“To be honest, I did hit someone. Once,” Ozawa said. “I was in eighth grade. It was right around the time I was starting to learn how to box. No excuse, but this was before I learned a single boxing technique. I was still on the basic bodybuilding menu. Jumping rope and stretching and running, stuff like that. And the thing is, I didn’t even mean to throw the punch. I just got mad, and my hand flew out ahead of me. I couldn’t stop it. And before I knew it, I’d decked him. I hit the guy, and still my whole body was trembling with rage.”

Ozawa had taken up boxing because his uncle ran a boxing gym. This wasn’t just the local sweat room; this was a major establishment that had launched a two-time East Asia welterweight champion. In fact, it’d been Ozawa’s parents who suggested he go to the gym to begin with. They were worried about their son, the bookworm, always holed up in his room. At first, the boy wasn’t keen on the idea, but he liked his uncle well enough, and, he told himself, if he didn’t like the sport, he could always quit. So all very casually, he got in the habit of commuting regularly to his uncle’s gym, an hour away by train.

After the first few months, Ozawa’s interest in boxing surprised even himself. The biggest reason was that, fundamentally, boxing is a loner’s sport, an extremely solitary pursuit. It was something of a discovery for him, a new world. And that world excited him. The sweat flying off the bodies of the older men, the hard, squeaky feel of the gloves, the intense concentration of men with their muscles tuned to lightning-fast efficiency—little by little, it all took hold of his imagination. Spending Saturdays and Sundays at the gym became one of his few indulgences.