Friend: You like [character driven sports comic mostly grounded in realism], right? You should check out this comic, it's just like that! Even the beginnings are practically identical!

Said comic: /starts off with karate man proving judo is an inferior martial art by totally shattering the ribs of a judoka with a single punch, then breaking his leg with another single strike. Goes on in later chapters to cause very permanent injuries to other students at his school, only to get off scot-free because they basically run on might is right.

The similarities basically start and end at "A combat sport is involved. The character that the main character looks up to rescues him from bullies and takes him to where they practice."

Everything else is different in just about every way.

opens mouth

closes mouth

i don't think this person's ever read a boxing manga.

so, a leap from like Ashita no Joe to like....Dragonball Z

Pretty much!

i think sometimes people are well-meaning but fail to understand what it is that people like about a thing when using it as their reference point for "what friend might like" :'>

Yeah. And, like. It's nice that they're thinking of me?

It's just not what I'm looking for.

When looking into it before reading it, I kept running into people who sang its praises over how realistic it was and it's like.

This is a series where martial artists have low level super strength and can shatter bones and walls and tables with ease.

...even in those rare circumstances where a strike does break a leg in one go, it's usually extreme

Also, I wasn't quite prepared for the first chapter to have a near rape scene, and later research showed that there were multiple other attempted rapes and a successful serial rapist even joins the main cast as a heroic comic relief character, so I'm glad I didn't get that far.

Like the only example that's coming to mind was that MMA fighter who had a kick that hit where it shouldn't and it was basically his leg vs. a skull

(the skull won)

Didn't Anderson Silva break his own leg kicking a dude's leg once?

Yeah, that was him. (Don't look up the video, it's gnarly.)

yeah those seem to be the only times a single strike really has enough force to do anything, and even then it's probably not the way it's working in the comic since it isn't the other guy getting messed up

I also can't remember it ever being the femur that gets fucked up like that, I think that might even be the strongest bone in the body (or at least close to it).

But, yeah, the recced manga was Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru /Prince of Karate. (Talked to said friend about all the rape, they apparently forgot that the serial rapist became a main character and didn't want to provide spoilers for the other instances.)

ugh

it's not realistic at all. Anyone that actually tries to break other people in a dojo would get kicked the fuck out

you don't go out of your way to seriously injure sparring partners period

Nah, this wasn't sparring partners, this was seeking out people from other martial arts clubs on campus to beat them up and prove the superiority of full contact karate

(so, at minimum, what it should be is multiple aggravated assault charges)

Yeah.