It begins as a comical Slice of Life series about Japan's teenage delinquent gang subculture told from the perspective of Matsushita Tadashi, a 2nd year student at Kangokou High and a constant target of numerous bullies who beat him up routinely after school. He decides to join the titular Karate Club, which is notorious throughout Osaka's youth gangs for training and producing the city's most hardened teenage thugs while maintaining the facade of a legit school sports club.
The story gradually changes its tone to a serious and violent martial arts manga, with the perspective changing from Matsushita to his mentor Takagi Yoshiyuki. A streetwise and tough-as-nails delinquent, he must take on the power struggles between gangs from all parts of the Kansai and Kanto regions to protect his comrades.
The series was influenced by Aa!! Hana no Ouendan and influenced stories like Cromartie High School in turn. It spawned a four episode OVA mini-series released from 1990 to 1992, a 1990 live action movie, and a 1994 Super Famicom fighting game.
In 2013, there was also a short Mahjong-themed spinoff titled Osu! Mahjong Club (押忍!!麻雀部). It is set in an Alternate Universe where Takagi Yoshinari, who aside from the name looks and acts identically to Yoshiyuki, competes in Mahjong against counterparts to antagonists from the original series.
The manga has been digitally released in English via Media Do.
This manga features the following tropes:
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: A Recurring Element of each arc is Takagi being willing to bend the knee to villains for the sake of his underlings only for them to wreak havoc upon everyone anyway, forcing Takagi into paying their violence back with interest.
- Takagi tries peacefully begging his Osakan rivals to stop fighting over the title of Soul of Osaka since it's obviously a plot from the Shikoku Alliance to take over the city, but runs out of patience as his allies are hurt and tackles them all at a tournament with the assistance of Sagawa, Rikizan and Sakuma.
- When Sato takes Takagi to negotiate with the Tokyo Alliance's captains, he tells the hero they cannot risk an all-out war even as each one goes out of their way to insult Takagi and beat Sato to a pulp. After plenty of comical humiliation, Takagi decks Katsunari on the face and tells the captains to just fight him like men.
- All Your Powers Combined: Takagi fights Sabu by channeling the spirits and techniques of several of his allies, such that Sabu can actually see them fighting in Takagi's place.
- Ambiguously Gay: Mizuguchi, a minor character who's part of the titular Karate Club. He has a notably campy way of talking, and is overrall quite effeminate but aside from that, nothing about his sexuality is really made obvious.
- Ambiguously Jewish: David Furuta. Aside from his first name, curly hair, and his ludicrously high intelligence, he also wields a Jericho 941, an Israeli-made gun.
- And This Is for...:
- In chapter 3, Takagi dedicates his beatdown of Ando to Matsushita and Saito.
- Takagi defeats Rick Powered with the signature attacks of his allies before dedicating the finishing blow to his Club and himself.
- Takagi defeats Boku Majima by breaking his limbs while claiming to be able to move through the power of the people who were nearly killed by Boku."Sorry... I ain't trying to do this... But my body's movin' itself. It's sayin' 'Break his leg!'"
- Art Evolution: Takahashi Kouji's art style notably evolves as the series evolves, with the most notable change being the characters having more proportionately sized faces alongside being drawn in a more detailed fashion in contrast to the beginning, which had the characters drawn with simplistic faces that are somewhat small and simplistic anatomy.
- Artifact Title: The early chapters revolve around Matsushita's woes at the titular Karate Club, but as focus changes to Takagi the story becomes more about delinquent gang wars even though he sets up a second Karate Club in Tokyo with a Title Drop by its door. From the latter half of the Tokyo Saga onwards, nothing to do with either of the Karate Clubs ever comes up again.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership:
- In chapter 3, the Boxing Club starts pushing everyone around after Takagi loses a duel to Ando, but as soon as Takagi settles the score Matsushita and Saito suddenly become able to humiliate the boxing students in revenge.
- In the beginning, Takagi is a renowned delinquent known as the Third Soul of Osaka. In the end, the male youth of the entire country, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, is willing to fight for him. And all because he wanted some tyrannical thugs to stop harming the innocent and helpless, as he has little interest on exerting authority over anyone outside of his Karate Club.
- Atop a Mountain of Corpses: In chapter 201, Takagi sits atop a pile of Shibuya Corps mooks he had just defeated.
- Author Appeal:
- Several protagonists in stories by Takahashi Kouji have short hair shaved in a particular shape. In this one, the star-shaped cut used by Takagi, Morigami and Jinrai marks them as Souls of Osaka.
- Takahashi Kouji is a Golf fan who wrote the Goldo series about the sport. This shows in Osu! Karate Bu when Takagi is inspired by the sport to mortally blast one villain away while underwater as if performing a bunker shot.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Once Sabu is defeated by Takagi, he admits the man deserves to rule over Tokyo and hands him his former leader's jacket. Takagi then carries Sabu outside and is celebrated by ten thousand man as the First Soul of Tokyo.
- Badass Boast: Takagi introduces himself to his new classmates at West Shinjuku Academy by asking one guy to hold a table for him, blasting them both with Fa Jin all the way to the next classroom and then sternly telling the others to just get along with him.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Yoshiyuki Takagi spends the majority of the series as an orphan with no knowledge of his family until his father and half-brother are revealed to be Gonosuke and Goki Akamatsu, the final villains. Gonosuke is an increasingly corrupt former soldier who conceived Goki on an arranged and unhappy marriage with what appears to be a religious fanatic, and who had an affair with a woman named Yukiko that ended with her being driven away from him, isolated and sent off to a mental institute after giving birth to Yoshiyuki. Yukiko's husband Yoshitaka holds a grudge against Gonosuke and the infant Yoshiyuki, abandoning the baby and eventually setting them against each other with lies that Gonosuke had outright raped Yukiko. Finally, Goki as the final villain does everything out of a desire to be acknowledged by Gonosuke but ends up killing him by accident when the man gets in the way of a lethal attack meant for Yoshiyuki to make them stop fighting. Yoshiyuki is forced to beat the desperate Goki unconscious, but ultimately feels he doesn't regret the kind of life he's had and cannot hate his family over it, which drives Yoshitaka to tears.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Interestingly, Takagi starts doing this regularly only after setting a Title Drop signboard on his new Karate Club in Tokyo.
- One of the volume covers has Takagi asking the viewer to purchase it. In the story itself, on chapter 162, while daring a line of students of West Shinjuku Academy to hit him as a show of resolve, Takagi jokingly asks one to buy Osu!! Karatebu volumes.
- On chapter 195, Takagi shouts that if he misses his final Fa Jin than the next chapter will be the last.
- On chapter 198, Takagi asks Takeuchi if he's inviting him to read past issues of the manga together.
- On volume 23, Raiden badly injuries Takagi and wonders if he'll get to take over the series.
- When David tries to blow Takagi off a building, the hero proclaims he won't let five years of the series end like that.
- On volume 29, Takagi points out to Kira that no reader believes any of them are underage.
- On volume 31, Takagi's maturity and mercifulness are said to have developed as a result of the story's length. It's then pointed out that 99 out of 100 readers can't remember Takagi is supposed to be a highschooler at this point.
- When Kiriyama tells Takagi he'll kill him, the protagonist boasts about his Plot Armor.
- When Takagi is undergoing deadly training from Keiji to master the Wicked Fist, he turns to the readers and asks them to send letters about what he should do to stay alive in the chapters to come. The next time we see them, Keiji remarks the fans won't be of any help to him.
- Tensho tells Takagi he'll explain the truth of the Rising Dragon and how it is possible to come back from death... on the next volume of Osu! Karate Club!
- Breakout Character: Matsushita and Saito are the focus of the first few chapters, but their mentor Takagi proved far more popular and upstaged them as the true protagonist.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Kitamura from the Sumo Club shows up a hundred chapters later as one of the strongest Osaka fighters looking to dethrone Takagi, complete with a 4th wall break joke to him first appearing in volume 1. He remains a Warm-Up Boss, though...
- Matsushita, Saito and Momochiyo visit Tokyo to meet Takagi after he defeats Sabu, leading to Momochiyo transferring to his school and returning to being part of the main cast.
- During the Rising Dragon arc, all the delinquents from Kobe and Tokyo get into huge trouble from being surrounded by police squads while not knowing their way around Osaka. Thankfully, all the Kangokou High Karate Club staff shows up and guides them to safety, in what's the last big appearance for guys like Matsushita, Saito and Kabata.
- Butt-Monkey: Matsushita and Saito are weaklings compared to everyone else and on top of suffering under their upperclassmen's antics also frequently get their asses kicked while fighting for justice, though Takagi appreciates their strong morals and always ropes them along on adventures. Even as they do slowly grow as fighters, their misfortune gets to the point Matsushita openly expresses shame to Takagi over how weak they are.
- Call-Back:
- After defeating Sabu and proclaiming himself the First Soul of Tokyo, Takagi is dramatically framed under a sunny sky in the same way it was back when he defeated Jinrai.
- The first act of kindness Takagi does for Momochiyo is chasing down thugs who had claimed the Karate Club's signpost from her, breaking into the train they were riding in the process. He later reunites with Momochiyo and confesses himself to her by chasing the train she was riding back to Tokyo after Marimo had driven her away.
- Camping a Crapper: The Shadow Five try ambushing Takagi on the toilet, but he expected this and had his friends in wait for a counterattack. Unfortunately, they still get their asses kicked and Takagi is left hospitalized for some time.
- Car Fu: Sato, the Shadow Five leader, takes a faceful of a speeding motorcycle twice, once by Takagi's decoy and then on a Dynamic Entry by Takagi himself.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The story begins in the Slice of Life genre and is mostly lighthearted outside of a few chapters that involve sexual assault. Then it develops into a Fighting Series and becomes increasingly serious as it goes on, with arcs such as the war between Osaka and Kobe and the following revenge of the Bad Girls gang on Takagi for two girls who were raped and killed for being friends with him having little to no comic relief. The stakes only get higher and higher, with Takagi going from fighting teenager gangs to yakuza organizations and corrupt politicians and several of his allies actually dying throughout his quest.
- Chekhov's Gag: There's a running gag of the chicks that Takagi raises to cook into friend chicken standing atop him in various scenes. During the battle against the Shinjuku Corps, they keep popping out despite the serious tone of the arc until one actually plays a role by carrying over an energy drink to bring an unconscious Takagi back into action."Well, I'll be damned!! You see, we Osakans tend to make jokes even at important times... But I drank an Alinamin V, so I won't miss this time!"
- Cliffhanger:
- Volume 31 ends with Koichi, who's been throughly brainwashed and broken by torture, about to shoot Momochiyo in the face. The next volume opens with him resisting and pointing away at the last instant.
- Played for Laughs in volume 34, where on the last panel Tensho tells the readers that he'll explain what the Rising Dragon technique really is on the next volume.
- Cool Old Lady: Hanamori Shizuka, the principal of West Shinjuku Academy. Not only is she supportive of Takagi and his do-good actions, but her response to the Shibuya Corps invading her school is to not only rally the students and have them summon all the martial artists and general badasses to fight back, but she also promises them that for every person they defeat, she'll add a point to their grade.
- Combat Pragmatist:
- Takagi acts like something of a Cowardly Lion sometimes, avoiding facing too many thugs at once or fighters he knows he would take a ton of damage from and fighting dirty unless he is facing a Worthy Opponent.
- Yuji accidentally killed a man after stuffing his mouth with shogi pieces and punching him square in the face. He also tosses sand at Takagi's eyes during their fight.
- Compressed Adaptation: The OVAs adapt some of the early stories and then the invasion from Kobe, but leave several key scenes out. One example is how Morigami is introduced in Kabada's backstory, leaving out how he met Takagi and chose him as his successor in the first place. Morigami's defeat to the Twin Reapers of Kobe is then offscreened and the rematch is abridged, to the point of leaving out the part where he goes berserk and his shared backstory with Jinrai is first mentioned.
- Crucified Hero Shot:
- In volume 23, Takagi has a nightmare of Takeuchi and Igari being executed by the Tokyo Alliance while he is chained to a cross. It then turns out the two have been kidnapped for real and are restrained with their arms tied and nailed to planks.
- In the Saga of Good and Evil, Takagi finds Sagawa and Andou crucified at the entrance to the ruined Kangokou High.
- Darkest Hour: After Takagi is unable to prevent the invasion of Osaka by the Kobe gangs, he returns to find KFTH and all the other local highschools destroyed. He decides to go into hiding until he recovers from his injuries and so the villains start torturing all the Karate Club's members and allies to draw him out.
- Death Glare:
- When Takagi first met Rikizan the Devil Bear, he wound up a punch but flinched in fear upon getting a good look on his face. Rikizan sneered down at Tagaki and... then dropped on his knees apologizing for the trouble, only further confusing him.
- Rikizan then first faced defeat upon being overwhelmed by five hundred men who glared back with such intense hatred for his actions that he was paralyzed with regret for how he had lead his life.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Takagi is said to have a fist that draws people to him. Former enemies such as the Pillars of Kobe willingly help him in times of need, stating they don't hold a grudge for their previous defeat.
- Disney Death: There are many instances in the first half of the series of characters being beaten to death, complete with stars falling out of the sky, only to show up alive and well later. The second half zigzags this, as some major characters like Kira and Jinrai get killed off miserably while others inexplicably are said to be alive in the Distant Finale despite being declared to be dead before!
- Distant Finale: 16 years after the Saga of Good and Evil, a tougher-looking Matsushita goes to a reunion party with his former classmates and other people who cared for Takagi. Everyone briefly talks about what they've been doing since graduation, and it's said that every surviving antagonist has become a good person. Morigami informs them that Takagi, who's been missing since he was briefly arrested for his part in the final battle, is living somewhere in Africa with Momochiyo and working as a soldier to take down criminal organizations in conflict zones.
- Doomed Hometown:
- Kangokou High and several Osakan schools are vandalized by forces from Kobe who beat everyone indiscriminately, forcing Takagi into war. When he solves this incident and moves on to Tokyo, his new school West Shinjuku Academy gets destroyed by the Kanto Slaughter Union and he sets out to hunt them down.
- After Takagi escapes from a prison island, he's lured back to Kangokou High and finds it shut down and in ruins, with two of his comrades crucified by the entrance grounds.
- Drugs Are Bad: After Shuzo places Koichi under terrifying torture involving starvation and drug injections that turn him into an emanciated slave, it is revealed the Rising Dragon treasure involves a massive stash of drugs used by martial artists for medical reasons.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Yoshimura "The Fag", the girly-looking mechanics geek who helped Takagi to race Hirayama Keiji.
- Dumb Muscle: Takagi is the sort of guy who starts bleeding from the nose if he reads anything for more than four minutes. Him being Book Dumb and not getting history or even vocabulary right is a running gag. However, as the story goes on there are remarks about him scoring high on certain subjects, speaking good English and eventually turning into a Genius Bruiser who can calculate the measurements of a battlefield made of a few ropes suspended over a pit so he can fight blindfolded to get around his acrophobia.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The lighthearted early chapters focus on Matsushita and emphasize the ridiculous spartan training of the karate club. Takagi is also portrayed as more of a jerkass whose first training lesson is telling the freshmen to shakedown people. By the time Takagi defeats Jinrai, the tone of the story has shifted so much he has to lean on the fourth wall to remind readers he's supposed to be an Ordinary High-School Student.
- The first time Takagi is seen in his berserk mode, he laughs like "Gehehehe" instead of "Tralala". Afterwards, there is no berserk mode at all except for Takagi gaining a Superpowered Evil Side for two fights towards the very end of the series.
- Elite Mooks: The Shinjuku Young Bloods members surprise Takagi by not going down in a single like like other generic mooks in the story... not that it matters at all once other antagonists show up to beat them senseless.
- Exact Words: A mountain hermit named Chinchin Ko tells Takagi that he'll only let him have a book of secret techniques if he can defeat him. Takagi can't beat the hermit in a fight, so he instead declares Rock Paper Scissors from out of the blue and gestures an open palm to his punch. Chinchin finds it funny and accepts Takagi as a pupil.
- Eye Scream:
- Morigami has his right eye damaged and the left one destroyed in his battles against Jinrai.
- To defeat Hayashi, Shimotori turns ruthless and shoves his fingers inside the guy's eyes, declaring even being branded a criminal for this is worth it for not being humiliated by him ever again.
- Faking the Dead: Following the battle against the Shinkoku Alliance, Takagi is stabbed by a random thug he was helping and takes the chance to fake his own death so he can be free from all the burden he's accumulated and move on to Tokyo. Only Matsushita, Saito, Momochiyo and Morigami are told the truth and send him off.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Morigami's right side of his face has a slash scar from Jinrai's lightning punch, and Jinrai had the left side of his face burned by acid when he was assaulting Itsuki.
- Graceful Loser:
- Takagi tells Morigami the word "defeat" doesn't exist in his dictionary, but after deciding to fight him fairly out of respect and being unable to win that way he simply smiles and remarks he'll add the word "concede" instead.
- Takagi incapacitates Kira in a single blow, but then extends him a friendly hand. The nearby crowd shouts Kira's name in a gesture of forgiveness, and so he accepts Tagaki as the one Soul of Osaka.
- Guns Are Worthless:
- Zigzagged throughout the series. Takagi will often take on armed enemies with no fear, but one excuse the story may use to force him into missing a knock-out blow on someone is some goon suddenly shooting and badly injuring him. Yakuza and police forces are also portrayed as a threat to the delinquent gangs by being highly armed and willing to kill.
- When David is introduced as a threatening villain, he fights dirty by immediately shooting Takagi down with a gun. As soon as he turns to the good guys' side, that gun is knocked out of his hand by some dude with whip-like hair.
- Handicapped Badass: Morigami is said to have beaten Jinrai and his many followers in a gruesome battle, but was left with a damaged right eye and this is exploited by the later opponents he faces. To make things worse, Jinrai then destroys his left eye on their next battle.
- Heroic BSoD: When Takagi learns his former master Jinrai has become evil, he loses all willpower and leaves with Momochiyo to Kobe. The Three Pillars of Kobe ambush and rough Takagi up for a bit before taking him to their master Liu-yun, who inspires him to fight and teaches the powerful techniques of Tai Chi Chuan.
- His Name Is...: Rikizan gets stomped by Kira when he's warning Takagi about the Red Lightning of Shikoku, which actually makes it clear to Takagi that the Red Lightning is former Soul of Osaka Jinrai and that Kira, Jinrai's best pupil, is really The Mole.
- Hope Bringer: Takagi commands the respect of all delinquents in Osaka with his dedication for the city, which is something the more agressive Soul of Osaka candidate Kira couldn't understand.
- Identical Stranger: Raiden Taro looks like a much smaller version of Matsuhita, with the only physical difference besides their height is that Raiden has perm-textured hair. This actually ends up becoming relevant, as Takagi hallucinates him as being Matsuhita during his battle with Raiden due to being high on morphine, causing him to hesitate.
- Important Haircut: Morigami has his hair shaved into the same star shape as Jinrai's out of admiration and later had Takagi get the same hairstyle as well to mark him as a fellow Soul of Osaka.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Both Jinrai and Kira grew obsessed with power and control as they felt inferior to the more approachable Morigami and Takagi. Morigami willingly working as a subordinate, hoping Itsuki to fall for Jinrai despite also loving her and showing mercy to Jinrai even after he raped Itsuki only worsened that complex.
- Insane Troll Logic: As the Karate Club is threatened by the school's student counsellor, Gantetsu forces Takagi to crossdress "until he graduates" so that the other gangsters won't pick up trouble with him.
- Just Shoot Him: When first facing the four most powerful Tokyo gang leaders, Takagi tries to convince them to fight him one-on-one. David gladly accepts, saying he can finish Takagi off in a mere 30 seconds. Takagi prepares a Fa jin... but David whips out a Jericho 941 and ruthlessly shoots him down.
- Ki Attacks: From Jinrai's arc on, the most powerful characters are Tai chi practicioners who can use Fa jin to deflect attacks and release explosive bursts of energy. While Jinrai is only able to emulate the technique with his strength, Takagi ends up performing the original version of it that's designed for killing and is urged by Liu-yun to not use it.
- Kick the Dog:
- Jinrai raped Itsuki upon realizing she and Morigami loved each other but Morigami still wanted him to have her. He's later confused by her behaving as if she wants him to prove himself despite her hatred, and then finds some cruel amusement in her being tied to him for conceiving a Child by Rape.
- The Shinjuku Corps set a record on scumbaggery when they go on a "fox hunt", rampaging around Tokyo to murder the families and friends of their targets.
- Boku Majima nearly kills Retsu and then stabs his little sister too for witnessing the crime — an act that terrifies even Sayuri, who had hired him for revenge. Takagi is so outraged that he disregards his code of honor and attempts to kill both of them in return.
- David Furuta killing his enemies with a Jericho 941 gun in this kind of story and under Japan's gun control laws paints him as extremely dishonorable. He and his allies then dump Takagi on a junkyard known as the Graveyard of Dreams and then destroy West Shinjuku Academy.
- Lawful Stupid: The Student Council President of Kangokou High tries to end the Karate Club for encouraging violence, and she forbids them to fight even as they are beaten by thugs who are holding her hostage. The conflict only ends when she turns a blind eye to let Takagi save her.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Kabada was only trusted with the role of vice captain by his hero Morigami for his strong dedication to the Karate Club. He is a cowardly and weak bully, but when a rival school tries burning the uniform gifted to him by Morigami, he's enraged and is able to lead the Karate Club to success.
- The Lost Lenore: Yuuko, the first leader of the Bad Girls who got kidnapped and raped by thugs just for being Takagi's girlfriend and ended up run over by a car while in shock. Her successor Megumi also dies in the exact same way after Takagi was starting to warm up to her.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Takagi becomes so distraught to learn that his mentor and brother figure Jinrai is leading the Shikoku forces that he can't help but roll up on a blanket like a kid.
- Made of Iron: Takagi and most of the other fighters in the story can handle a ridiculous amount of punishment. Even Matsushita is a Iron Butt Monkey and ultimately no one except for very minor background characters ever dies.
- Meaningful Name: Raiden Taro, the captain of the Sumida Corps. He's named after a god of thunder and wields a pair of taser gloves.
- Mook Horror Show: There are many instances of Takagi being an One-Man Army despite dealing with terrible injuries, like him casually beaten dozens of minions while climbing a flight of stairs and then checking his wrist watch to see it barely took 3 seconds.
- My Greatest Failure: Takagi deeply regrets how Yuuko and Megumi were raped and killed as a result of his involvement in gang violence, to the point that when Megumi's sister Asuka brutally lashes out at him and the other delinquents in revenge, even injuring Momochiyo in the process, he doesn't hold it against her and makes a point to not let anyone harm the Bad Girls until he can convince her to stop with words alone.
- No Badass to His Valet: Even Takagi owes respect to his own upperclassmen, though he will lash out and beat some of them if they prove too irritating. Out of them, the one who he truly respects is the Second Soul of Osaka, Morigami.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- Matsushita and Saito are beaten up at various points for trying to do the right thing, requiring Takagi to show up and save their asses.
- After defeating Jinrai and saving Osaka, Takagi is expelled from school and is made the subject of various rumors as people begin attacking him for fame and glory more than ever before. He takes pity on some thugs he walloped just to end up stabbed in the gut as he was taking the last one home, which at least gives him the chance to fake his own death and try to start anew in Tokyo.
- No-Sell: Rick Powered is able to prevent damage from nearly any attack by concentrating and flexing his muscles. Takagi manages to put an end to that by leaving them both hanging by the side of a high cliff, making Rick too scared to fight properly.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Tetsuya Sotogawa is shorter than the other best Osaka fighters, but he's as muscular as the others and is an expert grappler. Ironically, it's the massive Rikizan that takes on him during the tournament for the Soul of Osaka.
- Playing Possum: To avoid combat with Ton-Ton and Gen-Gen, Takagi uses a lot of artificial blood bags to make it seem as if him and several other people have been killed. As he praises himself, in Gratuitous English, for deserving an Academy Award for the Best Actor, Ton-Ton slips onto the closet where the empty bags are stored and the plan is ruined."BOING! IT'S A JOKE!"
- Police Are Useless:
- Zig-zagged; most incidents in the story happen without the police even getting involved but on multiple occasions Takagi and other characters do use their presence as a threat to get villains to back off.
- When Takagi recklessly sends his forces against Shuzo's yakuza organization, the Villain with Good Publicity merely sics 20000 heavily armed policemen on the delinquents and lets the public's opinion turn to his side. Only at the very end of the story, when Takagi surrenders himself to the police following the death of the Prime Minister, does he meet an officer who knows of his heroic actions and remarks Takagi will get off lightly for his part in the incident.
- Power-Up Food: Alinamin V energy drinks. Takagi is first fed one by his pet chick and afterwards he stocks up on them like it's an RPG game.
- Precious Puppy: Matsushita once adopts a dog left inside a box on a river... who naturally contracts leptospirosis and dies by the end of chapter after escaping from a health center to reunite with him.
- Progressively Prettier: Tatsuya Sakamoto undergoes this after being beaten by Takagi and turning over a new leaf, as he gains a full set of teeth and becomes a lot less exaggeratedly ugly in general to the point where he's almost unrecognizable. Other people still remark on how scary his face is though.
- Put on a Bus: Takagi moving to Tokyo results in the entire cast of supporting characters being replaced for some time.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The most despicable villains in the story rape their female victims. In particular, Jinrai completely turns to madness when he rapes Itsuki after finding she was in love with Morigami, who becomes outraged and attempts to fight him to the death. Later, Jinrai even finds a certain enjoyent in learning that Itsuki conceived a child from that encounter.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Downplayed with Sagawa's Four-hit Thrust, which Takagi improves into a five-hit combo. Given enough time, though, the series does get to a point where characters can perform absurd barrages of punches.
- Rated M for Manly: The story is about the strongest mustachioed highschool brawler ever duking it out with nefarious delinquent gangs until the entire male youth of Kansai and Kanto are at his beck and call. There is constant talk of justice, friendship, dreams, freedom... and disrespect towards women... A scene where a blood-soaked Takagi lifts and tosses a huge wood ship over his head in a burning island while singing a children's anime theme song on the top of his goddamn lungs is followed by eleven men willingly sacrificing themselves so the then overloaded vessel can set sail while Takagi solemnly cries for them despite being unconscious at the time.
- Redemption Demotion: Taken to extremes. Each set of antagonists will turn over a new leaf after Takagi manages to defeat them, but no matter how much of a threat they were, they will be effortlessly trampled on by the next Arc Villain. By the end, dozens of characters are reduced to being cannon fodder to show how strong Goki Akamatsu is, with increasingly worse consequences for failure that makes their humiliation just sad to see. There are very few examples throughout the series where The Worf Effect is downplayed by a well-disputed fight or averted.
- Remember the New Guy?:
- It is eventually revealed Takagi was requested to make Megumi disband the Bad Girls by her sister Asuka, who was a friend of Yuuko who blamed Takagi for her death.
- Chapter 102 introduces a group of the most powerful brawlers in Osaka. Among them, Kira challenges Takagi for the position of Soul of Osaka, criticizing his behaviour during the war with Kobe in which most of them didn't do anything of note either due to not yet existing in the story.
- Revenge by Proxy:
- Takagi's former classmate Yuji starts brutally beating down the Karate Club members after stuffing their mouths with Shogi pieces because he was previously arrested for accidentally killing someone while saving Takagi during a school brawl.
- Asuka and the Bad Girls gang try to destroy all the gangs in Osaka to avenge Yuuko and Megumi who were murdered because of their connection to Takagi.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
- After Megumi is raped and dies in a traffic accident, Takagi beats the perpetrator half-dead and crushes him under a motorcycle with cold-blooded efficiency.
- After Momochiyo is heavily injured from falling down a flight of stairs while trying to escape from Ootsuka and his goons, Takagi takes her to a hospital while only leaving Ootsuka a threat. He then begs Andou to let him take his place on the upcoming boxing championship, not to simply beat Ootsuka but to leave him crippled from a broken jaw on live television.
- Takagi becomes outraged at Boku's apparent assassination of Retsu and his sister and calls for a Fox Hunt to drag him out. He completely discards his honor code, almost killing Sayuri for hiring Boku and then tossing the assassin off a building fully intending to kill him.
- Running Gag:
- On chapter 3, Takagi purchases and protects a handful of chicks... just to fry and eat them some time later. Since then, chicks standing over his head and shoulder are a recurring visual gag.
- Takagi going "Tralala" when panicking or going berserk starts from chapter 12 onwards.
- Momochiyo breaking windows and ears with her loud crying, which is even her super move in the Super Famicom fighting game.
- Samus Is a Girl: Takagi discovers that at least two of the Shadow Five are masked women after accidentally groping one of them.
- Serial Escalation: Takagi starts out facing opponents from Osaka and Kobe and defeats Jinrai before faking his death and leaving to Tokyo. In that city he faces several more factions of fighters who are as strong as Jinrai and claims the title of First Soul of Tokyo by uniting them all under his authority. This draws the attention of big shots from all the other six Kanto prefectures, who all come to menace him. By the end, Takagi moves on to fight against heavily armed yakuza organizations and corrupt politicians with the fate of Japan itself at stake.
- Shrouded in Myth: Rumors say Morigami fought Jinrai and his men in a great battle where he displayed his true murderous nature to earn the title of Soul of Osaka, but their backstory shows Morigami lost badly and Jinrai's followers were actually curb stomped for immediately turning on him for his cruel actions.
- Shout-Out:
- To fight the Cheering Squad of West Shinjuku, Yamamoto is taught to channel Rikiishi Toru of Tomorrow's Joe and perform a deadly Razor Uppercut counter.
- The cover for chapter 198 has Takagi wearing a hair bow and riding a broom like he's Kiki.
- One saga involves Takagi searching for a "Rising Dragon" technique. So then one chapter cover has him dressed like Balrog (Boxer) and Momochiyo cosplaying as Chun-Li. It's neat because it's most likely in reference to Takagi that Balrog has the same star-shaped shave in the first place. Later, Takagi beats one yakuza thug with a Shoryuken (Rising Dragon Fist) just for the pun's sake and compares a sphere of energy to the Hadouken.
- Takagi sings the Dokonjou Gaeru theme song while adopting a frog stance and lifting a huge wooden boat over his head before tossing it into the sea."GUTS! GUTS! GUTS! CRY, LAUGH AND FIGHT! IT SUCKS! THAT SUPER GUTSY FROG! IS STILL GONNA LIVE!! ON A FREAKIN' SHIRT!!!"
- Smoking Is Cool: Takagi and some other underage delinquents are occasionally shown smoking.
- The Smurfette Principle: The Kangokou High Karate Club has Momochiyo as the only female fighter, and the West Shinjuku Academy Karate Club only has Marimo.
- So Last Season:
- The Fa jin is a mighty Ki manipulation techquine that Takagi is forced to learn to even stand a chance against Jinrai, the first major antagonist in the series. Once Takagi moves to Tokyo, it turns out everyone and their dog now knows the Fa jin exists and attempts to keep the man from performing it properly. During the conflict against the Tokyo Alliance, Katsunari is able to fire a Fa jin even stronger than Takagi's for unexplained reasons, only for Takagi to suddenly reveal he had been taught the 100-step God Punch, a counter to that technique, at some unknown point and use that to win the fight.
- The 100-step God Punch is then turned against Takagi just as suddenly by Osamu only a few chapters later, forcing the hero to go climb a mountain and learn a new secret technique, the Universal Light Punch, to use against the Kanto Slaughter Group.
- The next arc is spent with the heroes and villains chasing after the secret of the Rising Dragon technique. The moment Takagi masters it for real and thinks he has saved the day, a whole new antagonist called Goki pulls the rug under everyone's feet and makes a mockery of all the aforementioned techniques (Except the 100-step God Punch. They apparently forgot that one.) before kicking Takagi into jail.
- Spirit Advisor: The heavily injured Morigami appears as a spirit to Takagi, begging him to not simply defeat Jinrai in his stead, but to somehow restore him to the good-natured man he once knew. After Morigami fades away, Takagi receives the news his condition actually has stabilized.
- Stay in the Kitchen:
- Takagi is at first upset to have the girly Momochiyo managing and training under the sausagefest that's the Karate Club, but he also gives her genuinely good self-defense lessons anytime she's in trouble, with a gentleness and patience he usually doesn't show to anyone else.
- By Asuka's request, Takagi demands Megumi disbands the Bad Girls gang out of worry for their safety, and right afterwards she is killed for helping him escape from an enemy gang.
- After defeating the female Shadow Five members with only intimidation tactics (tossing large steel beams near them), Takagi quips that they should live like women and leave the fighting to the men. Later on, once two of them attempt to Hold the Line against a crowd of thugs but are overwhelmed and smashed against the wall, Jinrai rescues them while saying the same thing as Takagi.
- Suddenly Always Knew That: Katsunari shows he somehow can perform the Fa jin and uses it to blast Takagi into the floor. Once the hero gets himself back in the game, it is revealed that at some point or another Liu-yun had taught him the "100-step God Fist", a parrying aura that turns the opponent's Fa jin against themself. After Katsunari is finally beaten into submission, Jinrai even asks when Takagi even learned that new technique.
- There Can Be Only One: Because of Takagi hiding away during the war against Kobe until he recovered, the other strongest brawlers in Osaka start a ruckus fighting amongst themselves to take his place as the Soul of Osaka.
- Title Drop: When Takagi establishes a new Karate Club at West Shinjuku Academy, he sets a "Go!! Karate Club" signpost by the door.
- Use Your Head: Takagi defeats Tofukuji with a chain of headbutts after luring him into close range.
- We Used to Be Friends:
- Takagi and Kira were both students of Jinrai since their childhood, but Kira grew intensely resentful of how people only seemed to appreciate Takagi no matter what he did.
- Morigami and Jinrai likewise were friends, but Jinrai grew obsessed and overly violent when Itsuki told him she liked all-powerful men. He began resenting Morigami's kindness and was driven to madness when it turned out Itsuki and Morigami had feelings for each other.
- The Worf Barrage: Despite how powerful the Fa jin is, Takagi either just bloodily grazes people with it, unconsciously holds it back or straight up misses it 99% of the time except for the final blow on arc villains.
- The Worf Effect:
- During the Kobe war, all the previous main antagonists in the story and Morigami get their asses handed to them by Jinrai and his Four Devils.
- Jinrai returns as an ally against the Tokyo Alliance, but each of its four captains are nearly as strong as him and he's forced to set off a fire alarm on the ruined West Shinjuku School to drive two of them away. Furthermore, Jinrai lets Takagi hit him head-on with a Fa jin just to see if the hero has what it takes to challenge each of the villains one-on-one, which removes him as a viable fighter for the rest of the arc.
- Once Takagi takes over Tokyo, four fearsome fighters from Kanto assassinate Mutsuo, a then bedridden man who once united the region, and then it's their turn to make a joke out of the Tokyo Alliance's captains. Raiden and David get the worst of it, but at least Sabu gets to defeat one of the Slaughter Union's captains and has a well-disputed fight with Teramoto before going down.
- It takes a massively drawn-out fight and a titanic amount of damage until Seiichi of the Slaughter Union is defeated by Takagi, and yet Ton-Ton and Gen-Gen both clown on him in the next arc while Takagi is being taught the Wicked Fist style to obtain the Rising Dragon and even stand a chance against them.
- Would Hit a Girl: Katsuhiro obeyed Sayuri because he was in love with her, but he hated her brutal rule over Shibuya and didn't hesitate to deck her in the face once he saw how he meant nothing to her. After Katsuhiro is defeated, she tries to run Takagi over with her minions but they refuse to dishonor the conflict any longer. Retsu finishes Sayuri's deposal by blasting her several feet away with another punch to the face.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl:
- Takagi threatens to destroy Asuka if she doesn't listen to reason and stop her revenge attempt on the gangs of Osaka, but no matter how much she injures him he only half-heartedly gestures a punch at her direction while crying for her plight. He then tells Morigami there's nothing in his fists that could harm a woman.
- It's subverted, however, when Sayuri nearly gets Retsu and his sister murdered by Boku. Takagi slams her against a wall when he finds out and nearly punches her head off despite her begging for forgiveness, barely missing when a doctor barges in declaring the siblings are still hanging on and Sayuri volunteers to donate blood to them. Upon calming down and noticing how regretful she is, Takagi apologizes for treating her so harshly.
- Younger Than They Look: Most of the male highschoolers in the story look far older than they actually are. Jinrai is one of the most noticeable examples, as flashbacks show him and Takagi with a large age gap that doesn't add up with the rest of the details involving them.Kira: You're an high schooler, so can you walk around drinkin'?Takagi: Idiot! None of this manga's readers think I'm underage!
