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Manga Artists Take on Champion Boxer Naoya Inoue

On Tuesday, boxer Naoya Inoue successfully defended his Ring bantamweight championship against Paul Butler, becoming the first undisputed bantamweight champion in the four belt era.

The Japanese streaming service dTV is exclusively streaming the historic match. To promote the stream, dTV has enlisted the help of four prominent manga artists, who illustrated their take on Inoue at each of professional boxing's four major championship titles. The participating artists are Tetsuya Saruwatari (Riki-Oh, Dog Soldier, Tough), Toshio Sako (Usogui), Kenichi Tachibana (Terra Formars), and Toshimitsu Matsubara (Rikudō).

Tachibana's illustration shows Inoue at the WBA World Bantamweight match title in May 2018.

Sako's illustration shows the boxer obtaining the WBC championship title this June.

Saruwatari's illustration shows him at the WBSS championship in May 2019.

Finally, Matsubara's illustration depicts Inoue at his latest match.

The Nikkan Sports newspaper distributed the illustrations for free in the Greater Tokyo area's Shinbashi, Shinagawa, Shibuya, and Yokohama districts, and in Osaka's Umeda district. Shueisha's Young Jump app also hosted the illustrations on Tuesday, along with messages from the artists.

Sources: Press Release, dTV's Twitter account