Volume 3 of JH's The Boxer sees Yu challenged by another up-and-coming lightweight, Qasim Al-Hajad. It's briefly set up to seem like contrasting rivals, as Qasim loudly boxes for the fun of it and uses unorthodox attacks he probably saw in video games, while Yu shows no emotion and just knocks people swiftly into oblivion with textbook form.
Just as quickly, Qasim is exposed as a bully who turns tail the moment he can't overwhelm his opponent with sheer athleticism, and as such, a disgrace to boxing. Calling back to volume 1, when Injae's father told him that, as a boxer, you can't ever stay down, no matter how outclassed you are, or it's over. The poser dispatched with ease, JH moves to the real show, Yu's bout against the undefeated lightweight champion, Jean Pierre Manuel.
Unlike in volume 2, when JH waited until the fight's began to dive into John Taker's backstory and "rookie killer" persona, we see Jean as he prepares for a bout against what might be his dream, and learn what boxing means to him. He seeks perfection through it, absolute perfect control of every part of his body. In Yu, from the first punch he threw at John Taker, Jean has seen his goal brought to life.
Then we see the extent he's willing to push himself to, in the hopes of attaining that same level. JH might overplay his hand here, as Jean not only begins roaming back alleys at night, fighting gangs that will kill him if they can. No, he goes so far as to steal some of their blood and use it to paint some vision of how he perceives Yu. Given how the fight plays out, though that isn't until volume 4, it pushes things too far.
JH draws Jean with an intense look from the start, but the further along the story goes, the thicker and rougher the lines that define Jean's face become, and the color of his pupils begins to spill over the lines into the whites of his eyes. It gives an air of someone unhinged, or maybe so tightly wound he's almost vibrating. There are also, during Jean's "training," narrow panels of blood cells rushing through arteries, or nerves firing, showing how Jean's body is reacting to the stress of the situation as he slowly attains the control he's sought. By the time of the fight, JH is stretching, almost smearing, their faces as they dodge punches. Partially to illustrate the quickness of their movements, but also to make them look less human, as they reveal the kinds of "monsters" they are.
And volume 3 ends with that looking like it still wasn't enough to keep up with Yu.
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