced by Kōhei Kiyasu (Japanese) and Steve Staley (English), is the main protagonist of the series. He lives with his mother, Hiroko Makunouchi, and helps with the family charter boat fishing business. When he was young, Ippo use to get bullied and picked on by others in his school. As fate would have it, Takamura came upon Ippo as he was getting a beating from a couple of bullies and decided to help him. Takamura saw something in Ippo and introduced him to the world of boxing. After seeing a video of Mike Tyson, Ippo becomes inspired to take up boxing to feel reborn with strength, as a sort of therapy and asks Takamura to get him into Kamogawa Gym. Immediately after arriving at Kamogawa Gym he impresses Takamura and Kamogawa with his explosive punching power and guts in the ring. Like he has with Takamura, Kamogawa personally takes on Ippo as his pupil and starts him on the path to being a pro boxer. Since then, Takamura has treated Ippo like a younger brother and has taken him under his wing.

Ippo is a classic in-fighter and is well known for his Peek-a-Boo style of boxing and hard punches including three signature punches: a rib-cracking Liver blow, Gazelle punch (an uppercut variant), and the Dempsey roll technique. During his match with Sawamura, he modified the Dempsey roll to prevent it from being countered. He also modified the Dempsey roll into a "smash" version when he fought against Jimmy Sisfa, a.k.a. "Scratch J". His signature punches are modeled after Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, and Jack Dempsey respectively. Although he is not a technical boxer, Makunouchi makes up for it with his superb fighting spirit. His nickname is the God of Wind, coined after the force of his powerful blows. Ippo is based on Mike Tyson.

Ippo's current record as a professional boxer with 22 matches is 21–1–0 (W-L-D), with 21 KOs, he is the reigning JBC Featherweight Champion, having defended his Japanese title 7 times, and holds a single digit ranking in the WBC.