Webcomic / Star Impact

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In a World… where boxing is the most popular sport, the fighters wear super-powered gloves that give them unique abilities in the ring. Aster hopes to begin her journey into this world, but she never meshed well with any pair of gloves brought before her. Until one night, when she happened upon a chance encounter with the gloves of a long-gone boxing legend, who was her personal idol to boot.

They wind up being a perfect match for her, and so this kick-starts her foray into the Pro Boxing League. Armed now with Shooting Star, Aster proceeds to rise through the ranks while making new friends and facing down rivals, all while trying to solve the mystery of the ten-years-ago disappearance of her gloves' previous bearer.

Star Impact is a webcomic written and drawn by American artist Jack McGee and published by Hiveworks, which he has described as "a love letter to shounen action and sports anime". It began on October 9th, 2018, and updates on Tuesdays and Fridays.

And the trope list begins!

• Abandoned Info Page: The cast page only features the five characters shown in the page image, despite the fact that several other important characters have made their mark on the story since the last time the cast page was modified.
• All There in the Manual: Manny's history as a boxer and how he came to meet and befriend Lily is explained in the author's notes for Chapter 4, Page 114, and McGee adds that he didn't figure that it'd get another chance to pop up in the comic.
• Alt Text: These are put on all but the very earliest pages, and typically have Lampshade Hanging, Shout-Outs, or both.
• Animesque: The whole comic is meant to be a homage to shōnen anime, but this Guest Strip exaggerates it in regards to a character in a Fictional Video Game that Aster and Puck were playing. Said page's Alt Text shamelessly lampshades it:
  "The hyper anime eyes on the low poly character kills me. It's too heckin' good."
• Applied Phlebotinum: Series creator Jack McGee has stated that "gloves are both called, and made from, a material called Real Leather." What goes into the glovemaking process, how Real Leather is made, and what else must be done for a new pair of gloves to take on their extraordinary powers, remains unknown.
• Artistic License – Sports: The world of Star Impact has no weight classes or gender divisions, which McGee has said was inspired by Punch-Out!! (and, to a lesser extent, ARMS), citing those games as realization that he didn't have to skimp on unique and varied character designs. Additionally, while plenty of boxing organizations and sanctioning bodies exist in Real Life, only one — the Pro Boxing League — is mentioned in Star Impact.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • When fighting Urchin, Aster realized that given his constant and unceasing pressure combined with his gloves' extended reach, there was no action that she could take without getting speared. Ultimately, she accepted this, allowing for a Deliberate Injury Gambit to get close to him and quickly knock him down.
  • Two rounds into her fight with Phoebe, Puck pointed out to Aster that, by only punching with her right arm for the coming round, Phoebe would only be paying attention to her right, which would make for the perfect setup to hammer her with her left, having paid no attention to it for the whole round.
  • In fighting Lily, Aster notices that not only does she overcommit to combinations, but her aversion to getting hit in the face leaves her vulnerable to body blows — when Aster isn't deliberately targeting the moneymaker to force an early forfeit.
• Back-to-Back Poster: This is done on Chapter 2's cover with Aster and Phoebe, to point out the Force and Finesse distinction between their boxing styles.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: At the very end of Chapter 2's fight, where Phoebe would've been Punched Across the Room had the bell not rung right before Aster's Star Punch would've connected:
  Phoebe: (with Aster's glove less than an inch from her face) Good thing the bell rang, huh? (zooms out to show her own glove on Aster's face) 'Cause you were about to hit the canvas, Aster!
• Big Entrance: Etna's entrance to the ring in her Chapter 3 fight is incredibly over-the-top, where she appears standing atop a gigantic Technicolor Fire-breathing mechanical dragon, heralded by cheerleaders.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • This Guest Strip makes mention of "Cheez-Os", a mashup of Cheetos and Cheez-its.
  • The Alt Text to Chapter 5, Page 28 calls the Fictional Video Game that Aster and Puck play "Cognizant Cog: Persevere", a spoof of Guilty Gear -STRIVE-.
• Blind Alley: Aster and company pull this off early in Chapter 2 to dodge the Paparazzi.
• Blunt "Yes": Early into his fight against Aster, when a crowd amasses to watch the commotion, Urchin quips that he was once a pro-level boxer.
  Aster: Really? Why'd you quit?
  Urchin: Hmm. (Beat) Would you believe I got kicked out for fighting dirty?!
  Aster: Yes.
• Body Wipe: Done in Chapter 5 when Aster's punching bag cuts to a desk-sized punching-bag toy on Stryker's desk.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: On Chapter 5, Page 36, Yellow yanks away his own panel for his ringside introduction.
• Broken Win/Loss Streak: In Dove's victory over Aster for Chapter 5's fight, the Shooting Star gloves saw their first official defeat.
• Call-Back:
  • When Teddy lights up in Chapter 4 and Buzz swats it out of his hand, the Alt Text reads "Callback to Chapter 1!".
  • On Chapter 5, Page 8, Aster is dropped off at the Seaside Gym at night, and Teddy reminds her to lock up the place. She says she always does, to which Teddy replies that she always forgets to do it — and a similar exchange happened on Chapter 1, Page 10. The former page's Alt Text points it out, being only the single word "Callback".
• Challenging the Bully: After she gets her mitts on Shooting Star, Aster makes a beeline for Urchin and challenges him to a brawl as revenge for him beating up Puck. Teddy even sees it coming, and tries in vain to keep her from getting into a street brawl.
• Collateral Angst: After Puck was brutalized by Urchin early in Chapter 1, the story came to focus on Aster, and her feeling horrible about not meshing with any pair of gloves with which she could've gotten back at Urchin for beating the stuffing out of her friend.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Shooting Star crash-landing into the Seaside Gym is referenced twice. First by Teddy when he puts Aster to work repairing the damage that the gloves caused, and then by Buzz, who, when Aster claims that It's a Long Story as to how the fabled gloves came to her, pipes up about their true origin.
  • A fight poster early in Chapter 3 catches Aster's eye. When Phoebe asks her about it, she mentions that Mako, one of the poster's featured boxers, was in the fight shown in the prologue, which she said was the first big-league match that she saw in person.
  • On Chapter 5, Page 9, a sticker reading "DON'T BREAK THIS ONE" is seen on Aster's punching bag. This references Chapter 1, Page 29, where she obliterated her old one with a Star Punch.
• Coordinated Clothes: During their appearance in Chapter 3, Etna's four gym personnel wear reddish-pink T-shirts with "Dragon" printed on them in large white lettering.
• Cross Counter: Boxers will sometimes do this, but the most dramatic one yet was the one that ended Chapter 3's fight, with Etna and Ponpon landing a heavy right on each other's face.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The prologue, post-chapter epilogues, and all of the flashbacks are depicted in a limited-palette example of this, using only one or two colors apart from black and white. Justified in the caption for Urchin's backstory:
  "I didn't want to devote a whole couple of weeks to Urchin's backstory so I decided to knock it out in one go while using a style that would both make the flashback stylistically unique and easier to push out at this speed."
• Destroying a Punching Bag: After mysteriously gaining the Legend's old gloves, Aster leaves a star-shaped dent in her punching bag and sends it off the chain and into the wall, to test out its Star Punch.
• Detrimental Determination: Late in Chapter 5's fight, Aster endures so much damage in her left arm that landing a powerful left hook fractures her ulna.
• Don't Celebrate Just Yet: Aster cheers when she knocks down Dove with a Star Punch, only for him to get back up, in much better condition than she.
  Dove: ...Disappointing...
• Embarrassing Nickname: In his initial flops in the PBL, Puck had gained the nickname "The TKO Terror" for how quickly people would finish him off.
• Epigraph: Each chapter ends on a fictional in-universe quote that also features the chapter's title.
• Everyone Chasing You: A gaggle of reporters chase after Aster in the beginning of Chapter 2, stopping her from registering that day.
• Evil Overlooker: Chapter 1's cover sees Urchin leering down at Aster.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Averted à la Hajime no Ippo^note Therein, a boxer's techniques are explained during fights, but never by the boxers using them., which is itself one of only a few fighting/sports manga to avert this trope. While almost all known Leathers and boxer attributes/strategies are explained at one point or another, it is never done by the people who're using them.
• Explosive Punch: Before recieving Shooting Star, Aster tried on an ill-fitting pair of Leather called Firework Parade, which Buzz says "can produce small explosions at the end of heavy punches".
• Exposition Diagram: One shows up on Chapter 5, Page 18 when Phoebe explains Dove's status as a living Beef Gate to Teddy... and they seem to be aware of it, too.
• Eyedscreen: Phoebe gets a bunch of these throughout Chapter 2's fight, particularly when she's about to clobber her opponent or reminiscing about a spar she once had.
• Fictional Counterpart: This Guest Strip makes mention of a "Big Ronald's".
• Fictional Earth: Star Impact has been said to take place on a fictional iteration of Earth. The first true indication of this is Chapter 2's cover, which depicts a zoomed-out view of Earth, but with a different arrangement of continents and landmasses.
• Fictional Video Game:
  • This Guest Strip introduces Bloksing, a boxing-like Fighting Game that Aster and Puck play.
  • Later in Chapter 5, Aster and Puck play a knockoff of Guilty Gear -STRIVE- called Cognizant Cog: Persevere.
• Flashback Effects: All flashbacks are depicted in one or two colors.
  • The most creative use of this was for Chapter 4, when Lily reminisces about her twin passions of boxing and singing. Its beginning features a child Lily looking upon the Legend in yellow and an anonymous Idol Singer in pink — Lily's eye colors — with everything else being blue. During one of her performances, Lily notices a girl in the crowd with pink irises, representing how she's more fond of singing than boxing.
• Force and Finesse: On full display from the beginning to the end of Chapter 2's spar between Aster and Phoebe, with the former going almost exclusively for heavy punches, as the latter deftly weaves around them, landing jab after jab of her own.
• Foreshadowing: Early in Chapter 5, it is noted that Puck has greater stamina than Aster, as he's always been the first to return from runs and running isn't Aster's strong suit. This comes back to bite her in her Dove fight, when she wears herself out pursuing a more aggressive boxing style, culminating in her first defeat.
• Gender Is No Object: Matchups are fully co-ed; man fights man and man fights woman and woman fights woman and nobody bats an eye. McGee says that part of the fun of making a fantasy-inspired boxing world is not being limited to weight divisions or gendered leagues.
• Green Rooming: Remy was introduced in Chapter 1 as one of Teddy's friends, but did not return until midway into Chapter 4.
• Guest Strip: Between certain chapters, McGee includes these contributions from guest artists. He has stated that all of them are strictly non-canon, and allow the artists to take their own directions with the characters.
  • There were eleven of these slotted between Chapters 1 and 2.
  • Another spate of these came between Chapters 3 and 4, this batch being much shorter than its predecessor at only four pages.
• Heroic Second Wind: Near the end of the third and final round of Chapter 2's spar between Aster and Phoebe, Aster looks ready to keel over, and Phoebe prepares to deliver a finishing blow to her. Before this can happen, however, Aster astonishes her with a left hook that nobody saw coming, leading it into an attempted Star Punch that would've connected had the match gone on one second longer.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: In the third round of Chapter 2's spar, Aster only punches with her right for most of it, then catches Phoebe off guard and hammers her with her left.
• In the Hood: Not wanting to be hounded by admirer and Paparazzi alike in the wake of the events of Chapter 1, Aster dons a blue hoodie, shades, and visor, in a bid to conceal herself, but the press sees right through it.
• It's a Long Story: Subverted when Phoebe asks Aster how she managed to get Shooting Star:
  Phoebe: How did you even get the Shooting Star gloves?! Did you know the Legend? Are you their family?
  Aster: It's uh... a long story.
  Buzz: They crashed into my gym!
  Aster: Okay, not a long story, but a weird one.
• Knockback Slide: Urchin takes a big one near the end of Chapter 1's fight, after getting slugged by Aster.
• Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: A big point of praise for the comic is that each punch, dodge, impact, and other in-ring action is drawn with immense force, such as with Speed Stripes following a thrown punch, Hit Sparks that blend with the subject's body, and rings of turbulent air swirling around the boxers as they do their thing.
• Literally Laughable Question: During Chapter 1's fight, after Aster tells Urchin she's having a good time, he angrily asks who the hell she thinks she is for enjoying herself in the fight, then pauses, laughs, and realizes that he never did ask for her name.
• Luminescent Blush: After Chapter 4's fight where a defeated Lily tells Aster that yes, she really is cute, the latter turns as red as a cherry.
  Alt Text: Aster flirt defense: 0
• A Minor Kidroduction: The prologue shows a nine-year-old Aster at a title fight featuring the Legend.
• Oh, Crap!: Urchin is momentarily stunned when he discovers that Aster had somehow obtained Shooting Star, the Leather of the bygone Legend.
• Opening Narration: In the prologue, Aster recalls her admiration for the Legend as a kid, and how they suddenly went AWOL one day.
  There was once a star
  I would stare at it a lot as a kid
  It was so beautiful that I couldn't look away
  But one day it disappeared, leaving nothing but a black sky.
• Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Aster's bedroom has a few posters of the Legend, and a few posters of a few other boxers. Early in Chapter 1, she even speaks to a Legend poster as if she was speaking directly to them.
• Power Fist: All of the Leathers count as this: superpowered boxing gloves that give their wearers special powers.
• Powers via Weapon: Having no remarkable abilities by themselves, every boxer's special power is only given to them by the gloves that they brandish.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Chapter 5, Page 69 has a star diagram for Aster and Dove, with the indicators for ATK and DEF extending past the hexagon's boundaries.
• Scary Teeth: Urchin, Stryker, and Etna. Same goes for Etna's Leather, Happy Teeth, which amplifies the pain dealt with every punch.
• Second Episode Introduction: Phoebe, who would become Aster's friend and rival, doesn't appear in the story proper until Chapter 2. Ditto for Stryker, who would be Aster's mentor, coach, and second in the PBL, and Bondi, a contending champion and Phoebe's coach.
• Shockwave Stomp: Titan Hammer, the Real Leather of Sanfran, a Junior League boxer who once fought Phoebe, lets him shake the ground with a stomp to disrupt his opponent's footwork.
• Shout-Out:
  • From Hajime no Ippo:
    • The Alt Text to Chapter 2, Page 39 calls it out:
      "Used the classic Hajime No Ippo [sic] technique of making it look like a character got punched only to reveal the blow was blocked! It's fun and effective!"
    • In Chapter 4, Aster practices a duck-and-weave routine with a metal bar. This is a pretty common boxing exercise, but the use of a metal pole references when Ippo did this exercise with a set of short monkey bars at a playground in Chapter 29, pursuant to fighting Jason Osma.
  • The Alt Text to Chapter 4, Page 32 is as follows:
    "I love drawing Bondi with no mouth. Partial [sic] inspired by Satotz from HxH."
  • From Kill la Kill:
    • The big-lettered introductions for characters and their Leathers was inspired by the bold red name-and-role introductions that even minor characters get.
    • Dove seeming to have no concrete size was inspired by the invokedmemetic refrain of Ira Gamagoori's height being "bigger than you".
  • The ref for the PBL matches is consistently depicted as looking like Mario, a reference to his stint as a referee in Punch-Out!!'s World Video Boxing Association.
  • To begin Chapter 1's fight, Crust kicks a metal dumpster and shouts "DING!". The Alt Text has this to say:
    "Considered referencing Rocky 2's "ding ding" here but I held back."
  • The Alt Text to Chapter 5, Page 7 — where the people of the Forge Gym head to a pizzeria — is a YouTube link to the theme music for Spider Man 2's pizza-delivering minigame.
• Show Within a Show: Aster mentions two in-universe films called En Route and Fool, the latter of which she watches by herself early in Chapter 1.
• Speak of the Devil: In Chapter 1 when Aster wishes aloud into the night for some guidance from the Legend, then comes a Comet of Doom bearing their gloves.
  "Come on Legend... I need an answer... I need... something... Hm? Actually, nevermind, I'm good."
• Technician Versus Performer: A variation in Chapter 4. Lily's between-round reports with Manny suggests that she's treating the match more like a bid to gain views on social media, but Aster's Spirited Competitor nature pushes her to treat it like a real fight instead of a tool for internet renown.
• Throwing Down the Gauntlet: At the end of Chapter 3 after she trounces Ponpon, Etna issues a challenge to Aster: get as strong and as skilled as she possibly can, and face her in the ring with the gloves of her missing teacher.
• Time Skip: Chapter 5 takes place eight months after Aster and Puck joined the Forge Gym.
• Unsound Effect: On Chapter 5, Page 24, a 'LOOM' sound effect appears behind Dove while answering a reporter's question at the Aster vs. Dove press conference.
• Wall of Blather: Aster gets wordy when...
  • Monologuing about a pair of gloves Buzz bought for her.
  • Fangirling over Yellow when he visited her scrap with Urchin.
  • Blowing her stack at Stryker berating her over her lack of skill and experience, yet thinking the latter would coach her anyway.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Tightest Mile, the Leather of an unnamed boxer who Lily once fought, lets him shoot out bandages Spider-Man-style to grapple onto an opponent, which he uses to draw Lily into a hook. However, she turns it on him by yanking him into a counter.