Webcomic / The Boxer

The Boxer is a WEBTOON comic by the author JH about several professional boxers and their stories. The main protagonist of the story is Yu, a former shut in who has a superhuman talent for boxing. Scouted and trained in the sport, the story follows him as he rises up the ladder and the boxing world reacts to the presence of such a talent.

This Webcomic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Yu's father was a gang member who used to beat him so much that Yu eventually stopped to care about it. Yu eventually ends up killing him in self-defense with a knife. His mother also attempted to choke him to death, only to realize how far she's fallen, giving Yu a single day where she acts as something even resembling a real mother before killing herself.
• The Ace: Yu quickly proves himself to be super humanly talented at just about anything he does. It's to the point that he's essentially the Ace to other Aces. Played for laughs when hes shown to be talented at air hockey and rejects the offer to go pro. Taken Up to Eleven in Chapter 70 when he defeats the champions and first ranked contenders in the Super Middleweight and Light Heavyweight Divisions less than two seconds into each bout.
  • Aaron is this as well. He was able to not only defeat the Heavyweight ranked second in the world on his first day under K's tutelage, he defeated K's strongest student up until that point, a world champion who had dominated the four biggest weightclasses for years with his own superhuman athleticism and fear factor, in a single punch.
• Always a Bigger Fish: K is this to the Santorino Brothers. No matter how ruthless they are, he's far more conniving, influential, and cruel than they could ever be. Marco even admits that he made a mistake in not realizing that they should have never even looked at K funny, much less mess with him.
  K: Did you think you were the only predators among a flock of weak and defenseless sheep? You're just a pair of feral dogs. Don’t make me laugh.
• Always Someone Better:
  • One of the main themes of the series is that no matter how good you are at something there's always someone else with more talent and ability, and while you may be able to surpass some of them through hard work or trickery, eventually you'll run into someone who can't be beaten with effort or subterfuge. Top contenders like Marco Santorino and Injae can have genuine talent for one aspect of the game (for example, Genius Bruiser and The Determinator respectively), but will always fall short of someone with The Gift like Yu, Jean-Pierre or Bob Norris.
  • Ryu learns this firsthand in Ill-Fated Relationship by challenging Jean-Pierre to spar because his ego still hasn't been crushed. Even having been retired for almost a decade, Jean-Pierre knocks him out in about three seconds using only his left jab... because he was holding his other hand behind his back... after having told Ryu he just had to stay standing for thirty seconds to win.
  Jean-Pierre: "This should be enough to handle a guy like you."
• Amazon Chaser: Gender-inverted for Carmen, who only starts harboring feelings and a genuine interest in Yu after he bulks up to a large middleweight in the first five years under K's tutolage.
• Bait-and-Switch: It looks like Fabrizio beat up Carmen in order to throw Yu off his game. Turns out he didn't harm her and K paid thugs to frame Fabrizio so Yu would be angered enough to kill Fabrizio.
• Berserk Button: Cutting the fights of one of K's boxers short will piss him off to no end. The few times we see him lose his cool in the series, it's because this had happened.
  • Insult Marco and Fabrizio Santorino's mother at your own peril.
• Big Bad: It's slowly but surely revealed that K is this corrupting Yu in order to bring out the 'monster' that dwells within him so that he can attain greater heights.
• Big Bad Wannabe: While the Santorino Brothers are certainly villainous to some extent they are completely overshadowed by K as his viciousness and duplicity far exceed theirs, and they were ultimately only playing up their own reputation to make enough money to ensure their mother will always have treatment.
• Big Damn Heroes: J stopped Yu from giving the finishing blow to Fabrizio. Had he been a second too late Fabrizio would be dead.
• Black Boxer Stereotype: Aaron Tide, though downplayed as unlike more stereotypical takes on this trope, Aaron is both Happily Married and a Gentle Giant who has struggled his entire life not hurting people on accident because he is just that freakishly strong; He accidentally killed a girl in the orphanage by gentle shoving her, sending her flying backwards and hitting her head badly.
• Book Ends: The webcomic starts with young Yu depressed, covered in scars and bruises, and sitting underneath a streetlight at night before being approached by J. It ends with an unnamed boy having the same dilemma as Yu once had before being approached by Yu.
• Boring, but Practical: Sometimes bold simplicity is all that's needed to knock down opponents.
  • Rock Kang's Sunday Punch is nothing more than an ordinary straight. But it allowed him to climb through the ranks and even become champion in his prime. In fact, to counter the unpredictability that comes with fighting a rookie making his debut, his answer is to simply hit them with a surprise attack at the opening bell that they won't be able to prepare for to score an easy victory.
  • Kazu Uesugi's fighting style prioritizes precision to the point where one or two punches were all that he needed to knock someone out cold. Until he met Yuto, that is.
  • Aaron is so strong, he doesn't even need to use the techniques he learned under K to win a match, he just swings wildly until he inevitably wins. Taken Up To Eleven during his fight with Yu. When he throws a proper punch for the first time, there's so much momentum behind it that the audience, including pro boxers and analysts, can't even perceive it.
• Born Lucky: Viktor Grigoryevich's success stems from his unnatural good fortune. Even though his skills as a boxer are complete rubbish he still managed to become the Cruiserweight World Champion as a result of happy accidents that put his opponents in the perfect spot to be on receiving end of his viscious Russian Hook which is strong enough to knock out any man on the planet not named Aaron Tide. It still doesn't help him against Yu though.
• Born Winner: Aaron Tide hadn't trained a day in his life when he joined up with K and yet was strong enough to maim or kill a man in one blow because of his muscular density, size, agility and "perverse" strength. On his first day of boxing training, he knocked out a four-division champion in one half-assed punch after shrugging off the guy mauling him for an entire round without his guard up without as much as a scratch; he's so ungodly tough that his muscles can stop knives and treat even Yu's punches as a mild annoyance.
• Boxing Battler: Several of the boxers take their skills out of the ring for street brawls and to great effect. In particular, Ryu was able to climb the ranks of his gang due to his incredible fighting ability.
  • Kazu Uesugi was able to defeat all of the biker gangs in the area in less than a month by himself using nothing more than his phenomenal boxing skills.
• Break the Haughty: Boxing "Geniuses" are typically confident in both themselves and their abilities. Consequently, whenever they run the risk of defeat or are beaten by an opponent they either underestimated or see as inferior, their egos can't handle it as they struggle to cope with this fact, effecting their psychological state of mind in negative ways. Ryu, Qasim and Kazu are all key examples of this. Siha is somewhat of an inversion because he partially wants it for himself, having grown up reading a lot of comics and watching a lot of anime about underdog heroes against impossible odds but finding boxing to be a dull tedium because of his incredible sense of timing.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Yu and Carmen grow closer during the time they spend together preparing for his match with Fabrizio K uses this to his advantage to direct Yu's anger at the Santorino Brothers.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Despite his incredibly intimidating power and physique, Aaron Tide is a lovable family man Gentle Giant outside the ring who has deep-seeded issues due to Does Not Know His Own Strength that make him genuinely resent that he can't box with people without risking to kill his opponent.
• Bumbling Dad: Injae's dad was a mildly successful boxer at best, which made Injae think that boxing had nothing for him and was a blow to his confidence growing up. Subverted when Injae gets over his insecurities and starts training to box, which his dad is incredibly supportive of and immensely proud when Injae takes the Korean Welterweight belt.
  Injae's dad, right before every fight in the crowd: Good luck, son.
• The Bully: Ryu Baeksan was this to both Injae and Yu in the past. A sound beating from Yu puts an end to his harassment. Credit where it's due, Ryu eventually apologizes from the bottom of his heart to the both of them and becomes lifelong friends with his previous victims.
• Bullying the Dragon:
  • Subverted and Lampshaded. The Santorino Brothers initially try everything they can to sabotage Yu and get under his skin before his match with Fabrizio, but when their plans fail they decide to leave him be, reasoning that someone with Yu's level of skill is far too dangerous to provoke.
  • Ryu attempts this by offering his chin for Injae to punch, thinking he's still the same weak old kid despite knowing he's standing across from a Welterweight boxing champion. This suicidally stupid idea nearly gets him knocked out five seconds into the first round and Injae proceeds to make him eat humble pie for the entire match.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: No matter how scummy he appeared to be at the time from Yu's perspective, the absolutely horrendously brutal beating Yu gives Fabrizio from the very beginning to the very end is just awful. And it's made even worse with the WBA actively assisting in making it a revenge match by neutering the ref to let Yu throw all the dirty punches he wants and bruisers preventing Marco from even throwing in the towel. They were perfectly willing to let one of their champions and biggest contributors to the WBA's bottomless pockets get murdered for a quick buck, and Yu had been put into the exact mindset to deliver the most violent execution ever filmed.
• Combat Pragmatism: Much to the disgust of boxing fans everywhere, the Santorino Brothers use all sorts of underhanded methods to score a win whether it's committing blatant fouls or interfering in their opponents personal lives to screw with them psychologically. They do this because Fabrizio doesn't have the talent to maintain his status as champion with genuine skill alone.
  • In a similar vein, John Taker usually takes advantage of a rookie's naivety and breaks the rules regularly to secure wins. His most infamous tactic is to use the "Headlock Hook" to ensnare his opponents so that they can't escape his powerful left. Yu defeats him by countering Taker's hook with a hook of his own, aiming the strongest part of his knuckle at the weakest part of Taker's knuckle, causing John to wince in pain before he's floored by an overhand right.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Completely and utterly Subverted. Marco and Fabrizio Santorino were able to not only establish the latter as a world champion in the Middleweight Division specifically because of foul play both inside and outside of the ring, their boxing matches became the highest grossing in the industry, allowing them to easily get away with cheating in the future due to the success they bring to the Association.
  • This trope is also Deconstructed, as due to their lack of talent Marco and Fabrizio stood no chance against the champions in their respective divisions. However, because they were desperate to provide the funding to pay for the treatment of their mother's brain hemorrhage, Marco quit boxing, became Fabrizio's trainer and manager and together they were able to manipulate Chavo Urus ^note  The former Middleweight Champion and a boxer on par with Bob Norris, the strongest Middleweight of all time and K's third disciple to the point where he was unable to play normally and easily seize the belt from him. To maintain Fabrizio's rank they have to use dirty tricks to even the playing field and it's obvious that while neither of them enjoy playing the villain, they do so out of necessity.
  • It’s Deconstructed once more through John Taker aka the 'Rookie Killer'. While he was able to defeat a far more skilled opponent than himself through the use of an illegal move, ^note  The Headlock Hook the Association forced him to adopt a crude persona and continue cheating in order to remain a professional boxer. Turning him from a supbar puglist who garnered little fanfare to a commodified prizefighter who the audience loved to hate. However, he and his coach regret choosing this lifestyle to continue doing what they love where only Taker's coach and gymmates can support him wholeheartedly.
  • Double Subverted with K. He cheats by poisoning Fabrizio, giving Yu a military-grade steroid through his old connections in the army, enhancing his already superhuman fighting ability to stupefying degree, and bribing the Association so that they'll turn a blind eye to any foul Yu commits during the Middleweight title match, and hires thugs to beat Carmen into the hospital to frame the Santorinos after'' they let her go unarmed, instigating a You Said You Would Let Them Go response in Yu in his Darkest Hour. He faces no consequences at all for this and everything goes according to plan... until J steps into the ring after Marco was prevented by WBA bruisers from throwing in the towel, ending the fight just as Yu was about to kill Fabrizio in cold blood.
• Cool, but Inefficient: Qasim tends to ignore the conventional approach to boxing and just does what he believes to be natural. It's pointed out just how ridiculous some of his moves are but his physical prowess is so great they allow him to usually come out on top. His match with Yu shows him just how wrong he and everyone else was to assume that was all he needed to excel at the sport.
• Creepily Long Arms: Jean-Pierre Manuel has a dizzying 200cm wingspan despite being a lightweight, where the average heights and wingspans are nowhere near that. This gives him a huge range advantage over pretty much anyone, and lets him perfectly use an old-school probing type of guard where he keeps his fist in front of him to block his opponent's vision and gain him the psychological advantage. Further exasperated by the fact that he's ambidextrous to boot.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: All of Yu’s matches end up like this, to the point where none of his opponents ^note not including the high school bullies he let beat him up so far have been able to land a single punch on him. Thoroughly subverted with his match against Aaron, where he not ends up covered in cuts, a dislocated shoulder, nearly shattered fists and a chipped ear, but would have straight-up died to the final Cross Counter if Aaron hadn't stopped his punch while being knocked out himself.
  K: So then! Was that Ryu guy a formidable opponent?
  Yu: No. Not in the least.
  • The same goes for Aaron. Almost all of his matches end with the opposition being hauled away on a stretcher.
• A Day in the Limelight: Many chapters are focused on the lives other boxing practitioners had outside the ring. Some even feature backstories of these boxers before they became who they are. For example, the spinoff series Ill-Fated Relationship focuses primarily on Injae's and Ryu's sides of the story.
• Determinator: While it’s noted almost every professional boxer has to be one, Takeda is considered even above that level. To the point of working so hard he overcame a lack of talent and trained in his dreams.
  • Injae is described by the author as being the 'hard-working type' like Takeda and it shows. While his affinity for boxing isn't anything special, when push comes to shove he's committed to his training and gives every match his all; His mind-numbingly intense efforts to better himself in the post-series spinoff ends up earning Injae the well-deserved Korean Welterweight championship against a Born Winner opponent who should by all rights have had Jae's number on paper.
  • Aaron is a Deconstruction: While his heart is absolutely in the right place for why he accepted the match with Yu - to save him from K's grooming into a superhuman monster - Aaron has never had to try to accomplish anything physical, and Yu is the only man on Earth who could ever stand a chance against him, so summoning the willpower to actually swing like he means it takes up a majority of the fight, and when he does, it's more of a do-or-die fear response of perhaps never seeing his family again. Despite pulling out all the stops to beat Yu, he ultimately could not bring himself to kill Yu on the final Cross Counter, which results in Aaron being in a coma for months from the sheer effort and beating he took in the attempt.
• Dirty Coward: Qasim. He runs from the ring crying his eyes out when he realizes Yu is actually capable of hurting him. His coach calls him out on this.
  Qasim's Coach: Did you only plan on going up against guys who were weaker than you?!
• The Dreaded: Yu is this to almost everyone he fights. He's so intimidating that during his debut match, his opponent who had an altercation involving firearms earlier in his life envisions him not as a man, but as an enormous handgun pointed straight at him.
  • Similarly, Aaron Tide is capable of inspiring fear in his opponents by doing nothing more than tanking their hits before attacking himself; his body is superhumanly gifted in all physical aspects that people feel the deer in headlights effect when he starts getting physical, to the point where just dodging his punches does slow and steady damage to Yu. He did this to Frederick Jason, K's fourth disciple, spooking the latter so much that he could do nothing but tremble in fear while waiting for the final blow to be struck.
• Doting Parent: Jean-Pierre's daughter wants ice-cream at an amusement park. Jean brings her eight individual cones before she can even begin crying. Aaron also shows signs of being this, disliking carrots but making sure to eat them to set an example for his daughter while insisting "Carrots are the best!".
• The Drifter: Kazu Uesugi is a self described Knight Errant who wanders from place to place and staves his boredom by finding strong opponents to challenge.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Yu is constantly wearing a soulless expression on his face signifying his apathy and depression.
  • Yamaguchi, Yuto's friend used to have these as well though they weren't as bad as Yu's.
• Driven to Suicide: Chapter 69 is a low point in Yu's life. With Carmen gone, he's desperate to find meaning in his existence but fails to do so. He nearly ends it all, only stopping when reminded of the love and affection he feels for and receives from his cat.
  • Yamaguchi nearly commits suicide when his life becomes unbearable, but the sunrise reminds him of the times he spent with Yuto and he finds the resolve to keep living.
  • Yu's mother hangs herself when she had enough of his father cruelty
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After everything Yu had been through since childhood, he is finally free from K's control, recovers the emotions he lost, lives a normal life with Carmen (who is now his wife) while running an orphanage together, and even has occasional chats with Injae and Ryu.
• Easily-Distracted Referee: Zig-zagged. In most of the bouts, the referee usually takes the fights seriously and cheating is discouraged. but at the top of the game, matches rake in so much money (like with the Santorino Brothers and Yu's sheer brutality) that blatant fouls can be done away with if the money is large enough and the crowd is feverish enough. This becomes a borderline Tear Jerker in the Aaron vs Yu match, where the referee realizes he has absolutely no way to ever possibly seperate the two fighters if "things get out of control", because it's already out of control from the opening bell and one stray punch from either fighter could kill him, possibly instantly.
• Empty Shell: Yu is so empty of self-direction, he does not dodge punches until explicitely told to, and at that point, never not dodges a punch.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Cruel and publically humiliating the Santorino brothers might be, but they draw the line at actually hurting their victims for real. Despite riling John Renault into an Unstoppable Rage by dating his daughter, Marco really did nothing to her other than break up, and when he has Carmen kidnapped, he never subjects her to any harm and cooly explains himself and cuts her bonds the moment she refuses anyway. After the WBA nearly has Fabrizio killed just to hype an already impending Curb-Stomp Battle into the atmosphere and prevent him from throwing in the towel in the last round, Marco spends the rest of his days cleaning up corrupt elements of the boxing world once he becomes it's president in the epilogue.
• Exact Words: Yu is told the two rules of boxing are "hit the opponent" and "don't get hit". He does exactly that - he doesn't ever completely miss a punch and doesn't ever get hit by more than a glancing blow.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Despite spending a couple of minutes at most in the ring with Yu, including the walk-in, ref wave-off and announcements, Viktor was able to immediate pinpoint that Yu felt no enjoyment from any of what he's been doing for the last several years after shaking his hand, to the point where K jumped in between the two of them in fear of Viktor steering Yu off of the violent path Coach K had lain before his latest masterpiece.
  "Hey, you don't have to box if you don't want to, you know?"
• Exotic Eye Designs:
  • Aaron Tide has Union Jack-patterned eyes.
  • Fabrizio has blood-red eyes to indicate his talent for violence, while Marco has blue ones to indicate that he's got a bright head on his shoulders. In short, each of them have half of what it takes to box at the highest level.
  • Yuto Takeda has dull-black eyes until he awakens The Gift, at which point they gain a blue iris that progressively becomes larger.
  • Yu has pitch-black Dull Eyes of Unhappiness at all times, even when full of Killing Intent in the ring.
  • J's golden pupils are eventually shown up close to shine like they were bottomless suns.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: One of the redeeming qualities of the Santorino Brothers besides their love for each other, is their love for their mother. Seeing her getting taken advantage of led them to lash out against those who wronged them and the main reason they began cheating in boxing in the first place is because they couldn't afford the surgery she needed without it.
• Evil Is Petty: K repeatedly does things that are completely unnecessary to win but allow him to spite the competition further.
  • In Yu's debut match he tells him not to land a decisive blow on John Taker until the end of the match and to lightly graze him with punches sharp enough to cut him in the meantime. He does this in order to demonstrate the superiority of his boxer and to excited the crowd with blood and violence.
  • He instructs Yu mimic Takeda's fighting style just to show Yuto the gap between him and his challenger, emphasizing that all of his efforts were in vain and that he had no chance of contending with Yu.
  • He cheats during Yu's Middleweight title match by poisoning Fabrizio and giving Yu an experimental steroid. Bob Norris makes it clear that there was no need for him to do any of this and that he was simply doing this to beat the Santorino Brothers at their own game.
• Expy: Takeda is based off of Ippo Makunouchi from Hajime no Ippo, as a hard-working Japanese in-boxer with a submissive personality.
  • Joe Sandlebaram is an expy of Joe Yabuki from Ashita no Joe.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: K has a knack for producing people like this.
  • Yu went from being a bullied, depressed school boy to a world champion boxer who can't even be touched.
  • Aaron was a taxi driver before he became the invincible Heavyweight he is currently in the series.
  • Frederick Jason was a drug addict with violent tendencies before he established himself as the undisputed champ of four different weight classes.
• Gentle Giant: Aaron would probably be the scariest man on Earth if he wasn't a great human being to boot. He has always had a distaste for violence long before he started boxing, is a loving family man at home that his wife and child adore, and ends up becoming a doctor in the epilogue, living to the age of 83 after waking up from his coma and completing his physical rehab.
• The Giant: Aaron Tide is a north of two-meters beefcake of a man despite having never trained a day in his life. K is able to see his enormous muscles contract beneath his suit when he stops a knife and then crushes the knifeman's skull in one half-assed hit.
• The Gift: "Freedom" is a trait that all those classified as "Geniuses" share. It's described as the natural ability to create their own style of optimized movements. The harder one tries to master boxing, the more difficult it becomes to attain.
  • On top on having this ability, Yu is able to perceive time more slowly than most humans and imitate the movements of other boxers with more speed and precision than the original. These advantages make him borderline invincible with K recognizing him as being gifted beyond all measure and outright calling him the incarnation of all there is to boxing. The time perception is eventually revealed to be a result of his first experiences of sneaking outside his family's underground apartment, which finally made him aware of time passing at all and Yu diligently counting heartbeats to keep track of it. He's become so good at this by the present day that he can Nonchalant Dodge anything.
• Groin Attack: Yu inflicts one of these on Fabrizio during their match. Keep in mind that for that match he was given a steroid that drastically bolstered his performance, despite already having inhuman strength to start with. It's every bit as painful as it sounds; Fabrizio vomits onto the ring from the pain after the first round is over.
• Gun Kata: Yu breaks the wrist of a thug trying to threaten him with a gun, grabs it for himself, and kneecaps both the man's friends in the same motion with no hesitation in a huge case of Disproportionate Retribution trying to keep Carmen safe. If she hadn't stepped in to stop him, she's certain he would have killed them with the rest of the clip.
• Happily Married: Aaron and Angela. Jean-Pierre and Stella, as well as Yu and Carmen, eventually become this. K is a tragic case of this because his wife was killed while he was out on his last mission in the army due to a horrific traffic accident.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Deconstructed. While at the top of any sport, but especially in boxing where it's strictly one man against another, everyone with a head on their shoulders recognizes that hard work is irrelevant when competing against god-given talent (especially tempered with equal hard work), it's also made clear that effort is never in vain and will always produce results. Yu effortlessly tramples the dreams of hardworking boxers such as Josh, Jean-Pierre and Yuto Takeda, but the work they've put into improving themselves is what has made them able to come so far in their various harsh life-stories and let them keep going in life even after they quit boxing.^note  Josh by winning multiple youth events before quitting to use the money he'd earned getting into bartending, and Yuto by defeating the genius Kazu Uesugi and becoming the Junior Welterweight Champion in the first place, before starting a greengrocery with one of his best friends after retiring from Boxing while coaching on the side.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: J. He has golden blonde hair, the Curtains Match the Windows and he is an incredibly kind, optimistic man.
• Heel: Deconstructed. Both examples shown in the series are a combination of types 1 and 5, and both have reasons for doing what they do, despite what rumors say about them.
  • John Taker. Was a boxer not cut out for the limelight and was on the verge of having his career cut short when he unexpectedly defeated an Olympic gold medalist making his debut using an illegal move he accidentally preformed in desperation. As a result he was offered a chance to continue his career at the cost of his integrity, he accepts as it's the only way to continue doing what he loves but he has to deal with constant jeers from the audience with his coach being the only one who wholeheartedly supports him.
  • Fabrizio Santorino lacks the talent necessary to attain and maintain the status of a champion, but he desperately needed the title to earn money for his sick mother. The only way to compensate for this was through deception and artifice and so he teams up with his brother and together they manage to win the belt. But while they manage to pay for the surgery that their mother needed, they are reminded that the brain hemorrhage can return at any time, so they must continue to win dishonestly to ensure that if it does happen money won't be an issue.
• Hero Antagonist: Besides Jean Pierre (before he gets over his unhealthy obsession with boxing technique) and Fabrizio (who both isn't as bad as he seems, but shows heaps of Villainous Valor), pretty much all of Yu's opponents are far more classically heroic than he is, especially Aaron, Yuto and J. Many of them have entire chapters devoted to A Day in the Limelight, only to have their life stories and hopes be nothing in comparison to Yu's bottomless talent for violence.
• Heroic Build:
  • The only thing matching Aaron's inhuman brawn, toughness, athleticism and speed is the size of his heart.
  • Injae's Training from Hell before his Korean Welterweight title match causes him to cross whatever physical and mental limitations he still had about himself and attain such a build, stunning everyone including his opponent when he walks onto stage looking like he's a walking version of Michelangelo's David◊.
• Hidden Depths: Most side characters have a lot of other things going on in their lives than just boxing. Jean-Pierre's obsession with technique is seemingly a product of being a really skilled Mad Artist in his daily life, and painting becomes his primary occupation after he retires from boxing after his match with Yu, which he also did in part due to having a Disappeared Dad and wanting to be there for his wife and child.
• High Hopes, Zero Talent: Yuto is the embodiment of this, however he still managed to become the Junior Welterweight champion through sheer perseverance. He only gains the "Freedom" associated with "Geniuses" during his match with Yu and he loses even that after Yu gets serious and attacks him in a frenzy.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Aaron Tide is about three times his wife's size.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: After being hospitalized by Yu, Ryu drops out of school, joins a gang, and quits boxing all together. However, he watches Yu's televised bouts with envy, and when his former victim becomes the Lightweight world champion he vents his frustrations by massacaring a swath of rival gang members by himself^note Given his gang affiliations and being on the rock bottom economy-wise in the spinoff, it's implied he had a lot of money on Yu losing as well. This gang fight ends up getting Ryu stabbed in the knee, robbing him of his previous agility. Thus, when he finally does go back to box, he has to settle for Simple, yet Awesome techniques because of his bad knee and doing a lot of basic training because he's nowhere as fit as he used to be.
  • Subverted with Josh. After seeing Yu win the Lightweight Championship he decided that he made the right choice in quitting boxing, believing his dream to be unattainable, and decides to fully commit to his job as a bartender, though he's clearly disheartened by this realization. He ends up heavily expanding his business in the long run after getting an influx of sales on a particularly nice drink, ultimately becoming far more successful than if he had continued boxing.
• Internal Reformist: Marco Santorino eventually becomes the president of the WBA in the epilogue of the series, using his experience with trying to balance legality and morality in shadier ventures to systematically begin rooting out corruption in the proffesional boxing world.
• The Juggernaut: In a downright messiahnic gesture, J valiantly becomes a pacifist version of the trope by plowing forward through Yu's punches for twelve full rounds, getting carved like a pumpkin by Yu in the meantime, to eventually tap him gently on the head and assure him things are gonna be alright.
• Kick the Dog : Yu's childhood is nothing but that.
• Kung-Fu Jesus: Depending how literally you take the symbolism around J, he's either an ordinary All-Loving Hero or in fact the son of God coming to save Yu in his Darkest Hour by throwing hands with him, and is damn good at throwing said hands. Further cemented by the fact that his wins and losses are equal to respectively the chapters of the Old and New testament (39-26), and he goes twelve rounds with Yu not throwing a single punch save a light reassuring tap on his forehead and a hug, becoming Overdrawn at the Blood Bank in the process of saving Yu and dying in the process.
• Killing Intent:
  • The main source of Yu's strength. It's noted that from his debut match, Yu has always attacked with no regard for his opponent's life. If they pushed him far enough he wouldn't hesitate to kill them, and it's noted that if his matches with Jean-Pierre, Yuto, and Fabrizio didn't end prematurely they would have certainly died.
  Fabrizio: That... is not boxing...
  • Aaron develops this in his match with Yu when it becomes clear that holding back any further against him would have fatal consequences. He begins using ordinary boxing techniques in response to this, that coupled with his tremendous strength, make him infinitely deadlier.
• Lethal Joke Character: Everything about Viktor from his backstory to his obsession with Mohawks suggests that he's little more than comic relief, but make no mistake he's the Cruiserweight world champion for a reason.^note  Namely because of his punching power, defensive skill, and ability to recover. His trainer made sure that outside of his single punch strategy, he got all the training he needed in any area where he was lacking. In fact if he was capable of boxing normally, it's possible he could have posed a threat to Aaron Tide.
• Living Legend: J is described as being this. He was respected by boxers all over the world from his generation in his prime. After he interrupted Yu and Fabrizio's title match, it's noted that if a normal boxer did the same a lawsuit would be filed against them immediately, but because it was him an exception was made as the possibility of him making a comeback is far more important to the Association.
• Made of Iron: Aaron Tide. When Yu attacks him for the first time, we see a montage of all the pound for pound champions he has felled with his trademark punch only to see him hit what he visualizes as an iron wall and a completely unfazed Aaron glaring back at him.
  • It’s also Downplayed in that despite having steel-like muscles that allow him to resist blows, his insides are still vulnerable and the force of Yu's blows are enough to rupture his organs and cause him to bleed internally.
• Master of All: Marco Santorino is finally able to piece together that J is actually this during the fight with his brother Fabrizio for the interim Middleweight belt; He's watched J's matches almost on repeat since he was a child and was never able to pinpoint what kind of boxer J was because it seemed to change every match and he had no natural habits in his stance, punches, footwork etc. Then J socks Fabrizio in the jaw thrice every time Fabrizio even raises his hand at J after already having been knocked down to the count of nine twice in the first round, and Marco realizes in abject horror that J has no natural habits and can be whatever kind of boxer he wants because he's actually that good. Fabrizio realizes the same, and throws in the towel himself before J has to embarrass him further in front of the crowd.
• Meaningful Echo: At the start of the webcomic, J tells a sad Yu, "All of these stars are shining just for you." At the first epilogue, Yu tells a sad boy the same thing.
• The Mentally Disturbed: The entire series is an incredible deep-dive into the mindset of what it takes to make it in the cutthroat professional boxing world; Despite all the window dressing and flashy lights, it is abundantly clear that the best boxers are made from disturbed individuals who aren't exactly right in the head. It says a lot that Jean-Pierre, who paints demonic imagery of Yu and gets himself into a near-death altercation with a gang for no other reason than to get closer to Yu's mindset in preparation for his bout, is one of the least horrific champion boxers in the series. It later becomes obvious that K is actively feeding Yu's deranged mindset to produce the greatest "monster" man has ever seen, and he succeeded until Yu was given salvation by J.
• Mugging the Monster: Yu's bullies treat him like a glorified punching bag, but the moment he starts fighting back, they quickly realize that the only reason they were able to victimize at all is because he simply had no interest in defending himself up until then.
  • A similar occurrence happens with Aaron in Chapter 77. A crazed criminal assaulting an innocent women (Angela, his future wife) tries to kill him after he intervenes. He stabs him but finds that he can't remove his knife. After giving him multiple chances to surrender, Aaron gives up and crushes the man's skull with a single punch, killing him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Carmen almost says this verbatim during Yu's fight with Aaron. After witnessing what Yu has become, she realizes she never should have quit and left him with K.
• Nice Guy: Yuto is a kind-hearted fighter who strives to inspire and help everyone he can. At one point, he was willing to share food with a bully he fought.
  • J is polite and friendly to everyone around him, even the competition.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Bob Norris is a parody of both Bob Ross and Chuck Norris and was K's third student, considered the greatest Middleweight to ever strap on the gloves who eventually quit to become a commentator because K's methods disgusted him the moment he saw what kind of boxer K was coaching him to be.
  • Former Cruisherweight champion Gilbert Einstein is a blatant Expy of Albert Einstein as a huge boxer, complete with taunting with the iconic Blowing a Raspberry expression, who is used to hammer in the point of how straight-up unscientific Viktor's boxing is by battering Viktor for all twelve rounds... only to get mollywhooped by a slip and a stray Russian Hook in the last 5 seconds of the match.
  Andrei Vlascenko: "Yes, Einstein! You're the only one that can stop him!"
  • One of the hiatus episodes reveals that K's design is based off of Clint Eastwood as Frankie Dunn in Million Dollar Baby.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: How a number of matches end. Takeda is on the receiving end of this from Yu, after a hope spot. He beats Yuto down so brutally he's forced to retire from boxing permanently. The one Fabrizio got was even worse, but he keeps boxing even after getting out of the hospital, and the one Yu puts onto J borders on torture that's supposed to end in death.
• Not So Invincible After All: All of Yu's training is still not enough for him to withstand the punches of a Heavyweight boxer, as his frame is that of a middleweight at most and he's putting on an absurd amount of muscular weight just to make heavyweight. Even if Yu was huge, Aaron would still flatten him in a single punch. K has him train for the fight by making Yu dodge cannonballs in a setup about the size of a boxing ring to hammer home the point that if Aaron even gets a half-assed hit in, he's dead. Just the shockwaves and wind-speed of Aaron's jabs is enough to leave Yu cut up to the point where he might eventually lose by being Overdrawn at the Blood Bank compared to Aaron, who's huge frame means he flat-out has more blood to spill than Yu does before his body shuts down. Yu ends up dislocating his left shoulder and almost his right with it by just steering said jabs slight off their intended course, and nearly shattering his fists hitting Aaron.
  • Aaron may possess a physique that can't be dented with normal punches on the surface level, but his internal organs are still susceptible to harm, and enough bodyblows will still accumulate damage over time and Aaron initially doesn't have it in him to fight Yu like he meant to kill him because Aaron accepted the fight to begin with to try and help Yu out of K's grasp. Not a decisive weakness in itself, but it gives Yu an early advantage on building the damage up and the sheer beating his organs take puts Aaron in a perpetual coma after the fight.
• Old Master:
  • J is considered this despite being in his late 40's at most, though with few exceptions, boxers above 40 rarely tend to last much longer in professional boxing and J's coach points out that while he looks healthy, he's pretty much completely worn out on the inside and he considers it miraculous that J even managed to train himself into fighting shape again.
  • K is a negative example of the trope, being an incredibly deranged and middle-aged Shell-Shocked Veteran who is still about as strong as either of the Santorino brothers.
  • Gilbert Einstein was a perfect boxer technique-wise who accepted Viktor's challenge as his retirement match despite already having completely grayed hair, and spends twelve rounds murking Viktor from pillar to post before slipping in the last seconds of the twelvth round and getting instantly knocked out by Viktor's perfect Russian Hook.
• Parental Abandonment: Jean-Pierre literally got handed some cash by his dad before he basically went out for cigarettes and never came back. Luckily, he ran into his future adoptive father and coach, and said coach's daughter who he'd go on to marry, the very same day because they saw him crying in the street.
• The Perfectionist: Jean-Pierre Manuel seeks to reach the pinnacle of technique. It's to the point that outside of boxing he prioritizes almost nothing else, not even his own wife. This changes after Stella reveals to him that she's pregnant with his child, and when he realizes that giving his life for this goal is simply not worth it, he abandons it altogether.
• Pet the Dog: In the past Carmen and her diplomat parents were kidnapped by a group of terrorists and she was rescued by K when he was still a soldier. Even after the rescue he continued to send money to support her, and his kindness is one of the reasons she refuses to betray him until it's already too late.
• Psychopathic Manchild: K fits under Type C. He's a world renowned boxing coach, all of the boxers he has trained have been inducted into the hall of fame, and he has wealth and connections beyond imagination. But he's also a petty, selfish, and cruel egomaniac who uses boxing as a means to fulfill his sadistic ambitions. He displays a childish glee when things are going his way.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Very frequently, but one sticks out. After being infuriated that his childhood bullying victim stood up for himself and became the Korean Welterweight champion, Ryu challenges him after overcoming a majority of his flaws as a young, arrogant man, and wins... via doctor stoppage from Injae's vision being compromised by a cut Ryu gave him... after spending the entire fight on the backfoot. Ryu is understandably broken at the complete lack of catharsis at beating a superior opponent through technicality, and this moment becomes the pivotal moment where he truly changes for the better.
• Razor Wind: Aaron's punches have so much momentum behind them that they can actually cut people on a near-miss (and Yu is the only man alive who can make it a near-miss), eventually leaving Yu cut all over and concussed by the sheer wind they produce.
• Religious Bruiser: There are a surprising amount of both Christian Koreans and Christian boxers in general and in real life, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that a majority of the cast are of the faith, though their piety, reasons for it and so on are incredible varied and complex. The final battle is more or less an allegory for J(esus) taking on Yu's sins, telling him it's gonna be alright, and giving him a hug, breaking him out of the mental cage of I Am a Monster K had fed into.
• Sadist: K is this without question. The amount of glee he feels when he sees his boxers demolish the competition is unnerving.
• Scary Black Man: Subverted. Aaron Tide is a boxer with monstrous capabilities on par with Yu's, but while he's certainly intimidating when he's first introduced in later chapters it's shown that he is a good husband, a good father, and a good person overall. Played Straight when his bout with Yu evolves into a death match. Having gained the fear of death for the first time in his life, Aaron finally stops holding back and starts using the boxing techniques he learned under K with it being made very clear that he no longer has any reservations about killing Yu.
• Sociopathic Soldier: K is an army veteran and it's implied that the experiences he went through while he was in the military shaped him into the sociopath he is today.
• Ship Tease: There’s a thick amount of this between Yu and Carmen during the Santorino Brothers arc. In the epilogue they eventually end up Happily Married running an orphanage.
• Smug Snake: Elliot von Heinburg thinks that Yu simply got lucky when he beat Jean-Pierre and believes that he'll easily defeat him and reclaim the Junior Welterweight title from Yuto. To say that he was dead wrong about that assessment is an understatement.
• Son of a Whore:
  • The Santorinos are all three this, which Marco lampshades with their three different hair colors and that Mom "goes out late at night and comes back in the morning", complete with creaking floorboards. Bringing it up to his face will instantly shatter anything like composure and make him dive to beat you up for it.
  • Yu's parents were a gang criminal and a former high-class prostitute who tried to attain a "normal" live by marrying and trying to move on from the past. Suffice to say, they failed astronomincally.
• Super-Reflexes: It's quickly shown that a large amount of Yu's talent is derived from his slowed down perception of time giving him seemingly superhuman reflexes. It's noted that the first time we see him being beaten up, his eyes easily track his bully's fist and he could dodge any time he wanted. In the hiatus episodes, the author also notes that this is early foreshadowing of K's true nature; Yu dodged the punch K threw at him because K punched like was trying to kill Yu to test said reflexes.
• Talented, but Trained: K takes measures to ensure that Yu is this. While Yu is the most prodigious boxer he has ever come across, he trains him relentlessly in order to prepare him for his inevitable match with Aaron Tide. To this end, he has Yu fight across multiple weight divisions against as many first-rate boxers as possible so that he can iron out any potential weaknesses he may have. For example, in the beginning of the story Yu started off with poor stamina and he spends the next two years doing nothing but endurance training to prepare for his debut, but over time this starts becoming less of an issue and by the time his match with Fabrizio rolls around it becomes clear that he has overcome this flaw, as he's able to relentlessly maul Fabrizio from buzzer to buzzer for 48 minutes of borderline attempted first-degree murder.
  K: You need a strong body that's ready to execute any move and prepared for any and every situation! Don't try to imitate anyone else. Just do what you've always done and what your body tells you to. That's all you need to do.
• Tattooed Crook: Subverted. Both John Taker and Fabrizio Santorino have facial tattoos, which are frequently associated with gang membership or a violent past to the point where many establishments in Real Life in places where such ink is prevalent will outright refuse patrons with them out of fear of violent tendencies, or repercussions on the business from other gangs for serving rivals. Despite this, neither John nor Fabrizio or anywhere as bad as they seem, and while John keeps his facial tattoos even after starting up a soup kitchen, Fabrizio eventually has his own facial tattoos removed.
• Technician vs. Performer: Yu vs Qasim is this in a nutshell. Qasim, while extremely talented, is no match for Yu as his mastery of technique is far too great for him to be hindered by his opponent's inefficient skillset.^note  Not to mention that Yu was holding back his entire career until this match. Qasim's lack of understanding of boxing fundamentals also comes back to bite him in the ass later on, as he has nothing to fall back on when he's cornered by an opponent such as Yu, resulting in him throwing the match and a crushing defeat by TKO.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Deconstructed. It's been established many times throughout the series that raw power alone won't cut it in the world of boxing, and those who have succeeded because of it are bound to lose sooner or later. Where power and speed will always add more to your overall strength, skill will multiply it.
  • Qasim Al-Jahad is as strong and fit as a horse but possesses no technical knowledge of the sport at all, still, he was able to defeat most of his opponents because he was naturally gifted. However when he goes up against Yu, he loses in a humiliating fashion and never enters the ring again.
  • Viktor Grigoryevich has incredible punching power, but he adamantly refuses to listen to his coach, and relies on luck and his signature Russian Hook to win matches. Similar to Qasim he's defeated in comical fashion, barely lasting more than a second against Yu in his title match.
  • Aaron Tide is a subversion. While he doesn't use traditional boxing techniques during his matches it's not because he doesn't know how to, it's because his immense strength makes it impossible for him to use them without endangering his opponent's lives. Being on the technical level of an ordinary pro-boxer still makes him able to peel off Yu's skin like an orange with the sheer momentum of his jabs.
• Villain Protagonist: While not outright malicious, it eventually becomes clear that Yu is becoming almost like a villain in sports anime. Overwhelmingly skilled, ruthless, and his quest to find the light he saw drives him to fight more and more people. Often with brutal results.
• Villain Respect: Jean-Pierre Manuel and Yuto Takeda garner this from K. The former for being the first to unleash Yu's true potential and the latter for his determination and courage.
• Villainous Valor: Fabrizio is a lot of unpleasant things, but a coward he is not. He goes the distance with Yu for all 12 rounds despite being hopelessly outmatched, repeatedly fouled on and poisoned before the fight by K drugging the milk Fabrizio's mom always brings him before a match, and was fully prepared to go out swinging in the worst case scenario. It's borderline miraculous that he survived even with J's intervention, and that he still has the heart and toughness to keep on boxing afterwards.
  "I don't do humiliating stuff like drop out of a game. I'm fucking pissed. Come at me, you piece of shit."
  8 rounds later
  "...Come at me..."
• Warrior Therapist: J is the personification of this trope. Almost all of his boxing matches are a ploy used to help his opponents reach a philosophical epiphany or psychological closure, and most of them see it as the greatest fight of their careers that somehow made them able to have a turning point or meaningful change in themselves. Crowds have a mixed reaction to J putting on inconsistent fights, but boxers adore and respect him.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Viktor became the Cruiserweight World Champion entirely through insanely lucky accidents and throwing Russian Hooks, the slowest and most powerful punch possible in boxing, for all twelve rounds. Both his trainer and commentators remark he could probably give Aaron a serious run for his money if he ever decided to fight properly instead of just trying to hook his opponent's head off.
  Viktor: "A real man throws a single soul-shattering punch! And THAT'S IT!"
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The second epilogue shows all the lives the boxers had outside the ring (from Yuto running a fruit shop with Yamaguchi to Fabrizio devoting himself to charity to Viktor becoming a movie star doing his own stunts to Aaron working as a doctor), as well the ages in when they died, referred to as them "stepping down from their ring".
• Willfully Weak: For the entirety of his boxing career, J has been hiding his true ability, preferring to instead limit himself and fight on equal footing with his opponents to better understand them emotionally and provide them with some form of reassurance. When he first shows what he can really do, he obliterates Fabrizio in a matter of seconds. That said, his real prowess still isn't enough to beat Yu, though he does manage to weather all his punches for 12 whole rounds.
  "Was that old man... always this crazy strong?!"
• World's Best Warrior: Yu is undeniably this. Not only was he able to conquer 8 different weight divisions, he was able to do so without being hit once, and only gets grazed by Aaron's Kung-Fu Sonic Boom punches and parrying Aaron's jabs with his gloves getting the ninth belt.
• World's Strongest Man: Aaron is the strongest boxer in the series by a country and a mile. His sparring partners have to wear bomb vests when training with him to protect themselves from the force of his punches, and his opponents tend to leave the ring on a stretcher instead of with their head held low.
• Your Head Asplode: The result of Aaron Tide punching someone for real. K can audibly hear the Psycho Knife Nut's skull shatter like taking a hammer to a melon when Aaron slugs him after giving him several stern warnings, after the guy stabbed him. Knowing what his punch will do to a human skull, he ultimately pauses his fist right in front of Yu's head to spare him, but Yu is not as merciful and knocks Aaron out via punch to the heart.
  Aaron: "Sorry, but I don't know how to hold back."