Sugar

Rin Ishikawa is sixteen and built to fight, a natural talent who could remake the sport, except he barely understands what he has. Arai uses the boxing as a frame and then crowds it with the kind of unruly, damaged adults who run the gyms, take the bets, and circle a young fighter who is worth money. It is a sports manga that keeps wandering off into sex, exploitation, and the ugliness around a boy too valuable to be left alone. Across four volumes Rin slowly stops being a passive talent and turns into something fierce inside the ropes. It is by the same author as The World Is Mine, and it has the same refusal to make people clean.