Volume 4 of The Boxer picks up where volume 3 left off, with lightweight champ Jean Pierre Manuel flat on his back after Yu started to let loose. Of course, this only excites Jean, that he's finally seeing the perfection he's always sought, so he comes back for more. His attempts to adapt to Yu's abilities are useless, and all he can do is take punishment from a fighter that is not going to stop unless told to, coached by a psychopath only too happy to watch Yu beat someone to death.
JH pauses between knockdowns to delve into Jean's childhood, how his disappointment with his lousy parents informed his life and his pursuit of something not tainted by failure or flaw. And then, when it looks like things are about to begin again, the fight's interrupted. I'm not sure I buy that Jean could be pulled back from such a destructive course so easily, and the whole heartwarming aspect kind of ignores how, last volume, he was beating up muggers in alleys and stealing their blood to use in a painting. But it feels like the end of the fight is more about laying hints of K's motivation. His fighter not only wins, but wins so conclusively Jean, who was undefeated in 38 fights before this, leaves the ring to retrieve the belt and hand it over himself, and K's furious.
Rather than immediately jump into K's next target, welterwight champion Yuto Takeda, the story shifts back to Injae, who's about have his first bout. Being trained by the same guy that introduced K to Bakesan in volume 1, Injae unfortunately draws a tough match-up for his debut. A veteran with the very cool name of Rock Kang. JH spends several pages on how Injae tries to train for the match against a fighter his coach describes as, 'a perfected version of you,' and then we get the fight itself.
As opposed to the easy triumphs Yu experiences, Injae's fight is a seesaw affair. It's also very much boxing like you see in the movies, both fighters throwing punches constantly, though we do see both fighters working to either evade or at least block punches. Injae shakes off a knockdown right out of the gate, and even appears to have the advantage after 2 rounds. At which point Rock's superior experience is shown to take over and Injae's in a fight to survive, questioning whether this is going to be his only fight before a fade to obscurity.
I'm not sure what was going on at the end, when Injae feels too exhausted to dodge Rock's knockout punch, then sees the image of Bakesan knocking him the fuck out back in volume 1, and suddenly is dodging easily before unleashing his own 1-2 combo. Is he trying to prove Bakesan wrong? That doesn't seem to jibe with his stated reasons for becoming a boxer, or what he supposedly loves about it, so I don't know. Bakesan, incidentally, has become a yakuza boss, though he's pissed at the sight of Yu becoming a champion. There's no indication he has any idea what Injae's up to, and vice versa, though it feels like JH is setting them up for a rematch somewhere down the line. How that's going to work, I don't know.
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