Story: 8.5/10
Fresh, so, so fresh, new, exciting. A story that begins with somebody we can easily classify as the endgame villain. The 100% talent, no effort person that destroys any ounce of love anybody can put into a passion. Similar to one of the best webtoons of all time, "The Boxer", people are far more complex than "the monster", "the bitch", "the underdog". People have problems, and framing those problems into how they express them when learning a passion, a sport, violence, we get the best stories. Of course, the device is MMA, the fights, the technical and amazing art, but the real hook are the characters and how they break clichés and conventions of the genre. Teppuu knows what it is, what it does to change the formula and prides itself on it to the point that we can only marvel at how interesting, and surprisingly simple it is.
Characters: 7/10
While the main character had the biggest amount of subtlety, change, and love put into her; can't say the same about the rest. Considering the health problems that the author had when making the series, we can't expect every aspect of every character to be fleshed out. Sadly, there's limited time to make sense of how everybody changed, as well as how little some did. People don't change that much out of nowhere, I get that, but at the very end, nobody changed at all except the protagonist and only by a little bit. The future ahead of these characters is bright, but the story will never be continued. A hole is left on how they went ahead, it's as if we saw the first "Alita Battle Angel" movie, yes we get a character arc and story, but the world and elements have so much more to say. I like the personalities, but mostly, each character was an archetype that got a fresh use, but not in how they were interpreted or led to the end.
Art: 10/10
The strongest aspect in Teppuu is the art. Masterclass in martial arts realism, in physiques, indicating subtle elements in each body. The consistency to which every part of every character was maintained to hold a perfect idea of how they work. The faces, extremely expressive, extremely well shown. I love every aspect of Teppuu in the art department, even how crowd shots have every person drawn without need. You can easily tell how people feel with their facial expressions, just as much as how their body moves. The lines of motion, how each impact isn't belittled, every single punch has importance, every grapple, I'm dumbfounded at the quality.
Overall: 8.5/10
Teppuu deserves more recognition as an underrated gem in martial arts manga. A story that respects the theme, the characters, and the sport it talks about, it really needs more people reading it.
