If you’re a fan of dark, intense, and emotional sports stories, get ready for a knockout. During its panel at the New York Comic Con, Crunchyroll surprised everyone by announcing that the acclaimed boxing webtoon The Boxer, written and illustrated by JH, will officially make the leap to television with its own anime adaptation.

The animation will be handled by an interesting partnership between the new Japanese studio breccia (founded by Muneki Ogasawara, former producer of Kinema Citrus) and the South Korean studio Studio Jemi. Shared direction falls to Takehiro Kubota (known for My Happy Marriage) and Won Yeong Kang. To ensure top-tier storytelling, script supervision will be handled by Toshiya Ono, a veteran of the industry who has worked on impeccable productions like 86 and The Promised Neverland, while Masahiro Suwa (The Rising of The Shield Hero) will handle character design.

The voice cast brings together some of Japan’s top talents. Talented Koki Uchiyama will voice the indifferent protagonist Yu, while Kensho Ono will portray Ryu. Meanwhile, veteran Tomokazu Seki will bring the legendary coach K to life, and Toshiyuki Toyonaga will take on the role of boxer J. The plot follows K, a coach desperately searching for boxing’s greatest talent, who ends up finding Yu, a boy who is indifferent, suffers from bullying, but possesses inhuman reflexes and precision. When trying to recruit him, the vacant-eyed youth responds with a question that triggers the entire story: “Is it fun to hit people?”

About The Boxer

The Boxer is one of the most prominent and widely read works in South Korea’s digital format, having begun its publication on the Naver Webtoon platform in 2019. Created by author JH, this title has accumulated over a billion reads worldwide thanks to its raw portrayal of human psychology, hyper-detailed combat sequences, and emotional backdrop. The work was awarded at the World Webtoon Awards in 2024, cementing the author as a reference in the medium alongside other works like The Horizon and his latest series Umbilical.

Did you know the story of Yu and what do you think of this star-studded team tasked with bringing the webtoon to anime?