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Curriculum VitaeSpoilers for the The Boxer, written and illustrated by Jung Ji-hoon and available at Webtoons. This commentary follows the main story and does not touch on the spinoff after Chapter 115, “Ill-fated Relationship”.
Mentions of violence, death, suicide.
The Boxer examines what makes life meaningful by pitting a variety of characters against the protagonist, Yu, who physically and psychologically decimates his opponents. Though the earlier portions of the webtoon set up an interesting premise, the philosophical foundations wear thin and break down near the end. Weighty questions about death and suffering are ambitiously prepared and weakly resolved in the final match between Yu and J (an allegory for Jesus and faith). Yu’s sudden conversion after witnessing J’s determination to bear his pain delivers unsatisfying, superficial interpretation of how to find meaning in the face of nihilism.
Early in the series, facing Yu is portrayed as being a speck in the eye of a god or facing an incomprehensibly high wall. Yu has incredible strength, speed, and agility and can also perceive time differently (Matrix bullet-time). Besides overwhelming strength, Yu’s other defining characteristic is his emptiness. His eyes are blank, his skin is colorless, he rarely emotes or talks, and his only emotional attachment seems to be his aging cat. Yu is the void, bottomless and untouchable. He is also predictable, as the audience learns to expect Yu to crush any opponent.
In the story, a series of boxers challenge Yu, have their backstories fleshed out during the round, and then get brutalized. Many boxers have “anime-style tragic backstories” (e.g., orphan, “I want to make my father proud”, “my destiny is boxing”, etc.), making Yu seem more like their final villain.
Takeda Yuto, especially, embodies persistence and tenacity, a fashionable trait for many anime/manga protagonists (how many times has a main character come back from the brink of unconsciousness/death by sheer force of will? Probably too many times.) Many readers start rooting for these side characters, only to have their hopes dashed.
Yu’s existence in boxing world seems almost unfair. Anyone who faces him will lose, no exceptions. Some characters learn and grow from their defeat, but most are devastated. Yu shatters Takeda’s jaw, ending his boxing career. He leaves his penultimate opponent, Aaron Tide, in a years-long coma. Yu seems to be a force of nature, a cataclysm that can’t be avoided. His character represents nihilism, or a sense of the futility of striving for meaning.
Yu’s existence being characterized by nihilism is emphasized throughout the story. In Chapter 69, Yu realizes he’s morally adrift and nearly shoots himself, only stopping when he notices his cat. Additionally, before the final bout, Jung hits the readers with Yu’s own backstory, the gold medal tragic backstory at the victim Olympics.
Locked in a basement with his mom for his entire childhood, Yu’s life is defined by violence, poverty, and isolation. He finds his way outside by following a cat through a vent, where he meets a nice neighbor who shows him around and describes the neighborhood, meeting a nice old man who gives them candy, a frustrated man trying to pass the civil service exam, a man who walks in circles asking “where?”, and the cat’s kittens. He returns to the basement, where his mom is distraught at the prospect of Yu leaving her alone.
Yu sneaks out when his mom’s asleep and becomes better friends with his neighbor. Eventually, Yu’s mom commits suicide and Yu’s father lashes out at him, forcing Yu to kill his father in self defense. Yu leaves the basement and finds that his neighbor died from cancer, the old man died, the civil service exam-taker slips off the stairs and dies after being too excited about passing the exam, and the cat and her kittens died, leaving only one alive.
(It is excessively sad and in retrospect can seem tacky, like the author is placating the audience by eliciting their sympathy after Yu annihilated their favorite characters. Though good luck not crying when little Yu finds the last kitten and sees she has the same eye color as his dead friend.)
This backstory better characterizes Yu’s emptiness as nihilistic. Anything good in his life has been taken from him. A common phrase through Yu’s story and the final match is “why?” Why is life unfair? Why is there death and despair? Yu specifically wonders why people live and die and how meaning can be found. His character arc, then, becomes a quest to fill this void.
At the end of Yu’s backstory, J appears (or reappears, as we already see this scene in Chapter 1). J, bathed in light, sees kid Yu on the street and tells him that “the stars are shining just for you”. Before the match, J mentions that he remembers Yu as a child and wants to “save” him, but it is unclear whether Yu can exactly recall J from his childhood. Multiple times throughout the story, Yu mentions chasing a “light”, which is J’s motif (he noticeably glows and his eyes shine).
Jung, early in the story, describes J as the secret protagonist, and he comes with many associated cliches with additional Jesus Christ cliches. He inspires people with his matches, he has a passion for boxing and an appreciation for people, he works at an orphanage, etc. J describes boxing as “love”, the meeting of two people’s life stories in a final standoff (Chapter 111). And, to finish off the Jesus allegory, he has some unspecified terminal disease and his match with Yu will be his last.
To emphasize Yu’s despair before his match with J, Yu’s cat (the kitten from his backstory) dies the night before the match. Yu repeats the same line of questioning that characterized his backstory, also emphasizing an instance in his childhood where he learned about God and wanted to question God’s motives for creating despair in the world (Chapter 113).
The match seems one-sided. J stands still and takes the beating, splattering blood over the arena. More montages of pain and suffering are interspersed with the fight. The webtoon’s cross motif appears—here comes Jesus with the response!
In the last 15 seconds, J walks toward Yu, enduring his blows, and gently taps Yu on the forehead, telling him “It’s okay” (Chapter 113). This is the first “hit” of Yu’s career. The narrator explains that “for the first time in his life, the boy felt that he was not alone” (Chapter 114). Yu cries, he gets a light in his eyes, something something “indescribable emotion” from the audience (Chapter 113).
Chapter 115 is a montage of the characters, wrapping up their stories with generally happy tones. Yu mirrors J, also telling a dirty, lonely boy on the street that life sucks but “the stars are shining just for you”. He’s also working at the orphanage J worked at, ending his story with a big family-style portrait with his wards and a love interest.
I personally dislike when narratives are too blatant with symbolism. In these cases, symbolism often becomes a crutch to carry the story’s meaning rather than enhance it. In The Boxer, it feels like Jung relies too much on the reader recognizing that the story is about Christian faith rather than spending effort justifying why faith is necessary for the story.
Some particularly tacky instances include:
The lesson imparted in Yu vs. J isn’t that bad on its own. Throughout the match, Jung builds that Yu’s afraid of J’s tenacity. His blows become desperate when J advances, and for the first time in boxing, Yu feels powerless. When J only pats him, it completely flips his worldview, which is based on fear and subjugation. Yu sees that someone will endure pain, even pain that he delivers, and respond with kindness and forgiveness.
This sounds reasonable, but it is underwhelming in context. After multiple arcs of despair, Jung builds up a huge question about the meaning of life. In Yu’s backstory chapters, the narrative framed the main conflict as not just personal traumas, but the suffering of all of humanity.
The narrative gets overrun by the absurdity of trying to handle these cosmic stakes with a boxing match. On one side, the embodiment of nihilism, the Saddest Man in the World. On the other, Jesus, a glowing, terminally ill career fighter. The fight seems less like a confrontation between characters and more like aimless philosophical musing.
The allegory sacrifices the story, abandoning character development in favor of the soapbox. Even compared to other arcs, the characterization during the fight felt thin. Many of Yu’s other opponents provided their own narration, thoughts, and feelings while fighting, clueing the readers in emotionally. For J, instead of looking from his perspective, the narrator often steps in and broadly describes his significance and his impact. At times, it seems we’re being told how to feel.
Yu also gets this treatment. Even in his backstory, we very rarely establish a personal rapport with Yu. Throughout the story, we never get a chance to know Yu, and the final arc does little to change this. Distancing the audience from the main character flattens the emotional payoff and makes the story feel incomplete (1). Overall, it does not feel like what happens in the match would warrant any significant response from Yu or solve the overarching problems of the arc (2).
Broadly, I don’t think Christian faith is the correct answer for the plot to provide, making the ending deeply unsatisfying on a moral level. I’m inclined to be Nietzschean on this point, seeing Christianity as mostly a cope. Explaining this would probably be another 2000 words, so I’ll drop an outline and leave it for later (or never).
I don’t think Christianity is “wrong”, but I think that the question is more difficult than the ending assumes. Wrapping it up with a shallow faith-based solution seems demeaning.
Probably, most webtoon readers are not going to be as picky as I am. I had high hopes for The Boxer after the first couple arcs, which is why I even care enough to write this up, and I think most people are going to be pretty happy with what the webtoon does deliver well. The illustrations are high quality and there are some interesting characters that people might like and root for. The first few arcs are pretty interesting, before you catch the drift of the story and it becomes sort of monotonous. If I were to reread it, it’d probably be for the art rather than the story.
Some additional information that didn’t fit in the main analysis.
(1) We see Yu’s thoughts a couple times, such as during Chapter 69 (where he almost shoots himself before being stopped by his cat) and right before the match with J. Mostly, these are big sweeping thoughts, such as “What is it to be human?” and “Why do we live/die?” This more plays into Yu as a concept, an embodiment of nihilism, rather than a person.
This also could be personal preference. Some readers will be fine with Yu being inscrutable.
(2) I also wanted to mention that the boxing audience is also depicted as emotionally moved. This feels inauthentic because they don’t know Yu’s backstory and can’t read the emotional significance. From an outside view, the entire thing seems bizarre. This is where the overdependence on symbolism becomes more clear. Take away J’s metaphorical tie to Jesus and the final scene makes very little sense (e.g., someone unfamiliar with Christianity reading the webtoon would probably be quite confused).
Relevant background is mostly from “GENED1069: Faith and Authenticity” and “PHIL34: Existentialism in Film and Literature” offered at Harvard. Relevant readings include:
Mostly, I wanted to illustrate that I sorta understand defenses of Christian faith and some elements of theology and I’m not coming at The Boxer as “uhhh religion bad lolol”.
K is Yu’s coach. He seeks power and recruits Yu because he sees his potential. Yu has very little volition, outsourcing his decisions to K, who is determined to craft Yu into a monster. In Chapter 104 (a bonus author’s note), Jung describes Yu’s “emptiness” being magnified by K’s influence.
When I read this comic on Webtoons, I noticed commenters honing in on K as a villain. I think that he’s an easy target but not that important to the themes. K’s role seems less like a metaphor exploring how power can be corrupted or something, but a plot device to explain why someone like Yu is even boxing. Yu only joins K because it’s financially wise at the time and he really didn’t have the agency to leave.
K’s most plot-significant action is removing Carmen, a love interest, when Yu becomes attached to her. K has Carmen beaten, framing Yu’s upcoming opponents, the Santorini Brothers, to draw out Yu’s violent potential. This allows the author to introduce Carmen, sideline her, and then put her back into the conclusion to wrap things up.
You’re supposed to dislike K, but it’s very superficial, because he’s a manipulative bastard. I didn’t see much depth beyond that. At the conclusion, K conveniently disappears (the narrator basically shrugs and says he either became a deadbeat, killed himself, or went on a redemption arc).
I didn’t write up a lot of more casual criticisms of the narrative structure. The entire thing is very obviously allegory, with obvious plotholes and impracticalities. I more framed criticism around whether the story held up. Very good stories can survive bad worldbuilding, weird plotholes, and unexplained conveniences. My gripes with the narrative are most significant around the ending, where it does seem to actively ruin the story.
I felt the ending was out of character for Yu, but I also recognized that Yu barely had a character throughout the story. I chose to focus on how the webtoon still didn’t give us any personal insight into Yu rather than try to characterize him off of very shaky ground. Relatedly, characters felt one-dimensional or inconsistent, probably a consequence of making backstories excessively tragic. This is a general criticism of the story, so was sidelined in favor of focusing on the conclusion. It could also be a general criticism of webtoons, where the medium sometimes doesn’t lend itself to good characterization.