(from reading the first 20 or so chapters)
I'm sorry, but setting up the story in a supposedly realistic world where the total beginner martial arts hero has his first match (in school, to the death?!?) bare-handed against a sadistic kendo master swordsman? I don't care what kind of training or aptitude you have, you ain't gonna be 10 times better than the swordsman in a matter of a few weeks. Who cares about the result or the choreography of the fight: just the fact that the idiot was able to find someone to train him is silly.
The bad guy for that fight is the same old story of the sibling who somehow got so confused in life that the sadistic bastard should truly be in arkham asylum with the Joker, not in college with a bunch of similarly sadistic hoodlum chums. That's OK 'n all, but don't make him so insanely over the top, yo! In real life, you face consequences when you walk around campus assaulting people with a sword in broad daylight.
Sorry for being so tough on this manga, but I don't see how it can be compared with Hajime no Ippo either - that manga is actually largely believable (so long as you look past some boxers' video arcade-like special moves) - as a boxer/thai boxer I can see it. The martial arts drawings in this manga are very realistic as well (and 'look' better, overall), but the situations just aren't realistic in the slightest and the characters are all 1-dimensional.
P.S.: in case it wasn't clear, the reason I'm being critical about the realism of the manga is because the author chose a realistic setting. DragonBall is in a slightly different 'world' for a reason: that's what explains why the characters are able to do things like they do.
In other words: the hyper-realistic drawings and environment simply don't fit the dragonball-like 'imaginary arts'. The two are so jarringly inappropriate for one another that it's hard to ignore.
The greater criticism that the characters are one dimensional is also significant: an astute reader would notice that the characters in dragonball (for ex.) are not one-dimensional - they're fun and surprising. In this manga, each character simply acts to make the plot progress, not because they are individuals.
2 points given solely for the drawings, 1 point for 'being'...
P.S.: I see some comments claiming that the martial arts are realistic, when in fact it is only the movements themselves that are realistic - always getting the perfect TIMING to land these moves however is NOT realistic AT ALL.
This is actually one of the big problems of martial arts (compared to competitive combat sports like boxing or Muai Thai): people tend to set things up, where they figure "if you stand there without moving" then I can do X to you, or "if you move in specifically this way" then I can counter you with Y. The problem with this approach is that in REAL LIFE, your opponent will NOT do what you expect, hence most of the fancy moves do NOT WORK against strong opponents who have developed excellent timing and situation awareness (which takes years to develop).
So when looking at that fight of newbie-MC vs. master swordsman, although the fancy kick used by the MC could work, in practice there is NO WAY he would be able to get the right timing against a much more experienced adversary who even has the immense advantage of the sword.