The Boxer

The Boxer is a TV anime based on a Korean webtoon by the creator JH. A webtoon is a comic made to be read by scrolling on a phone. The Boxer first ran on NAVER WEBTOON in South Korea starting in 2019, and in Japan it ran on LINE Manga from 2020 to 2022. It has been read more than one billion times around the world. In Japan it is also printed as books under Shueisha's Jump Comics label. Crunchyroll announced the anime on October 8, 2026, at its showcase at New York Comic Con. No start date has been given yet.

This is a sports story about boxing, but it is also about people. At its center is a quiet young man named Yu. When we first meet him, he is in a dark back street, getting hit again and again. He does not get angry and he does not fight back. He just stands there. Most people would see a sad boy with no will to fight. One old man sees something very different.

That man is K. He is a famous boxing coach. Many of the boxers he trained became world champions. Now K is looking for one last student, the final fighter he will ever train. In Yu, he finds a natural gift so large that it is almost frightening. K brings Yu into the boxing ring, and Yu begins to rise fast. His power is so huge that the story often calls him a monster. But Yu is calm and empty inside, and it is not clear what he really wants from the sport.

One big strength of The Boxer is its other fighters. Each opponent is a full person with a past, a goal, and a reason to keep going. Some are champions with skill polished over many years. Others were not born with much talent, but they pushed past their limits through hard work. When they face Yu, their whole lives are tested, not just their bodies. One of these fighters is Ryu, a gifted young boxer who becomes Yu's first opponent. Another is J, a legendary boxer who has already retired. The story keeps asking a simple but deep question: what does it truly mean to be strong? Is it talent, effort, or something else?

The mood is serious and dramatic, with intense fights and sharp art. Fans often compare it to other famous boxing stories, but The Boxer is known for its dark, thoughtful tone and its focus on the people around the champion.

The anime is made by two studios working together. One is breccia, a new studio started by Muneki Ogasawara, a founding member of Kinema Citrus. The other is STUDIO JEMI from South Korea. Yudai Kubota and Kang Wonyeong direct, Toshiya Ono writes the scripts, and Masahiro Suwa designs the characters. The voice cast includes Koki Uchiyama as Yu, Kensho Ono as Ryu, Tomokazu Seki as K, and Toshiyuki Toyonaga as J. The show is part of a plan between HAYATE, LINE Digital Frontier, and Crunchyroll to turn about fifteen webtoon series into anime.